Always Forward- Never Straight Read online

  Five people stood facing the camera, smiling with their arms around one another. I was pretty sure they were the band his daughter’s mother was in, at least some of them. A tall man stood at the edge, partially outside of the picture and mostly hidden behind two others; his smile was shy, and he had more extra pounds than I did. He looked a lot like Cay.

  “Your brother is a musician too?” I pushed myself up to sit beside him, knowing that probably wouldn’t make me look any thinner. Cay offered me one of the beers, and I took it but didn’t open it.

  “That’s not my brother. That’s me.”

  I opened my mouth to say “no, it can’t be,” but that would be ridiculous. Insulting. If anyone would know who was in a picture, it would be the people in the picture.

  Cay put the frame on the table next to his bed, beside a picture of his daughter I hadn’t noticed while we were fooling around, thank goodness. When he turned back to me, he opened his mouth, but for some reason, I was afraid to hear what he would say.

  I turned away and busied myself opening my beer. “Wow. What a transformation. What inspired it?”

  “Mac. I couldn’t keep up with her when she was a toddler. Something had to change and I didn’t think it would be her.”

  “That’s very adult.”

  Cay opened his beer, and we clinked the bottoms of our bottles together and drank.

  “Heh. Yeah.” He laughed again, but this one sounded a little nervous. “I’m older than you.”

  It was my turn to laugh. “Bet you’re not.”

  “Are we gonna play ‘I’ll show you mine and you show me yours’?”

  I almost choked on a swallow of beer.

  Cay gently elbowed my side. “Driver’s licenses.”

  He winked, which, in that moment, was probably the only thing that could have kept me from whimpering with disappointment.

  “Although there probably is an inch or two of you I haven’t seen yet.” He grinned and sipped, raking his gaze over my body again as he did.

  “Forty-five.”

  “You’re a baby. Forty-six.”

  “You win. For another two months.”

  “Do I get to name my prize?” He didn’t quite leer, but it was close. Close enough to send a shiver through me that wasn’t prompted by desire.

  “Um…”

  “Don’t worry, it’s only dinner. Let’s go get some dinner. I’m starved.”

  “Sounds good.” I almost answered the way everyone in my family always had—I’m famished—but that seemed too…something. “Maybe we shouldn’t have opened these.”

  “Go ahead and finish yours while we get dressed. I’ll skip it and drive.”

  We chatted about music while he drove into the city, to a place more like the one I would have expected—with a rainbow flag outside and music thumping on the ground floor. The boards of the stairs carried a slight vibration through my body as we ascended. Cay chose a table in the corner near a window facing west. It made me a little nervous to think his seating preference was to give us a view of the sunset, but I didn’t know why until it shot from my mouth in the middle of a blues vs. rock debate.

  “I don’t want you to think…I mean, because I dropped in and we went right into your bedroom. I didn’t mean to treat you like a…”

  “Like a sure thing? A hookup? You didn’t. I used to know a guy who would show up once in a while—after dark and half-tanked—to screw. He always acted like he was doing me a big favor.” He chuckled, but I saw surprise mixed with pain in his eyes. “He was, but that’s beside the point.”

  Cay reached out and took my hand, running his thumb across my knuckles and then the back of my hand, methodically caressing it inch by inch.

  My face had heated before I’d finished stammering and hadn’t cooled, which didn’t help me find anything coherent to say. It hurt that he’d been treated that way, especially since it had probably been while he was heavier.

  “This doesn’t feel like a hookup, Bry. The other night didn’t either, if I’m being honest.”

  “You are, aren’t you? Being honest.” I didn’t think anyone did that, not intentionally and certainly not with someone they barely knew.

  “I am. Are you not used to that either?”

  “Huh?”

  “It seems like maybe you’re not used to hooking up either.”

  “Oh. I guess. I mean, I guess not. The last real relationship I had, he cheated. Before that, I… Well, I wasn’t chaste or anything… But that all happened a while ago. About four years.” I added hastily, so he wouldn’t worry I was using him too: “I had my rebound fling a long time ago.”

