Page 56 of Close Quarters

“Well, fuck yeah, I’m going to get some,” Elliot said brightly, tugging my arm. “C’mon, I know you like that stuff as much as everyone else.”

That was true. It was one of the few treats in this place that I genuinely enjoyed. It was supposedly some recipe from Mona’s family, and Rip was only allowed to make it in a back room without anyone else around. Personally, I thought that was overkill, but I knew how people could be about their secret family recipes. Whatever it was made of, it was the most delicious lemonade I’d ever had and was second only to the tea my grandmother always made.

“Yeah, go get some,” I told him as Dom’s eyes locked onto mine. I wasn’t an idiot. I knew full well Dom was waiting to say his piece. If he’d wanted to talk to either of us privately, all he had to do was slip away and wait until we were alone. No, he wanted us to know he knew and would say what was on his mind.

“Uh, you have to come with me, remember?” Elliot said, turning to give me an urgent stare and drop his voice. “C’mon. Dom looks about ready to pop a blood vessel.”

“Probably because he’s already figured out what was just going on,” I told him with a sigh. “The guy’s big, not stupid.”

Elliot groaned, turning around. “Alright, what the hell, Dom?”

“Yeah, what the hell is right,” Dom said, pushing away from the wall and marching toward us. “Do you have any idea what kind of fucked up shit this is?”

“What’s ‘this’ exactly?” Elliot asked, and I had to roll my eyes.

“Really?” I asked him.

Elliot turned to me, shrugging. “If he’s going to get pissed, I want him to say outright what he’s pissed about. Might as well get it all out and not guess what we’re talking about.”

It seemed pretty obvious to me what was being talked about, but I’d also learned that Elliot did best when he knew exactly what was being said or talked about. That wouldn’t stop him from going off on tangents during a discussion, but at least what needed to be talked about was crystal clear in his mind. Well, it was either that or he wanted to make Dom come right out and say what he thought was going on so he could make the guy uncomfortable. Elliot generally only fucked with people when he was feeling playful, but I knew from firsthand experience he was not afraid to give someone hell if they pissed him off enough.

“Fine,” Dom said through gritted teeth. “Then we can talk about how you two just got done fucking, how about that?”

“That seems pretty clear-cut,” I muttered to Elliot, wincing. “Unless you need him to use some other?—”

“Fuck off,” he snapped at me, crossing his arms. “Alright, well, I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

“You think they’re going to be happy if they find out you two have started sleeping together after pairing you up? The whole point…well, I’m guessing the whole point was to make it so maybe you could have more of a friend than just me,” Dom told Elliot, turning his gaze to me. “And that maybe you could start acting less like a dick and be a normal human being to people.”

“Don’t start being an asshole,” Elliot told him, prodding Dom in the chest. “I’m not some dainty little princess that needs saving because you know better than me.”

Dom grabbed his hand, squeezing hard enough to make Elliot wince before shoving it away. “I’m not rescuing a damsel in distress. I’m trying to tell my friend he’s playing with fire here.”

“There’s nothing in the rules about it,” I told him quietly. “And it’s not like we’ve gone out of our way to make it well known either.”

“You call screwing in the general supply cabin quiet?” he asked, eyeing the door. “All I had to do was get close to the door and I knew exactly what you two were doing in there. What if it was someone like Leon? Or Mona? Or anyone who would have had no problem going off to tell? And when the fuck did you start liking dick?”

“Davis Willis,” I told him.

“I…what?” he asked, clearly not expecting my answer. Even Elliot gave me a confused stare as he tried desperately to see if he was supposed to have remembered that name.

“It was middle school. The first guy I’d ever looked at and thought, ‘Wow, I’d like to touch him.’ It didn’t take much thought after that to realize I was into guys. Especially when you start seeing all the other guys talking about the girls they wanted to touch or hang around,” I said, though there had been…other talk too, but only from certain guys. The average teenage boy mostly turned into a gibbering pile of idiocy around the girl they were interested in and would probably implode if they managed to touch their hand. It took a couple of years of hormones before they managed to get themselves under control enough to function.

“Oh. Mine was Ray Philps,” Elliot said brightly. “It was like…fifth grade or something.”

“Damn, early bloomer,” Dom said, momentarily taken out of his attitude to eye Elliot. “I knew you were kind of a slut back in the day, but you really got interested in guys that early?”

Elliot glared at him. “It wasn’t sexual. Kids can have crushes. And it was perfectly innocent.”

“Not always,” he said thoughtfully. “My first crush was Ronda Mueller back in the fourth grade. Ten years later, we took each other’s virginity.”

“That is not the same thing,” Elliot countered. “Holding a cute girl’s hand in the fourth grade and then later, when you’re both full of hormones, sleeping together is not the same thing.”

“True,” I added. “I had a girlfriend.”

“What?” Elliot asked. “I didn’t know you were bi.”

“I was seven. I used to hold hands with this girl, Vanessa when we went to music class. Until the day the teacher scolded us for being inappropriate.”

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