Chapter 27: Thad

Chapter 27

Thad

Kelley has me pinned against the wall of his shower, his long, callused fingers wrapped around my cock while the spray from his rainfall shower covers us in warmth. “Are you sure I can’t convince you to come to the game again tonight and go home tomorrow?”

Last night already feels like a fever dream, and I want nothing more than to repeat it, but after waking up, I realize I’m in real danger here.

My hands run down his sides and grip his phenomenal ass while I thrust inside his fist.

“You’re not playing fair,” I say.

And this is why it’s so dangerous. I want to stay. Tonight, tomorrow, the next day. If I do that, though, I’ll never want to leave, and then I’ll have to quit my job in New York, move back in with Mom and Dad, and become a leech like my brother, all so I can be close to where Kelley is.

I can’t think of a single reason why I wouldn’t be able to stay tonight, and it’s not like I can tell him I don’t want to because I don’t trust myself to be strong enough to leave tomorrow. I could use the car as an excuse, say a roommate needs it, but they don’t. They know I have it.

Kelley continues to stroke me while my brain tries to hold on to a single rational thought. I pull him against me, pressing our bodies together so he can wrap his hand around both of us at the same time.

Kelley leans in and sucks on my neck while he jerks us both, getting faster and faster with every stroke.

I’m torn between agreeing to stay in the heat of the moment and knowing I shouldn’t.

He’s probably giving me a hickey, which I should care about, but I don’t. My parents will ask who I’m seeing, my roommates will rib me about being at work and coming home with sex marks, but all I want is for Kelley to suck harder. Make it really purple and dark so every time I look at it, I’m reminded of this.

Of how Kelley let me be this guy for him again.

Going months in between having this is going to be next to impossible this time. There’s nothing stopping me from coming to every game I can other than work, and who needs sleep? I could travel back and forth from Philly easily. Catch the train, get Kelley to pick me up … because his schedule isn’t hectic or anything.

I tell myself to focus on what he’s doing to me instead of when I can make it happen again. And again and again and again.

Kelley’s mouth becomes soft as he peppers small kisses down my neck and over my collarbone while his hand still moves frantically with only one goal in mind. He’s going to make me come so hard I have no choice but to give in and stay another night.

Tomorrow, he’s on the road again, and I have to get back to New York, so it’s not like my fear of camping outside his house and becoming obsessed so much I quit my job and stalk the guy could really come true.

“So…” Kelley breathes hard. “You going to come to my game tonight?” The emphasis on the word come makes me want to do just that. Right now and tonight.

“You’re playing even unfairer now.” Is that actual English? I don’t know. I don’t care.

“Come, Thad. I want you to come.”

Fuck, he wins.

I shudder and throw my head back until it hits the tile with a thud. The pain only makes me come harder, and the possibility of me having a concussion really must do it for Kelley because he joins me in spilling over.

He’s still jerking us both, and even if my skin is becoming oversensitive, I don’t want to stop him until he’s finished riding that high. Until he’s completely empty and all the evidence is washed down the drain.

Eventually, he slows, and his head lands on my cheek when he finally releases us.

We’re both breathing heavily, both boneless, so I wrap my arms around his back and hold him tight, dipping my head into the crook of his shoulder until we recover enough to move again.

After a couple of minutes, when my head clears from orgasm brain and I’m thinking about it rationally, there’s only one answer I can really give him about tonight. It’s most likely the wrong answer, but considering I’m coming out of the sex fog and I’m still itching to stay, it’s really my only option. I’ll deal with the fallout of it later. While I’m wallowing in my cubicle at work, wishing I was with him instead of there. While my small infatuation will grow to full-on longing.

In the end, there was no way I was ever going to say no to begin with.

“I’ll stay again tonight,” I say.

Kelley pulls away from me, wide smile with a hint of smugness to it.

Now he knows not only can he get his way with me, but he knows exactly how to manipulate me into giving in. It’s another one of those things I should care about, but I really fucking don’t.

After dropping Kelley off at the stadium, I head home to Trenton to check in with my parents. I was going to on the way back to New York, but I have a few hours to kill before the stadium is open to the public.

Kelley scored me a ticket right above the team’s dugout for tonight, and as much as I know staying an extra night could be detrimental to my heart, ego, and career in the near future, I’m excited for it anyway.

I pull up to Mom and Dad’s house, assuming they’ll be home because they don’t have the disposable income to get out much. It kills me that they’re in this financial situation at their age and that they should have their house paid off and be enjoying retirement by now. Or at least be close to it.

I will change that for them. One day.

Hopefully, we won’t be waiting years for those high school kids to grow up to sign to the majors before I score a huge commission. Ideally, a superstar will fall into my lap.

I find Dad in the front garden, pulling weeds and swearing up a storm. Uh-oh.

“Hi, Dad,” I say cautiously.

He lifts his head and smiles. “Theodore. What are you doing here?”

“I had to do some scouting for the firm, so I thought I’d drop by. What are you swearing at? Weeds getting out of control?”

“Your mother, more like it,” he mumbles. “I came out here to get away from her excessive worrying.”

My chest gives that twinge of guilt it always does. “Is it money?” I still have some of the Kelley bonus left. I should give it to them. I should?—

“No, it’s your brother.”

