Page 69 of Meet You in the Waves
“And I was happy to discover that assumption was not entirely true,” I said as casually as I could.
“Onlyyoucould corrupt a straight boy,” Rob grinned at me. I lost the battle with my nonchalance then, grinning back at him as he shook his head at me. “Does the little brother know?”
“No, the brother does not know,” I returned. “So let’s keep it that way, yeah?”
I could feel Mateo’s eyes narrow on me and I couldn’t help looking up at him. I regretted my words the moment they were out of my mouth. Yeah, I knew how they would have sounded to him, like I was happy to keep Ajay’s sexuality a secret. But not his. Not Mateo’s.
Mateo held my eye for an uncomfortably long moment until he looked away, scowl firmly back on his face. Rob looked back at me then, a guilty expression on his face.
“Probably could have been a bit more tactful,” I said under my breath.
“Yeah,” Rob sighed, sitting back on his lounge just as Ajay stepped back out onto the deck, blissfully unaware of what had just gone down out here.
“Hey,” I said to him, sharing a smile as he sat back down beside me. “How’s your mum?”
“She’s good. They’re down in Queenstown and having a great time from the sounds,” he replied, that sadness of abandonment he had felt earlier seemingly lifted. I wondered if I could take any of the credit for that. Was it wrong that I hoped so?
At least I no longer needed to hide my feelings from my friends. Of course, Ajay didn’t know that they knew but that was okay. I was just happy I could ogle him to my heart’s content and my friends would just have to deal with it.
Though as my eyes tracked back to Mateo I felt a little ping in my gut that told me I should tone it down in front of him. Nobody needed to see their ex happily moving on. He and I hadalways had the potential of being a really big mess and I was starting to see why it was a bad idea to hook up with your best friend.
I mean, yeah, he’d been the first of us to bring somebody new out but I knew I would never have feelings of jealousy or other complications over Tate. But I was finding it really hard keeping my feelings for Ajay on the downlow. I wanted him so bad I could hardly keep my thoughts off my face and the way he was looking back at me hardly helped.
At the same time, I recognised this complicated little relationship saga for what it was. It was the first time I had really thought about just how small our little town of Espy truly was.
CHAPTER 23
ajay
Ispent the next week with Nick, just the two of us in that big Hamptons house by the sea. It was probably the best week of my life filled with Nick and sex and surfing and even more sex.
We surfed every day and he took me on motorbike rides down the coast or inland to other little towns I’d never seen before. I played guitar for him every day and it always ended up the same way with me straddling his hips as he drove up into me. He held my hand as we walked up Caves Arches again and we packed the surfboards on top of his Jeep and drove to other surfing spots that Ihad to see.
That thing he had switched on inside of me was showing no signs of abating as several years’ worth of pent up desire came out in full force. I honestly couldn’t get enough of him, of having his mouth on every part of me or mine on his. Of having him inside me. It felt like he belonged there and he made me feel like I belonged to him, especially when he took me over and possessed me the way I never thought I’d let anyone do. I absolutely loved his body, every square inch of it. I loved his masculine scent and his taste and those manly grunts and sounds he made when he wrecked me.
I’d started this thing with him thinking I was maybe a little to the right on the sexuality scale he had first told me about. Now I was wondering if I was a lot further down that scale than I’d realised.
It would explain a lot.
It would explain why I would have happily spent entire days on end with him naked in bed, only needing to move for food or water. But Nick always reminded me there was more to life so we always made time for surfing or getting out of the house. I always knew I’d be rewarded with a kiss under the cold shower and usually more back upstairs in Nick’s bathroom.
And then there was Rob and Mateo who dropped in every day or who we met up with at Paddy’s for a drink and more pool sessions where I would team up with Rob and Nick with Mateo. Or sometimes they’d stay the night and Rob and Nick would smoke out on the back deck and I would share Nick’s joint with him, a feeling of peace descending on me when we were together like that.
These boys were clearly important to Nick, so they were important to me too.
Kira had always tried to manipulate me into prioritising her over everyone else in my life and I’d always resented her for that. I would never be that guy to Nick. Even if I still struggled with the whole Mateo thing who still had not exchanged a single word with me in nearly four weeks.
But I trusted Nick. Even though I’d only known him a month, I trusted him.
My arms were tight around Nick’s waist as he rode us on his motorbike towards Paddy’s later that evening. One of my hands might have slipped under his jacket on the ride over but he didn’t seem to mind the way my thumb was stroking his warm skin.
He parked the bike in the alley behind Paddy’s, toeing down the kickstand as I climbed off the back.
“You should come with a warning label,” Nick said to me, eyes alight as I pulled the helmet off my head. He was right there in front of me, hands tussling my curls the way I knew he would. The way he always did.
“Why?” I asked, a little tilt to my head.
“You know why,” he smirked. “You’re lucky I didn’t run us off the road.”
