Page 24 of Choke Up

ELLISH: Hope you didn't get locked in there. But if so, I'll be back around 9 to finish my job.

I look around, realizing that his clothes are balled up in the sink, and he never had a chance to put away any of the equipment.

JOHNNY: No worries, it's all taken care of.

There are still a few hours until he plans to come back, and it's as good an excuse as any to avoid going home. I load a washer with towels and the clothes he was wearing, and consider stealing his white briefs that I find sexy as fuck, but they're crusted in my dry cum. I really hosed him. It’s been a couple of days since I'd jerked off to pictures or messages he sends me, and I've always had a lot of cum, but the mess left behind is excessive.

Without realizing it, I clean the whole equipment room, including mopping the floor and wiping down the counter that I tongue fucked Ellis on. I zone out as I'm swiping an antibacterial wipe over the surface, feeling a little out-of-body while I remember all the things I did to Ellis' pliant body. If you'd told me this morning that I'd be rocking a boner from daydreaming about licking another dude’s ass, I'd have laughed. I don't know what came over me, but the second his pants were down, and that perfect little ass was pushing itself into my hands, it became my whole world. I needed to sink my fingers into his flesh, to taste the sweat from his skin. Then he begged for more and the barrier disappeared, his perfect pink hole staring right back at me.

Fuck.

After throwing his clothes in the dryer, I gather up my catcher's gear and head to the dark, empty locker room. In the shower, I spend more time jerking my cock, thinking of how my best friend's little brother tasted than I do washing the shame from my skin.

ELLISH: Everything okay?

I glance down at the message, tearing my eyes away from the interrogation currently happening in my bedroom. Elliot is sitting in my desk chair, playing with my catcher's mitt. He tosses it on my bed and stands up, clearly pissed that I'm looking at my phone and not paying attention.

"I don't know what to tell you, E. There's nothing to tell."

He stares at me silently, assessing me. We've known each other forever. He knows I'm lying. But there isn't a truth I can give him without compromising the one relationship that's ever meant anything to me. He's more than my best friend, he's my brother. And what I've done—what I'm doing—would tear him apart. Tear us apart. I can't let that happen.

“Just please tell me you haven't gotten wrapped up in Jimmy's shit."

I gape at Elliot. "You think I'm on drugs?"

Jimmy is a good guy, but we suspect he might be on something. We don't have concrete proof, but his behavior has been erratic, and some cash went missing after he'd sold his gaming console and all his games. To be on the safe side, we’ve been keeping anything of value in our rooms and locking the doors, even when just going to the bathroom. We've been discussing how to broach the topic to get him some help, but we barely know the guy, and he's almost never around.

Elliot holds up his hands. "I sure as fuck hope not, but I don't know what all this lying and sneaking around is about." He pauses and wipes his hands on his thighs. "I love you like my own brother, G. Hell, Ellis is probably the only person on earth I might love more than you, and that depends on the day.” He chuckles, but there’s no humor to it. He’s really concerned.

Blowing out a long breath, I give him the closest thing to the truth I can manage without ruining everything. "It's… someone. But they have to keep it on the D-L, because they'll get in trouble if they're caught."

"Is she like a teacher or something?"

"Or something," I say, evading a direct answer or his use of she.

"I’m assuming you could get in trouble, too?" When I nod affirmatively, he asks how much trouble, and I shrug. My eyes glance down at my message thread with Ellis and then back up to Elliot.

"Enough to make it interesting," I answer, trying to lighten the mood. It doesn't work.

Elliot's arms fold over his chest. "How much trouble are you going to get yourself into just to get your dick wet?"

I wince. "Who says that's all it is?"

“Since when have you ever been interested in more than a warm hole to stick your dick in?”

He gives me a pointed look, and it wounds me. My stomach rolls with a mixture of pain, nausea, and rage. Obviously, Elliot doesn’t know he's talking about his brother, nor has he ever seen me give a damn about who I'm sticking my dick in. The string of women I slept with this summer alone would probably warrant his reaction, but his words burn me. I try to tamp down my anger, but irritation still bleeds into my tone when I'm able to put words together.

"Did it ever occur to you that it could be more? That if I'm willing to risk so much—risk everything—that they might actually mean something to me?"

Elliot's gaze softens before he smirks.

"I know you're not telling me that the heartless man whore himself, Gabe Rodgers, has gone and caught feelings."

"Get the fuck out so I can text pictures of my dick to my feelings," I say, throwing a pillow at him.

As the door clicks shut behind him, I think about what he said. Ellis definitely means more to me than the revolving door of hookups I've had in the past, or my one shit relationship from high school. But can it really be considered catching feelings if there’s a chance they’ve always been there, beneath the surface?

CHAPTER 9

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