Focus on Me

by Megan Erickson

  “Whoa.” I held up my hands, palms out. “I’m not an asshole. Right now, I just can’t get over how bad my gaydar is.”

  A slight bit of hope crept over his face. “What?”

  “Well, I pegged you as straight.”

  “Seriously? I could have sworn you knew. I was flirting with you!”

  “You were?”

  He widened his eyes and barked a laugh. “Wow, you’re kinda clueless.”

  I pointed at him and narrowed my eyes. “Hey, I’d know if a hot guy was flirting with me.”

  “Oh yeah?” He challenged. “How?”

  “Because it wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “You always attract the gays?”

  “Takes one to know one.”

  His smile froze in his face. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m as queer as you, Catwalk.”

  Now it was his turn for his mouth to drop open. “You’re shitting me.”

  I smirked and took a sip of my beer. “Guess your gaydar sucks, too.”

  Our waitress delivered our food, and I ate mine with a giant grin on my face while Riley couldn’t stop staring at me.

  He ate half of his salad and then pushed it aside. “Did you date in college?”

  I nodded and stuck an onion ring in my mouth.

  “But you played football. Did they know?”

  I swallowed and picked up my burger, swirling it in a puddle of ketchup. “Yeah, my coach and teammates knew. I mean, I didn’t make a big deal about it, but they all knew and they didn’t care.”

  “Really?”

  I set my burger on my plate. “I recognize I was lucky. I could have had a homophobic coach or some real asshole teammates, but I didn’t. So it was all okay.” I picked up my burger again. “Helped that I was really fucking good, too.” I smiled at him before I took another bite.

  “Wow,” he said quietly. “That’s . . . I’m glad for you.”

  I shrugged. “Well, maybe not so much anymore. I’m not on the team now.”

  “Well, I’m glad you had that experience while you were there.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  We ordered a second round of drinks, and then a third. He asked me a lot of questions about college and football, then about my family and Jess—I wasn’t quite sure anymore because the bar was starting to tilt as the beer made my head fuzzy. I hadn’t partied too much in college. I was either playing football or working. Which was probably the reason I flunked out, because I had forgotten about classes somewhere in there.

  And Riley . . . Well, his eyes were bright and his cheeks were flushed. His shirt was unbuttoned at the top and he wasn’t wearing anything underneath it. I could see his collarbone and I was tempted to lean forward and lick off the drop of sweat I could see running down his neck.

  Fuck, the cards were on the table. I was attracted to him before but now I knew he liked dick, too. And I wondered if he could like me.

  We were tucked back in a dark corner near the bathrooms. No other tables were around us, and the waitress pretty much left us alone. So when I felt something brush my leg, I didn’t jerk away. I leaned into it as his knee slipped between mine and pressed against my inner thigh. We’d knocked knees before under this tiny table but one of us always pulled away. Not this time. No way in hell.

  I swallowed and watched Riley. His gaze was roaming the bar and then he locked eyes with me. “So what position did you play on your team?”

  “I’m not telling you that.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll make jokes.”

  He beamed, showing a brilliant smile I hadn’t seen him make yet. I guessed a little alcohol and sexual tension brought out a happier Riley. Although, wasn’t it that way for everyone? “Tell me anyway.”

  “Tight end,” I mumbled.

  He stuck his tongue out and bit it, his lips stretched into a grin.

  “Oh, so you’re biting your tongue, huh?”

  He nodded, his tongue still stuck between his teeth.

  “Knock it off, Catwalk.”

  He pulled his tongue back into his mouth, but his grin remained. He planted an elbow into the table and his chin into his palm. “I should have known you were gay after you gave me that nickname.”

  “It was about your clothes!” I protested.

  His smile faded a little and he dipped his head.

  I pushed his arm. “Aw, come off it, you know you’re fucking gorgeous. If you don’t believe that, then you’ve never looked in a mirror.” I thought back to him shirtless in the motel bathroom and that sobered me a minute.

