Chapter 23

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

DAVID

I wasn’t surprised that I liked Max immediately, after all, he was Joel’s best friend. If Joel had struck a friendship with him so easily when they were young and they were still friends after all these years, then there was a reason for it.

I had a feeling that there was more to him than met the eye. On the outside, he looked a picture of confidence, almost unflappable, but when we’d talked last night, I could see another more vulnerable side that I’m not sure I’d have seen if Joel wasn’t there.

After we’d gone to my apartment last night, Joel couldn’t stop talking about Max, how his parents had treated them both like brothers, and all the things they got up to together. It was quite endearing. I could see how different Joel was when Max was around. Good different, like another vital piece of the Joel puzzle was back in place with the rest of him.

Joel and Max were spending the day together, probably on the beach. I had promised to help Isaac with some stuff at the center, so I’d taken the train to Lisbon. Joel would drive in later with Max, and we’d all go out dancing to an LGBT club we knew well.

I was glad there wasn’t a queue at the door when we arrived. Inside, the club was busy but not packed as it would typically be on a Friday night or during the weekend. We saw a table in a corner and claimed it as our spot and got some drinks.

“So who is this friend that Joel is bringing?” Isaac asked.

“Oh, you’ll like him,” I said. “You have a lot in common, and he’s definitely your type.”

Isaac raised a brow but took a sip of his drink. “Can’t wait to get on the dance floor. This friend better be a good dancer.”

I saw Joel as soon as he walked into the club despite the relative darkness of the place. It was like my whole body knew he was close, and fuck if he didn’t look good tonight.

He was wearing a pair of black jeans that were tight enough that they showed off all the right parts of his body without being too tight, and a red T-shirt that was just a tad shorter than normal. I was sure that if he lifted his arms only slightly, I’d be able to see his gorgeous flat stomach and the blond hairs of his happy trail.

Max was just behind him, looking around at the guys who were already on the dance floor getting down and dirty.

I got up to greet him with a kiss and whispered in his ear, “I’m going to make you pay for looking so fucking sexy tonight.”

I put a hand on Joel’s lower back to keep him close, happy that he put his arm around my waist too, and turned to introduce Isaac to Max.

Joel and I must have been too caught up in ourselves because we’d both missed what had happened around us. Isaac, who’d been sitting down, was now standing up and staring at Max with an expression of total disbelief and something else I couldn’t read.

Max was equally frozen in place and staring at Isaac. Even in the darkness, I could tell a lot was being said between them just through their eyes. What the fuck was happening?

“Oh, fuck,” Joel said. It sounded like a whisper because of the music around us, and I was pretty sure no one else had heard him.

Suddenly, I felt like I was the only one missing a piece of vital information, but I didn’t have time to ask any questions or do any introductions because Joel grabbed my hand and pulled me to the dance floor.

“What’s going on?” I shouted in Joel’s ear since the music was much louder in this part of the club.

“They’ve met before.”

“What? When?”

“Last Christmas, in New York.”

Things were slowly making sense. Isaac had been different when he’d come back from New York before Christmas. All he’d talked about was the youth center he’d visited and the couple he’d met last summer that ran it. We spent a lot of time together just after Christmas going through some of his ideas for fundraising and getting through red tape to turn the center into an emergency shelter.

Isaac had at no point mentioned he’d met someone while in New York, and from the body language emanating from both of them, it looked like it hadn’t just been a fleeting encounter either. Both Max and Isaac were now sitting on opposite sides of the small round table, leaning forward, so they could hear what the other was saying. They both looked tense, but from this distance, I couldn’t see their faces.

A pair of hands coming from behind me, settling on my waist with a distinct hardness against my ass pulled me from my observation. Suddenly, my attention shifted from the two men at the table to the sexy man pressing against me.

A breath of air tickled my ear. “Hey, gorgeous, do you come here often?”

We were gently swaying in time with every other beat of the music. Everybody around us was moving to the same beat but at a different speed. There were groups of a few guys dancing in circles, some couples closer together, and even a few girls dancing on their own. Even though I didn’t come out with Isaac often, I’d always liked this club because it was truly diverse; there were guys and girls just enjoying the music together regardless of who was gay, lesbian, bi, or trans.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back between his shoulder and ear. “No, but I think I’ll change my mind.”

“Anything I could do to make your decision easier?”

His teasing breath as he spoke was getting me full-on hard, so I had to turn around to face him so I could keep my erection between us.

I ran my hands slowly up his chest, loving that he was that little bit taller than me.

“You could kiss me, gorgeous,” I said.

Joel looked like he was about to lean down to kiss me when he saw something and looked over at the table where Max and Isaac sat. I looked in the same direction. They weren’t alone anymore. There was another guy sitting next to Isaac with his arm around him.

Joel turned to me with a questioning look, but I shrugged. I had no clue who the guy was. I saw Isaac get up and leave the table with the guy, leaving Max on his own. He looked defeated.

We walked over to the table. Joel sat next to Max, who was watching Isaac as he danced with the other guy, and put an arm around him.

“Max, is Isaac your Isaac?” Joel asked.

