by Tara Lain
“Helped him what?”
“Kiss me.”
Jesus, he felt half cold—and half hot. Edge kissing David. The picture burned some vaguely obscene hole in his brain. He shook his head trying to dislodge it. “You must have been confused, feeling really grateful since he saved you and all.”
David frowned. “I guess. But he got pretty hot and bothered. I mean, he was hard as a steel pipe.”
Gareth swallowed. Another pornographic image for his mental scrapbook. He cleared his throat. “What about you?”
“Me?”
“How did you, uh, feel?”
He kind of cocked his head, looking bewildered. “Are you kidding? I had Mr. Golden God Ass to Die For all over me like a very expensive suit. Not likely my cock would ignore that.”
“You mean he turned you on?” Crap, jealousy surged through him like fire. Fire almost as hot as the pure titillation of the idea of David and Edge together.
David dropped right where he was and sat on the curb. Gareth folded his arms and paced back and forth. “I can’t believe it. You and Edge?”
David put a hand on his hip, which looked funny squatting on the curb. “There is no me and Edge. Will you screw your head on straight for a minute and think about what actually happened? Edge, your best friend since grade school and the most fag-hating human on earth except maybe your father, kissed me, the gayest man on the planet. Will you get that, please? And he liked it. More than liked it.”
Gareth frowned. “Hey, anyone would like kissing you.”
“Thanks for your vote of confidence, dear, but I’m sure most straight men would disagree. A blowjob? Maybe. But a kiss is pretty damned gay.”
“So you’re saying?”
“I don’t know what I’m saying. I don’t know what this means. Maybe he was just curious as to what you saw in me. Maybe it’s more than that. But maybe we should find out.”
David glanced up, and their eyes met. He stood and by some mutual unspoken agreement, they both turned and walked down the hill—at speed. David led the way for three long blocks to a big structure that said Administration Building. He scooted around the corner where a lot of cop cars were parked—and stopped. They were both breathing hard. Apparently David wasn’t tired anymore.
Gareth spied the car. He pointed. “That’s Edge’s rental.”
David nodded.
“You sure you want to do this?”
David gazed at him. “Are you?”
He swallowed. “I guess I want to know.”
“Why?”
“Because—I don’t know exactly.”
“Vindication or sexual interest?” A slight rise of the eyebrow accompanied that question.
Whew. Which one was it? He shook his head.
“You probably better think on it before he gets here.”
“THANK YOU for your cooperation, Mr. Edgerton.” The detective named Simpson smiled.
“Sure. No worries.” At least they were polite. They’d asked about the asshole he’d grabbed and not much else. He pushed back his chair at the conference table. Maybe interrogation table was a better name.
“One other question.”
“Yeh.”
“May I ask the nature of your relationship with Mr. Underwood?”
“Who?”
“David Underwood. The man you saved.”
Shit. He felt his cheeks get warm. “Oh. No relationship. He’s a friend of my volleyball partner.”
“And you happened to put yourself on the line for him, because—” Simpson kept smiling as he waved his hand.
“I told you. I came to find Gareth, and this bloke was about to beat up the little guy. David. I don’t go for shit like that, so I grabbed the wanker and pulled him off.”
“Most heroic. I wish more people were willing to get involved to save strangers.”
“Well, I knew he was Gareth’s friend, but I would likely have done it for anyone. That guy really had a fist ready to deliver. Would have hurt David bad.”
“Yes, I imagine. Thank you again.”
“Sure.” Funny. He wasn’t sure what the cop thought. Hell, who cares?
“So if you’ll just sign the statement you wrote out, we’ll be done for now.”
Edge signed. “For now? I go back to Australia in two days.”
Simpson frowned but said, “Your positive identification of the man attempting to assault Mr. Underwood should be sufficient. Still, I’ll call you if we need you for anything further.”
“Okay.” Get out of here. He rushed out of the interrogation room and walked through the lobby of the police station. A young woman cop sat at the front desk. He smiled at her, and she grinned back. See? He liked women.
