22. Tate

CHAPTER 22

TATE

My alarm went off at the wrong time. It had to be the wrong time because I had just closed my eyes when it started to blare in my ear. I was in the middle of making a mental promise to myself that I was never going to go drinking with Dylan ever again when he groaned behind me.

“Turn it off,” he begged, voice hoarse.

I blinked slowly, bringing the room into focus, but seeing didn’t make things any easier to understand. I was in Brooks’ bed, but Brooks was nowhere to be found. Dylan was the one tucked in behind me, and my face was half-smothered into the pillow on Brooks’ side of the bed. Grabbing my phone from the nightstand, I silenced the alarm and rolled onto my back.

“What happened last night?” I asked, rubbing sleep from my eyes and making sure my legs still worked.

“Your boyfriend collected us from the bar, brought us back here.”

“Why are you in bed with me instead of him?” I asked .

“I was drunker than you,” he said, “and I didn’t want to be alone.”

The worry in his voice served as a quick reminder and a wakeup call far more jarring than my alarm had been. I remembered the bruises on his neck, remembered catching him on his knees in the bathroom at Tryst.

I turned again, rolling to my other side and propping myself up on my palm, elbow digging into the cloud-soft mattress. “What’s going on with you?”

“When do you have to be at work?” he asked.

“I have a little,” I told him, thankful Brooks lived closer to my office than I did, but eternally ungrateful that I wasn’t rich as him and couldn’t not work today. “So make it work and we can go into details later.”

“The short story then.”

“You know I don’t care if you’re just going through your slut era,” I told him, knowing I’d spent the past half-year doing things far worse than sucking a stranger’s cock in a bar bathroom. “But I want you safe.”

Dylan looked miserable, the bags under his eyes almost as dark as the bruising around his throat. His mouth was angled into a sharp frown, and in the two years I’d known him, I didn’t think I’d seen him unhappy more than four times. Downstairs, the door opened and closed, and I knew it was Brooks getting home from his run. He’d have to come upstairs to get dressed eventually, but if I’d learned anything about him, it was he was a caretaker at heart and wouldn’t make his appearance without coffee for all of us. Rough sex aside, Brooks had nothing but love—and some lingering doubt—inside of him. He was always ready to care and give and attend. It was insanely sexy, even though I didn’t have any recollection of him getting me into bed the night before and that should have been shamefully mortifying.

“It started fine,” Dylan said under his breath, reaching over me for a glass of water on the nightstand. The smell of coffee drifted from the kitchen up the stairs and I started to feel awake for the first time since my alarm went off.

“What did?”

Dylan let out a long sigh and set the glass down, then yanked the pillow out from behind my head. He clutched it against his chest like a child holding a teddy bear, and I pushed myself into a seated position, propping my back against the headboard.

“My parents cut me off last year,” he said, glancing at me from the corner of his eye. It was a quick look, gone as fast as he’d given it to me.

Dylan stayed quiet after the bomb, and I wasn’t sure if it was from shame, the hangover, or because he was giving me time to process what he’d just told me. Dylan had always worked shifts bartending and serving because the music gigs were few and far between, but I didn’t think any of it would be enough to float the rent in our Chelsea apartment. I tried to think back, to wrack my brain and remember how long it had been since he had started to pick up more shifts than had been his normal amount.

“What’s the next bullet point?”

“I didn’t have enough money to live.”

“Next one,” I prompted again.

“I didn’t mean to make a habit of it,” he said, the pillow pushing against the underside of his chin. “Someone at the bar offered me money to hookup when I got off work and he was cute, so I didn’t really see the harm in taking money to suck him off in the parking lot.”

“There isn’t any,” I assured.

“He came back the next night.” Dylan turned his head toward me, eyes glassy. “Offered me a lot more money to go the rest of the way with him, so I said yes. And he was so hot and the sex was really good. It was easy money and it made me feel good. I didn’t see the harm.”

“You already said that, and I told you there isn’t any. Sex work is work, Dylan…”

“I added a little code about it on my bio on some hookup app, and it became a steady thing. That’s how I met Alex, Brooks’ friend. It was him.”

I didn’t know a lot about Brooks’ friends, but none of them had struck me as the type to hire sex workers. They were all rich and good looking, probably decent personalities, and if they fucked half as good as Brooks, then I couldn’t imagine they had issues getting laid.

“And the bruises on your throat?” I prompted, pulling the pillow out of his arms so I could see the marks in question again.

Dylan didn’t even try to hide them from me. “A client got out of hand.”

“You could have died.”

Both of us turned toward the door, finding Brooks leaning against the doorframe in nothing more than a tank top and a pair of running shorts. He had a mug of coffee in each hand.

“I know,” Dylan grumbled.

“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but the coffee was getting cold.” Brooks brought the mugs toward us, giving Dylan his first, then dipping down and leaving a kiss against the top of my head as he passed off mine.

“I already told you last night,” Dylan said. “I don’t care if you hear it again.”

“I was trying to give the two of you time to talk, but I need to get ready for work soon and so does Tate.”

I pulled my phone off the nightstand to check the time, frowning when I realized Brooks was right. Dylan and I had spent more time talking than I’d realized.

