CHAPTER TWO

Jeo

 

“Nick leave?”

Tony stood in the archway to the living room, a blue towel wrapped around his trim waist.

“Yep.”

“Did you guys argue?” he asked reproachfully.

“He had bruises on his arm. Said some guy got rough with him.”

Tony looked shocked.

“Where had he been tonight, T?”

“He said he’d been at Lux and hadn’t had a good time.”

“That fancy club in Manhattan where rich gay guys get their freak on?”

“They only do that on the upper floor,” Tony said.

I wondered how Nick could afford the place now he wasn’t with money bags Royce. I didn’t like it that some prick there had hurt Nick.

Poker game over, the guys started trickling in. Tease and Trace plopped down on the sofa, and Tease turned on the television. Adam walked out onto the front porch, and I heard Matteo talking to Lake in the kitchen.

“We’re heading out.” Zeke appeared with his arm slung around his husband, Morgan’s, shoulders. Blaze followed behind them, beer in hand.

“Drive safe,” I said. I stepped onto the porch and took out my cigarettes as Blaze chatted with Morgan and Zeke and the way to Zeke’s bike.

“Can I bum one of those?” Adam was only a dark silhouette on the porch swing.

“You don’t smoke.”

Adam shrugged and took a cigarette from my pack. I flicked my lighter for him.

“Rotten habit to take up,” I said before lighting my own. “I’ve been thinking about quitting.”

Adam stared into the distance and didn’t comment.

“Everything okay?” I asked. He’d been spending more and more time at the clubhouse lately. Adam and I hadn’t always seen eye-to-eye. I knew he’d considered me a slut before I’d gotten my act together, and rightly so. But he’d always wanted the best for me. He was my club brother, and I loved him. I should’ve been there for him more since he’d gotten hurt.

“Not really, but I don’t want to talk about it.”

Adam had moved into my room after Tony and Cane had gotten together, and recently he’d been having some episodes that were worrisome. Sometimes he’d get dizzy, and sometimes he’d just zone out. We all knew it had to do with the head injury he’d sustained a couple years back when he’d walked in on a break-in at Zeke and Morgan’s house, and we were all worried about him. Matteo had taken Adam to see his doctor, who had ordered a battery of tests. We were still waiting for the results.

As Zeke backed out of the driveway, Blaze walked up the porch steps.

“Hey, I’ve got a favor to ask you,” he said to me.

I squinted up at him through my exhale of cigarette smoke. Laughter carried from down the street, followed by car doors closing. “Yeah?”

“Seb’s done a few porn scenes, all of them solo since Cane didn’t come through that time. Julianne and I want to film a Daddy/boy scene. I know you’ve quit the business, but I thought maybe you’d consider doing one, just to help Seb break in. He likes you, and with Cane not doing the porn anymore, I don’t have a good choice for a Daddy. No penetration, just oral.”

I opened my mouth to say no because I was done doing porn too but then thought better of it. I didn’t like to let Blaze down, and lately I’d gotten curious about the whole Daddy/boy thing. Because of Nick, a voice in my head said. You were never particularly curious before.

“Sure,” I said.

Blaze grinned at me. “Thanks, man. I promise it’s a one-time thing. I’m getting ready to audition some new people.”

Blaze went inside, Adam and I continued to smoke in silence.

My feelings for Nick were complicated. There’d been a time I would have said I didn’t have any feelings for him, but I was done deluding myself. Yeah, I was attracted to him. He was a pretty little thing, always swinging his cute ass and flirting up a storm with everybody—how could I not be? And he liked to wear skirts and heels. It made my pansexual dick hard.

But he was also a firecracker who gave me a major headache when he got going, and I didn’t need that. I’d been trying to turn things around. I’d been in a rut for too long, and one day I’d told myself I had to break free. What was I doing with my life? I’d turned forty, lived with a bunch of men, and did porn for a living. Where was that getting me? Absolutely nowhere. I didn’t like to admit it, but I was fully aware Nick’s obvious disgust and annoyance with me during the time Blaze had made him my assistant had been a big part of that realization.

