Page 22 of Up In Flames
“You don’t even know what we’re playing yet.”
“Doesn’t matter because I don’t lose.”
“Oh, God, you’re one of those competitive players, aren’t you?”
He rubbed his hands together. “It’s not too late to back down.”
“In your dreams, fire boy.”
“Fire boy?” Will blinked at me. “What kind of nickname is that?”
“An appropriate one.”
“You’re going to pay for that.” He was confident that he was going to win, and he probably would.
“I haven’t played in months. Maybe you’d consider going easy on me.” I turned the console on and passed Will a controller.
“In your dreams.”
The screen came to life and for the first time in months, maybe I did too.
CHAPTER 10
Will
Telling Oren that I was gay was easier—and harder—than I’d imagined coming out to be. I couldn’t figure out why it had been so much easier to tell him than literally anyone else in my life. He could’ve rejected me just the same as everyone else still might, but deep down I knew he wouldn’t.
I’d imagined coming out a million times, a million ways, to different people in my life. Briggs. The captain. My parents. But I’d never worked up the courage.
After that stupid disaster of a blind date, it felt like I was drowning. Like my closet was filling with water, and I was running out of air. I might not have blown the doors off the closet, but telling Oren had at least drained the water so I could breathe again.
Oren knowing my secret had unforeseen complications, though. After a few hours of video games, another beer, and some pizza, I’d come home feeling like I was on cloud nine. I navigated through my phone and opened Grindr. It should’ve been easy. Just like every other time I used the app.
This time, the minute I opened the app, a sinking feeling slithered into my guts. Scrolling through profiles only made it worse. Guilt nagged at me when I read back some of theconversations I’d had. Because I feared discovery, I didn’t have the most active sex life, but I’d been with a few different men lately. The most recent was after I’d bumped into Oren again.
On a whim, I deleted the app and the sick feeling in my stomach went away. My chest expanded, and I realized I’d been holding my breath. Oren was a friend. An inconvenient crush at best. He was straight, as far as I could tell. If he wasn’t, then he’d had the perfect opening to tell me, and he hadn’t.
Definitely straight. And I was an idiot for letting myself crush on him the way I was. I might as well be fourteen all over again. All pent up and halfway in love with someone I shouldn’t be. My best friend at the time had an older brother who was on the swim team, and we used to get dragged to his meets. A bunch of guys in speedos definitely awoke my sexuality.
Giving up on my idea to find a nice celebratory fuck, I flopped down on my bed and stared up at the ceiling. Telling Oren should’ve made things better not worse. My inconvenient crush had my dick shriveling at the idea of touching anyone else. It was all Oren’s fault for being too gorgeous. With his long, thick eyelashes and his full, pouty lips, he was pretty as hell.
My stupid dick decided to twitch at that. At how Oren had looked earlier tonight. Not having known him before the accident, I had no basis for comparison, but he certainly seemed lighter than when we’d first reconnected. Most of the time, Oren looked haunted. And who could blame him, having gone through what he had. It wasn’t a wonder to me why he often looked dour and deeply contemplative.
But tonight he’d smiled so wide his eyes lit up. The longer I knew him, the more like himself he seemed to be. He hadn’t said as much, but he didn’t have to. Anyone who had been through what he had would be changed by it. Bit by bit, Oren was coming back to life.
Perving on him would be wrong. He was straight and likely still vulnerable. But getting him out of my head wasn’t possible. The harder I tried, the more I thought about him. My dick didn’t care that he was straight. Not that it cared about much besides getting off.
The decision to slide my hand down my pants and grip my cock was a conscious one. I could’ve had a cold shower. Probably should have. Jerking off while thinking of Oren wasn’t going to help the attraction go away faster. It was only going to condition me to think about him when I touched myself.
But I didn’t stop. I gave my dick a couple of slow strokes, then stripped out of my clothes. Grabbing the lube off the nightstand, I held it in one hand while I tucked an extra pillow behind my head. I liked to see what I was doing. I’d always been a visual guy, even when it came to jerking off. Growing up, there was a full-length mirror in the bathroom at home, and I’d spent many hours in front of it watching myself jerk off. When you were a horny, closeted gay who didn’t dare look at other guys’ bodies, you learned to make do with your own.
Or maybe I was just weird.
A trail of lube drizzled from the bottle. It landed on my cock and ran down the shaft. The chilly lube always shocked me at first, even though I’d expected it. Squeezing the bottle a little harder, I squirted more lube onto my dick. It was going to be messy as hell, but coming out to Oren had energized me.
Not that he’d ever see me like this, but I could almost imagine his gaze on me. If he did, the haunted look would be gone from his eyes, and there’d only be an inferno of lust inside him shining outward at me. I knew I wasn’t bad looking, and being a firefighter kept me in shape. I even had a pretty decent dick. I wasn’t hung, but I had a good six inches or so and a respectable amount of girth. Enough to make a guy feel it, but not usually enough to break him.
My lube-free hand ran up my stomach and the light dusting of hair that led up to my chest. It was Oren’s hand I pictured reaching for me, caressing me. It was his touch I wanted instead of mine, but the familiarity of my own touch was comforting. Pinching my nipples made my dick pulse. The room was silent except for the sound of my breathing and the slick squelch of lube as I fisted my cock, increasing the pace.