Outside the door the sun beat down, and Edge raised his face to soak some in. Okay, get out of this crappy town, find his mates, and head for a pub with some serious grog. He started across the parking lot and stopped—Gareth and David stood leaning on his rental car. Well, fuckity fucked up.
He walked slowly, and they just stared at him.
He frowned. “What are you two doing here?”
David grinned that cheeky smile of his. “Maybe I came to thank you for saving me from Phil.”
“Is that why you came?”
“No. But it sounds good, doesn’t it?”
Edge looked at Gareth’s beautiful face.
Gareth fidgeted. “We need to talk.”
“Shit, man, you sound like some wanking chick flick.”
Gareth stepped back like he’d been hit. Edge leaned forward to touch him, and David put a hand on his arm. Edge shook it off as hard as he could. Little shit!
David set his jaw. “Listen, asshole, I told Gareth what happened.”
“You had no right!”
“Oh really? You’re saying I should keep the fact that the world’s biggest homophobe kissed me a deep dark secret. Guess again. You’re lucky I didn’t post it on Facebook—on your volleyball team page.”
Edge’s heart beat like a hammer. Run. Just run. They stood between him and the car.
David’s chest rose and fell like he’d sucked in a huge breath. “Look, why don’t you drive us to my place? Come in and I’ll make some food. You two can talk. All three of us can talk. If you’re serious about wanting to stay friends with Gareth, then you need to do this.”
“He’s been my friend since we were little, and that doesn’t change.”
Gareth gazed at him. “I love you, Edge. But that could easily change if you keep up the crap you’ve been slinging for the last few days. I’m done. I appreciate what you did for David. If you want to talk about it, this is your chance. Otherwise, thanks to you, I have no home to go to in Australia, so I’m moving here.”
“What?”
David nodded. “His father threw him out after you called him.”
“Shit! I never meant that to happen.”
Gareth narrowed his eyes. “What did you think, Edge? Or is it that you didn’t think at all? You just did your own selfish crap, and I take the consequences.”
Jesus, drowning. Water pushed him down to the bottom of the sea and he couldn’t breathe. “Okay, let’s talk.”
In his playbook of craptastic uncomfortable moments, the next fifteen minutes in that car moved to the top. Nobody said anything except David, who issued directions. Edge didn’t let on he knew right where the house was since he’d made a hobby of sitting outside the fucking windows listening to them. Not his proudest hours. Definitely his sexiest. Shit, those two could hump.
Chapter Eleven
DAVID STIRRED the tomato soup. Since the chill in the room approached freezing, the damned stuff might never warm up. Edge and Gareth sat at David’s dining room table, separated from David by the kitchen island. The iced tea and tuna sandwiches in front of them hadn’t been touched yet. Edge would barely look Gareth in the eye, and Gareth glowered back like he’d been betrayed. But betrayed how? Edge probably didn’t have the slightest bit of consciousness of his true inclina
tions until today, when he suddenly decided to kiss David. Gareth also didn’t exactly seem delighted about the fact that David kissed Edge back—even though he’d admitted to lusting after his best friend for most of his adult life. What a fucking mess.
David poured the soup into three bowls and carried two in to the frigid duo. He put one bowl in front of Gareth, who stared at it like it could contain arsenic, and the other beside Edge’s tuna sandwich.
Edge glowered—yes, glowered—at David. “I think you liked kissing me.”
Where had that come from? “I was scared, confused, grateful—and in the arms of a very sexy man who was determined to kiss me.” He planted a hand on his hip. “Uh, was I supposed to run?”
Edge leaned back in his chair. “Jesus, you are such a pouf! What the hell do you see in him, Gar?”
Gareth raised an eyebrow. “You’re shitting me.”
Edge looked at David like he could be hanging in a meat locker. “Okay, he’s good to look at.”
“Ass to die for.”
