Page 34 of Melting the Ice

“We? Of course you left with Dean.”

“I didn’t leavewithDean . . .uh . . .likethat,” Brody clarified before he could snatch the words back.

Ramsey leaned in. “Oh? Is that the way the wind’s blowing? You’re into Dean?”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Brody complained.

But Ramsey wasn’t stupid, not nearly as stupid as he let a lot of people believe, and he’d scented blood in the water.

“You’re crushing on Dean.”

“No,” Brody said, and he was fairly certain that wasn’t a lie.

“You had sex with him, then. How was it? Is he—”

“No,” Brody repeated. Trying to convince himself that wasn’t a lie, either. After all, he hadn’t seen Dean naked. He’d seen more of Dean coming out of the shower before that night than he’d seenthatnight. He hadn’t even touched Dean’s dick, not really.

It wasn’t sex. It had just been . . .an experiment.

That was all.

“Oh. Well, damn. I was so sure that was it. You had sex with Dean and it fucked you up.” Ramsey sounded disappointed.

A different kind of disappointed than Brody had expected.

He felt a pulse of guilt because he had kind of lied. Sort of, anyway.

He’d certainly misled Ramsey, whose only crime was being a good friend to him.

“I . . .ah . . .well,” Brody admitted. “We might’ve . . .had a bit of a thing. Not even a thing. A thing implies that it wassomething, like an actual official occurrence and it wasn’t. Not really.”

Ramsey raised a blond eyebrow. “Then what the fuck was it?”

“An experiment,” Brody proclaimed and then realized how stupid that sounded.

Ramsey must’ve agreed, because he rolled his eyes. “So y’all were just experimenting? Two bros wondering what it feels like? Must’ve been pretty earth-shattering ’cause you’ve been wandering around with your head in the clouds, like all your brain molecules are still lost in Dean’s dick.”

“That is absolutely not true,” Brody said.

Ramsey grinned and made a little bit motion with his fingers. “It’s alright. He’s hot. I can’t blame you for picking him to ‘experiment’ on.”

“I didn’tpick him, it just sort of happened.” Except that it hadn’t really happened like that at all. Brodyhadbeen thinking about it—and specifically related to Dean. But Ramsey didn’t need to know that, because he’d be insufferable about this, anyway.

“No? You sure about that?”

“Mostly.”

“So,” Ramsey said. He flopped back against his chair and shot Brody a knowing look. “You liked it. Liked him. Liked fucking around with men.”

“Those are three things that are not necessarily true. I said it was an experiment, and that’s all it was,” Brody retorted, hating how defensive he sounded. Just like how he’d sounded the night it had happened.

He kept thinking he should apologize to Dean, but the first problem with that was he had to actuallyseethe guy to do that, and the second was that he didn’t actually know what he’d be apologizing for. Not theduring,that was for damn sure. But the aftermath? That was a different story.

“Listen, we don’t have to talk about it,” Ramsey said, all casual and friendly, like he didn’t care either way.

“Good,” Brody said shortly, “because I don’t want to.”

Brody knew that neither of those things was really true—theyshouldtalk about it, and part of himdidwant to talk about it. And of course, he didn’t really trust Ramsey to leave it alone, but he didn’t know what else to say right now, either.

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