Take the Edge Off

by TA Moore

  Cal raised his eyebrows and nodded as if it were a serious question. His tongue was tucked into the corner of his mouth.

  “A pink one,” he said. “Dare ya.”

  Joe took a deep breath of air that smelled like yesterday’s pine cleaner and fresh sex. What the hell, he decided. Half of his life he’d spent turned inside out to please people who, it turned out, didn’t have his best interests at heart—law school, engagement parties that all the right people turned up to, and a job that got done even when everyone hated him.

  He could wear a pink condom if it amused Cal.

  The foil crinkled between his fingers as he gingerly—although he supposed they restocked after each party—grabbed a packet from the tip of the pile. He pinched the notched corner between thumb and forefinger and ripped it open. The latex was slick with lubricant as he pinched the tip and then rolled it down over his cock, from head to his balls. The plastic squeeze of it was familiar, the vivid, angry pink shade less so.

  Cal cracked up. “Didn’t think you’d do it,” he wheezed out between giggles as he got up onto his knees. He cupped his hands together and held them out, a grin still on his face. “Toss me a blue one.”

  “I believe the agreement was I get to fuck you,” Joe said as he dipped his hand into the jar. They were all new, shiny, specially branded packets, fresh from the factory. He flicked it over to Cal, who grabbed it out of the air. “Not the other way around.”

  “Your loss,” Cal mumbled as he ripped the packet open with his teeth. “I’m not going to leave a mess for whatever poor bastard has to come and clean these up.”

  He spat the foil out and rolled the blue latex down over his cock to the base. Joe folded his lower lip between his teeth and stroked himself as he watched. Banked heat ached between his legs, twitched impatiently in his thighs. He wanted to be balls deep in Cal, the day’s events shoved out of his head to make room for tight pressure, salt-sweat on his lips, and Cal stretched out, spread out, for him, but he wanted to have this too—if only for a moment, as he watched Cal’s hand slide along his cock, the ridiculous blue stretched tight around the thick, flushed length of him.

  In another week, if that, he’d be back in LA and Cal would have someone else in the back seat of the Bentley.

  Ironically the reminder of why he wanted to take his time was one more reason he couldn’t. Joe crawled back onto the couch with Cal and pulled him into a kiss. They fell back against the cushions, Cal’s thighs clenched as he leaned back and their cocks squashed between their bodies.

  “I don’t think this suit is ever going to be the same,” Joe warned as he pushed Cal’s trousers down to his lean thighs.

  He felt Cal’s smile against his lips. “Not like I’m out of pocket. You paid for it.”

  Joe cupped the back of Cal’s head, the crop short hair like velvet against his fingers, and bruised the kiss over his mouth. He finally pulled back, one hand braced against the back of the couch and the other in his pocket as he fished out his wallet. He’d only been a Boy Scout for a few months, but he still remembered how to start a fire and to always be prepared. The packet of lube had been in there since he woke up that first morning, the thought of Cal’s lush mouth and rough hands still vivid from his dreams.

  “Turn around,” Joe said as he filled his palm with slick gel. Thankfully it wasn’t pink. “If you want, I’ll buy you another one.”

  Cal squirmed around awkwardly as their knees and legs slotted together in the limited space. He made a low, rough sound under his breath as Joe shoved him forward, his cock pressing into the soft, overstuffed velvet. Midnight blue silk pulled tight over his shoulders as he braced his elbows against the hard frame of the couch.

  “If I’m gonna be a kept man,” Cal drawled as he twisted around to look over his shoulder, “buy me cars instead of motorbikes. Or a puppy.”

  Joe laughed as he worked cool, slick gel between Cal’s cheeks and into his ass. The clench of tight muscle around his fingers made his cock twitch with anticipation. He licked dry lips and leaned forward to kiss the corner of Cal’s mouth.

  “A puppy?”

  “Always wanted a dog,” Cal said. He broke off for a moment, eyes closed tightly as Joe worked him wider. He gripped the cushions. “Never lived anywhere that would let us as a kid.”

  Joe shut him up with a kiss as he pressed his cock into Cal’s ass and buried himself inside him with two hard, eager strokes. A rough “fuck” growled out of Cal’s throat as he dropped his head forward, the nape of his neck knobbed and vulnerable, and sucked in ragged, uneven breaths.

