The Worst Best Man

by M. J. O'Shea

  “I think I like the sound of that.”

  Christopher proceeded to drive August out of his mind. His fingers felt even better than August remembered. They were slick and warm, and Christopher knew just where to touch. August arched his back when Christopher added the third one. It was more of a stretch than he’d had in quite a while. It felt incredible.

  “I want you,” August said. He tried to pull Christopher’s fingers out of him. “I’m ready.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. I’m sure.” August noticed Christopher’s hands shaking when he rolled the condom on. He got up on his knees and hugged Christopher from behind. “Hey,” he said. “it’s just me.”

  “Just you?” Christopher shuddered. “Don’t you know that makes this the most important thing ever? I just want it to be perfect.”

  “It is. Come on. Fuck me already. I want you so bad.”

  August hadn’t felt so needy in years, so ready and hot and restless. He lay back on the bed and let his thighs drop open. Christopher climbed between them and lined himself up.

  “I love you,” he whispered. Then he pushed in slowly, in stops and starts, until he was all the way in, deep in August.

  “Holy….” It felt like heaven. August couldn’t decide between grabbing the sheets and wrapping his arms around Christopher’s neck and pulling him in for a long, breathless kiss. He rolled his hips, tested the thickness inside him.

  “Too good,” Christopher moaned. “I’m not going to last this time.”

  “Fuck me,” August whispered again. “I love you.”

  Christopher started rolling his hips, slowly at first, looking for the right angle, but when he found it, when August cried out because he couldn’t stand to hold it in, Christopher’s strokes got faster, rougher.

  August grabbed the bottom of the headboard with one hand and wrapped his other arm around Christopher’s shoulders. August met him stroke for stroke. He couldn’t get enough. It was paradise that was about to end far too quickly.

  “I can’t believe….” August felt it rolling through his spine. “I’m going to come.”

  So fast, too fast, but he didn’t think he could hold it back.

  “Me too,” Christopher ground out. Then he stroked in one, two more times and shuddered hard, breathing into August’s neck.

  He pulled out and plunged two fingers in, rubbed relentlessly at August’s prostate until August saw black stars and came harder than he had in his whole life.

  They lay there for a long time, breathing in the darkness, before August felt a light chuckle against his throat. “So that was just as good as I remember,” Christopher said quietly.

  “Yeah. No shit,” August said. He didn’t say anything else because that took about as much air as he had.

  It was okay. He didn’t think anything else needed to be said.

  AUGUST woke up early the next morning. He was confused for a second because the smells and sounds were a lot different than his own bedroom, and it wasn’t as bright as it should be, but then he stretched and remembered exactly why he was so sore. He was in Christopher’s bed, in Christopher’s insanely huge, opulent room that looked even bigger in the light streaming through creamy linen sheers. Christopher had his arms around him, and neither of them had bothered to put any clothes on after their late-night shower.

  I slept with Christopher.

  Three times, actually, before they’d admitted they were exhausted and dragged themselves to the bathroom to shower. August felt like he could lie in bed all day and revel in the memory. But there were events to plan, and it was only Wednesday. He had to go to work, even if he had about zero desire to do so. There was still a rushed trip to his flat to change and shower in his future before he got to turn around and rush right back to the office, which was closer to Christopher’s place than to his. He went to shimmy out of bed, but Christopher groaned and held on.

  “Where you going?” he mumbled into August’s neck.

  “Work. I’ve gotta get up, babe. I have so much stuff to do today.”

  “What time is it?”

  August had no idea. He draped himself over the side of the bed and rummaged around until he found his trousers. He fished his phone out from the pocket and hoped it hadn’t died overnight. When he got a look at the time, he nearly had a heart attack. He scrambled out of bed, tripped on the bit of sheet he had wrapped around one of his feet, and fell, completely naked, sprawled out on the floor.

  Christopher burst into laughter. “Babe, are you okay?”

  “You sound so concerned,” August drawled. He tried to push himself off the floor, but it hurt where he’d landed on his elbow.

  “You’re not that hurt if you can still be sarcastic, my darling.” Christopher got out of bed, far more gracefully, and helped August pull himself up.

  “Shit. I’m so late to work, and now my elbow hurts, and I have to get the tube back to my place to change. Shit, shit, shit.”

  “Come here.” Christopher pulled him into a full-length skin-on-skin hug.

  “I don’t have time for sexy hugs,” August groaned. “I need to get to the office.”

  “It’s not going to be easy to hide this,” Christopher said. He brushed his thumb across a spot on August’s neck.

  “Is it a hickey?” August asked. He needed a mirror desperately. “Did you give me a bloody hickey last night?”

  “You weren’t complaining at the time.”

  August panicked for a minute before he realized he didn’t have any other client meetings that week, and other than some ridicule from his coworkers, a giant love bite wouldn’t do any harm. “I’m gonna get so much shit for this.”

  “They’re just jealous they don’t have incredible sex like we did last night. Three times, if I remember correctly.”

  “Don’t gloat.”

  Christopher chuckled. “I feel like I want to tell everyone.”

