33. Dylan
CHAPTER 33
DYLAN
After a shower that only involved soap and shampoo—no more orgasms—Alex sat on the edge of his bed and watched while I got dressed. I could tell he paid extra attention to my shoulder mobility, and so did I. Always aware of every twinge and ache in the muscle, the tenderness was almost nothing more than a memory. I tried to ignore what my brain thought that meant, listening instead to the promises Alex made me about what it did mean.
“Where are we going?” I finally asked him when we’d made it down to the living room and I’d laced up my sneakers.
“Lunch,” he said, not looking up from his phone.
I scratched my forehead, waiting for him to elaborate.
“Brooks and Tate are going to meet us,” he finally said, sliding his phone into his pocket. Alex pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, eyes worried until he saw me smile, and then everything relaxed.
“I was just texting Tate this morning while you were asleep,” I told him, jumping up off the couch.
It was the first burst of energy I’d felt since getting hurt. Alex hadn’t been keeping me prisoner or anything like that. I could come and go as I pleased, but I hadn’t pleased. Things with Alex felt like a bubble, and I feared if I went too far out of the bubble, it would burst. Having lunch with Tate and Brooks seemed like a safe step. My best friend and one of his best friends.
“How fortuitous,” he murmured, smiling gently and holding his hand out for me. Threading our fingers together was easy as breathing, and he pulled me against his chest like it was my home. I closed my eyes and breathed deep, the scent of his soap and detergent filling my nostrils, immediately putting me at ease.
“I called a car because I didn’t want to deal with the bike in the city.”
Alex kissed the top of my head before detangling my arms from around his waist and giving me a nudge toward the front door. Sure enough, there was a black town car idling in the middle of the street waiting for us. An unexpected tangle of feelings exploded in the middle of my chest, the concept of a hired car both familiar and foreign at the same time.
Once we were tucked safely in the back of the car, I dropped my head against the headrest and closed my eyes, letting out a long breath. Alex reached over and took my hand, giving it a squeeze.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
I pried one eye open and angled my head toward him. “Why do you think something’s wrong?”
“Because I know you,” he said, huffing out an amused breath.
I swallowed, letting my eyes close again. I focused on the feel of Alex’s hand against mine and the steady in and out of his breaths. The explosion in my chest settled into a simmer.
“Life is just weird sometimes,” I told him with a lopsided shrug. “I grew up like this with big houses and rented cars, and I don’t understand how something can be second nature and brand new simultaneously.”
“Maybe you’re not the same person you were before.”
I licked my lips, gnawing on the bottom one until it felt raw.
“At least I know you’re not with me for my money,” I said with a self-deprecating laugh.
“And I know you’re not with me for mine either.”
I arched a brow, and Alex snorted a laugh.
“You would have rather walked over burning and broken glass than woken up with me in your room at the hospital,” he said.
“That’s not true.” Then he raised a brow back at me, and I sighed inwardly. “Okay, you’re not wrong. Maybe just broken, though, not burning too. It wasn’t that serious.”
“You know, Dylan…” Alex squeezed my hand. “Sometimes I wish…”
Before he could finish his thought, the car rolled to a stop in front of a ridiculously expensive-looking cafe, the kind my father frequented, where people had martinis with their lunch and then went back to the high rise offices and did a whole lot of nothing, getting paid more than I ever would.
“What do you wish?” I asked.
He gave me a small smile. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“You can’t do that,” I complained, falling out of the car after him. He glanced over his shoulder at me, rolling his eyes and tightening his fingers through mine so he didn’t let go of me even as we exited the car.
“I’m pretty sure I can do whatever I want,” he said, pulling me toward the front door of the restaurant. “That’s literally our thing.”
“Not if you’re mean,” I said.
He snorted.
“Mr. Burke,” the host greeted Alex with a flirtatious smile that held a little too much recognition for my tastes. “Mr. Brooks is at your usual table.”
“Mr. Brooks?” I asked.
“It’s his last name,” Alex said, walking us through the small restaurant to a booth in the corner. “Didn’t Tate tell you?”
“No,” I said.
“Astor,” Alex greeted his friend, giving me a wink.
Astor Brooks.
Weird.
“Fuck off,” Brooks said in response.
Tate jumped up from beside his boyfriend and wrapped me up in a hug so forceful it pulled my hand out of Alex’s. Even without his touch, he was still close enough for me to feel him, like he was in my bones somehow.
Magnetized.
“I missed you so much,” Tate whispered into my neck.
“I missed you.”
“Are you good? For sure?” He pulled back enough to give me a worried onceover that looked so serious it had me laughing at him.
“For sure,” I promised him.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” he said to no one in particular, but before he finished the announcement, it was clear he was taking me with him.
Alex gave me an approving smile, sliding into the booth opposite Brooks and waving me off. For a moment, I was another version of myself and my shoulder had never failed me a day in my life. Tate and I had just moved into our apartment in Chelsea and I’d gotten hired at Tryst…there wasn’t anything that could stop us.
Tate pushed me into the bathroom, reaching behind me to lock the door. Of course the restaurant was the kind of place that had private bathrooms. Jumping up on the sink to sit, Tate eyed me expectantly. I leaned back against the door and folded my arms in front of my chest.
