14. Ford

CHAPTER 14

FORD

"Does Kale know you're sleeping with his brother?"

The elevator doors closed just as Brooks' voice tipped up into the end of his question. My back went rigid and I cleared my throat, looking at my reflection in the closed door of the elevator. Brooks studied me, and I blinked slowly, wondering what my tell had been.

"I'm not fucking Kale's brother," I said.

Boston and I had done plenty of kissing, but we'd not gotten anywhere near the main event.

"You're not not fucking him."

The elevator stopped two floors down and let on a woman who looked old enough to be my grandmother. She gave Brooks an appreciative onceover, which wasn't surprising. The entire group of us were rich, but Brooks looked like if you cut him, he'd bleed green dollar signs. It was a result of how he'd been raised and the life he'd been handed, paired with the work he'd done for himself. Philanthropy and domination had proved to be a formidable mix, and Brooks wore the results of it daily .

"Boston isn't gay," I said, choosing my words carefully.

In the reflection of the three of us in the door, the older woman's eyebrows sent up, but she didn't give any other sign that she'd been eavesdropping. Though, an elevator was far from the private kind of place I'd hoped to have this conversation. Not that I'd wanted to have it at all, but Brooks was persistent and he was just getting started with me.

He let me simmer in my answer until we reached the lobby. I followed the other passenger out to the sidewalk, and Brooks walked aimlessly beside me, hands shoved into the pockets of his slacks. I didn't say a word to him until we'd turned the corner and the office was a comfortable amount of space behind us.

"Neither am I," Brooks said thoughtfully. "That's never stopped me from putting my dick into another man."

"Nothing stops you from that," I teased.

He chuckled and slowed, pulling a hand from his pocket and grabbing my forearm. I came to a stop and we stepped toward the building, out of the flow of everyone else who was ready to go get lunch and not get the third degree about their bedroom habits from their best friend.

"Kale may have not noticed because he's too love-struck with his little prince, but I saw the way you smiled at him?—"

I opened my mouth to argue, and he raised a hand to silence me, continuing, "And I saw the way he blushed when you did it."

"It's a crush, Brooks," I offered, wondering how much I had to give him before his curiosity was satisfied.

"In which direction?"

"Does it matter?" I asked.

"Alex had a crush on Beamer, and he's been sulking for months over that."

Brooks arched a brow, and I sighed. Alex and Beamer had just fallen into bed together before Beamer's long-forgotten husband came out of the woodwork and swept him off his feet. To say Alex had taken it hard was an understatement, and our other friend was still reeling from their brief time together—and also the ending of that time. He'd been much less present in our friend group than before, though he had started to show his face again, which was reassuring to the lot of us.

"They're different," I protested.

"Alex found something in Beamer that he hadn't had before," Brooks went on, unfazed. "I imagine a straight man falling into bed with someone like you feels much the same."

"Are you warning me to be careful with him?"

"So you are fucking him." Brooks crossed his arms over his chest, tipping his head back and narrowing his eyes at me. That short and smug, arrogant little asshole had talked me right into the confession he'd wanted from the start.

"We aren't sleeping together," I said.

He pursed his lips and blinked slowly at me. There was more and he knew it, but he was going to make me say it. What a cruel twist of fate to have Doms for friends who pulled the tricks out of your own arsenal and used them against you.

"Yet," I grumbled, shaking my arm out of his hold and starting off again down the street. We hadn't even talked about what we were going to get for lunch and I didn't even care anymore, as long as they had a drink menu.

"Kale is going to murder you," he said, jogging to catch up to me and then falling in step beside me .

"Kale is not going to find out."

"How long do you think that's going to work out for?"

"As long as I need it to," I snapped, stepping off the curb and into the crosswalk. The light was about to turn red, and I briefly wondered if I could lose Brooks in the traffic, but he was small and quick, catching up to me before I'd made it far at all. Two doors past the curb, he grabbed my arm and shoved me toward the open door of a restaurant neither of us had ever been to before.

"Two for lunch?" a chipper hostess asked as the sounds of the city died down behind us.

"Please and thank you." Brooks flashed her a devilish smile which left her blushing and muttering to herself as she walked us to a small bistro table in the corner of the restaurant.

It was unfair for all my friends to act like I was the playboy of the group, when Brooks was just as guilty of fucking his way through the eligible bachelors and bachelorettes of New York. Unlike me, he chose to dabble in giving back to others outside of the bedroom, and apparently that made me a fuck boy and him a saint.

Seated at the small table, I flicked at the silk flower arrangement in a small and dusty vase between us before pushing it toward the wall. It was impossible to get comfortable, given the size of the table and the penetrating weight of Brooks' stare, but I tried my best until he put me out of my misery by asking another question.

"What were you thinking, Ford?"

