Double Blind (48 page)

“Oh, I would be
happy
to teach you that one,” Randy said. Slick smiled, and so did he.

And then Sam’s phone rang.

“It’s Mitch!” he said, surprised, and thrilled, and he answered it. But his enthusiasm didn’t last; in fact, once he’d greeted his husband, after he listened a moment, he said, “What?” and then, more heatedly, “No!” and then stepped a little away from the fountain to have what was clearly a very intense conversation.

Ethan and Randy waited, apprehensive. They didn’t wait long; Sam came back, flushed and dejected.

“There was a problem with the delivery,” he said. “He won’t be coming back on schedule like he planned.”

Oh, fuck. “When’s he coming back?” Randy asked.

“He doesn’t know for sure. Maybe two weeks,” Sam said, angry, sad, and forlorn. “Or maybe even three. Not until the first of November, at any rate.”

All Randy’s plans for strip poker and hot sex went up in the air, but he didn’t complain, just went forward and put his arm around Sam and kissed his hair.

Ethan
supposed it was just as well that Mitch’s phone call rerouted his plans for the evening, because the truth was, if Randy looked too deeply, he’d have discovered that outside of the fountain and a little juggling of the financial columns, this was all Ethan had actually done.

The thought had hit Ethan as the two of them stood there flirting, and frankly he was amazed Randy hadn’t caught it. But he’d been distracted by the demon statue, which Ethan could hardly blame him for. He was grateful, because he didn’t want Randy telling him that he couldn’t do this, didn’t want that look that said he thought this was a bad idea. He hated that look, because it fed his own self-doubt. Sometimes he wanted to shake Randy when he did it, except he didn’t because Ethan was too afraid he wouldn’t declare his competence to Randy, but instead would beg him to stop mocking and help.

And he didn’t want help.

Very well, he wanted help, but he wanted more to do this by himself, to be this cool and chic and amazing, to have Randy look at him all the time like he was looking at him and at this fountain now. Or, how he had been until Sam had gotten his call.

He didn’t want Randy to look at him like he looked at Sam, either, like a child who needed protection.

Ethan drove them home all in his car, leaving the truck at the casino, and he listened as Randy soothed Sam—something had happened today at the therapist, he could tell, because they were treating each other with kid gloves and kept repeating mantras to one another. “You’ve still got you, Sam, and me,” Randy kept saying.

To be honest, the two of them were being so emotionally intimate that Ethan felt a little jealous. No, he didn’t want what Randy and Sam had. But it occurred to him that in his own drive to make the casino work, to prove whatever it was he was proving, he had let some things go slack. And for the first time since he’d known Randy, he worried that he had let whatever this magical ride was slow down too much.

He worried that he had lost Randy back to Sam and Mitch again, which was where he probably belonged.

Ethan tried to climb back on top of this as they pulled into the drive, tried to put his head back in the right spot. He reminded himself that Randy was comforting Sam about Sam’s husband’s unexpected prolonged absence, and tried to remember that the three men had been sharing themselves with each other for some time now. But that last one didn’t help, and started him back down the road of worry.

He tried to think about what he wanted to happen as he watched Randy try to cajole Sam. Did he want Randy to involve him? Leave space for him to be involved? Be mad he wasn’t making that space himself? Did he want Randy to lean on him after? Not do it at all? Ethan had no idea. And because panic was uncomfortable, he became irritated. This was why people didn’t generally run around in unconventional three- and four-way pairings. The politics never ended.

Yet he couldn’t deny that he liked Sam and Mitch. And yes, he liked having sex with them, too, for more than just physical stimulation.

And that was when he realized that, actually, outside of before-bed-couplings with Randy, that was the element in this play that had been removed.

Could it be that simple?

Ethan studied the two men huddled on the couch for a few minutes, watching the endless spiral into Sam’s misery, Randy’s frustrated empathy and love, and he decided it was worth a try.

“I think,” he said, startling them both, because that was how lost in that morass they were, “that what we need here is a distraction.” He turned around to the end table from which Randy had withdrawn the poker chips and pulled out a deck of cards.

“I don’t want to play poker,” Sam said. “I don’t want to think.”

