Page 56 of More Than I Can Bear

I pulled my hand away, blinking away the haze of red, to find everyone staring at me wide eyed, as if they’d never seen me before. All but Darren. His face was bright red and I caught the moment when his jaw muscle locked down, as he glared at me, but not for long. Whatever he was feeling, he seemed to shake it off quickly, grinning wide.

“You gotta build a fucking bridge and get over this, mate, and I know just the bitches for it.”

He didn’t need a response from me, grabbing his phone out and making some calls, much to the excitement of the other guys. And when we got out of the Ubers we’d caught to the pub, there they were, a line of girls dressed up to the nines, waiting for us by the pub entrance.

“Having a good night, Adam?” one of them asked, sidling up to me with one of her friends in tow.

“Yeah, great,” I said between gritted teeth. “Lemme buy you two ladies a drink.”

I ordered them a couple of vodka cranberries, but didn’t stop to talk to them while they were drinking them, instead I organised a tray of shots to be deposited on our table.

“Fuck, yes, someone’s going big on his daddy’s credit card tonight!” Darren crowed, taking the shot glass I handed to him.

“Just bring us the bottle, thanks, love,” I told the barmaid, who gave me a lingering look, right before nodding.

Jack told me to get drunk? It took a lot of booze to fuck up a bear shifter, but I was prepared for the task, downing one, two, three shots to the sounds of everyone’s cries. They weren’t cheering me on because I’d worked hard and achieved something, or because I’d shown myself worthy of it. Instead it was some kind of salute to my temporary insanity, egging me onto greater and greater heights. Where they were happy to join me.

So why did I feel so alone?

“C’mon, fuck ya!” Darren slurred, several hours later, slinging an arm around my shoulders and steering me towards the stage. The pub band had just started and the crowds were all massing, ready for a good time. “Tonight’s gonna go off. Tina and Sheena are looking like they want to put you right in the middle of a twin sandwich.”

Who?I didn’t ask my friend for the details because I didn’t care, taking the shots he offered me and drinking them down, then he ushered them over.

“Take very good care of my boy tonight, ladies,” he said, pulling free, the space beside me quickly occupied by one woman, then another.

“You wanna party tonight?” Tina asked, or was that Sheena? She placed a shot very carefully into the low cut bodice of her top. “How about a body shot?”

“No thanks,” I said, plucking the shot free without even touching her and drinking it down. She was about to say something to me about that, both women frowning slightly, but that was the moment the guitarist played the first chord. He drowned out all other conversations, smiling at the roaring crowd, before breaking into the first song.

I couldn’t have told you what songs were played, not even if you put a gun to my head. The drinks came and kept on coming, rung up on one of the company credit cards Kaine had handed over for this purpose. I’d been given a job, to get fucked up, in public, surrounded by other people, other women, and I achieved it.

At some point I ended up with my arms around some of my teammates’ shoulders, singing along or trying to, stumbling over the lyrics. The guys seemed to jump around rather than actually dance, which worked for me, as I had no fucking idea what to do. I knew how to move on the footy field and on a building site and that was about it. I had no idea about anything else. That hit me so fucking hard as we hoarsely shouted out lines about love and loss and moving on, a warbling counterpoint to the lead singer, right up until Tina or Sheena shimmied up to me.

“Come dance!” she said, smiling coquettishly. She spun around, showing me clearly that she did know how to move, but I didn’t care.

“No.”

“C’mon, loosen up a bit.”

And that’s when she made a mistake. Her hands smoothed over my shoulders and that forced me to knock them away. The bear was sulking deep inside me, pissed at the direction things had taken, but willing to let me maintain control because everyone in the sleuth had been around that table, working out what to do next.

Including Freya.

“No,” I said more firmly and then when she looked like she was about to give me a mouthful, I pushed my way free of the crowd in front of the stage, stumbling into the relative cool of the rest of the pub.

My eyes felt like they were rolling around in my head. I couldn’t see straight and I swung my head back and forth, scanning the pub but not really seeing it, until I finally registered the sign to the men’s toilets. I stumbled over, the whole world feeling like it was pitching and rolling under my feet. And didn’t that make sense? I’d lost my internal compass when I met Freya, the little arrow spinning around and around in confusion the minute I laid eyes on her.

“Freya…”

I whispered her name like a prayer, and in some ways it was one. An admission of guilt, a plea for forgiveness, a submission to her will. I clung to that idea as I lurched over to the toilets. I kept on saying her name in my head as I unzipped, a reminder of what this was all for. My cock thickened slightly, an optimistic response to her name. Because when I thought about her, I could smell her scent in my nose, feel her lips against mine, hear that little gasp she made as I fed her my cock. It was like she was right there with me.

“Freya…” I slapped my hand on the wall above the piss trough and eased my hips forward, trying to ease the pressure in my bladder but only feeling her.

“You having a piss or ya playing with it, mate?” I opened my eyes to see Darren standing there with a smirk on his face. “No need to do that when plenty of ladies are willing to take that job on. Girls?”

Was it Tina and Sheena or was I just seeing double? I couldn’t decide, the whole world still spinning slightly, but they showed no sign of recognising that. They just moved forward, hips swivelling, as their eyes slid down my body.

“Got something for us, Adam?”

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