Drew nodded. “It’s a big step. You’ve got feelings you never thought you’d have for another man, and you’re doing things you’d never thought you’d do with another man. You’re not giving yourself credit for how far you’ve come and how quickly. We just started going out, what? A month ago?”
“Yeah, but I started noticing how cute and sweet you are this spring when you were coming to all the regattas with Nick,” Brad confessed. “The way you helped with the oars, even though you had no idea how to carry them, and then seeing you waiting for me on the beach at Lake Natoma? That meant a lot to me. So it’s been more than a month, at least for me.”
“Okay, but still. You’re twenty-two, right? In less than a year, you’ve gone from being a heterosexual big lug to rolling around on the sofa with me. I’d say that’s pretty significant.”
“I am not,” Brad said, “a ‘big lug’.”
Drew grinned at him. “I happen to like ‘big lug’. I think it’s hot. I think you’re hot.”
“You think I’m hot?”
“You have no idea,” Drew breathed.
Brad looked sly. “Maybe you could… uh, tell me more about that?”
Drew, still laying on top of Brad, sat up so he was effectively sitting on his crotch, a fact not lost on either of them. “You first caught my eye at that disastrous race early in the spring, what were they called? It was the one that was so stormy and the crew’s nerve broke or something.”
“The WIRAs,” Brad groaned. “The Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association’s spring regatta. I can’t believe you remember that. Not our finest moment as a crew, and not mine as a rower.”
“You puked as soon as the race was over,” Drew said, grinning.
“I can’t believe you remember that,” Brad groaned.
“There was just something about you that morning that caught my attention,” Drew mused. “You were—are—so handsome, so masculine, I wanted to climb you like a tree. Still do.” He held up a hand to head off Brad’s self-recrimination. “When you’re ready. But when you smiled at me? Oh, man.”
“That’s funny,” Brad said. “That was when I first really noticed you too. I didn’t know what it meant, but by the last race of the season, somehow I needed you there. And afterwards? After we eked out that win? I didn’t relax until I saw you standing next to Nick as we came back in. You have no idea,” he said, pulling Drew down to kiss him quickly, “how much that meant to me. In my whole life, no one had ever been there for me.”
“I was,” Drew said.
“I know, and I think it was that moment—” Brad started to say, but then he stopped. He was about to say, It was in that moment when I knew my heart was yours. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was. But he couldn’t say that right now. It was too much, too soon. “I… uh, it was that day I knew I needed to know you better, to find out if this… I’m,” he swallowed, “gay.”
Drew kissed him. “And what’d you think?”
“I think I need to kiss you some more,” Brad said, dodging the question.
“Oh, good,” Drew said.
The kisses, which weren’t all that chaste to begin with, quickly regained their fire and urgency. Brad loved the feeling of Drew on top of him. He could just let go and feel without worrying about whether he was too heavy for Drew to handle, like he would if their positions were reversed.
He just craned his head and kissed the man he was coming to feel so strongly for, strongly enough it scared him. Drew took the invitation and gnawed his way down Brad’s jawline to fasten on his neck, and Brad knew he’d have a mark to match the one he’d given Drew earlier. The thought of Drew staking a claim like that went right to his already hard cock, and he thrust up into Drew.
Drew groaned and rocked his hips back against him, and damn, didn’t that just make it hotter? The rush blew Brad away. Its intensity blotted out all his thinking, carrying his worries and fears away on a rising tide of emotion and lust. He knew he’d never get enough of the man who made him feel that way.
Then Brad looked up, thunder-struck. “Oh shit!” he gasped as his eyes rolled up and shudders wracked his body. The burn of pleasure on his cock lanced out to engulf his entire body. Out of nowhere, his climax smashed into him like planets colliding, like suns exploding behind his eyes.
“Brad! What’s wrong!”
Brad pulled away. “Oh my God,” he muttered, disgusted with himself but still riding the wave front of pleasure as the most intense orgasm he could remember slowly faded away. “I can’t believe I did that.”
Drew, a little dazed from his own pleasure, just rested on Brad’s muscled chest, working his arms around the man under him. Brad tried to push him off, but Drew held on tightly. “No, just tell me,” he said.
Brad turned his head to bury his face in the sofa cushions. “This is just… oh, jeez, this is so embarrassing. I just came in my pants, okay?”
“Yeah, it’s okay. It happens.”
“To horny teenagers in the backseats of cars,” Brad groaned, his voice muffled by the cushions he used to hide his embarrassment.
“You were really turned on. Your body knows what it likes,” Drew said gently. He sat up and then, with a certain amount of effort, pulled Brad up to sit next to him.
“Yeah, it does,” Brad said. He looked at Drew, his eyes dark, unreadable. “I feel pretty stupid right about now.”
