Page 11 of The C*ck Down the Block

The other girls snickered, and I felt Lu at my side, tensing up and ready to throw down.

I gripped her hand to hold her back and found myself replying, “Well, maybe he’d be willing to help out for a worthy cause. But I won’t be putting my boyfriend, Chris Kingman, up for auction.”

The room fell silent, and all eyes were on me. I could hardly believe the words as they left my mouth, but there was no taking them back now.

THE LOVE GURU

CHRIS

I pulled my phone out of the arm band I wore when working out, and dialed up the one other person who would take my eternal crush on Trixie seriously and help me the fuck out.

After last night, I was done fucking around. I was head over heels in love with her and I no longer wanted to be her friend. I knew full well the risk involved. I could lose her forever. She could tell me to fuck off just like she had the last time I asked her out. But we were adults now and the consequences would be a hell of a lot more serious.

It was going to kill me to ask my little brother for help, but this was what desperation looked like.

Everett was the family’s one and only love guru. He always had women eating out of the palm of his hand. When he didn’t answer the fourth phone call like a normal human being would, I slowly jogged in the direction of his house. It was only a block, but it was always good to check before coming over in case he was entertaining female company. Which was most nights.

Trixie and I left Manniway’s last night before any of the other Kingmans, so I had to assume he had, in fact, found a single lady to woo.

I dialed again and texted in all caps that he needed to answer, or I was entering the premises with the key I knew he had hidden in the green gnome on his porch. He couldn’t say no. I owned the house, he was leasing it through my company, as were most of the people that lived in the Mustang Plains neighborhood.

“What?” I’d definitely woken him up. “Why are you calling me? I hate it when you call me. Just text like a normal person.”

Kids these days. “I did. You didn’t reply.”

“Because it’s seven in the morning. Training camp doesn’t start for two more weeks. Let me sleep, you dickbag.” How in the hell he partied all night and was still a top-notch professional athlete defied the laws of physics. And made me feel old.

“I’m not coming over to make you run with me, and I’m already here so come open your damn door.”

There was a little white sports car parked in his driveway. Everett didn’t fit into little sports cars. He was as big as they were. We all were. There was a long silent pause where I was definitely on mute. “Gimme a minute and go ‘round back.”

Yeah, that was definitely code for I’ve got a girl here, and he didn’t want her to walk out, panties in her pocket, in front of me. I didn’t care where people got their jollies and there was no shame in it. But fine, I’d give them their privacy.

I hopped the fence and went to sit in one of his outdoor recliners by the barbecue grill. I sat for all of three seconds and then started pacing back and forth under the pergola, sat again, paced again, did my best not to press my face against the sliding glass door to see if he and his girl had come downstairs yet, and sat one more time.

A thousand and two hours later, Everett plopped down into the chair next to me, only an open bathrobe wrapped around his shoulders, otherwise naked as the dawn, with a cup of coffee in his hand. “This better be good. I was about to get my dick wet. Again.”

“Your dick gets any wetter and it’s going to shrivel up like wrinkly fingers in the bathtub.” He had enough sex for the entire defensive and offensive lines of the Mustangs.

He lifted his coffee cup, toasting me, and nodded. “Here’s to wrinkly dicks.”

“Mine is certainly not.” Shit. I didn’t mean to say that. Kingman rule number one—never let them see your weaknesses.

He squinted at the morning light and took a sip of his coffee. “Wet or wrinkly?”

“Neither.” Fuck. I needed to tape my mouth shut.

“If that’s why you’re here, I can fix it. I’ve got at least five girls in my phone right now that will suck you off and say thank you very much.”

Sigh. “You’re disgusting.”

“Disgustingly well laid. Unlike you.” He tipped his cup at me and then took another sip like this wasn’t the most important conversation of my life.

I didn’t say anything, and that got Everett’s attention more than I would have liked. He sat straight up in his chair and focused in on me like he was waiting for me to pass him the ball. “You don’t want me to get you any girl though, do you?”

I got up, walked towards the gate, stopped three steps away, and turned back. Being a wiener wasn’t going to get me what I wanted. And after last night, I was more sure than ever I wanted Trixie. Not just in my bed, even though I had no doubt that would fucking blow my mind, I wanted her in my heart. More precisely, I wanted into hers.

That meant asking for help. Because what I’ve been doing for the last ten years hadn’t gotten me out of the fucking friend zone.

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