  “Just one look at the two of us and you won’t have to.” August pulled out of Christopher’s embrace and kneeled to pick up his trousers from the night before. He jammed them on, balled up his briefs and shoved them in his pocket, then started searching for his shirt. He found it over by the open door to Christopher’s enormous walk-in closet.

  “What was I doing last night? Trying out for Olympic shot put?” He grumbled as he walked all the way across the room to retrieve his shirt.

  “Shirt put?”

  “You’re not funny.” August put his shirt on partway and came back to give Christopher a short kiss. The short kiss turned into a much longer kiss that left August scrambling away as Christopher tried to pull him back into bed.

  “Just call Will,” Christopher said in a low voice. “Tell him you don’t feel well.”

  “Right.” August had a bit more self-preservation than that. “I might as well put a banner in the lobby if I do that. He’d take it as his God-given right to torture me, and he’d tell everyone I got laid last night and I’m too sex drunk to come in to work.”

  “Aren’t you?” Christopher asked with a grin.

  “Yes. But I have to go anyway. I love you, but I have to leave now or I never will.”

  “I love you too. You want to take my car to go to your place?” Christopher asked.

  “No. I can just take the tube like everyone else. I’ll text you later.” August turned to sprint toward the door.

  “Have a good day,” Christopher said as he left. “And you might want to button your shirt!”

  “Shit.” August buttoned his shirt up as he ran down the stairs.

  Chapter Nine

  ONE of the things August missed the most about living at home was the Fourth of July. It always felt wrong somehow when he was at work like any other day, when if he’d been with his family, they’d be out on the cape with fireworks, treats, and piles of wood to make a campfire on the beach after dark. His family usually made a week of it in a rented beach cottage. August had fond sunset-colored memories of the holiday, which had remained his
favorite and still was, even though he couldn’t really celebrate it by himself in England.

  He’d managed to drag Will back home one year for the festivities when he missed it too much to stay away. Will had spent the time grumbling jokingly about defeating the colonists, but he’d had the time of his life playing in the sand and lighting bottle rockets with August’s siblings. It didn’t really matter in the end what the holiday was about.

  August sighed. He missed it.

  Instead of sunning at the beach, he was lying in Christopher’s bed reading while Christopher did a few things on his computer. Neither of them had to work that day, but August wasn’t really feeling his book. It was nice, and he’d never complain about being with Christopher, but it just wasn’t the same.

  “This is weird. I feel like I should be doing something to celebrate.”

  “Celebrate what, love?” Christopher asked. He reached over and ran his hand down August’s bare back. It was hot in the room, but Christopher had the windows open and the ceiling fan running to create a breeze. London was in the middle of the heat wave from hell. August would love to escape it. Too bad he had to work in the morning.

  “Fourth of July. I feel like we should have a picnic at least. Light some fireworks.”

  Christopher chuckled. “It would seem a bit out of place having a Fourth of July picnic in the middle of London.”

  August pouted. “Will would do it with me if he wasn’t working.”

  “Okay, babe. We’ll have a Fourth of July picnic. I don’t think the fireworks are going to happen, though. I have to be honest.”

  “I’ll take a picnic. We don’t even have to decorate.” August could see the horror cross Christopher’s face at the thought of some huge American flag blanket in the middle of Hyde Park. He’d been joking, and it was completely worth the reaction. He giggled and rolled over to pinch Christopher’s nipple.

  “You want to finish this stuff and I can go home and shower and change into picnic clothes?”

  “That’s going to take forever.” Christopher groaned. “Why don’t you have more stuff here? I have an entire empty section in my wardrobe.”

  Walk-in closet bigger than August’s bedroom was more like it. August’s belly fluttered at the thought of having the metaphorical drawer at the boyfriend’s house. Except he was being offered an entire closet, practically.

  “I just didn’t think of it.”

  “Well you are more than welcome to think of it anytime you like,” Christopher said. He leaned over and kissed August on the forehead. “And if you want to wait ten minutes, we can shower together, and you can just borrow some of my shorts. We’re nearly the same size.”

  THEY showered together, which wasn’t something new but still felt startlingly intimate every time they did it, then dressed in Christopher’s clothes, packed sandwiches and champagne and leftover chocolate cake for dessert, then headed out to the park. They spread the blanket in a beautiful patch of grass halfway in the shade and settled down with their lunch. August felt intensely guilty for having the day off when Will was working, but they traded weekend jobs when both of them weren’t needed. He figured someday he’d get used to it.

  “I could get used to this,” Christopher said at the same time. August must have made a face, because Christopher asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, nothing. That was just weird. I was just thinking those same words when you said them, but about something else.”

  “What were you thinking about?”

  “Having the day off when Will’s working. I know he gets the day off sometimes when I’m working, but I never stop feeling guilty about it. I just thought maybe I’d get used to it someday.”

  Christopher looked like he was about to say something but then didn’t.

  “What?”

  “You work a lot,” he finally said. He looked like he didn’t like it.

  “I know. And if I—” Oh, shit. He’d been about to bring up the New York job, which he hadn’t mentioned at all to Christopher. Partly because there were about twenty other people it could go to, and partly because, well, who wants to start a relationship with the possibility of moving to another country looming?

