Page 60 of Gunpowder

“Fuck,” Wren choked out.

Blair twisted Wren’s hair around his fist to keep the pressure, the sting, because if he was going to fall apart then Wren was going to fall apart too. Wren slammed into his prostate just two more times before he buried a moan against Blair’s neck and went over the edge. The feeling of Wren’s cock throbbing with release dragged Blair over right along with him.

Only the smallest amount of come trickled out when Blair came, his body seizing up with a mostly dry orgasm that was somehow more intense than the one before it. His legs went boneless as the pleasure subsided. His arms, too. If Wren wasn’t holding his entire weight up Blair would be on the floor.

They did end up on the floor, but in a much more deliberate fashion than Blair would have managed. Wren eased out of him and laid him down, then fell on his back next to him on the dense carpet. Blair turned and put his head on Wren’s chest. He felt oddly disconnected, like every thought in his mind had drained out of him and the sound of Wren’s heartbeat was the only thing keeping him from floating away. Wren was still for a moment, then slowly brought his arm up around Blair’s shoulders.

For awhile, they just breathed, with the late afternoon sunlight coming through the window to warm Blair’s back and the heat of Wren’s body warming his front. It was a soft kind of silence. It carried the floaty feeling from his mind into his chest, and it was nice.

“Hey, Wren.”

“Hm?”

“You were worried about me,” Blair said, folding his arms on Wren’s chest and propping his chin on them.

“Shut up.”

Blair didn’t bother trying to breach the subject of the warehouse with Wren again. He contented himself with laying on the floor while Wren stroked his hair in an absentminded way that made Blair’s whole body feel warm. As a result, though, he was back to square one with ideas for how to approach Phantom once they left. The doors to that warehouse were too solid to brute force without drawing the attention of anyone who might be inside. There shouldn’t be many people in there, judging from how desolate the parking lot had looked, but having them grouped up and ready wouldn’t be ideal.

He invited Wren to come to the bar’s grand reopening, and Wren seemed as enthused about the idea as Blair expected. It was worth a shot.

After helping Spencer take an exhaustive last minute inventory of the newly replenished liquor, they were as ready as they were ever going to be to reopen Harlowe’s.

“Blair, I need one more favor today,” Spencer said as he emerged from the doorway between the two shelving units of bottles behind the bar.

Blair hopped off his stool. “What’s up?”

Spencer took a duffel bag from behind the bar and sat it between them. “I need you to make a delivery. Usually I’d just make ‘em come here, but I don’t want to be trying to do this kind of business on our first night open again.”

“Oh… don’t we open in another hour?” Blair asked, disappointment seeping into him as he lifted the heavy bag.

“Don’t worry, we’ll still be open long after you get back. You’re really doing me a solid here.”

He looked out the open curtains into the gloomy day. It looked like the rain was on its way back. Unable to resist the heartfelt gratitude on Spencer’s face, he sat the duffel bag down long enough to grab his jacket off the coat rack by the door and flip the red hood up. The rain itself didn’t bother him but it was a raging pain in the ass to ride his bike with his hair dripping into his eyes. He shouldered the duffel bag and tried not to sound too petulant when he asked, “Where am I taking these?”

Blair frowned at the cars lining the sidewalk in front of the bar when he returned. He was glad it had such a good turnout, but he had really wanted to be there to help, preferably in the kitchen. One vehicle he didn’t see was an Audi R8. He checked his phone; the bar had opened over an hour ago, surely Wren would have been there already if he was going to come. Not that he had any reason to. Blair’s shoulders sunk as he pulled the heavy door open. It seemed selfish to be in such low spirits when Spencer had put so much into the grand reopening, but he couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

Standing inside the door, looking at the happy crowd and tables full of food that had been prepared just fine without his help, he felt painfully unnecessary. But he wasn’t going to bring down the mood. The bar was thrumming with more energy than he’d ever seen it, so he put on his best smile as he tied his damp hoodie around his waist and threw his hand up to several lower ranking members of the gang that he didn’t see often. He yelled greetings over the buzz of conversation and the music coming from Julian’s record player, where a black vinyl rolled smoothly under the needle. It was all on his way to the bar. The least he could do was tell Spencer how great everything looked and get a drink to celebrate. Maybe with enough alcohol he would actually feel like he was celebrating and not lamenting the absence of his—

“Wren?” he cried in shock.

Wren sat at the bar, throwing back shots with Spencer. Blair gaped as Wren coughed and pushed the shot glass aside to join the empty one next to him. Spencer had a matching pyramid of them on his side of the bar with three to Wren’s two. Blair blinked but the hallucination didn’t fade. No fucking way.

16

GRATIFICATION

“Uh, hey,” Blair said..

Wren spun his stool toward him, his smirk too wide and eyes too lidded for Blair to think he was anywhere close to sober. “Blair,” he said, dragging out his name in a way that Blair would have punched anyone else for.

“Having fun?” Blair asked, watching Spencer pour them another round, this time with a third shot for him.

“We’re trying the new flavored vodkas I got in for tonight,” Spencer said.

Blair took the glass from him. “What’s this one?”

“Birthday cake. Probably gonna be awful,” Spencer said.

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