  He shook his head. “No, that wasn’t . . . You mentioned clothes and I . . . Well, I’d rather just have a pair of jeans and a T-shirt but this stuff is all I have so . . .” He shrugged and looked away. I wanted that smile back. I wanted the playful Riley. The one with the glint in his eyes and the dimple in his left cheek. I wondered if he had those amazing dimples above his ass. How had I missed that when he was shirtless?

  “If it’s any consolation, I’ve been checking your ass out in those jeans since we met.”

  He was midsip of his beer, so my words make him choke and sputter, and then I had to grab him some napkins to wipe up his chin and the table. We did so with his knee pressed firmly between mine.

  As we paid our bill and grabbed our bags out of the back of Butch to walk to the motel, I watched him out of the corner of my eye. It wasn’t like there was a future in this, right? He was on some mysterious bucket list mission, and I was headed back to a life of pork and smoke.

  Of course, we could blow off steam together along the way, using these motel rooms for something other than sleeping. But what if it went bad? And really, did I know enough about him to get involved, even for a couple of fucks on our journey?

  He caught me watching him and met my gaze. He said he’d been flirting with me before . . . was that because he found me attractive? I’d seen him watch me a couple times, but I thought that was just his way. Clearly, I did need to work on this gaydar thing.

  Riley’s gaze dipped to my mouth, where I had a toothpick between my lips. I tongued it in a circle and then shoved it into the corner of my mouth, taking care to part my lips so he saw my tongue.

  His breath caught and then his gaze darted quickly away. He glanced up and down the street and then kept walking ahead.

  He was probably being cautious. We were two gay guys in Arizona. Acting like dogs in heat on the side of a highway was not advisable for our well-being.

  But maybe once we got into the motel room . . .

  Which was why when I pulled out my ID to check in at the motel registration desk, my hands were shaking. He stood close to me, his elbow brushing my arm, and I could feel the heat of his skin through his shirt. The door behind us beeped, signaling that someone had walked in behind us. Riley turned his head to look, and I felt his breath on my neck, making me shudder.

  I was already half-hard in my jeans, thinking that maybe, just maybe, I’d get to hold all that was Riley in my hands. Run my fingers through his hair, feel those full lips on my own. Goddamn, I’d never seen a guy in person who looked like him, let alone slept with someone who looked like him.

  Okay, so maybe it had been too long since I’d gotten laid, because this reaction was insanity. What was it about him? It wasn’t just how he looked, either. I wanted him to smile. I wanted for him to be happy.

  And I wanted to be the person who made that happen.

  I snatched the key from the older man behind the desk and hauled my bag over my shoulder. I glanced behind me to make sure Riley was following me, and he was, head down, eyes on the concrete floor as we approached the outside staircase. Our room was on the second floor around the back of the motel. I jogged up the stairs and cut through the building’s walkway to get to the other side. I glanced at my key and scanned the doors for room number 225.

  This was an old-fashioned motel that still used brass keys instead of fancy electronic cards. I actually preferred that, seei
ng as my cell phone deactivated those damn cards all the time.

  I opened the door and pushed my way in, fumbling for a light on the wall. I could feel Riley’s heat at my back, pressing closer. I found the switch and turned it on, which bathed the room in a yellow glow from the lamp between the two beds.

  “Your pick.” I held out my arm for Riley. He hesitated, then walked past me and chose the bed farthest from the door. He dropped his bag on it, and with his back to me, took a deep breath, his shoulders heaving with the effort.

  He turned around, then, biting his lip. “How drunk are you?”

  I scrunched my lips to the side, then held my thumb and index finger about an inch apart. “Just a little bit.”

  He smiled at my hand gesture. “Ya sure about that, Col?”

  I liked that, my shortened name on his lips. “About seventy-five percent sure.”

  “You’re seventy-five percent sure you’re a little bit drunk?”

  “When you say it like that, it makes me sound more than a little bit drunk.”