Max looked at Joel and nodded. His eyes were shiny with unshed tears.

This wasn’t the time to get to the bottom of this. Isaac looked like he was with someone he knew, and he was a short taxi ride away from home. I leaned over the table and asked Max if he wanted to go home. He nodded.

I took my phone out from my pocket to send Isaac a text to let him know we were going home and I’d catch up with him soon when a voice came from behind me.

“Well, if it isn’t the custard tart man extraordinaire.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck . Lucas was an open-as-gay-as-they-come kind of guy who had moved to my area a few years ago. When he came to my café for the first time, he’d shamelessly flirted with me, which I gently shut down, making a joke about his gaydar needing a reset.

“Oh, hi, Lucas. How are you?”

He looked me up and down with overt interest. “Much better for seeing you here, honey,” he drawled in a way he probably thought was appealing but to me was downright weird and unwelcome. He put his hands on my chest, which made me flinch.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, grabbing his wrists to remove his hands from me.

“Well, it seems that I was right about you after all. You do play for my team. How about a game…or two over in the bathroom?”

“Lucas, I’m just here with my friends. Not because I’m, um… gay,” I said.

He seemed to have only just noticed Max, who was still looking toward the dance floor, and Joel, who was looking at me with eyes wide open.

“Are you sure, honey? Because I saw you two dancing earlier, and it didn’t look like you were just friends.” He looked between me and Joel as though he was waiting for one of us to agree with him.

“That was just a joke.” I laughed. “My friend here was trying to make his boyfriend jealous, and I just went along with it. They were just teasing each other, that’s all. In fact, they were just about to leave…right guys?” I cringed at my own words, but I was in panic mode and didn’t know what else to say to get Lucas to leave us.

“That’s right,” Joel said, standing up and grabbing Max by the arm to stand up too. “We were just leaving, weren’t we, sweetheart?” he said, punctuating the word sweetheart as though it was two words. That’s what I’d called him sometimes, sweetheart, and it was a clear message that he was beyond angry. I’d not only come out and said I wasn’t gay, but I also lied and made it look as though Joel was in a relationship with Max just to save face.

I watched as Joel and Max left the club hand in hand while I stayed where I was, feeling like the biggest asshole in the history of assholes.

“So, now that your friend is gone, maybe we can have some fun on the dance floor.”

“Lucas, I’m not gay, and I’m not interested. I was just hanging out with friends for a drink.”

“I was talking to Teresa this week. She said you were on holiday.”

What the fuck? What was he hinting at? Since when did he talk to my aunt?

“She’s such a lovely woman, so caring...”

I didn’t like his tone of voice, and I could feel he was about to say something I wasn’t going to want to hear.

“What are you getting at, Lucas?”

“Teresa was saying how it would be so nice if you found yourself a good girl to settle down with. What would she think if she knew her only nephew likes to take it up the ass?”

This guy wasn't just crude for effect. He was also threatening to out me to my aunt. Fuck.

I didn’t know Lucas very well, but by the sole fact that he was talking to me like this made me trust that he would quite happily say something innocent to my aunt that would make the truth come out before I was ready.

In the last few days, I’d grown more and more attached to the idea of coming out to my aunt. Being with Joel showed me how good it could be to be free to be myself with another person. I wanted that person to be Joel, but I didn’t know how that was going to work out with him being in New York. I figured we’d work that out once I talked to my aunt.

One thing was certain. I wasn’t going to let myself be bullied by this guy.

“Are you threatening me, Lucas?” I asked, getting in his face, hoping to sound more confident and menacing than I currently felt.

“Most definitely not, honey. I was hoping we could come to an arrangement, that’s all.”

“You can shove your arrangement up your ass, Lucas, because I’m not allowing myself to be bullied by a little piece of shit like you. Got it?”

I saw a look of defiance in his eyes, but I chose to ignore it and got up to leave the club.

Once I was in a taxi to the train station, I sent Isaac a text saying I was making my way home by train and got a quick apology back from him that he had to leave early to chase a lead on a missing kid.

Once I was on the train home, I felt myself shaking with anxiety. I’d fucked things up with Joel. I’d dismissed everything that had happened between us in a heartbeat because I was afraid. It was already past midnight, but I couldn’t wait until tomorrow to talk to him. I felt like my body would crawl out of my skin if I did.

When I arrived at Joel’s apartment, I knocked on the door several times until it finally opened by Max, who stepped out looking like he could chew my head off.

“What are you doing here, David?”

“Max, please, I need to speak to Joel.”

“He doesn’t want to see you, and quite frankly, I don’t blame him.”

“I know I messed up, but I need to talk to him. He doesn’t know how I feel.”

My voice sounded more and more desperate with each word I said.

“I think he does. You’re afraid to come out of the closet. That’s your choice. He’s worth more than that, David, and if you didn’t know that before tonight, nothing you say from now on will make a difference because it will just be damage control.”

Without leaving me any time to say a word, Max went back inside the apartment, leaving me staring at the closed door. Not that it would have made a difference because I now knew there was nothing I could say to change what I’d done.

I’d totally screwed up my relationship with Joel.