One (Love by Numbers Book 5)

by E. S. Carter

  “Don’t you fucking dare, Flynn Phillips.”

  The anger in my demand radiates throughout the room. Céline stills, her head whipping towards me, confusion evident on her face but I couldn’t give a fuck about her right now. My rage is aimed entirely at the man now standing with his back to me, his shoulder squared, his hands working quickly to pull on his tight black boxers. The sight of his firm glutes, moments before he covers them fully, does nothing to quell the ache in my furious cock. It still pounds with a need for this man, despite me knowing exactly what is going to happen next. The same fucking thing that happened last time. He’s going to lash out and then run.

  “You don’t fucking get to do this again, Phillips. Are you a man or a damn mouse? Because right now all I see is a coward about to run away with his tail between his fucking legs.”

  That gets the reaction I want.

  I see it in the rippling of his muscles before he drags his shirt over his head and spins to pin me with an icy glare.

  His furious eyes bore into mine, his lips curling into a sneer and I wait for the poison to drip from his mouth.

  “Fuck you, Isaac. You don’t know me, and I owe you fuck all. Now get out of my way so I can leave. I should never have come here with you. It was a mistake.”

  “No. You’re wrong. You do fucking owe me.” I grip my solid length angrily and twist my hand around its girth. His eyes flick down to the movement, and for a split second, they flare at the sight of me with my cock tightly in my fist. Any arousal in his look is instantly replaced with disgust.

  “Huh.” His tone is filled with contempt, derision dripping from that one syllable as his eyes pin me with a glare.

  “You think I want your cock? You think I came here to fuck you or let a faggot suck me off?” The laugh that follows is vile and mocking.

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot. Isaac Fox sucks cocks by pretending to be bi. You say I’m a fucking coward, yet you’re too much of one to own the fact that you like dicks, not pussy.”

  He takes a step forward into my space, expecting me to shrink back from the bile pouring from his lips and the hate burning from his eyes.

  With a prod to my bare chest he continues, “Men like you make me fucking sick. If you yearn to be another man’s bitch, fucking own it. Hiding behind vagina, claiming not to be a filthy fucking homo, is pathetic.” Another, more aggressive prod to my chest follows. “Poofs who pretend to be bi are full of bullshit. You are manipulative predators, you’re not confused, you know exactly what you’re doing.”

  His final angry poke to my chest is my undoing and my hand snaps up to grip his wrist.

  “Don’t you fucking dare talk to me about confusion. I accept what I am and who I want. Pity you can’t be so honest with yourself.”

  He snatches his arm from my hold as if my touch burns and steps back. With the promise of violence in his steely eyes, I further goad him by never once backing down.

  “Don’t fucking breathe near me ever again.” His parting words before he barges past me, his shoulder checking mine in an attempt to knock me off balance.

  I stand firm; my fists clench with the need to lash out, but it’s my traitorous cock, still thick, still tall, still proud, still fucking throbbing, that pisses me off more.

  Why the fuck would I still want someone who is filled with so much venom? Someone who is so confused by his desires that he needs to label me disgusting to assuage his personal doubts.

  I am done with being judged by anyone.

  Where is the community for people like me?

  Gay men think I want to hide behind my attraction to women like I’m in some kind of fictional closet. Straight men believe that it’s a load of bollocks and that being bi is a more acceptable version of being gay. And then we have women; well, they are intrigued mostly, but that wears off when they decide I’m an unworthy partner because not only may I stray with another woman, but I may also leave them for another man.

  That’s why I don’t do relationships.

  Bisexual is another term for confused or untrustworthy. When in truth it means I see beauty in all. I don’t discriminate in my attraction. People turn me on.

  Not just women.

  Not just men.

  Humans.

  I see beauty. They see distrust.

  Labels are for fucking jars, not people.

  I’ve accepted who I am and I’ll be damned if I allow a bigoted, likely closeted, prick like Flynn Phillips to belittle me again. Those moments of connection, where a spark shot straight from him into me, mean nothing. It was physical attraction, and fucked-up pheromones, nothing more nothing less.

