You Can Leave Your Hat On

by Lena Matthews

  “’lo.”

  The deep voice resonating on the line brought his spirits crashing to the ground. It wasn’t Harlan. “May I speak to Harlan please?” Even though it annoyed him Harlan had another male over, he could be pleasant. Until he found a reason to be unpleasant, that was.

  “He’s not here. Can I take a message?”

  “Sure.” Message. He could do that. Now what was the best way of saying “I’m sorry for being a dick, call me?”

  “Can you just let him know Sawyer called?”

  “Sawyer.” Bored politeness was quickly replaced with humor. “As in Professor Sawyer, man of his dreams?”

  Man of his dreams. For the first time since the horrible incident, Sawyer smiled. He hadn’t known Harlan thought he was all that. “Yes. I guess. I am his former professor.”

  “And the dude he sent the video to, right?”

  “Yeah.” Although, for Harlan’s sake, Sawyer hoped he was the only Sawyer who would call, or Harlan would have a lot of explaining to do, thanks to his friend’s big mouth. “I didn’t know he told anyone about the movie.”

  “He didn’t tell me. I helped make it.”

  “You did?” Frowning, Sawyer made his way into the living room.

  “Yeah, I was the cameraman and director,” he boasted proudly. “I’m like the black porn version of Steven Spielberg, baby. I E.T.’d the shit out of that flick. Did you check out my smooth moves when I clicked the camera off right as he threw the hat? That was genius, baby.”

  “Right. Genius.” Sawyer eased down onto the couch, all kinds of confused. “Who are you again?”

  “Tameron. Harlan’s roommate. I’m actually in the video too. You can see my reflection in the mirror during the start of the film.”

  “I’ll have to play it again and check it out.”

  “Do that, man.”

  Okay, this guy was way too friendly. “When do you expect Harlan back?”

  “Don’t know. He and his brother booked out before I even got up this morning. I’m sure he’ll swing by your place tonight, now you two are all tight and shit.”

  “Yeah.” Tight and shit. That wouldn’t be the exact way he would have described their relationship right now, but he didn’t want to admit it to the exuberant man. “You’re probably right. I’ll see him then.”

  “You still want me to tell him you called?”

  “No. It’s okay. I’ll talk to him later.”

  “Sounds good, man. Bye.”

  “Bye.” Sighing, Sawyer hung the phone up, feeling worse than he did before. If that was possible.

  He was just going to have to wait it out, and hope Harlan made the next move. Soon. When the phone rang a few minutes later, he apprehensively picked it up, hoping it was Harlan, but knowing it wasn’t. As usual, his instincts were right. His best friend, Macon Smythe’s, number popped up on the caller ID. Grumpy and annoyed it wasn’t who he wanted to speak with, Sawyer clicked the phone on then off. He wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone other than Harlan, and something told Sawyer he’d be waiting a long time for Harlan to call. Something like common sense.

  When the phone began to ring again, he realized he should have just let it go to the answering machine the first time. Irritated, Sawyer snatched up the phone and clicked it on. “What?”

  There was a brief pause before Macon spoke. “I guess I don’t need to ask how your evening went.”

  His friend’s dry tone didn’t help his mood. “You guessed right. Now go away. I’m not in the mood to talk.”

  Macon wasn’t one to let Sawyer’s bad attitude put him off, or dissuade him from asking questions. “What happened?”

  “Nothing.” Sawyer took off his reading glasses and set them on the armrest before leaning his head back. “I’m just not in the mood to talk.”

  “Did he not show up?”

  Was he even speaking English? “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Did he show and bomb out in bed?”

  “Macon.” Sawyer tried to stop his well-meaning friend, but it was no use. Macon continued on as if Sawyer hadn’t uttered a word.

  “I told you all those strippers stuff their thongs.”

  Sawyer rubbed his hand over his burning eyes. “Mac—”

  “It’s really not fair of you to hold his small cock against him. It’s not his fault. Besides, don’t you know, it’s not the length. It’s not the size. It’s how many times you can make it rise.”