  “If you what?” Christopher asked.

  August didn’t really want to talk about it for the obvious reasons, but he didn’t think he could get away with avoiding the subject without looking like he was lying later on. “There’s a new position opening up, managing a brand-new office of Helena Preston. I’m pretty sure I’m on her short list, and if I get it, it’ll be a lot more work getting the new office set up.”

  “That’s fantastic for you. Not the extra work part, but the promotion. Why does Helena want two offices, though?” Christopher looked confused for a moment until it dawned on him why August had been hesitant to bring it up. “It’s not in London, is it?”

  “No.”

  “Manchester?” he asked. “Edinburgh?”

  “New York.”

  “Oh.”

  Yeah, that’s why August didn’t want to bring it up. Christopher’s face looked like everything August wasn’t ready to deal with.

  “I probably won’t get it, you know. She announced it to everyone, and there are at least ten other people in the office who are qualified, if not more.”

  “She told Libby you were her best.”

  August leaned over and kissed Christopher. “Which probably means she wants to keep me here in London. Let’s not talk about work stuff. It’s such a nice day.”

  “Okay. I meant what I said earlier, by the way.”

  “What?”

  “About you moving stuff into my place. As much as you want. All of it.”

  “Christopher, it’s only been a few months.”

  “It hasn’t. It’s been since we were eighteen. We were just in a long-distance relationship for a few years.”

  August chuckled. “Is that what that was?”

  “Yes, and it was awful, but it’s over now, and I hate the nights when you sleep at your place. Can you at least think about it? I want to be with you as much as I can.”

  “Yeah. I’ll think about it.”

  AUGUST did think about it, for weeks on and off, and he got the fluttery scary feelings every time he did, so he didn’t bring it up again and neither did Christopher. But quite a bit of his clothing migrated into Christopher’s closet, and he spent far more nights there than he did in his old flat. He’d even started thinking of it as his old flat rather than his current one, which was either incredible or terrifying, depending on how he looked at it.

  July seemed to swim by in a haze of hot days and too much work. Everyone seemed to want to organize a party in the summer. Including Christopher, although on a much smaller scale. August was about to pack it in for the day when Christopher called him instead of texting like he usually did when August was at work.

  “Hey, so I was going to invite a few friends over to grill in the back garden. Do you want to see if your friends could join? It’ll be a small party, but it could be fun.”

  “Will and Louise?”

  “And anyone else.”

  August hoped it would work. He wanted to blend his life and Christopher’s life together as much as he could. That was the only way they’d ever end up staying together. The way they’d done it the first time only ended in heartbreak.

  “I’ll text them. You really want me to invite Weez around your society pals?”

  “He’s hilarious. Why wouldn’t you?”

  August just shook his head. “Okay. You asked for it.”

  WILL, Louise, and Weezy happened to have nothing on for the night, so they showed up with side dishes to add to the dinner—and beer. Weezy didn’t go anywhere without beer. Christopher had met him a couple of times after Will decided he wasn’t a complete asshole and approved his visitation rights with a few of August’s other friends. Weezy was just about opposite from every single person Christopher had ever met in his upper-crust life, but he loved him. It wasn’t
just him, but Will and Louise too. He’d never laughed so hard in his life as the night he’d been dragged along to the pub quiz with them. He was worried they wouldn’t fit in with his friends, but if they didn’t it would be his friends’ loss, not theirs.

  Sometimes Christopher wondered if there was even any point in trying to blend August’s friends with his. Mostly because his friends… kind of sucked a lot of the time. Some of them were nice—Libby was amazing of course—but some of them would never understand people like Weezy, or even August. And they wouldn’t want to try. If someone they met didn’t winter in Monaco, what was the point of knowing them? The more Christopher was away from that social pool, the less he wanted to dip his toe back in.

  “Hey, guys.” Christopher greeted each of them at the kitchen entrance with a short, tight hug. Even though he’d been looking forward to seeing them, he was surprised just how relieved he was to have them there. He’d felt alone in the crowd in his own house before they’d arrived. It wasn’t the first time. “Everyone’s out back in the garden.”

  Christopher loved his garden. It was small, since it was in the city after all, but it was also well kept and beautifully designed. He’d done a lot of work to keep the small patch of grass and the surrounding flower beds neat and overflowing with colors. He’d had a gardener when he first moved into the place but found that he liked to do it himself. The patio in the back of the garden was brick and covered in tables and chairs and now Christopher’s friends, a loose term if there ever was one, because other than Libby and Edward, he wasn’t particularly close to any of them.

  “Come. I’ll introduce you.”

  August and the other three followed him out to the garden. Louise and Will put their dishes down on the tables, and Weezy found a bin of ice for his beers, and they all were introduced around to Christopher’s guests.

  It went well for the most part. A few of Christopher’s friends looked confused by their presence, but they handled it well. It wasn’t until Libby’s maid of honor, Jacinda, looked August up and down and asked in her most down-the-nose voice, “Aren’t you the wedding planner?” that Christopher thought it might have been a mistake to bring his real friends around.