  “You could have both,” Joe told him as he ran his hands down Cal’s clenched arms and wrapped his fingers around his forearms. He licked down Cal’s throat and sucked a bruise into the tight skin over his collarbone. Each thrust buried him deeper in Cal’s ass, slick and tight as it squeezed down around his cock. He buried his face in Cal’s neck and breathed in the smell of his skin. “You could have anything you want.”

  “No,” Cal said softly. “Some things it’s best to stop wanting.”

  Joe wondered how you did that. He didn’t know if he could. Some things he couldn’t imagine not wanting.

  His thighs slapped against Cal’s ass, smeared wet with sweat and lube between them as he thrust in time to the music that throbbed up through the floor. The guitar caught at his nerves and dragged him along with it as it built toward a crescendo.

  Need dragged at Joe’s balls and crawled up his spine. It felt like the tight almost-there satisfaction of a long workout, the heavy burn that he knew would turn sweet in a second.

  Cal reached back with one arm and grabbed Joe’s ass. He squeezed the handful of flesh roughly with each thrust and pulled him closer and deeper. Joe draped over his back and hooked an arm across his chest. He shifted to drop one foot to the ground and buried himself inside Cal with fast, hard strokes of his hip. Cal choked out a groan as he was shoved hard into the back of the couch, his cock ground roughly against the cushion.

  “God, Joe,” he gasped out. “Please?”

  His voice trailed off into a whimper and he twisted his fingers tightly in the cushions. The need in his voice caught in Joe’s balls like a hook. He thrust hard into Cal with short, ragged jerks of his hips and felt the hot spill of come around his cock as it was caught in the condom.

  “See,” he said roughly against the back of Cal’s neck. It was meant to be lighthearted, but once it got to Joe’s lips, it felt like a promise. “Anything you want.”

  He sprawled back on the couch and pulled Cal with him, his cock still inside. He wrapped his fingers around Cal’s rigid, blue cock, and the slow raw aftershocks of orgasm still fired along his nerves as he brought Cal off with a few rough strokes.

  Cal groaned and dropped his head back as he thrust up into Joe’s fist. The tip of the condom ballooned as he came and, fuck it, Joe would have paid to have the couch dry-cleaned. He would have paid for a new tacky velvet couch.

  Next time, he thought as he nudged Cal’s head around for a sweaty kiss. He wanted to see the mess of it as it dried on their skin.

  A door slammed down below and bottles rattled loudly enough to be heard over the lull in music. There was a pause and then an irritated woman’s voice yelled up.

  “If there’s someone fucking up there—or up there fucking—you’ve got ten minutes before I come back and chuck you out.”

  Heavy footsteps echoed down the hall and another door slammed.

  “Fuck,” Cal spluttered—half laugh and half groan—as he scrambled off Joe’s lap. He hunched over as he stripped the condom off his cock with one hand and dragged his trousers up with the other. “That’d make the papers.”

  Joe didn’t want to move. A small, mean part of him thought it would serve Harry right to end up in the gossip rags. A lifetime’s adherence to keeping his head down squandered as his only son got dragged out of a club with a wilted, neon pink condom hanging off his cock. It would serve him right. A larger part wanted to pull C
al back down onto the couch and see exactly how much mess they could make.

  “I could hire the room,” Joe pointed out as he propped himself up on his elbows. His cock lay wet and pink across his thigh.

  Cal gave him a wicked look over his shoulder as he buttoned his trousers one-handed. “Where’s the fun in that?” he asked as he bundled the condom into a napkin and tossed it into the trash. “Come on.”

  He loped back over and dragged Joe up off the couch. It was, despite everything in Joe’s head, hard to resist Cal’s grin. He dragged Joe to his feet, kissed him roughly, and told him to “put his dick away” while Cal picked his way over the buttons he had left on his shirt.

  Joe peeled the condom off and tossed it. He hitched his trousers up over his hips and tucked his shirt tails in. There was a roll of fifties in his wallet, and he peeled off a handful and left them on the bar under the condom jar.

  He might want to come back one day.