  “Macon!” he bellowed, at the end of his rope.

  “What?”

  “His dick size was more than fine.”

  Macon’s rich laughter spilled over the lines. “So he did come over.”

  Fuck, he walked right into that one. “Yes.”

  “And…”

  “Let’s just put it this way. I didn’t hang up because I was otherwise occupied.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.” Oh, that about said it all in his book as well. “Look, I don’t want to talk…”

  “Over the phone. I completely understand. I’ll be there in twenty. Bye.”

  Before Sawyer could get another word in edgewise, Macon disconnected the line.

  Just great. His friend, who couldn’t take a hint the size of the broad side of a barn, was coming over to console him. He needed to prepare for this shit storm.

  Chapter Five

  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Harlan glanced at his brother over the hood of their parents’ car and frowned. To say breakfast wasn’t one of champions would have been putting it mildly. Not only were his parents in rare form, bickering over every little thing, Harlan also had to deal with his brother staring at him as if he were under a microscope all morning long. It probably didn’t help he was still irritable from his conversation with Sawyer, but he didn’t want to think about that. Not here. Not now. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about this ’tude you’ve had since breakfast.” Rhys walked around the hood and came to stop next to his brother. “Yesterday you were one of the shiny happy people and today you look as if someone pissed in your Cheerios. What gives?”

  “Nothing.”

  “And is nothing about six three, with bedroom eyes and a bod built for sin?”

  Startled, Harlan stared wordlessly at his brother. After Rhys’s little comments yesterday he thought something was up with his brother, he just didn’t know it was this. Who would have thunk it? Two queers, one family. This had to be one for the record books.

  Rhys glanced behind him to the hotel entrance where their parents were busy inside still checking out, before turning to look back at Harlan with a small smile on his lips. “I told you, you weren’t the only one who had something to talk about.”

  “I guess. So you like…”

  “To play with outties instead of innies?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then yes, brother of mine, I do.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, oh.” Rhys shoved his hands in his pants pockets in his standard defensive gesture. Harlan had to wonder what his brother did when he was uncomfortable and not wearing pants with pockets. “So do you think it might be catching? We did share a room for almost a billion years.”

  “I don’t think that’s the way it works.” Although Harlan was sure his mother would find some way to blame him for corrupting Rhys as well as damning his own soul to hell.

  “Me either, but it seemed easier to blame you.”

  For Rhys anyway. “It wouldn’t be the first time you tried that route.”

  “It’s worked in the past, thought I might as well stick with the tried and true.”

  “Good plan.” Harlan gestured to the sliding doors with his head. “Do the parental unit know?”

  “About me or about you?”

  Christ, Harlan hadn’t even thought about the latter. “You. Me. Hell, either.”

  “Mom knows.” Rhys’s voice hardened. “She pretends as if she doesn’t, but I know she does.”


  “And Dad?”

  “No, not unless they announced it on QVC and I was unaware of it.”

  “Yeah, then probably not.” Harlan found himself repeating Rhys’s nervous gesture, shoving his hands in his pockets. “So is this what you wanted to talk to me about? Hoping we could throw a joint coming out party or something?”

  “I don’t need you by my side in order to come clean with the folks. I’m a big boy, Harlan. I’ve been dealing just fine with them and my sexuality for awhile now without your divine intervention.”

  In the face of Rhys’s anger, Harlan felt two inches high. Here his brother was doing something he himself didn’t even have the nerve to do, and Harlan was giving him shit for it. “I know. Look. I’m sorry. You know me. Open mouth, insert foot.”

  “Yeah, well.” Frowning, Rhys looked away for a second or two before turning back to face Harlan. “Don’t worry about it. Besides I’m not just telling you so we’d have this bonding moment to look back on years from now.”

  “Then why?” Harlan couldn’t help but be a little hurt his brother didn’t want to bond over their shared affinity for cock.

  “I want…” Rhys paused for a moment as if gathering courage, before he rushed on. “No, I need to get out of there.”

  “Out of where, home?”