  Cay pulled my hand closer and then leaned across the table and kissed me. “Come with me. Just for a second.”

  We stood and he led me toward the men’s room. No need to go into a stall there—we didn’t even make it into the washroom itself before he pulled me into his arms and kissed me properly. I wrapped my arms around his waist and slid my hands up his back, under his soft T-shirt.

  After a few moments, he pulled me against him, and I rested my cheek against his shoulder. I felt his impressive pectoral muscles and a few other muscle groups I couldn’t name through the fabric of our shirts, and I almost wanted to forget dinner and find a dark corner to fool around in. Soft chuckles vibrated against my chest but might as well have been against my cock for the effect they had on me.

  Soon after, he loosened his embrace, gently massaging my shoulders before holding them in his hands and stepping back. “Cute, and you can go twice in one night. I won the fucking lottery.” Cay grinned, gave me a peck on the lips, and then steered me back into the dining room with an arm around my shoulders.

  We ate a passable dinner of…some kind of pasta…and went back to the Westside. Cay tried to hide a yawn as he walked to the front of his truck toward where I leaned against the driver’s door of the Mercedes.

  “What are you doing tomorrow?” I asked, trying not to sound too desperate. Not a simple task, considering that as soon as I left him, I’d be alone in my apartment until the next time I saw him.

  “I work at seven, but it doesn’t matter if I’m tired.” He smiled and leaned beside me, his hip warming mine through our jeans. “The coffee’s free and plentiful, so if you want to come up…”

  “Uh, yeah. Just tell me when you need me to leave.”

  “More honesty?” He pressed his thigh against mine, and I wished I could drop to my knees right there—even though my knees probably wouldn’t have appreciated that any more than Cay’s neighbors.

  “Yeah.”

  After a second of smiling into each other’s eyes, we pushed off the car and headed for the building.

  “Can I pack you in my lunchbox and take you to work?” He sprinted up the stairs, and I walked behind him

  “I don’t think you’d get much work done that way,” I said when I reached the open doorway to his apartment. I gave a passing thought to the fact that we still hadn’t mentioned what we did for a living. Wasn’t that de rigeur for men, regardless of orientation? But no, he hadn’t asked when I said I had my own business, and I had no intention of asking what he did either. Let him think my life was a little less boring than sitting in a quiet, dark apartment writing code and attending Skype meetings.

  Cay pulled me inside and closed the door. We stood there in the dark as he squeezed me in his arms, laughing. If I’d had the breath, I would have laughed too. Damn he’s strong. Part of me wondered if I shouldn’t be afraid of that strength. If he wanted, he could do some damage with those sexy muscles. I couldn’t have said why—if life has taught me anything it’s that people usually aren’t what they seem—but that sounded a tad ridiculous.

  I dragged in my front door a little after six the next morning, remembering at the same time that I’d turned off my phone the night before. A call came through as soon as I turned it on—I’d forgotten a conference call set for eight Eastern.

 
“Hey, Rosie.”

  “Hey? That’s what you have to say to me? Hey?”

  “Sorry. I forgot.”

  “No problem.” Her sigh and tone said otherwise, but I knew she’d be patient as long as she could. Rosie might be my cousin, but our relationship was more like big sister-little brother. “Are we still on schedule? Tell me we’re on schedule.”

  “Um…sure. I’ll get right to work.”

  “Let’s take this to Skype.”

  “I’d rather not. I’m not…um…decent.”

  “Well, go get some pants on and then we’ll go to Skype.” She waited a long moment and then sighed. “Is everything okay? No, of course it’s not. If everything was okay, you would have been on the call. Instead, you’re trying to get off the phone. Talk to me, B.”

  I wandered into my bedroom and considered what to tell her. If I told her I’d been in someone else’s bed last night, she’d run a background check and mess with Cay’s credit.

  “Shit.”

  “What?”