  Cal tossed Joe his jacket and then grabbed Joe’s arm on his way to the door. They snuck down the stairs as though they hadn’t already been caught, two steps at a time as they muffled laughter. Two steps from the bottom Cal nearly tripped over the rehung rope and staggered to a stop, balanced on his toes at the edge of the riser. He muttered a curse under his breath, and Joe choked back a laugh behind his teeth. He glanced down the hall to the storeroom, where someone assiduously rattled bottles in a pointed stock take. It didn’t seem as though they were in any immediate danger of being caught.

  “I guess we’re trapped,” he teased Cal as he leaned back against the polished banister. “Lucky enough we have supplies.”

  “I don’t think the condoms were edible,” Cal said. His shirt was haphazardly buttoned in the middle, with a deep vee of smooth, inked chest showing and the occasional glimpse of his dented-in belly button. Joe admired the view while he still could. Finally Cal rolled his eyes and stepped over the rope. He held his hand out and wriggled his fingers when Joe didn’t immediately follow him. “Come on. I don’t want to piss someone off enough they call the cops. I used up my slaps on the wrist years ago.”

  Joe let himself hang back a second longer, and then a book slammed shut down the hall. He took the long step over the rope back into the real world. He would have had to eventually.

  The tempo of the music had changed. The raw rock of the earlier set replaced by flashy, clashy electronica. On the main floor, the dancers twisted and hopped on the static-wrapped beat, all elbows and unpredictable moves. A short man with tiger stripes of glitter on his skin danced aggressively between Joe and Cal. His hands, encased in soft, brown gloves, stroked down his thighs in an unabashed come on. Joe snorted and dodged around him. “Your loss” drifted spitefully after him. The lights pulsed and strobed jerkily as the beams hitched here and there across the space.

  Cal muscled through with a scowl to shift people where his shoulders didn’t do the job, and Joe let him take the lead until they reached the pavement outside.

  After the heat of the club, all sweat and hot breath, the air outside felt cold against sweaty skin. Joe shivered and wiped his hand over the back of his neck, sweat slippery under his fingers. Then he pulled out his phone to call a cab. Cars crawled by and the air smelled of diesel.

  “So, did it work?” Cal asked as he nudged his shoulder against Joe’s. “Are you the first man in London to successfully fuck his troubles away?”

  No. They were still there, like the real world and his dad’s lies. Joe still didn’t know exactly how he felt about that… yet. Angry, yes, but the rest of it was a muddle of things he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He’d expected more from Abigail than he realized—a child’s fantasy of a reunion constructed in secret somewhere in his brain where he seldom looked. It had hurt to find her alive and then find out she wasn’t anything to do with him. He thought—as he remembered the tears on her knuckles—that she felt something similar.

  “It was worth a try,” Joe said. “And as troubles go, there are worse. I arrived in London with a dead mother, and it turns out she’s still dead. Probably. The only real change is that I don’t know her name.”

  Or her face. He’d never pored over the few, posed shots of Abigail that Harry had kept, but he knew her without a second thought earlier. The fact he had no idea what his actual mother looked like felt lonely.

  “Are you going to keep looking?” Cal asked.

  It was a good question. He wasn’t sure if it would be worse to know the truth or not. Maybe some secrets were best kept.

  “I don’t know,” Joe said. “It doesn’t sound like it will be a happy ending.”

  If Kristen had been the one behind the poison-pen emails, then the whole search had been a comedy of errors from the start. Maybe it would be best to put it back in the ground.

  A taxi slowed on the way past, and a woman with a pale mohawk peered at them. Joe started to raise his hand, but she drifted past, and a tangled knot of drunk girls, interwoven and giggly in heels and spandex, poured themselves into the back.

  Joe glanced down at his hand, still tangled with Cal’s, and he supposed there was one thing that had changed since he arrived. He certainly hadn’t expected to be standing on the curb, ripe with sex, stuck to his—date’s, he decided—hand while they waited for a taxi. It felt good. So maybe he’d just… fucked his troubles into perspective.

  He could live with that.