“I can tell, but I can’t figure out why,” Drew said. He turned to face Brad and pulled his legs up under him so that he knelt before the mortified man.
“I keep going on about not being ready for sex with a man, and then I blow a load in my underwear while making out with a man,” Brad said. “With you.”
“When you’re ready, you’ll be ready,” Drew said. “There’s no rush.”
“Dude, I’ve got a load of jizz cooling in my pants because I can’t get enough of you. I just keep overthinking this,” Brad said. Then he snorted. “Me. Overthinking things. Who’d believe a big oaf like me would think too much?”
“I would,” Drew said. “Anyone who really knows you would.”
Brad looked at him with a soft and tender look. “Then that’d only be you,” he whispered. “Somehow, and just this summer, you’ve really worked your way in.”
“You too,” Drew said, his voice barely audible.
“So where do we go from here?” Brad said.
“You’ll know when it’s time, and something tells me you’ll let me know,” Drew said. He smiled at him.
Brad hesitated. “Maybe… maybe I could spend the night sometime?”
“That’d be nice.”
“Next weekend?” Brad asked.
Drew smiled. “I’d like that a lot,” he said. He caressed Brad’s cheek. “But no sex. I want there to be no pressure. We’re just cuddling.”
“I….” Brad exhaled. “I want to have sex with you. Officially, I mean. I want us to be together. As boyfriends.”
“I like that even more,” Drew said, “but even if we just spend the night cuddling in our underwear, it’ll be fine because it’ll be you.”
“If we spend the night cuddling in our underwear, I’ll have blue balls for sure,” Brad growled. “You don’t know what you do to me.”
Drew reached down to Brad’s pants, running his hand over the dark spot on the front of his jeans. “Oh, I think I do.”
Brad groaned and felt stupid all over again. He tried to hide again, but Drew caught his chin. “Hey, none of that. Not here. Not with me. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. There’s no shame in it.”
“I just feel—”
“I know,” Drew said, quieting Brad with a finger over his lips, “but you don’t have to.”
“You’ve had the patience of a saint. You—”
“I’m definitely ready, but it has to be right,” Drew said. “For both of us.”
“It will be,” Brad said. He had no idea how he’d gotten so lucky. “But why’re you being so patient? There have to be a hundre
d other guys out there you could have just like that.” He snapped his fingers.
Drew smiled. “Maybe not that many, and I don’t want them.”
“But why me?” Brad said.
“I’ll tell you later,” Drew promised. “For now, just hold me.”
Brad smiled softly. “I can do that.”
Brad didn’t squirm as Drew settled back against him, pushing the wet spot on his clothes up against his skin. He owed him that much. He put his arms around Drew and just held him. It felt right.
He wanted more. He wanted to do more, even if they only jacked off together, even if the thought of holding another man’s cock, let alone sucking it, had him shaking inside. Nerves or desire or both, Brad didn’t know. But it looked like they’d both find out.
Later that evening, after Brad had gone home, Drew lay in bed, thinking. Brad had been so embarrassed, and Drew knew he would’ve been, too, if it had been him. But it was also kind of gratifying knowing he’d made Brad lose control like that. It gave him hope for the future of getting into Brad’s pants, but Drew knew it wasn’t just that, not anymore. If that was even how he’d started. His feelings where Brad was concerned were complex.
Drew had initially gone after Brad because he thought he was hot and because coaxing a straight jock out of the closet certainly posed a challenge, but he realized that evening that it—he—they could become so much more. He sighed, leaning back against his pillows while he waited for sleep to come. So much more.
Chapter Seventeen
Brad sat on the front steps of the reno after work, sipping an ice-cold sports drink. It was after 6:00 p.m., and Octavio and the rest of the workers had gone home hours before. Brad stayed later, working in the summer heat with nothing but the cooling fans, since the air conditioner was offline. But early September was proving to be just as hot as August, and the fans only moved the hot air around. Brad sweated easily, and in the confines of the house, he sweated profusely. He had electrolytes to restore. Funny how the lessons of crew ended up teaching him things about life after college.
He didn’t care about the heat or working late by himself. The changes he’d made to his life felt right, like he was supposed to be working on homes, not trying to unload new construction in a useless subdivision. All the changes involved Drew too.
He was musing on that when a car pulled up in front of the house. At first he thought it was the owners coming to check things out, but then he recognized Nick’s beat-up old Honda.
Brad watched Nick come up the walk and stood to greet him. He stuck out his hand. “Hey, Nick. Good to see you, man. But… shouldn’t you be running practice?”
Nick shook Brad’s hand. “Just got out. I’m on my way home.”
“Where’s Morgan?” Brad asked, looking over Nick’s shoulder, but there was no one else in the car.
“He’s got a night class this semester,” Nick said, “so he drove himself in.”