  “Well, that was unexpected, Mon Amour.”

  Yet again, I’ve forgotten about Céline.

  I turn to her and can’t help the nervous laugh that escapes. It bubbles over the residual anger that still floods my veins when my eyes find her shocked ones.

  “Yeah, you can say that again.”

  We both hear the front door of the apartment slam closed, and with a shrug of her shoulders and a grin on her lips she says, “Well, that was unexpected, Mon Amour.”

  Hearing her say it again, followed by a cheeky, knowing smile pulls a genuine laugh from my chest.

  “Come on, Mon Cherie,” I tease in a bad French accent. “I need a stiff drink.”

  She looks purposefully down at my hard cock and then back to my face. “You sure you wouldn’t rather put something else that’s stiff to good use?”

  I shake my head as I pull up my jeans and gingerly tuck my hard-on away before zipping up.

  “He-“ I point at the offending body part, “-doesn’t know when to give up, but trust me, a drink is all I need right now.”

  She huffs playfully, “Shame. I guess Flynn’s little strop cock-blocked everyone bar him. Greedy fool.”

  “Yeah, a fool is right.” I extend my hand for her to take and she gracefully climbs off the bed. “I’m sorry about tonight. I guess I misread the situation.”

  She links her arm with mine as she walks us out of the bedroom and towards the kitchen.

  “Didn’t we all, Mon Cheri. Now, you can tell me all about it, because there is most definitely a history between you both and if I’m not going to see any action myself tonight, the least I can get is some juicy details to tide me over.”

  She removes her hold on me and slides onto a barstool before pouring us both a generous serving of whisky.

  “You owe me, Isaac. So bottoms up, then spill your guts.”

  I’ve never told anyone about that night just over a year ago and as I knock back over half of the drink before me, I decide Céline is as good as anyone to purge every detail I have on Flynn Phillips.

  I hope by freeing the memory from my chest, I’ll get some sort of cathartic release. I hope that saying the words out loud will be enough to sever this destructive connection we have between us.

  Nothing good can ever come from wanting a man like Flynn Phillips.

  The tattoo across my back itches with a phantom ache as I tell Céline about the first time I shared a bed with Flynn and another woman, about the taste of him on my tongue and about the heavy, thick and dark confusion that blanketed me for months afterwards.

  When the last detail leaves my lips, when I spill the words that I allowed to affect me more than any other hurtful comments ever have, I don’t feel lighter.

  I feel empty.

  It’s been two months since the night I spent with Isaac and Céline. Over sixty days of self-hatred wrapped up nice and tight with a big red bow of regret and disgust.

  I hate him for everything he did and didn’t do.

  I hate myself more.

  I should have enough compunction for all of us. I should be able to make right the wrongs, contact Isaac and at least offer an apology.

  But I can’t.

  The simple fact is that I’m a fucking coward just like he said.

  My thoughts are a mutable, inconsistent and fickle presence during the day, but it’s at
night when I punish myself the most.

  I either drink myself into a stupor or pick up a willing body- a willing female body- to lose myself in until morning.

  It doesn’t help, though. Nothing helps.

  I keep going through the motions. Day-by-day my “brand’ soars, my business grows, and more and more people want a piece of Flynn Phillips.

  If only they knew that this perfect body houses a less than perfect man. Would they buy my books, download my videos and invite me on their TV shows if they knew the fucked up man inside?

  The laughable thing is, my last big feature was to be interviewed for G.A.Y. magazine. It seems I’ve become something of a gay icon. Can you say, hypocrite?

  So here I am, a two-faced, bigoted charlatan, deceiving an entire community with my bright smile on the cover of their best-selling publication.

  Inside the pages, my ripped body is sprayed with oil as I smile brazenly into the camera flaunting my straight guy image with a heavy dose of ‘I’m comfortable in my sexuality, please lust after me.’