  The taxi arrived as the weather broke. Fat, round raindrops hammered the tarmac and bounced off the slick black curve of the cab’s hood. It rained as though someone had dumped out a bucket, a hard splash of water that immediately soaked everyone on the curb. The huddle of smokers by the door tossed their butts down in puddles and squeezed back in through the door. Others, whose rides were still en route, swore and withdrew into doorways or under shared umbrellas. One woman laughed and turned her face up into the rain.

  “Fuck sake,” Cal grumbled.

  He tightened his grip on Joe’s hand, and they dashed through the rain to their ride. Oily puddles splashed up to soak their ankles and drench their socks. They toppled into the back seat, wet as though they hadn’t bothered to run, and Joe shook his head to shed water like a dog.

  “St. Pancras,” he told the driver, who squinted at them sourly in the rearview mirror and nodded.

  Cal didn’t have to worry about wet hair. He swiped his hand over his sandy-brown crop and slouched back in the seat. His shirt gaped open over his bare chest and clung to his skin, hints of ink visible through the soaked fabric. Joe swallowed the lump in his throat—the only dry thing about him right then—and resisted the urge to crawl on top of him.

  It was strange. Joe had come to London to look for the truth. Somehow, even as the lies piled up, it felt as though that was what Cal was. Joe’s truth, anyway.

  JOE WAS well aware that there was a tracker on his phone. He never turned it off, and Edward never questioned where he’d been. It was a silent game of digital chicken.

  So it wasn’t really a surprise to see Edward at the door of the hotel when they got back, dropped off on the wrong side of the street by a dour taxi driver who didn’t want to swing back around. He was tucked back in the shelter of the door, out of the rain, with the doorman. When he saw Joe get out of the car, Edward flicked his umbrella open and stepped out into the rain under its shelter. He walked down the swooped drive toward the road and stopped at the curb to wait.

  Cal slung an arm around Joe’s shoulder, a comfortable weight, and tugged him down to plant a kiss on his temple. It was a half measure—intimate if Joe wanted it to be, friendly if he didn’t.

  “Do you think someone squealed on you?” Cal asked.

  Joe turned his head and claimed a kiss from Cal’s full, rain-wet mouth. “Probably,” he admitted. “But I’d have to have this conversation eventually.”

  Edward had said he liked Joe’s mother, even though he hadn’t known her long. He could have meant Abigail, but maybe he meant Joe’s real mother, the woman who’d gotten preg
nant, broken up a marriage, and then died before she knew if any of it had been worth it. And maybe he was finally ready to tell the truth about it.

  The rain plastered Joe’s hair down over his face in wet curls and commas. He slicked it back with a faint flash of annoyance—the first week he’d been in London he’d carried his coat everywhere. There’d been an umbrella tucked into the back seat of Cal’s car. In spite, the weather had stayed bright and hot—a late summer the news had complained about—until he forgot to be wary. It wouldn’t change anything, but the fact he looked like a drowned rat put him at a disadvantage going into the conversation.

  Cal’s arm stayed slung over his shoulders as they jogged over the road. Edward’s mouth was turned down at the corners as they reached him, and his nostrils flared as he ran a scathing look over Cal from head to unbuttoned shirt.

  “Not exactly the consummately professional behavior your company boasts of, Mr. Tate,” he said icily. “When I hired a driver, I expected a sober one. I’ll convey my displeasure to your brother.”

  “Enough, Edward,” Joe snapped.

  Cal laughed and licked a kiss over Joe’s throat. “He’s my brother,” he said to Edward. “He might rake me over the coals, but he’s going to tell you to go and fuck yourself. Grandad might have liked you. Doesn’t mean El is going to crawl.”

  Surprise and what looked like embarrassment flashed over Edward’s face. He pressed his lips into a thin line and worked his jaw from one side to another.

  “Don’t forget who pays your wages, Mr. Tate,” he said. “Joe might be stupid enough to have a soft spot for you, but his father does not. Nor do I. If you want the contract paid, I expect appropriate decorum.”

  Joe caught Cal’s arm as it lifted, middle finger already extended. “I need to talk to Edward, alone,” he said. “Go inside. I’ll meet you upstairs.”

  “Indeed,” Edward said dryly. “Run along, young man.”

  This time he got a finger jabbed in his direction, but Cal stepped away and jogged up the drive to let himself into the hotel. Joe’s good mood went with him, and that left the rest for Edward.