“But all the girlie crap.”
David waved a hand. “Yoo-hoo. I’m still here.”
Edge snorted. “See!”
Gareth gave a little smile. “I like that. A lot.” He stuck out his jaw. “If he offends your homo-hating heart, how come you kissed him?”
Edge shrugged.
David sighed and got his own soup. Might as well eat while the alphas lock horns. He sat at the third place and dug in to his sandwich.
When Gareth noticed him eating, he took a bite of his own tuna. “Umph. This is good.”
David gave him a snarky smile. “Yes, darling, one thing us fem guys can do is cook.”
Edge tried his sandwich, made a mumbling sound, and consumed the half in two bites. As he chewed, he said, “I kissed him because I wanted to know what all the shouting was about. What you saw in him.”
David interlocked his fingers and held them under his chin. “You do realize that few straight men would satisfy their curiosity by—humping me!”
The scowl returned.
Gareth stared between the two of them. “You said kiss.”
David sipped soup. “Yes, well, Mr. Hunk over there got so hard there was barely room for the three of us in the shop.”
Edge snarled, “Make that four. I didn’t notice anything soft and sloppy in your pants, mate.”
“I’m getting the impression this was a mutual humpfest.” Gareth’s expression looked confused—but not altogether horrified. “Have you ever done that with any other men, Edge?”
“Fuck no!”
David took a drink of tea and stared over the top of the glass. “Maybe we should ask if you ever wanted to?”
Edge’s deep blue eyes flashed up at Gareth, then back to his soup. He grabbed the other half of his sandwich and took a bite. “Any time I even thought about what men did together, I could only think of Gareth.” The words barely made it through the tuna.
“What?” Gareth stared.
David put a hand on Gareth’s arm and looked at Edge. “So you fantasized about Gareth?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know if I fantasized.”
“Let’s be a little more specific. Did you ever jerk off to thoughts of Gareth?”
He shrugged.
“Or pictures of Gareth? Or movies? Or sniff his underwear?”
“Fuck off!”
“Answer me.”
“Okay, fucking yes. I did.”
“You did?”
“Yeh.”
Gareth did the scowling now. “When?”
“I used to watch you in the showers, then go in the gents stall and wank off.”
“If you knew how many times in my life I’ve heard you talk about the poufs, the fags, the queers, the butt-fuckers, and how they were responsible for everything except maybe leprosy…. I died a little each time. And now you’re saying that you’re a closet queer yourself. Is that it? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I don’t know what the fuck I’m saying.” He pushed his chair back, and it banged into the wall.
David spoke softly. “What did you tell yourself when that happened, Edge?”
He signed. “I’d try not to think about it too much. Adrenaline, I’d say. Not getting enough sex. Shit like that.”
David smiled. Just how deluded had this guy kept himself? “So, do you also like women?”
“Also?”
“Do you enjoy having sex with women?”
“I’ve been with a lot of them.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I always had to get a little drunk before I could screw a woman, and I guess if I couldn’t, you know, get it up, I’d blame it on the booze.”
Answer: pretty deluded. “So were you aware that you were attracted to men?”
He shook his head back and forth. “I figured it was just Gareth, because he was so damned pretty.”
“So you’ve never been with a man?”
“Hell, no!”
“Edge, think who you’re talking to.”
“I jerked a guy off once and let him do me, but that was all.”
“No man has ever sucked your cock?”
Edge looked up, shocked. Then down at the last bite of sandwich. He shifted in his seat. “No. Just dreamed about it. With Gareth.”
Gareth leaned forward in his chair. “Well, it went both ways, mate, because I used to fantasize about you about ten times a day, and one hell of a lot of cum got spilled in those daydreams.”
David didn’t know whether to feel upset or aroused.
“Me too.” Edge’s voice was barely audible. “I’d start out thinking about some big-boobed movie star, and when I got ready to come, the picture in my head would shift to you. I wanted to hate you for it so bad.”