"I wasn't," I answered honestly. "But if it makes any difference at all, Boston propositioned me, not the other way around. "

"Every time you open your mouth, it's a proposition."

"Not with him." I shook my head and frowned, remembering the years of flirting that I'd only recently ramped up. I'd started it to annoy Ford, but Boston was so damn pretty when he blushed, and…

Shit.

Brooks made a pleased noise in the back of his throat, and I touched the top of my thigh, able to vividly recall the pressure of Boston's fingers wrapped around me the day he asked me to teach him how to fuck men.

"That was just in fun." I arched a brow, prompting him to argue with me about the intent of my flirting.

"And now? Is it fun?"

"It's complicated, and I shouldn't even be having this conversation with you."

The hostess brought us waters and I drank half the glass in one go, even though the cold drink did nothing to ease the dry ache in my throat.

"He's straight," Brooks reminded me, as if I wasn't painfully aware of that little fact.

"That isn't a topic for us to discuss." I cocked my head to the side and set my glass back down on the table, finally reaching to undo the button on my suit coat. "If you want to talk to Boston about his sexuality, you're more than welcome."

"I want to talk to you about what you're doing with our best friend's younger brother."

"Younger by four minutes," I grumbled.

"You know how Kale is about him."

"He's an adult."

The line of questioning was quickly veering into sounding accusatory, and I wasn't interested in engaging Brooks at all if that was how he chose to speak to me. This wasn't high school, it wasn't even college. All of us were grown adults, well into our thirties, and capable of making educated decisions about who we took to bed. Just because I'd never been discerning in the past didn't mean I was a predator.

"You have to tell Kale," Brooks said.

"I don't have to tell Kale shit." I cleared my throat, realizing I'd accidentally raised my voice to levels not becoming the quaint little restaurant setting we'd found ourselves in. I lowered my voice, leaning closer. "I don't have to tell Kale shit. This doesn't involve him."

"I won't tell him, Ford, but he's going to find out."

While I wanted to appreciate Brooks' concern, I also wanted to throw him out a window. I loved all of my friends, I truly did, but the level of oversight was quickly becoming too much. I pushed myself against the back of the chair, eyeing Brooks warily while I mentally tried to jog through the past few years of our friendship, wondering if they'd always treated me this way…like I was a danger to others.

I knew I had a reputation.

I was glad for it because, if people knew what to expect with me, there was less chance for confusion and misunderstanding. Less opportunity for someone to fall in love when all I'd wanted to do was fall into bed. But that didn't mean I was a careless man. If anything, it spoke to the level of transparency and consent I chased after for my partners. If you knew what you were getting, there wasn't any room to be let down when you didn't get more. But then there was Boston, and how easily he was able to get everything he wanted out of me .

"I appreciate the concern, Brooks, truly I do, but everything is under control," I promised.

Everything was not under control, but not in the way he worried. Boston had one up on me, and he had since the very first time he touched me. The man played me like a fiddle and I practically begged him for more. I didn't have much help for the state of my emotions once we moved on from naked kissing and onto something like blow jobs, let alone sex. And to have stacked the emotional relationship piece on top of the physical?

"I don't think I believe you."

I gave him a fleeting and weak smile. "Brooks, if anyone is going to get hurt here, it's me, alright?"

The hostess—who was apparently also our waitress—came back to the table, which was the reprieve I needed from the intense scrutiny of Brooks' stare. I ordered a martini and a club sandwich, doing my best to avoid looking across the table at my friend until he'd ordered and we found ourselves alone again. I chewed my cheek until I tasted copper, and then glanced up at him with my chin tucked against my chest.

"You're telling the truth," he said slowly.

"You can rest easy at night knowing that Boston Sheffield has one up on me, okay?" I worried the hole I'd gnawed in my cheek, grateful when the hostess was quick to return with our drinks. The vodka absolutely burned the cut in my mouth, and I was thankful for the grounding pain of it. With a wince, I took a second swallow before returning my drink to the table.

"Do you… like him?"

It felt disingenuous to say I liked Boston. I was very nearly obsessed with him in an unhealthy way that was going to be the death of us both. At every turn, he proved to me that he was more than capable of handling whatever our relationship was in a reasonable way, and I was the one treading water and trying to pretend I wasn't gone for him and the way his stare went hazy after he took his glasses off. The way the softest smile took up residence on his face once he was able to bring my features back into focus. I rubbed at the center of my chest, like that would do anything to ease the ache that bloomed when I thought about Boston.

"I don't know," I answered.

I could have very well already been on the way to loving him, but that answer would have gone over about as well as a wet blanket.

"You're playing with fire, Ford," he warned, picking up his drink and swirling the ice around the glass before lifting it to his lips and taking a sip. He didn't take his eyes off me the whole time, and I was acutely aware of the judgement behind his stare.

"Yeah," I agreed, polishing off the rest of my martini. "I know."