Chapter Thirteen
Darren
Idon’t actually kiss that many people.
Well, I guess I kiss a lot of people, but I don’t kiss them just to kiss them. It’s a means to an end. Hello and goodbye. Please and thank you. I love to fuck. I love to come. Kissing is a fantastic addition to a hundred ways I can get off—and all the ways I can get someone else off—but I don’t give it much thought on its own. I don’t spin fantasies around a kiss. Or several of them.
But I can’t stop thinking about how much I kissed Jake the night I went over for dinner.
At some point it became a goodbye, and I might argue that it was always thanks of some kind, but if I shut up long enough to admit the truth, I never wanted it to be about anything else. I just wanted to fucking kiss him.
Once our pet name conversation was done and the kissing had begun, I lost track of time, my body in Jake’s lap and his to hold.He did exactly that—heheldme—while we kissed for quite a while, but when the heat and the jets and the water were all a little too much, he guided me out of the spa without a word. There was a halfhearted attempt to towel off, but neither of us wanted to be apart long enough to do it well, and Jake found it easier to drop his wet trunks to the ground instead. Then he led me into his house, laid down on his couch, and pulled me on top of him, a throw blanket pulled on top ofmeto keep us cozy while we made out.
Eventually, I was half hard again, but it didn’t matter when none of our kisses led to anything but the next. Sometimes we broke apart enough to nuzzle into each other’s necks or comb our fingers through each other’s hair, whispers coming and going, but everything was about feeling good.
Nothing was about sex.
I almost told Sage about it the next time I saw her, but she’s got an exhausting job and a house full of siblings and the ability to see right through me. Most of the people I fuck don’t get that kind of view, and there was no good reason to bare myself to her. We talked about our favorite love songs instead, and none of them were about me.
Jake made it to trivia night that week, and I wanted to kiss him then too, even if I couldn’t make it happen. Aside from his aversion to becoming another tally on the keg room wall, having Riley, Noah, Beau, and Adrian witness our departure would’ve caused quite the conversation. It’s one I don’t think Jake is ready to have when his privacy is a thing he treasures, and I could dowithout the lecture I probably deserve. I’m still going to talk him into hosting a pool party someday, but for now, I can be his dirty little secret just to save us both some trouble.
We’ve both kept my father a secret, and I can’t tell whether it’s saved me any trouble at all.
Ididget to kiss Jake the week after that, when he stopped by my house after some kind of work thing in Burbank. There might’ve been time for something quick and easy before I had to leave for my shift, options plentiful even if we made it no further than my living room floor, but I pressed him against my front door instead. And then we kissed as if I had nowhere to go.
As if he might’ve needed me.
It certainly couldn’t have been the other way around.
In between trivia rounds three and four that week, with Jake predictably ahead of everyone at Trailhead, I decided it didn’t matter who needed whom, and I snuck off to the keg room—alone—to fire off a text.
Are you doing something with lucy for thanksgiving?
I realized there was a chance Jake didn’t have his phone out, everyone on the honor system while questions were being asked, but his response came fast.
No. She’s working. Are you doing something with your mom?
No she’s working. you doing something with anyone else?
Is this an invitation? There’s no trivia next week, right?
Right. But I’ll be here and it’ll be quiet.
So you want company?
For a moment, I considered explaining what I had in mind, butJake needed to answer someone else’s questions, and I needed to pop caps and pour shots.
Yeah. and then I want you to follow me home
Feels like there’s a joke to be made about a feast.
Stuffing too
Of course.
So is that a yes?
Yes.