Page 111 of Knockin' Boats
“We used to watch it together. It seemed appropriate.”
The show was even cheesier than I remembered, and I snorted at the high school drama playing out. But it was nostalgic too. Sawyer and I had once spent so much time together.
We’d watched the same shows, listened to the same music, played the same sports. We were practically twins. It was kind of weird when I thought about it now. Why hadn’t we had more of our own interests? Were we codependent, or had I been weirdly fixated on everything Sawyer even back then?
Sawyer rested his hand on my abs, idly drawing designs on my skin that were causing my dick to get ideas. I ignored the desire building in me because this was more important.
Me and Sawyer, reconnecting as friends. Friends who…touched a lot more, anyway.
Tonight had been weird. I’d shown up, halfway expecting Sawyer to tell me to stop being a whiny bitch. I thought we might fuck around, which would be a nice distraction from the ugliness of Rick’s words still coating my insides.
But Sawyer comforting me? Being a real friend? I hadn’t expected that. Maybe I’d sold him short. Sold us both short. But it wasn’t so long ago he hadn’t wanted to speak to me.
Even when he accepted my apology for Mel, I knew he hadn’t forgotten. That he remained guarded, locked safely behind a wall of distrust.
Sawyer was once the most open kid. He laid his heart bare to me when we were young. I’d ruined that.
But tonight, I’d gotten a tiny piece back.
“I can’t believe I never noticed the vibe between Derek and Stiles,” Sawyer said when we were into our third episode.
I laughed. “Are you serious? They made all this slash fiction about them.”
“Slash fiction?”
“You know, fan fiction where they get it on?”
Sawyer’s eyes had narrowed as he looked up at me. “Wait a minute. How do you know so much about this?”
I cleared my throat and looked away. “No reason.”
“Ash, did you…”
“What?” I asked, tensing up.Don’t ask it. Please don’t.
“Did you know you were into guys?” Sawyer sat up. “Even back then?”
“No.” I sighed. “Not really. Or, at least, I didn’t understand what it meant.”
“Did you read the slash fiction?”
“Maybe.”
“Did it make you hard?”
I flashed a look at Sawyer. I didn’t need to say anything.
“Dude! How did you not understand?”
“I don’t know! I read erotica with women and got hard for that too. I just figured, you know, it was the subject matter. Sex is sexy and all that.”
“Did you ever watch gay porn?”
I wet my lips. “Yeah, Sawyer. Same deal. Women and men both got me hot. I figured it was just…the porn effect, you know? I didn’tknow. Not for sure.”
“But you must have had some idea.”
“Kind of, but I don’t know, I just didn’t think about it much. It took a while to wrap my head around because I dated women.”