“That sucks,” Brad replied.
Nick shrugged. “I’ve got one myself tonight, so it works out.”
“That makes sense. You’re both gone on the same night and get home at the same time.”
“Yeah, living together’s new enough we like being home at the same time,” Nick said with a dopey grin.
Brad rolled his eyes. “You’re so gone.”
“Oh yeah,” Nick said, “and you, my friend, are impossible to get ahold of these days. Do you ever check your e-mail? This summer, Morgan couldn’t log on without finding a bunch of e-mails from you, but now? If I weren’t standing in front of you, I’d think you’d disappeared. It doesn’t matter, because you don’t reply, but I never know where to e-mail you, your personal or work account.”
“I’m pretty busy at work in the mornings, since I’ve started taking classes for my contractor’s license. That sales office is even more dead and just as quiet as a library, and I’m too busy here to think about e-mail,” Brad said. Then he smirked. “Just e-mail my personal account, and I’ll remember to check it at Drew’s house. That’s where I am most nights.”
Even in the heat, Brad could see Nick’s blush. “Damn, I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”
“You kind of did. What happened to that hard-ass coach I used to know?” Brad asked.
“Morgan’s the one who’s tough as nails, not me,” Nick said.
“Don’t I know it. What he sets his sights on, he gets,” Brad said.
Nick nodded. “He decided he was going to be the fastest and went about doing it, but he might have some competition this year.”
Brad rolled his eyes. “I was thinking more along the lines of your ass, but yeah, that too.”
“What is this newfound fascination you have with tormenting your old coach?” Nick demanded. “But speaking of coaching… that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“This about the assistant coach position?” Brad said, taking a swig of sports drink.
“It really needs to be coaches, plural, but yes, it is,” Nick said. “I’m getting slammed out there.”
“Do you need me to take it up with the oversight committee?” Brad said.
“That’d be great if you could pry more money loose, but no, that’s not why I’m here.” He looked Brad right in the eyes. “I want you to be my assistant coach.”
Brad stared at him. Then he sat down on the steps. Hard. He knew Nick needed one. He’d just never imagined that Nick planned to ask him.
Nick swooped in and removed the bottle of sports drink from his hand. “Easy there, big guy.” Then he laughed. “I can’t believe I’ve managed to render Brad Sundstrom speechless.”
Brad shook his head. “I must be hallucinating from the heat. For a minute there, I thought you asked me to be your assistant coach.”
“I did,” Nick said. He sat down next to Brad. “Why’s that so hard to believe?”
“Dude, I’m not even remotely qualified, for starters,” Brad said, the “duh” hanging unspoken between them.
Nick shrugged. “Beyond rowing for four years, neither was I when I started, and you’ve got that much under your belt.”
“I don’t know, Nick….”
“I think you’d be really good at it, and an asset to the crew,” Nick said softly.
Brad didn’t say anything. Wow. Assistant coach. His mind raced with reasons to refuse. He was busy enough as it was between working part-time for his father and more than that for Drew, plus working on his contractor’s license. Adding coaching to the mix would mean a lot of early mornings on top of everything else.
And Drew. Their relationship took time now that they were boyfriends. He’d better talk to Drew. It wouldn’t be fair to him to take on another time commitment without checking with him.
He rested his chin on his knees, arms wrapped around his legs. He felt Nick watching him, but he ignored the other man. Crew. He’d missed it. He hadn’t known how much until Nick dangled the chance to get back into it in front of him. It had been such a big part of his life for so long. To have it back… longing overwhelmed him.
“Just promise me this, that’ll you’ll at least do a ride-along with me in the launch before you make a final decision,” Nick said, mistaking his silence for refusal.
Brad looked up, blinking away his dithering. “Yeah, I can do that. Maybe Friday morning?”
“That’d be great, Brad, and thank you,” Nick said. He stood up. “I have to run if I’m going to eat and make class on time. See you Friday morning.”
Brad watched Nick jog to his car and drive off. Huh, go figure. Assistant coach.
“Knock, knock!”
Drew looked up and smiled when Brad opened the door. That Brad felt comfortable knocking and entering delighted him, and he’d taken to leaving the door unlocked when he expected him. “Hey, you!”
Brad walked in carrying a duffel bag in one hand and a brown paper shopping bag in the other. He stopped in the living room just off the foyer where Drew was at work on a laptop. He leaned in to kiss Drew
. “Hey, yourself.”
“Long day?” Drew said.
“You know it,” Brad replied, dropping the duffel.
“Go shower, and I’ll go throw something together for dinner,” Drew said.
Brad held up the paper sack. “No need. I hit the deli at Good Foods.”
“Then I’ll set the table. Go get cleaned up,” Drew said, giving Brad a playful push.
Tipping the Balance Page 18