  “Yeah.”

  Love his parents as he did, Harlan couldn’t help but empathize with his brother. “And you want me to float you a loan?”

  “No, a crib. I need a place to stay for awhile.”

  “Okay,” Harlan said, without hesitation.

  Rhys’s brows soared to his hairline. “Okay. Just like that?”

  “Yep, just like that.”

  “You didn’t ask for how long.”

  “Don’t need to. You stay as long as you like.”

  Rhys’s shocked expression morphed into one of suspicion. “What’s the catch?”

  “There isn’t one. You need a place. I have one to offer.”

  “Think Tameron will be cool with it?”

  “Probably.” Harlan shrugged, indifferent to his roommate’s opinion. “He’s pretty easygoing. I doubt he’ll have an issue, if so, we’ll work something out. Besides, he’s hardly home.”

  “Works a lot of hours at the club?”

  Now it was Harlan’s turn to look surprised. “What the hell. Am I wearing a sign around my neck that says gay stripper?”

  “No, your roomie has a big mouth.”

  Harlan narrowed his eyes. “How big?” If Tameron made a move on his brother, he was a dead man.

  “Nah, man. I didn’t hit it.” Rhys smiled slyly. “But I could have.”

  “Stop it. You’re going to make me sick. You didn’t tell Mom and Dad, did you?”

  “Yeah,” Rhys said, his voice filled with sarcasm. “Right after I told them that you were fucking your professor.”

  “Good.” Harlan nodded his head, relieved. “I’m only there for a few more nights anyway.”

  “Oh.” Interest dawned in his brother’s eyes. “Are they going to be hiring then?”

  “Don’t even think it,” he said coldly.

  “What?” Rhys raised his hands, palms up.

  “You go anywhere near the club and I’ll out you to Dad myself.”

  “Now that’s just mean.” Rhys lowered his hands, his former innocent expression wiped from his face. “Well, now all that’s said and done, you want to talk about what’s going on with you and your professor?”

  “Former professor,” Harlan corrected sullenly. “And no.”

  “You sure?”

  “More than.” Before his brother could press the issue, Harlan spotted his parents walking out of the hotel. “Besides, we have company fast approaching. How soon do you plan on making the move?”

  “Real soon. I have to break it to them first, but maybe before the end of summer.”

  “Okay,” he said, just as their parents joined them at the car. From the watchful expression his mother sent him, Harlan couldn’t help but be thankful it was his brother who was going to have to do the explaining and not him. Lord knew he had enough issues of his own to deal with.

  “You’re an asshole. And I don’t mean it in a complimentary, want to stick my dick in you, sort of way.”

  “Yeah, I figured as much.” Sawyer took a sip of his tea and sighed. He didn’t need Macon to tell him he’d fucked up. He already knew that.

  Of course, it didn’t stop Macon from doing just that. “Explain it to me one more time why you called your boy toy a whore.”

  “He’s not my boy toy, and I didn’t call him a whore,” Sawyer hedged. When Macon gave him the dreaded side eye, Sawyer ’fessed up. “Exactly. I don’t know what happened, man. One minute we’re coming, the next I was telling him to fuck other people.”

  “Oh yeah. That happens to me all the time. It’s like a reflex. First I hit them with my ‘o face’.” Macon scrunched his nose and squeezed his eyes shut tight. It was a gross exaggeration of the real thing. Something Sawyer knew firsthand. But it was funny nevertheless. At Sawyer’s chuckle, Macon relaxed his features. “Then, just as the last drop of come slips out of my dick, I look down at my partner and call him a whore. It’s why I’m so popular.”

  “See, that’s not how I remember it. You’re more of a cuddler, if memory serves.” Which was really amusing, considering what a bruiser Macon was. If it weren’t for his lack of flab and the absence of abundant body hair, Macon could be mistaken for a Bear in the gay community.