  I fucking disgust myself.

  “It’s your hottest shoot yet, Flynn.” Elaina teases me as she pretends to fan her face with her hand. “The pink pound is yours for the taking. Once you crack this market as a straight man, the world is your oyster.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I rub this morning’s hangover from my eyes with the heels of my hands, my tongue thick and dry in my arid mouth, my brain rattling against my skull to the beat of a techno playlist.

  “Here, drink up.”

  Elaina thrusts a mug of black coffee in my face, the rich aroma testing the limits of my stomach as it churns and threatens to expel the distillery that I drained dry last night.

  I lift my red-rimmed eyes to hers, and she looks down at me without an ounce of empathy, a smug smile on her lips, her face mocking the pain behind my eyeballs and the cramps in my stomach.

  “Self-inflicted, no sympathy from me, you know this, Flynn. Now drink up, I’ve got less than an hour to get you to your first appointment of the day.”

  Why did I employ her as my assistant? It’s never a good idea to work with family or friends and seeing as Elaina has been my best friend since childhood, you’d think I’d know she was never going to coddle me or bow down to my whims.

  I groan and reach for the mug, forcing myself to sip the tar-like substance. Fuck, that’s strong.

  “Can’t I get milk in my coffee? You know I’m more of a latte than espresso lover, yet you insist on giving me this shit. I could repair half the tarmac in London with this.” I take another sip of the thick, bitter liquid and grimace as it slides down my throat.

  “Well, when you grow up and stop getting wasted on a school night, I’ll stop needing to sober you up the next day.”

  She bustles around the living room of the apartment we share, picking up stray items including a lone pair of knickers that my visitor from last night must have left behind.

  “Flynn! What the ever loving fuck?” She dangles the dirty lingerie from the end of stray chopstick.

  Huh. We must have eaten Chinese food last night, that would explain the extra queasiness I feel today, my body isn’t used to the excess carbs, fat and MSG.

  “I go away for a few days, and all hell breaks loose. Can you refrain from bringing dirty bints back to our place? Just thinking of the places I may find bodily fluids is bringing me out in hives. You want to stick your todger inside rotten floozies, then book a hotel room.”

  She flings the pink lace underwear, and they hit me smack in the face before landing inside my half-finished mug of coffee.

  “She was a primary school teacher, not a dirty bint.” Using a pincer grip, I remove the now sodden knickers, and they drop onto the low table before me with a wet squelch.

  “Good for her. That doesn’t make her any less of a slag, leaving her filthy undies on a stranger’s living room floor.”

  I don’t bother arguing when Elaina is pissed off with me; it’s a pointless exercise. Milly was sweet and loved her job in the local primary school. She was also a devil between the sheets and the scratch marks across my back prove it. She also did nothing for me, nothing at all.

  Sure, I got hard, and my body found its release, but I had to close my eyes to achieve orgasm and think of shoulder-length dark hair, soulful hazel eyes, a firm rump you could bounce a penny off and a thick, silken cock beaded with arousal at the tip.

  Isaac Fox.

  He’s like a fucking parasite, invading my thoughts even when I don’t want him there.

  “Shower, shit, shave. You’ve got thirty minutes, and then we’re out of here whether you’re ready or not.”

  Elaina’s demand pierces through my thoughts as I sit staring blankly at the coffee stained thong.

  “Yes, boss.” I snark back impotently, before standing and stretching out my sore muscles.

  I haven’t been training as much as I should, and my body feels the loss acutely. Although my lean, well-muscled frame isn’t showing neglect, I can feel it radiating from within.

  I have to stop doing this shit or else it could cost me everything I’ve worked so hard for up to now.

  I turn and walk towards my room, my bare back on full display.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Did you have to let the dirty school teacher mark you up like Freddy Kruger?”

  I stop and twist my head in a futile attempt to look at my back from over my shoulder. Why I bother with the gesture, I don’t know because I can already feel the scratches itching as they start to scab over. Like I said, she was wild in bed.