I’d quit porn, and for the past year I’d been living off my savings while donating my time at a local LGBTQ center. Nobody knew about it except Morgan, who’d helped set me up there, and I’d sworn him to silence. I knew he’d probably told Zeke, but Zeke could keep a secret. Recently, Gabe, the guy who ran the place—a brother of someone Morgan used to dance with—offered me a paying job. I was going to be, for lack of a better term, the house father at the center. I’d be moving in next week and had yet to tell any of my club brothers about it.

I’d had to convince myself it wouldn’t hurt for me to live somewhere else. It wasn’t like I was going to quit the Hedonists. They were my family. Axel lived with Caleb, and Foghorn with Cupcake, Dante with Isaac, and Zeke with Morgan. None of them had deserted the club. And at my age, I felt I should be out on my own—if you could call living in the apartment over a youth shelter on my own.

I sighed and stubbed out my cigarette on the bottom of my shoe. No time like the present.

“I’m about to make a little announcement, if you want to step inside,” I told Adam as I stood up. He blinked at me and nodded before following me into the living room where I hollered for everybody to get in there. Trace turned down the TV while the rest of the gang filed in, varying degrees of curiosity on their faces.

As I explained my plans, I watched them closely. All looked surprised, and a few concerned.

“You’ve been working at the center?” Lake asked.

“I thought you were out clubbing and screwing around,” Tony said.

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t. In fact, the only times I’ve been clubbing is when you’ve seen me at The Yellow Banana, and I haven’t screwed anyone in months.”

That really shocked them.

“Wait. Did you just say you’ve been abstinent for longer than a day?” Matteo asked, and I threw a pillow at him.

“Yeah, you fucker. I can keep it in my pants when I want to.”

“You didn’t get some kind of…condition, did you?” Lake asked, smirking.

Before I could bite into him for that, Blaze said, “I think that’s great, Hung. We’re gonna miss you here, though. What are your duties at Rainbow House?”

“I’ll be here plenty, don’t you worry. Since Rainbow House is a short-term living shelter, Gabe needs someone there all night every night, and he can’t do it all the time. So, I’ll have certain nights when I have to be there. I’m also helping him keep an eye on everyone when he or his day manager can’t be present. And stop looking at me like that, T. You and Cane share a room now. Don’t act like I’m deserting you.”

“It’s just that I’ll miss you,” Tony said, lunging for me and giving me a fierce hug.

“You call me if you need me,” I said into his blond hair. I glared over his shoulder at Cane. “If your boyfriend pisses you off, you can come stay with me.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Cane said, tugging Tony out of my arms and into his. I grinned, always happy when provoking the guy. Tony was the club pet, and he and I were close. He was the little brother who’d replaced my own back in Brazil. It had taken some time for me to believe it, but I knew he and Cane were good together. That didn’t mean I was going to admit that out loud, of course, and it also didn’t mean I was going to stop keeping an eye out for him.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were at the LBGT center?” Tease asked. “Hell, I’d volunteer some time if they need me.”

“That’s great, buddy. I’ll let them know,” I said. “I didn’t say anything because—hell, I don’t know. It was just easier to let you think I was out partying.”

Blaze gave me a reproachful look but didn’t comment.

We talked a while more, and when everybody split to go to their own rooms, I took my turn in the shower. When I walked into the darkened bedroom, Adam was already snoring in his bed.

Flinging the damp towel in the corner, I lay down, thinking about Nick again. Why I couldn’t get the little fucker out of my mind, I didn’t know. I’d dropped the dishes I had been putting away when I’d heard him telling Tony he was getting a wax and bleach on Monday. God, the image that put into my mind could make me blow my load in seconds if I let myself linger on it. Nick was into the Daddy/boy scene, and I couldn’t deny that was a small part of the reason I’d so readily agreed to do the porn with Seb, although I would seriously do anything for Blaze. A part of me was curious. I wanted to see what it was like to play that role. Just for curiosity’s sake.

I turned onto my stomach in the dark room, cock pressed against the cool sheets, wondering what it would be like to have Nick in my bed. I longed to shut him up with my tongue down his throat, or better yet, my dick. He wouldn’t be able to take all of me, but I’d enjoy seeing him try.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I wasn’t going to jack off with Adam asleep across the room, so I forced myself not to think about Nick anymore and drifted off to sleep.