Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
He pulled away and we both looked at each other for a moment. And then, without a word, he got out. I didn’t say anything either, but I watched him go. When he disappeared inside the building, I finally drove away, wondering what in the hell we were doing.
12
Sean
Straighty was a fucking character.
I could give him shit for his attitude all day, but damn, it was the way he cocked his grin and that arrogant expression that got me going. And he wasn’t one of those guys who was so defensive that he couldn’t be put in his place. Hell, he seemed to enjoy the fun of realizing he’d been bested as much as he did winning.
With me, at least, which was all that mattered.
Well, not all that mattered—the way he was pushing that dick of his in me like a pro certainly didn’t have me running in the other direction, either.
As cool as I was about coming to terms with being gay, I sure as fuck didn’t jump into anal sex with a man like it was a breeze. And what I felt with him that night after Dave and Buster’s sure didn’t feel like beginner’s luck. He’d said he’d had anal with women before, but damn…those were some lucky women. Hot as the sex was, though, it wasn’t that he’d hit my buttons just right—namely the button I’d directed him to—I’d fucked around with plenty of guys who could hit my prostate, but there was more to Ethan than chemistry.
I was curious as fuck to find out what the rest of his story was, about this mysterious grandmother, his life growing up without his parents. I knew my interest had something to do with losing my brother—the way he could relate to me because of his own situation with his mom and dad. Like Ethan said that day at the cemetery, in some ways, it didn’t feel like society wanted us to talk about our losses. Like we were just supposed to move on and pretend the people we loved never happened, and that never sat right with me—not about someone I loved, who was etched in my memory forever.
I parked my car in the driveway outside my parents’ house. Mom had apparently bought a new bird fountain, which was placed in the middle of the flower bed before the bay window. The fountain went well with the cream-colored siding on the house and had a few finches rolling around in the shallow water.
I grabbed some grocery bags out of the back of my car and headed inside.
Mom greeted me in the front entryway, wearing her reading glasses and carrying a gardening book.
“Sean, you’re just in time. Johnnie and I were just discussing this irrigation system he wants to put in the garden.” As she spoke, she guided me into the kitchen entryway.
“Shouldn’t he be figuring this out since he’s the one who’s retired?” I asked, keeping watch through my periphery for a sneak attack, which Dad was prone to from time to time.
As soon as we entered the kitchen, Dad came at me, striking an hourglass stance, but changing it up with an Ashi Barai. He kicked my foot out from under me, and as I regained my balance, he moved forward quickly and struck me in the chest, knocking me onto the kitchen floor so that I dropped the grocery bags down beside me.
“Dammit!”
“No need to curse, Sean,” Mom said. “It’s not your father’s fault your blocking has gotten weak.”
Dad took my hand and helped me to my feet.
“I had groceries,” I explained.
Dad picked up the bags, inspecting them. “You have three bags of Doritos and a box of brownie mix.”
“Okay, simmer down, boys, and follow me out to the garden so that we can figure this out,” Mom said.
Dad set the bags on the table. He’d gotten his hair cut since the last time I’d seen him, a crew cut which he had spiked up in the front.
Mom urged us to follow her to the backyard, past the pool, into the garden, between the shed and Dad’s collection of bird feeders, which were being ravaged by finches and chickadees. The garden, caged in with a wire fence, had become Dad’s pet project since he’d retired from his job as a civil engineer six years earlier, when he began living off his pension and some good investments he’d made when my brother and I were growing up. While he maintained the house, Mom worked as a wedding videographer and his accomplice with gardening projects.
We walked across a wooden beam through the veggies, Mom pointing to the book and trying to get me to pay attention to her plans for the new irrigation system when I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket.
I checked it, hoping it was Ethan. Last time I’d messaged him was two nights earlier when we’d messed around, but since I’d been the last one to reach out, I figured it was his turn…and the wait was killing me.