Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82250 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82250 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Steven smiles, showing me that was the right response. “Come on. Let’s enjoy this fundraiser a little bit.”
“Let’s do it.” I’m not sure why, but my eyes find Gary again. When I follow his intense stare, I see Peter and Evan on the receiving end of it, and I feel bad for the guy. He hasn’t seemed to learn that most of the time, people let you down.
5
Gary
I’m so fucking old.
Twenty-six isn’t old, but compared to twenty-two-year-old Evan, who looks like he could be in college, I’m basically ninety. I never had a chance competing with that. Peter’s thirty-eight, and he’s always had a thing for younger guys. Guess that’s why I attracted him when I was twenty-one and fresh out of college.
I try to stop looking Peter and Evan’s way. I don’t want either of them knowing I still give a damn, but I can’t help it. Even worse, Robyn’s playing. I guess the universe knows I’m in the corner, watching Peter kiss him…oh-oh-oh. I figured Derek would offer me some sort of protection in all this, but he threw himself to a pack of bears right before my dickhead ex and his child-lover arrived. In an emerald-green speedo, Derek flaunts his twink body as he backs his ass up to the biggest bear of them all, who has a gray beard and a chest full of matching curly hair. Derek’s abs shift about as he dances, his bangs flipping side to side with his movements. He knows how good he looks. Every time there’s a costume or pool party, he picks out the skimpiest outfits that will be as revealing as possible. “Gotta show off the goods,” he always says.
Derek can jump into every situation with any group of people and act confident. I’m not like that unless I get a good bit of liquor in me. Even then, I’m still reserved. This vodka Red Bull will help, but I figure it’ll be another thirty minutes before I’m comfortable in this tight speedo that leaves me feeling like I did when I was bare-ass naked at the gym yesterday. Once again, I’m trying to act confident, but my discomfort must be easy to read.
With Peter being on so many boards, I’m no stranger to events like these, where I have to strut around in the tiniest speedo possible to fit in with everyone else’s outfits, but I’ve never gotten used to dressing like this in public. I don’t like feeling exposed. Vulnerable. And when Peter and Evan walked through the back door of the mansion-of-a-house hosting this event, I felt even more vulnerable.
I remind myself to breathe but also to suck in my stomach like Derek kept telling me to do before he wandered off.
“Hey, Gary,” I hear someone say beside me.
When I turn, I’m relieved to see it’s my friend Hayden. He looks incredible in a white speedo with light-blue polka dots. He wears a pair of thick, black-rimmed glasses. Between those and the six-pack abs, he’s got the hot nerd look down. We’ve never hooked up. We met while I was with Peter, who’s friends with Hayden’s boyfriend. Hayden and I are the guys who chat and dance while our men work the room, pretending to enjoy conversations with people they’ll talk smack about the moment we leave the bar.
I search around for Hayden’s boyfriend, Lance, the sociable one of the two—the one everyone loves to be around because he has this power to make someone feel like they’re the most important person in the world when they talk to him. Hayden’s the same way, but much quieter about it. And unlike Lance, when Hayden listens to you, he genuinely cares—isn’t pretending to care so that he can get people’s attention.
“How’s it going?” I ask as we hug.
“Pretty good,” Hayden says. “We’ve been working on renovations on our place over at Viewpoint.”
He talks about the changes they’re making and how stressful it’s been working with contractors before I notice something within my periphery.
In a gray box-cut swimsuit, the hottie I woke up with yesterday morning—Travis—chats with a small group of equally hot studs. He laughs and pats the ass of one of the guys beside him. Another young guy in front of him backs his ass up against Travis’s pelvis and gyrates it about. Travis grabs the guy’s hips and pulls him close, whispering something in his ear that makes the guy chuckle.
I blush.
I could never do something like that. There’s a good foot between me and Hayden, and the closest I’d ever get to him or Derek…or any guy I wasn’t with…would be for a hug.
I envy guys like Travis. How can he be so at ease in public? So comfortable about who he is? I’ve spent my life trying to hide that from everyone. He’s not even like that here. He’s so comfortable about being sexual. I can’t help but wonder: if I’d tried something in the bedroom, would he have gone for it? If I’d been as forward as Derek had wanted me to be, would he have rolled with it?