  He laughed out loud at that, the sound ringing sharply off the bare walls. I hadn’t heard him laugh yet, not a loud, free one like that. And the sound must have surprised him, too, because he sucked in a breath and held it for a minute before exhaling.

  And then, yeah, maybe I was more than a little drunk, because the next words tumbled out, no matter how ill-advised. “I know this is probably a shitty idea, but I’m going to say it anyway: I can say for a fact that I one hundred percent want you.”

  I wasn’t sure what I’d expected. I didn’t think he was going to pull down his pants and bend over or anything. But him agreeing would have been nice. At least a step forward. Hell, I would have taken a smile.

  Instead he looked upset, his lips twisted in misery. So upset, it broke my heart.

  “S’okay. Forget I said anything.” I turned around, and the room spun a little. Then it spun again, because Riley had grabbed my shoulder, wrenching it around so I was once again facing him. And the room kept spinning, because those long fingers of his slipped into my hair and those dark eyes were coming closer and then . . .

  Our lips touched.

  It was so light that at first I thought I dreamed it. I thought maybe I’d actually crashed to the bed and passed out in a sleep full of Riley dreams.

  But then his fingers pressed deeper into my skull, and my fingers pressed into the narrow bones of his hips. And then he licked the seam of my mouth, urging me silently to open my lips. I did, and his tongue surged inside.

  I kinda lost my mind a little after that. His stubble rasped along my jaw, and his hands lowered to squeeze the muscles in my chest. I groaned and pressed him closer so his arms circled my waist and cupped my ass. I didn’t want that denim there; I didn’t want anything between us. Not when Riley was moaning into my mouth. Not when I was experiencing the best kiss of my life.

  I growled. Wanting him closer. Needing him closer. I ground my hips into his, feeling him hard between us. I was hard like a rock, and if I could just get us closer, if I could just feel his skin against mine—

  His mouth left mine, his arms dropped from my body, and I opened my eyes to see Riley standing five feet away. His trembling fingers were on his lips, where my mouth had been, and his other arm was wrapped around his waist, clutching his hip. My fingers had been there.

  I felt the coolness of the room replace the warmth of where his body had been pressed against mine, and I shivered.

  I didn’t want to meet his gaze, because I didn’t think I was going to like what I saw in those dark eyes. But I made myself . . . and I was right. He looked terrified. Worse, he looked regretful.

  Thank God I was still a little drunk. I let out a breath and then sat on the end of the bed.

  “Col, I’m so sorry,” he whispered as I unlaced my boots.

  “It’s all right, Ri.” It was all right, even though I still had a hard-on and the lingering taste of Riley in my mouth.

  His shadow moved closer to me. “No, I need to apologize, because back at the bar—”

  I took off my shirt and threw it on the TV. “You were flirting with me?” I squinted up at him.

  He bit his lip, his gaze on my chest, then darted it to my face. “Yes. I was.”

  I sighed. “Look, seriously. We flirted. It didn’t mean it had to lead to anything.” Even though I wanted it to. “So now I need to sleep off this beer, all right?”

  He didn’t move. “It’s not that I don’t want . . . to, Col. I just . . . I can’t.” His eyes looked wet, and when he spoke again, his voice cracked. “I just can’t.”

  Maybe he was in a relationship. Maybe he had some sort of hang-up about intimacy. Whatever it was, it was none of my business if he didn’t want to tell me. I’d had too much beer, and I’d hit on a guy who was about ten thousand leagues ahead of me. Ah well, at least I couldn’t regret never speaking up. “Really, it’s okay, Ri. Get some sleep and we’ll forget about it tomorrow, yeah?”

  I stood up abruptly so he had to step back. I shucked off my jeans, not really giving ten fucks that I was standing there in my boxers with a boner. Then I crawled under the sheets and flopped on my stomach, turning my head away from him. “Turn off the light, then, ’kay?”

  His voice came about a minute later, when I was already drifting off to sleep. “Okay.”