“Last night was just a mistake.” Dylan scooted up to sit against the headboard, taking a drink of his coffee. “I’ve never accepted a hookup drunk before.”

Dylan looked so pitiful, nestled in Brooks’ sheets with the promise of an epic hangover etched across his features. I hated that it was a Monday, that I couldn’t stay longer to hear the rest of his story, to make sure everything was going to be okay with him. Dylan was far more than a roommate. He was my best friend in New York and I hated that I hadn’t paid more attention, that I didn’t see the signs.

“I wish you would have told me sooner,” I said.

“I didn’t want you to worry about the money,” he said. “And I definitely didn’t want your charity.”

“We’re friends, Dylan. What do you mean my charity?”

“You would have paid my rent so I didn’t have to start this.”

“I would have gone with you!” I snapped, gesturing broadly. Brooks snatched the coffee out of my hand before it sloshed all over me and the sheets. It was then I realized I was stripped down to nothing more than my underwear and Dylan was still fully dressed. That had Brooks written all over it, and my chest twinged with a feeling that had been floating around the back of my head for a few days ignored.

“What good would that have done?” Brooks asked gently, sitting down beside me on the bed. “There’s no point in worrying about what either of you could have or would have done. We aren’t in the past. We’re here right now, and Tate needs to get in the shower and get going to work.”

“I’m fine,” Dylan promised me, a sad smile on his face. “I’m safe and you know the truth now.”

“But you’re still cut off.”

“That’s a longer story and I don’t want to abuse your boyfriend’s kindness by making you late for work.” Dylan kicked the sheets down and shrugged. “Get ready for work, please, Tate.”

“You can shower first,” I told Brooks, but he narrowed his eyes at me and shook his head.

“No one is going to fire me for being late,” he said. “You, on the other hand.”

“I’m fine, Tate,” Dylan promised. “I won’t go anywhere.”

The two of them watched me expectantly, and I knew there was no way for me to put off getting my ass into gear to head into work. Brooks was right that time was short, so with a grumbled protest, I left them both to shower.

I didn’t think there was anything about Brooks’ shower that had been designed for rushing, though. It was impossible to not want to take your time under the instantly hot rainfall spray, and the bench that caught most of the spray was too inviting to sit on when you had four minutes total to wash the vodka out of your pores.

I did the best I could, which turned out to be a ten minute shower that left me smelling like Brooks, then I grabbed work clothes from the back of Brooks’ closet. As presentable as my hangover would allow, I pulled my phone free from the charger and found the two most important people in my life downstairs in the living room, side by side and staring out the window.

“Showered and ready for work as ordered,” I said.

Brooks looked at me over his shoulder, a soft smile on his face. Dylan turned completely, coming toward me in a rush. He threw his arms around my shoulders and buried his face into my neck with a sniffle. I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed.

“I should have told you,” he said.

“I wish you would have, but you didn’t owe it to me,” I promised him. “We can talk more about it tonight? Or whenever you’re ready.”

“Yeah.” He nodded, untangling himself from my embrace. “Yes.”

Brooks turned from the window and jerked his head toward the kitchen, and I went after him. Dylan returned to his perch at the window, and even though I hated going to work and leaving him, I knew he’d be safe with Brooks.

“I’m so sorry about last night,” I said to Brooks once we were alone. He opened his arms for me and I slipped into his hold with a quiet sigh.

“You don’t need to apologize for anything, Tate, but I’m curious what part you think warrants it.”

“Getting so drunk that I don’t even remember you taking me home from the bar. For having a best friend with this kind of baggage. I don’t know where the list should start or stop.”

Brooks kissed the top of my head, my temple, my cheek .

“Kale tried to kidnap a prince once,” he said with a smile. “Being a drunk twenty-something is far from offensive, I assure you.”

“Still.”

“I won’t hear it.” He kissed me on the mouth to shut me up. A soft kiss that dripped with command that was impossible to ignore. I nodded and parted my lips, letting him lick past the backs of my teeth until my cock was half-hard and leaking.

“Are you sure I can’t be late for work?” I asked, chasing after his mouth when he finally ended the kiss.

Brooks grabbed a sleek black travel mug from the counter and pressed it against the center of my chest.

“I’m sure. I refreshed your coffee and called you a car so you won’t be late.”

My cheeks burned. “You didn’t need to do that.”

“I know.” He kissed me again. “I wanted to.”

“I…”

Biting the inside of my cheek, I forced myself to shut up.

The corner of Brooks’ mouth twitched, but if he made any assumptions about what I’d been about to say, he didn’t voice them.

“I’ll get Dylan home safe too, so you don’t need to worry about that.”

I twisted the lid on the mug so I could get a drink of the coffee he’d prepared for me. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

“It probably has to do with the way you let me rough fuck you out of your mind.” Brooks chuckled, and a huge smile broke out across my face .

Shaking my head, I countered, “I think it has more to do with the other parts of it, don’t you?”

“Go to work, Tate,” he said. His tongue, that had just been inside my mouth, darted out to lick the corner of his lip. I surged closer, bending down low and crashing our mouths together, needing one last taste of him before saying goodbye.