Page 45 of Contingently Yours
Drama king. I glance out over the bay when the view on the camera starts wobbling with his angry steps through the house.
I catch his muffled voice as my cousin comes into view, looking half asleep on the couch. “There’s trouble in paradise. He wants the keys to Prostate City.”
“What?” Shaw asks, flipping the phone around to face him.
“Hey, I have a question.”
“I was just going to head to bed. I have to be up early. Can you make this quick and not weird, please?”
“What do I do if my boyfriend has a crush on me?”
“Oh, my God! Heactuallylikes you?” Terry squawks somewhere in the background.
“Why is that so difficult to imagine? I’m a total catch.”
Shaw shakes his head, fortunately dismissing his husband as easily as I do. “Um…remind him you’re just playing pretend boyfriends,” he ventures. “Seriously, is this why you called?”
“Yeah, but he looks at me like…” I don’t even know how to go there, so I just rapid fire off the other list of crimes, “and gets hard for me, and jerked me off in the shower, and I don’t know how to end it without his pouting fucking up our deal. We still have two more properties to sell.”
“Holyfuckingshit. Go the fuck back, right now,” Terry interrupts, his head appearing in the shot behind the couch like a jack-in-the-box.
Doesn’t he have his own cousins? “Why can I still hear you? This isyourphone, isn’t it, Shaw?”
Shaw sits up, looking slightly more attentive now, at least. “Dude…did you just say he jerked you off in the shower?”
“Yeah. Keep up.” I bat my hand in front of my screen, waving off his attempt to get hung up on details. “So, how do I tell him it can’t happen again?”
“Uh…maybe, I don’t know—don’t fucking shower with him,” he says, sounding amused.
Terry throws his hands up behind Shaw and glances at the ceiling. “Seriously? Youshoweredwith him? How do you not see that you’re attracted to men?”
“Being attracted to men and trading hand jobs withoneguy are not the same thing.”
“Whoa!Trading?Did you saytrading?” he shrieks, his eyes bugging out.
Oh my God. I don’t have time for this. My nipples are getting hard out here.
“Um…cuz, I think you have more than one problem here,” Shaw says sagely, with a hint of amusement.
Great. Terry’s infected him with his cockamamie theories.
Now I’m the one looking skyward. “He was begging for it. I was proving a point, and getting me back was the least he could do for all the effort I put into that shit. Quit making such a big deal out of it.”
“A big deal?” Shaw scoffs.
Terry’s hands slap the sides of his head as he leans over the couch. “Are you listening to yourself? Oh, my God, you’re freaking out big time. It’s okay,” he soothes, but then shakes his head and adds, “I can’t believe I’m actually consoling you, but it’s okay.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Now Terry wants to braid my hair right along with Lucas.
“I’m not having a fucking freak out. I was hard and turned on. He…pisses me the fuck off. Apparently, I have an anger kink or something when it comes to him. I’m not bringing him to a Pride parade with you. He’s just… Help me out here, will you, Shaw?”
“Your John Stamos?” he suggests, referencing one of our favorite movies, ‘Stepbrothers,’ where two guys agree on the one guy they’d sleep with if they were women.
“No! I don’t want to fuck him. I just let him fuckmy hand.”
Terry snorts and rolls his eyes.
“Snorting? What’s the snorting for?”