  Damn. I leaned against the wall in my short hallway and berated myself for saying that out loud, but I still didn’t know Cay’s last name. I wasn’t hot to ask him and prompt the same question coming back at me, but that didn’t make me feel any better.

  I’m deceiving the man I’m seeing, on more than one level. The man I’m falling for.

  The man I’ve known all of four days?

  Yes, and yes.

  “Bryan.”

  Oh. Right.

  “Rosie. I’m sorry. I’m not feeling well. Give me an hour to shower and caffeinate, and I’ll call you back.”

  “You’re not sick, are you? Although, that would be far better than what I was thinking.” Her pause didn’t fool me. I knew what she would say next, maybe even before she did. “Has he been bothering you again?”

  “No.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, closing my eyes tightly against the memory of the man she was referring to. The man I hadn’t seen in a little over four years and hoped never to lay eyes on again. “No to both questions. One hour.”

  I closed the connection and toed off my shoes, kicking them one at a time into my bedroom. Scrubbing a hand over my face, I headed into the kitchen, where I filled a tall beer stein with Mt. Dew and then gulped from the two-liter before stashing it back in the fridge.

  An hour later, on the dot, I Skyped Rosie.

  “Okay, what happened on the call?”

  “Jeez, B, you don’t look so good. Are you sure you’re not sick?”

  “Thanks. I’m fine. Late night, that’s all.”

  She leaned closer to her monitor, fear skated across her features that were almost duplicates of my own. Her hair had barely started to go gray, her version of the Baxters’s strawberry-blond made her look a decade younger despite having three years on me.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No. Don’t worry. Lane will be ready.”

  “I was talking about you. Why were you up late last night with your phone off? If Rob has been—”

  “No. Seriously.” Hearing his name made me feel a little green, though, and it must have showed because she got more worried.

  “Don’t protect him. If he’s coming around, you need to call the police—”

  “He’s not. It doesn’t have anything to do with him, okay? It’s me. I…went to the half marathon and—”

  “No way. You went through with that? That’s so cool, B. Did you finish it?”

  “Sort of.”

  “What aren’t you telling me? I can tell, you—oh, man. Did you meet someone?”

  “Why would you think that?” I busied myself straightening my desk, but it was hopeless, so I turned my attention to the Dew.

  “Because I’ve known you your whole life, and I can read you like—”

  I groaned. “Okay. Just…it’s new. So don’t grill me, okay?”

  “Give me his name, I’ll run a check—”

  “No. No background checks.”

  “I’m assuming you already did one.” She waited, but only for a few seconds. “Tell me you checked him out, B.”

  “Okay. I checked him out.”

  I didn’t really, not the way Rosie would have. Rosie would have read his tax returns going back to the first year he filed and learned the names of all his exes. I did Google the band after my shower, though, and found quite a bit on their former keyboard player and main songwriter, Cay Nissen. Mostly I’d looked at the pictures, but YouTube is a wonderful thing when you’re dating a musician.

  “Is he in any debt? Criminal convictions? Mostly, though, is he nice? If he’s some kind of jerk who wants to date Baxter Bryan, the tech whiz hermit, I’ll come over and put the fear into him.”

  “He’s nice.”

  “I’m glad. It breaks my heart to think of you all alone. Especially if you need help.”

  I stared her down, and she got the message. For the next hour, she filled me in on our Eastern investors, the advertising agency working on a campaign for Lane—BaxCo’s second generation drone butler—and a new exhibit at the Guggenheim she’d enjoyed. It felt disloyal, but I was glad she would be on the other side of the country for the rest of the week. The timing seemed to have been arranged so I’d have privacy to get to know Cay before she sprang into his life, clipboard and background report in hand, and I planned to take full advantage of it.

  That afternoon, Cay texted me: Free for dinner?

  I read it in his sweet, rich voice and accidentally deleted the line of code I’d written.