Gareth shook his head. “I never knew.”
David cleared his throat. “And that didn’t make you realize you’re gay?”
Edge half rose from his chair, then sat back down. “I’m not…. No.”
“And why did you kiss me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
He looked up and met David’s eyes for the first time. “I wanted to know what he liked. I wanted what he had. I thought you were sexy as fuck that day on the beach when I yelled at you. I guess that’s why I yelled. It made me feel like I was in control.” He scooted closer to the table and stared at the tuna like it might stare back.
That was a pretty big revelation.
They sat in silence.
Finally, Edge looked up. “So what now?”
David cocked his head. “What do you want to happen now?”
His gaze returned to the plate. “I don’t know. I guess it’s too late.”
“Too late for what?”
He glanced to the side at his lifelong friend. “For me and Gareth.”
Gareth’s mouth opened, closed, and opened again. “Holy shit.”
David froze. His heart squeezed and his cock hopped. Weird combo. Before he could stop himself, he looked up. “Gareth?”
Gareth rose and went to David’s side, pulling him out of his chair into his arms. “Don’t, love. It’s you and me. I’m going to stay, and we’re going to be together. You and me.”
David buried his head in Gareth’s broad chest and, much to his disgust, started to cry. The feelings didn’t even make sense. Anger, jealousy, lust, and—yes, fear. At the heart of it all. He started to shake. Gareth pulled him tighter, but it wouldn’t stop. Phil’s angry face stared at him. Screamed at him. His fist descended—again and again. Pain and anger and shame. “Oh God!”
“What, love?” Gareth kissed his hair.
“I was so afraid.”
“Nothing to fear, love.”
“Phil. Oh God. He said he wanted to kill me. I think he would have if Edge hadn’t come.” He burrowed into Gareth’s arms.
“We’re here now, love. Nothing more to fear. You took care of that bastard. He won’t bother you again.”
Edge’s deep voice came from behind him. “If he comes near you, I’ll kill the asshole.”
David sucked in breath and turned in Gareth’s arms. He saw Gareth shake his head, warning Edge. “David took care of him, Edge. He got the police and had him thrown in jail.”
David wiped at his eyes. “Thank you, Gareth. I know I said I could take care of myself, but I lied. I’ve been alone so long. I only got involved with Phil because I was lonely and wanted someone to care about me. Instead, he hit me and abused me. I’m so grateful to Edge for saving me today. I’m so grateful to both of you for not being the kind of man that Phil is. So grateful.” The tears ran down his cheeks again and dripped off his chin.
Edge stepped closer and tipped up David’s chin with his finger. He did something David hardly ever saw him do. He smiled. “I know I’m a big Neanderthal with no fucking manners, but sometimes that’s a handy kind of guy to have around.” Funny how David hadn’t noticed those dimples in Edge’s cheeks before. Like you could sharpen pencils in them.
David stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Edge in a huge hug. “Thank you. I’m so glad you were there. I’m so grateful.”
Edge chuckled, and the vibration zipped straight to David’s cock. Down, boy.
Another pair of strong arms wrapped around him from behind and made it a group hug.
David giggled. “I’m the filling in an Aussie sandwich. If I’d known, it would have been my lifetime aspiration.”
Gareth whispered in his ear, “Can I talk to you for a second? Private?”
David looked up. Gareth and Edge stared at each other over his head. “I’m not sure we have any secrets from Edge right now.”
“I don’t want to put you in a compromising position, love.”
“Oh hell, compromise away.”
“Well, Edge never had a blowjob from a guy, and you’re the king of blowjobs. If you were both willing, I could watch.”
David opened his mouth, then closed it. He glanced at Edge, whose eyes looked big enough to light a room, but besides swallowing hard a couple of times, he said nothing. David said, “Uh, is it okay with you, Gareth?”
“I suggested it.”
“Yes, and that kind of suggestion can shift things in a relationship.”
