Page 28 of Unicorn Unashamed

“Raymond, do you think you were under the influence?”

That wasn’t what Raymond had expected to hear at all. “What?”

“Do you think his pheromones had something to do with you saying yes?”

“That’s not how it works,” Raymond said, trying not to growl. There were altogether too many fuckface assholes who tried to play the “pheromones made me do it” card when it came to sexual assault. Raymond knew as well as anyone that it was an excuse and nothing more. Yeah, pheromones could make a unicorn more… more enticing—god, he’d certainly learned that firsthand, but in no way did they make the other person mindless. Anyone would still be able to make conscious decisions on whether or not to act on the attraction. “You know that’s not how it works. It wasn’t his fault.”

“I’m not saying it was,” Curtis replied calmly. “I’m just asking. If you hadn’t gotten an intense and sudden face full of his scent, would you still have said yes if he’d asked?”

If Josh had asked? Made the first move? No question. If Josh had shown any interest in him anytime during the last six months… “Yeah,” Raymond said. “Yes, of course.”

Curtis made a relieved sound. “Okay. That’s good.”

“It is?”

“I don’t think you did anything wrong,” Curtis said with finality. “And you know I’d be at you if I thought you had. But I do think you really need to talk to Josh. Cause I doubt you have. Have you?”

“No,” Raymond mumbled.

“That’s what I thought. Talk to him, okay? If he’s really upset, you can grovel and then promise to leave him alone forever. But I don’t think he will be, except maybe over the fact that you radio-silenced him all day. Since I’m betting that’s what you did.”

Raymond didn’t really have a response to that. “Okay. Okay, I’ll… say something.” If nothing else, it was the right thing to do. He had to give Josh the chance to let Raymond know exactly what he thought of what had happened.

“Good man. Let me know how it goes?”

“I will.”

They hung up soon after, to Raymond’s phone beeping with a message. From Josh.

Hey… are we still on for tomorrow?

Raymond took a deep breath. Yeah, if you want to come.

Several minutes passed before Raymond received a simple Okay. See you then.

Raymond took a deep breath, then proceeded to cancel the rest of his evening appointments on Friday. He knew that there was no way he’d be able to concentrate on anything once he and Josh had seen each other

***

Thursday hadn’t been the easiest day for Josh. The day after his virile period was over never was, especially when Josh woke up alone. After three days of intense longing and wishing to be close to someone, the following twenty-four hours of come-down always left him feeling kind of bereft, like he was floating unpleasantly out of his skin.

It was possible that Thursday was particularly bad too, because he’d been with Raymond who had then left him, but it wasn’t as if Josh hadn’t had the same experience with one-night-stands before.

He had… hoped that wasn’t what Raymond was, but Josh wasn’t planning to make him uncomfortable by asking for more than what he’d gotten.

At least they were still on for today. Josh clung to that. Raymond still didn’t mind seeing Josh for a session, so at the very least Josh hadn’t ruined anything by coming onto him. Having sex with him.

Probably.

He was more or less a ball of nerves by the time he had to get ready to head over to Raymond’s place, but that was neither here nor there. He could totally be normal about what had happened. He sort of wanted to talk to Raymond about what had happened though. He wasn’t too keen on the idea of pretending Raymond hadn’t spent the night in Josh’s bed. Closure. That was all he really wanted.

He pushed open the door to Raymond’s studio, bell jingling, to find Raymond standing in the middle of the space. He jerked his head up when he heard Josh come in.

“Hey,” Josh said tentatively as he stepped out of his shoes.

“Hey,” Raymond said. “How… how are you?”

Josh, well, he’d always been honest with Raymond before. He wasn’t going to change now. “Not great.”

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