  When I shrug at Elaina, she dramatically huffs in reply and goes back to cleaning up my mess.

  I amble through my darkened bedroom that stinks of sweat and sex, passing the rumpled bed and straight into my bathroom. On auto-pilot I do as instructed, and after a swift and frigid shower, I emerge damp but slightly more human.

  I’m briskly drying off my hair when Elaina walks into the bathroom. She doesn’t knock or announce her presence; it’s just the way she is, and it’s never bothered me, until now.

  “Have you heard of boundaries? Privacy?”

  “Have you heard of get stuffed?”

  “Jesus Christ, Lei. Can’t I have even a minute to myself?”

  She stops what she’s doing and peers up at me. Her elfin features soft even in the harsh florescent lighting of the bathroom.

  “That’s the first time you’ve called me Lei in months.”

  “No, it’s not,” I mumble, continuing to dry off my hair with a towel.

  “Yeah, it is, Flynn. For months you’ve been shut off and locking me out. I haven’t been your friend called Lei, I’ve been Elaina, your annoying assistant.”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  She steps forward and places her warm hand on the cool skin of my forearm.

  “It’s the truth. Where have you been Flynn? Because you haven’t been present for weeks. In fact, you haven’t been here with me for months.”

  I drop the towel and look down at her hand. The warmth of her touch penetrates right down into my bones. Is it true? Have I been detached? Absent from the only true friendship I have?

  Everyone wants a piece of me. I’m prime real estate. I’m Flynn Phillips, the hot new thing with the firm body and bulging bank account.

  But not Lei.

  She’s seen me with nothing.

  She was my everything when my life fell apart. She was the only one there for me when I lost not only my hero but a part of my parents too. When I wanted nothing more than to check out of life, she brought me back to the living.

  She held me, comforted me, loved me, when the crippling whys threatened to rip me to shreds from the inside out because all of a sudden he was gone. Gone and no one knew why.

  I miss him. I miss him so fucking much that even thinking of him makes it harder to breathe.

  Even now my life is divided.

  There’s before.

  Then there’s after.

  The t
wo are entwined yet so far apart that they cannot exist side by side.

  I fight the memories because I cannot take the pain. It’s a constant battle between remembering and forgetting. Between before and after.

  Elaina’s small hand stills mine. I’ve been absentmindedly twisting the leather bracelet around my wrist, feeling the worn, knotted plait beneath my fingers, fighting back seventeen years of memories.

  “It’s okay to think about him, to miss him.”

  I jerk my arm back, and her hand drops loosely to her side.

  Her wide, pleading eyes stare up at me, a watery sheen turning the dark green orbs murky but nonetheless beautiful.

  “He wouldn’t want this for you, Flynn. It’s been ten years, and you still won’t say his name. Say it with me now. Cl…”

  “Stop. Don’t… I…”

  “He didn’t intend to wound you, Flynn. His hurt was just too much, he…”

  “Don’t you dare tell me how to feel. He left us. His selfishness left behind a pain worse than just the initial shock and devastation. It left behind a never ending ache that will never go away. It will never fade because we will never know.”

  I spin around to look in the mirror and stare at a face so similar, yet so different to his.

  “We will never know why, and the agony we will always carry is because of everything that will never be. It is more than pain, it’s crippling.”

  She places her palms flat against my back and rests her forehead against my clammy skin.

  “Then just imagine his pain. It was too much for him to bear. Nobody willingly abandons the ones they love Flynn.”

  She places one soft kiss between my shoulder blades and leaves me.

  Leaves me with possibly the two most meaningless and nondescript words in the English language, ‘what’ and ‘if’. The trouble stems from putting them both together. Side by side they have the power to haunt every aspect of your life.

  What and if.

  What if?

  What.

  If.

  “What’s on the schedule today?”

  After my pathetic mini-breakdown that I’m going to attribute to a raging hangover, I push any and all painful thoughts aside and bury the memories threatening to flood my carefully constructed world.