Page 43 of Bassist With Benefits
Alan didn’t have a comment. He just wanted to find Jeremy and split. “Seen Jeremy?”
“Uh. Uh.”
Alan searched for something to say. “Wanna get a drink?”
Derek put his hands on his hips and leaned back a little with a dreamy smile on his face. “Kinda. Busy.”
Alan quietly groaned. There was a huge dude on his knees, not even bothering to hide under the kilt. It was just sorta draped around his head while he sucked Derek’s cock. Alan spun around, bolted toward the exit and didn’t stop until the door swung closed behind him and the cold night air filled his lungs.
Leaning against the brick wall of the building, Jeremy was smoking a cigarette.
“I was looking for you, man. Where’d you go? And why the fuck are you smoking?”
Jeremy looked at the cigarette with indifference and shrugged one shoulder. “There was a group of people out here smoking, and I thought it’d give me a reason not to go back inside.”
“I don’t want to be inside either, Jeremy.”
“Really? You looked like you were enjoying that lap dance.”
Alan’s cheeks flushed. “You saw that?”
“Of course I saw that.” Jeremy’s voice was ice. He threw the cigarette to the ground and smashed it with his boot.
“Nothing happened.”
Jeremy stared at Alan for a long time. “Why? Why didn’t anything happen? Why didn’t you go in the back with that guy? Why are you out here? With me?”
Alan’s defenses balked. He didn’t like being baited and forced to explain the obvious. “Don’t give me that shit. You know why.”
Jeremy paused again, his eyes narrowing into sharp slits. “Why don’t you say it?”
Alan gritted his teeth. He wasn’t exactly sure why Jeremy was grilling him, but maybe Jeremy just wanted to hear it out loud. “Because I’d rather be with you.”
“Then why can’t you say that to Derek and Brandon?”
“You know why, Jeremy. What’s with all the questions?”
Jeremy shoved his hands in his pockets, bent his leg and rested the heel of his boot against the brick wall of the building. “I’ve been thinking.” He looked up at the night sky as if reading the answers to his questions in the stars. “Maybe we should cool it for a while. See if we want more from this thing between us. See ifyouwant more from it… or not.”
Alan was crushed. His heart fell to his feet, and he felt like the ground collapsed beneath him. “Is that what you really want? To take a step back?”
“No. Not at all. I want the exact fucking opposite.” Jeremy turned to look Alan in the eye. His twisted features bore pain and anguish, and his whiskey-colored eyes were heavy with emotion. “I want to rally our friends together and tell them that I—” He clamped his mouth shut without finishing the end of the sentence. “Tell them that we’re together. I want to stare directly into Twin Media’s camera lens and say that Alan Motherfucking Delgado is my boyfriend, and I’ve been in love with him since I was 18 years old. If you really wanted this, the way I do, you’d have no problem doing the same thing. You would have shouted it from the top of your lungs and told that waiter that you were off limits, that you were my man and to fuck off, which is exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to kick that motherfucker in his hairy nuts and tell him you were my guy and to take a fucking walk. But I knew you’d freak out if I did. So I kept my mouth shut. Swallowed my anger and jealousy. My humiliation. So I didn’t embarrass you.”
“Don’t say that. I’m not embarrassed, Jeremy. I’m just afraid that if everyone knew we were screwing around, it would get really weird and fuck everything up.”
“Well, it’s really weird now. That’s part of the problem, Alan. I want to know why you think our best friends will find it weird that we’re together. Why is that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, when you figure it out let me know.” Jeremy pushed off the wall. “I’m outta here.”
“Don’t leave without me. I didn’t want to come here in the first place. I only came because I didn’t want you to screw around with any of those dudes!”
Jeremy stopped midway to the limo and spun around. “Is that what you think of me? You really thought I was going to screw around tonight?” He marched back and stopped a few inches from Alan’s face. There was a small Y-shaped vein raised on Jeremy’s forehead that worried Alan. “I only came here because Derek wanted me to, and because I absent-mindedly agreed to it, not because I planned on fucking someone else. I don’t want to fuck anyone else.”
Alan’s heart pounded against his ribcage. He hated that Jeremy was so upset and so pissed off. “Look, Jeremy, maybe you’ve had more time to deal with this. I’m still figuring it out.”
“Well. Take some time and figure it out.”