  I wanted to answer yes but couldn’t. I texted no with a sad face emoji. Not sure if I was ready to cuss loudly into his ear, and if I were forced to say no aloud, it probably would have come with cussing. Thinking about the way he touched me, the way he made me feel special and…desirable, even outside the bedroom, left me mildly surprised I hadn’t done it already.

  And then I wondered if I was old enough to have done it and then forgotten.

  I was glad he hadn’t called, but that was short lived because ten minutes later, he did. Since I’d already pushed my luck by putting him off, I had to answer.

  “I’ll call you.”

  Too late I realized how that must have sounded. Before I could go on, Cay spoke.

  “Do you mean ‘I’ll call you soon,’ or ‘Don’t call me anymore’?” He sounded a little deflated, maybe, but not deterred. I hope.

  “The first one.”

  “Okay. When would be a good time?”

  “I have a project I need to finish. Sorry, I’d rather have dinner with you. Honestly.”

  “Does your project have a deadline?”

  “Um…sort of. Yeah. I’m shooting for the end of the week.”

  “So, dinner on Friday?” He paused, but I didn’t let him continue.

  “Sorry, Friday’s out. I have to pick my cousin up at the airport.”

  “Oh. So, maybe Thursday? No, Saturday? Maybe we should whip out—”

  My heart lurched before he had a chance to finish. Phone sex? It would seem parts of me were very much into the idea.

  “—our calendars and make a plan.”

  “Um…how about tomorrow?”

  In that moment, I couldn’t help but wonder how much work I’d get done that evening, whether I saw Cay or not. But I needed to hold up my end of BaxCo. I had the one end—one job to do, create the product. And Rosie had quit her job to throw in with me, so I couldn’t let her down.

  “Bry, I don’t know how I’ll last, but I’ll see you then.”

  A quick shower in which I beat off while replaying our last encounter in my mind led to an all-nighter in which I actually made considerable progress on Lane. I dropped into bed shortly after dawn, smiling as I fell into a mercifully dreamless sleep for the next twelve hours.

  I missed calls from Rosie and from Cay, and by the time I woke, it was well past dinnertime. Cay was surprisingly sweet about being stood up, but I heard disappo
intment in his voice as well. I compounded things by rejecting his invitation out for a beer—or in for a beer, from what I heard in his voice—but I didn’t want to make his life more difficult by keeping him up late on a work night. Again.

  Thursday evening, I made it up to him—not to do so seemed an insupportable risk, the sound of disappointment in his voice once had been nearly unbearable. Over dinner, he seemed subdued, but we still ended up back at his place. He did a little half-hearted fishing for an invitation to mine, but I wasn’t ready to let anyone into my apartment. Even though my ex—Rob—hadn’t been a problem, the memory of being afraid in my own home remained fresh enough that I avoided situations that could lead to that, at all costs.

  As I left Cay’s apartment before dawn—the scent of him lingering on my skin—the phrase “at all costs” clanged in my mind like a gong. Was that still true? Or had losing Cay become an unacceptable cost when compared with the sanctity of my home, of my uncomplicated life?

  While I drove to the airport to pick up Rosie on Friday, I had a little too much time to think. Normally, while I’m not doing anything exciting, I’m doing something that requires me to use my brain, if not my body. Driving was the opposite—most of my mind was free to dwell on Cay, but not in the way I would have liked. No, I wasn’t thinking about his amazing hands or the way I felt when he kissed me, not even the hypnotic way his muscles rippled when he moved.

  For almost an hour and a half, I teased myself with thoughts of where my relationship with Cay was going. Where did I want it to go? Where did he? Who, exactly, would be the one making the decision?

  Cay seemed to have a fine life with his daughter and his friends in the band—but I still didn’t know where he went when we parted in the mornings or what he thought when he got quiet, or why he had a dragon tattooed on his arm.

  As for myself, I didn’t seem to know much more, despite knowing myself for almost forty-six years. By the time I saw Rosie disembarking, I’d figured out one thing, though.

  Living with people in my life—with a man in my life—was dangerous. Scary. But living without one was starting to get a tad boring.