“What?” I asked, a smile already tugging at the corners of my lips.
“What?” he repeated back to me, tone dripping with mockery. “Tell me everything .”
“Everything about what?”
“About Alex.”
I scrubbed a hand down my face, tingles pricking up the back of my neck just thinking about Alex and the things I knew Tate wanted to know. It wouldn’t have been the first time we talked openly about the kind of sex we were having, but most of the time it was him talking about the sex he was having, not the other way around.
“What about him?” I asked, heat flooding my cheeks.
For some reason, I found myself wishing the conversation was about literally anything else. I would have rather talked to Tate about his sex life with Brooks or sang him another song about desperately needing to get railed by the man who’d taken his virginity and disappeared into the night.
“I’ve met their whole group.” Tate was talking a mile a minute like we’d just seen each other yesterday, like I hadn’t been deliberately lying to him after isolating myself from him for weeks. “Ford is great. He’s a little sarcastic to them sometimes, but he means well. Kale is kind of a prick, but he grows on you. They were all fighting awhile because of, well…”
He trailed off, scrunching his nose together like he’d said something he shouldn’t have.
“Because of what?” I asked.
“Uhm. Well. Because of Alex.” He shrugged, like I should understand.
“What about him?”
“Alex and Beamer,” he said.
I didn’t need to connect the names to know Tate was talking about Alex’s ex, the one who’d sent him into the reclusive spiral that had brought us together in the first place.
“I know about it,” I said, the thought of Alex and his ex not tasting as bitter as it used to. “Kale was a prick about it?”
Tate visibly relaxed. “He’s a prick about everything.”
“I love that for him.”
“I know about everyone, but Alex is kind of a wild card.”
I worried my lower lip between my teeth, dragging my tongue across the spot I’d already bit nearly raw. Banging my head against the door, I pressed my fingertips against my closed eyelids, letting out a curse under my breath. I so desperately wanted things to be normal with me and Tate again, but I was standing in a ten-by-ten room with him, a giant wall between us. I was the one who’d built the wall and mortared it solid. Tate, the whole time on the other side trying to chip away at it with his bare hands while I kept layering it on.
Letting my arms fall, I blinked my best friend back into focus, smiling when I caught sight of his wide eyes and hopeful expression. He was the same as he’d always been, ready for me to join him.
“He’s the best sex I’ve ever had,” I told Tate, huffing out a laugh when he clapped his hands together like a giddy schoolgirl. “Like, consistently. Every time. It’s never a miss. He’s fucked me while I played piano for him.”
“Oh, my God.”
I nodded, blood rushing between my legs at the memory alone.
“What else?”
“You want more than that?” I laughed, pushing away from the door. Tate slid closer to the sink and I managed to haul myself onto the counter beside him.
“I want everything.”
“The first time we hooked up, he spanked me until I cried and then made me clean my cum off the floor.”
“Oh, my God , and you licked the floor?”
“No. Oh, God.” I laughed, angling my body toward him so our knees touched. “He literally made me clean it. Like with bleach and a rag.”
Tate slapped his hand over his mouth. “Shut up.”
“Swear. And it made me so hard.” I covered my face with my hands and leaned into him, dropping my forehead against his shoulder as I burst into an uncontrolled fit of laughter. “Like, what is wrong with me?”
“Brooks makes me cry before I come,” he said, knocking the side of his head against the top of mine.
“In a good way?”
“The best way.”
I thought about all the times Alex had made me cry and wondered if it was the same for Tate or different. If he found the same kind of rest and release that Alex always managed to give me with it.
“It’s amazing,” I said softly. “He’s amazing.”
“Does he make you happy?” Tate asked, jumping off the counter and forcing me to look at him. His expression had quickly turned serious, brows knit together. “You were so angry before.”
I sighed, giving him an honest smile.
“I wasn’t angry with him,” I said. “I was mad at myself…for about a thousand different things and I took it out on him.”
“That’s good of him then.”
“What do you mean?”
“He knew you needed to let it out.” Tate’s eyes crinkled in the corners. “And he knew he could carry it for you.”
I swallowed thickly, the truth and weight of Tate’s statement landing on my shoulders like an anvil. I’d been horrible to Alex before, and even though I’d apologized, I hadn’t ever stopped to think about the fact he’d faced me willingly through the whole thing. It went so much more beyond the things I’d said before I got hurt. The way I’d treated him after, and he’d bore all of it so I didn’t have to hold it any longer.
“Oh, fuck,” I grumbled, dragging both hands down the front of my face as realization dawned.
“He loves you,” Tate said, patting my knee.
“I love him.”
All Alex wanted was for me to believe in the love he had for me, and I’d fought him and struggled through it, too caught in my own head over the whole thing. And fifteen minutes in a bathroom with Tate had thrown all of it into the sharpest and clearest focus possible.
“We have to get back to the table,” Tate said, phone in hand when I looked up at him. “Brooks said the food is ready and they’re waiting for us.”
“I didn’t even look at the menu,” I said, jumping off the counter.
Tate unlocked the bathroom door and threw a knowing glance over his shoulder at me.
“You don’t need to look anymore, do you?”