“Wylder? You heard from Wylder?”

“No, and that’s why she’s worried. She’s on the laptop, using the calculator to work herself into a worry about how his money would’ve run out by now, and we haven’t heard from him—he changed his number, or his phone got disconnected, one or the other. She’s convinced herself he’s living on the street or is dead in a ditch somewhere.”

That sounds like Mom.

“You’re not worried?” I ask Dad.

“You know your brother. If he had run out of money, he’d be on our doorstep apologizing until we gave him more, and then he’d disappear again.”

I agree. I can’t imagine Wylder running out of money and deciding to live on the street when he has parents who will give him a room rent-free, feed him, clothe him, dote on him—that’s the type of parents they are. Wylder would’ve come back if he needed them. I’m sure of it.

“I’ll go and try to talk her down.”

“Thank you,” Dad says. “Until then, I’m going to continue to pretend these weeds are too hard to pull out of the ground.” He holds them up.

I’m guessing the key to a long marriage is … pretend gardening. I’ll put that tip in my back pocket for when I get married. Or have a partner. Am dating someone properly. Anything, really.

The sucky part of all of that is I think I’m ready for a real relationship. Maybe not right away, but I want to start dating seriously. Up until now, it’s been all fun, nothing too deep, because I’ve wanted to be established first. I’m still not there, but I’m on my way. And the one guy I could see myself possibly having more with is Kelley—the one man I can’t date publicly for many reasons.

Yet, he’s the one I want.

Oh, look, more self-sabotaging crap my mind likes to do.

I shake off those kinds of thoughts before I send myself into a spiral of overthinking and enter the house.

Mom’s exactly where Dad said she’d be, hunched over their laptop at the dining table.

She doesn’t look up at me as she says, “If you’re hankering for lunch, you’re on your own. I’m busy.”

“Actually, I was wanting to know if I could take you to lunch.”

She flinches like I’ve scared her and looks up at me. “I thought you were your father. But I can’t go to lunch. I’m busy.”

“So you said. What are you busy with?” I pull out the seat next to her and sit.

“How does Facebook work?”

I laugh. “You’re trying to find Wylder on Facebook? Good luck. Even I’m not on that old thing. ”

“Where should I be looking, then?”

If I know Wylder and he’s trying to prove a point, he’ll have all of us blocked across all social media.

“Give the laptop to me,” I say, and yep, after a quick search on all my channels, Wylder’s profile doesn’t show up on any of them.

It’s like he really did want to up and leave everyone and everything behind.

“Okay, give me ten minutes, and I’ll find him. Go make us some coffee if you’re not going to feed me.”

“I’ll make you lunch when you find your brother.” She says that but gets up and starts puttering around the kitchen anyway.

This should be easy.

I set up a fake email address real quick, sign up to all social media platforms using it, then pull photos from stock sites of a random hot girl in a bikini with a guy, open it in editing software and add a bisexual flag love heart over the guy’s face, post that to all my new accounts, and then add every Wylder St. James there is. There are a few that aren’t him in the pic, a couple that don’t have any identifying information, but I add them all because he could be using a fake photo just like I am. Most of the profiles are locked down, so it’s easier to add them all to my friends list instead of going through them, trying to weed out the ones that might or might not be him.

That could be all I do and wait, but if he’s being cautious of who he’s adding, he’d be able to spot a fake account a mile away. So I find other fake accounts. They’re usually easy to spot. Add some more of the stock pics of the same couple, not covering the guy’s face this time. The only reason I did it on the profile pic is to entice my brother to look further. He loves women, but I also happen to know he can’t resist a pretty man. I set the uncensored photos as available only to people who follow me.

It doesn’t take long at all for the follows and friend responses to come in.

I realize that catfishing my brother isn’t cool, but it’s not like I’m going to talk to him as this chick. I only need proof of life .

And bam. Within ten minutes of posting my new profile, I find his.

“Got him,” I say.

“Really?” Mom wipes her hands on a dish towel and comes to look over my shoulder.

“Yup. This was posted yesterday.” I hit Play on a video I really should’ve looked at first.

It’s my brother at a pool party, day drinking and making out with some woman. It’s not too raunchy, but it pisses Mom right off.

She goes from worrying mother to raging dragon lady. “He’s out there with our money, partying it up and not checking in to let us know he’s okay. It’s like he wants me to worry about him.”

“Yeah, I’m assuming that’s the reason he blocked us all on socials. Anything he does is because he wants attention.”

Mom hangs her head. “We didn’t raise him that way.”

“I know,” I say softly. “But even I understand why he does it. You and Dad put in so much time and effort with me and baseball?—”

“We would have for him too, but he never wanted to do anything. It was all video games and friends.”

“I know that too. And I’m not saying you did anything wrong. I’m just saying, I can see why he seeks attention.”

Mom looks at the screen again. “So he’s fine.”

“More than fine by the look of it.”

She slumps. “He’s fine,” she says again, like she’s trying to convince herself.

I swear if I ever see my brother again, I’m gonna punch him in his big, stupid nose for making Mom upset. But by the look of it, he’s living it up in LA and won’t be coming home anytime soon.

Unlike me, who might make an appearance every weekend when there’s a Philly home game.