  The tall muscular man had an affinity for fast bikes, sexy men and Robert Frost, but not necessarily in that order. His larger than life personality matched his big frame, but underneath the shoulder-length jet black hair, tattoos and leather jacket was a heart as big as an ocean. It was also a side of himself Macon didn’t like to show to just anyone. But Sawyer wasn’t just anyone, he was Macon’s best friend, and right now, he really needed him.

  “What did I tell you about that?” Macon tightened his grip on the beer can he was holding. Sawyer knew it was supposed to be threatening, but with him, Macon couldn’t pull it off. There was just something about knowing how the other man teared up whenever Free Willy came on that made him less intimidating.

  “To hold you tighter and never let you go.”

  “If Harlan has any sense he’ll steer far away from you.”

  “Now you’re just being mean.” But more than that, Sawyer was afraid underneath it all, Macon was right.

  “I think the same can be said about you.” Macon emptied the rest of his brew before tossing the can over his shoulder onto Sawyer’s deck. Irked, Sawyer glanced over at the crumpled can then back to Macon, who was smiling. Bastard. “I’ll pick it up before I leave.”

  Sawyer didn’t believe him for a second. “Liar.” Now more than ever, he was glad they had decided to take their little impromptu BBQ outside instead of eating in the kitchen. Sawyer would have hated like hell to kill his best friend over his newly installed floors.

  “Back to the subject at hand. Why do you think you’re fucking things up with Harlan? You’ve wanted this kid forever. Now you finally have him, it seems as if you couldn’t wait to fuck it up. What’s up with that?”

  That was the question, all right. One he didn’t have an answer to. “He was all cute and wet, asking me to go have breakfast with his parents.”

  “And…”

  “And, I had a total deer in the headlights moment.” It was easy to admit it now in hindsight.

  “Why? Is he out to his parents?”

  Sawyer frowned as he tried to remember whether or not Harlan had ever mentioned that to him or not. “I’m not sure, but I don’t think so.”

  “So what?” Macon cocked his head to the side. “You think suddenly after a single night with you he was going to go all mockingbird to his parents over waffles? Don’t get me wrong, my friend, you’re a hell of a lay, but even you’re not coming out good.”

  “When you say it like that it sounds stupid."
>
  “Then say it a different way.” Sawyer opened his mouth to do just that then promptly closed it. Earning him a smug smile from Macon.

  “That’s what I thought. So Harlan invites you to hang with his folks, you freak out and backpeddle in true you fashion, which, in turn, pisses your new piece off.”

  It wasn’t as simple as Macon described, but that was about the gist of it. “That about sums it up.”

  “Then to add insult to injury, he tells you he has to work and you give him the old, ‘bitch better have my money’ routine.”

  Sawyer stared blankly at his friend. “I’m not even going to try to understand that one.”

  “You called him a whore.”

  “No.” Not on purpose anyway. “Come on, you and I have both been around the block enough times to have all the house addresses memorized.”

  “And…”

  “Monogamy at his age is a joke. When we were in our early twenties we were fucking anything moving.”

  “And sometimes things that didn’t,” Macon reminded him slyly.

  Fucker.

  Sawyer felt his cheeks heat. This was the problem with being close friends with someone for more than a decade. They had the goods, and weren’t afraid to use them. “I was drunk, man. Doesn’t count.”

  “Uh huh.”

  The bastard was never going to let him live that down.

  “My point is,” Sawyer said, moving on, “that as much as I don’t like it, I understand.”

  “Right, you understand how this kid, who’s been making cow eyes at you for the better part of a year, will get one taste of your sweet, cut cock then run right out and fuck some stupid mark at the club he’s working his final days at. Right. Makes perfect sense. Hell, if he’s cute and bottoms as nicely as you say, maybe I need to hit the ATM and go pay him a visit.”

  “Touch him and die.” As much as Sawyer loved Macon, he’d kill him where he stood. There was no way Sawyer was letting the handsome man within spitting distance of Harlan. Not until Sawyer signed, sealed and delivered everything back to normal, anyway. He wouldn’t put it past Harlan, or Macon, to try teaching him a very unwelcome lesson. Not as if he didn’t deserve it.