  ***

  Hey Landry,

  Sorry my last e-mail freaked you. I’m . . . okay. I guess. I’m still riding with Colin. We went to a bar tonight, and we both drank a little much. Turns out he’s gay. You should see him—big shoulders and biceps, tight ass and massive thighs—and he’s gay. He knows I’m gay.

  And he told me that he wanted me.

  And I turned him down.

  Now I’m sitting here in the hotel room and he’s asleep in the bed beside me. And I want to wake him up. I want to pull down those boxers. And I want to do so many things to him.

  I won’t, though. Because I’m a coward. And this can’t go anywhere.

  —R

  Chapter Five

  I tongued the toothpick and gripped the steering wheel. “You wanna do what now?”

  He tapped away at his phone and then held it up to me. “A sweat lodge. They have a couple places we can go to in New Mexico.”

  I took my eyes off the road for a minute to squint at the small picture on his phone. There was a hut near a lake, and some guy was carrying rocks into it. “A sweat lodge?” I focused back on the road as Riley continued tapping away at his phone. “And what are we going to do there beside sweat our asses off?”

  “The idea is that you sweat out all the bad stuff—toxins and demons and negativity. Like a cleanse.”

  I raised an eyebrow because that sounded hokey to me.

  He sighed and dropped his phone in his lap. He turned to me. “It’s a Native American tradition and I think . . . I want to try it. And since we’ll pass some places on our way to Texas, I figured why not?”

  This was so not my thing. “What kind of demons do you need to get rid of?”

  Riley was quite for a moment. “Don’t we all have some sort of demons? Some type of negativity that follows us around that we want to get rid of?”

  I chewed the inside of my cheek and thought about that for a minute. “I guess I never thought of it that way.” I shrugged. “I kinda suck at finishing things.”

  He turned in his seat to face me. “Yeah?”

  I nodded. “It’s not that I don’t like work. I mean, I think I’m a hard worker I just . . .” I waved a hand. Because I wasn’t sure what it was. “What about you?”

  He lowered his eyes to his lap and fiddled with his phone. “I don’t really know.” His voice was so low, I could barely hear him, even without the radio on. “I don’t feel right and haven’t for a while.”

  I squinted at him. “And you think this will help?”

  I hadn’t done a good job about keeping the skepticism out of my voice, because his face hardened slightly. “You don�
��t have to do it if you don’t want to,” he muttered.

  He wasn’t pouting, and he’d given me an out. But clearly it meant something to him. I didn’t know what kind of demons he had, but I saw them pass sometimes in his sad eyes. If he thought this would get rid of them, well, then I wanted to be there to help.

  How had I gotten attached to this guy in so little time? Maybe I was lonelier than I thought. “Don’t be stupid. Of course I’ll do it with you. Can’t be worse than two-a-days, huh?”

  He squinted at me. “What are two-a-days?”

  I held up two fingers. “Two football practices a day. One in the morning and one later in the afternoon, usually.”

  He wrinkled his nose. “Sounds brutal.”

  I nodded. “It is. I mean, in the sweat lodge, I’ll just have to sit there, right? No running suicides or blocking drills or shit?”

  He laughed softly. “You just sit there.”

  “And it’s safe?”

  He was tapping on his phone again. “Well, I’m checking out all the places we can stop. I think I found one with good reviews. They have guides who watch us and make sure everything is working correctly.”

  “Can this hurt us?”

  “There’s danger of dehydration. So if you begin to develop a headache, or feel fatigued or nauseous, you’re to exit the sweat lodge.”

  “And how long are we in this hot hell?”

  Riley paused. “Some people stay in there for a couple of hours.”

  “A couple of hours?” I yelled. “Are you shitting me?”

  “You don’t have to yell.”

  “Holy hell, a couple of hours.”

  Riley rolled his eyes. “But, as I was going to say, if you would have let me finish, is that visitors like us won’t be in there that long, maybe a half hour. And I said you didn’t have to do it.”

  “I said I would,” I grunted.

  Riley was silent for a while. “And why are you agreeing to do this?”