Ethan pulled out the tray of chips, too, not sure what he was doing with them yet but willing to follow his instincts. “You won’t have to. We won’t play poker proper, just leave things up to fate.”

This, predictably, got Randy’s attention. “Hey!”

“We’re playing draw poker,” Ethan said, sitting down across from them and putting the chips on the coffee table. “No discards. Losing hand loses an article of clothing.” He arched an eyebrow at Randy. “That’s how the game goes, yes?”

Randy grimaced. “It won’t be any fun at all. None of the hands will be any good. It’ll be nothing but high card over and over again. There’s no skill at all. None. And there will be two losers, you might notice.”

Ethan thought it was telling that Randy had the chance to get the three of them naked together and he was more fixated on the fact that he’d have to rely on fate. But he also had to admit that he had a point about the two losers, and even the inevitable lackluster quality of the hands.

“Fine,” he said, rising and heading to the kitchen as he spoke. “We’ll play Hold ’Em. But there’s no betting and no folding, and no ante. As for how to decide who is disrobing—” He took a plastic cup from the cupboard, brought it back to the table and set it down before picking up three chips from the tray: one green, one blue, one red. “The winner draws the loser. Sam is green, Randy is red, and I’m blue.”

“What if the winner draws himself?” Randy asked, his tone silently adding,
wiseass.

Ethan opened his mouth, then closed it. Then he looked at the two of them sitting there, so close, so intimate, knowing so much about each other, and he grinned.

“One more adjustment to the rules,” he said. “The winner draws the loser, and he decides whether or not the loser removes an article of clothing or answers a question. And if he draws himself, he can either choose to remove an article of clothing or ask a question of himself.”

“Truth or dare and strip poker in one?” Randy said, still derisive. “Truth poker?”

“I like it,” Sam said, scooting forward on the couch. “I don’t have to think, and I might get to embarrass Randy. Or learn more about Ethan. I’m in.”

“Peaches,” Randy said, half plea, half warning.

“Randy, I’m tired of being soppy. Mitch feels rotten. I feel rotten. But I feel good when we do stuff like this.” He picked up a few of the chips and shuffled them inexpertly inside his palm, watching them slide over one another. “I’d rather do it with Mitch here. But if I called him up, he’d tell me to do it. Well, he’d tell me to leave the speakerphone on or get video set up.”

There was something forced about that little speech, and for a minute Ethan worried that he’d made a mistake, opening this door. But before he could question it further, Randy stood and headed for the kitchen.

“Fine. We’ll do this, but I’m not doing this straight.” Randy reached up above the refrigerator, Ethan assumed for a fifth of whiskey or some other hard liquor. But Randy only pulled something small from inside of a canister far in the back of the cupboard, then pulled something else out of a drawer.

He returned to the couch with an ashtray, a lighter, and a joint.

“
Whoa
.” Sam held up his hands and slid far to the opposite end of the couch. “No way, Randy.”

“Fine.” Randy put the joint to his lips. “I’ll smoke by myself,” he said, calmly, and lit the end. They stared at him while he inhaled, held his breath for several seconds, then blew the smoke rather expertly at the ceiling. He leaned back in the couch and gave them both a withering look. “Oh, don’t go all goody-goody on me. Jesus H, it’s been a fuck of a day, and now you want this. Fine. I’ll play. But I’m getting high.”

“It’s illegal, Randy,” Sam said, before Ethan could. “What about work? What if they drug test? Even if I don’t smoke, it could register.”

Randy crossed his foot over his knee and looked Sam in the eye. “You don’t start work until the first of November. Plenty of time.”

Ethan didn’t really like this, and he didn’t know why. He’d lost control, for one, which was probably enough. He’d never smoked anything before, either, cigarettes or otherwise. Somehow it didn’t surprise him that Randy did, but it disappointed him a little too. He just couldn’t figure out why.

Or maybe it was the defiant way he was acting. Maybe it was because he was mad that all he was asking Randy to do was get naked and talk to him, and he had to try and scare everyone off.

Fine
.

Ethan stood and headed to the kitchen, where he picked up the cat food dishes and headed back to his bedroom. Once he set the food down, he picked up the clicker, and the cats, who had been curled up together in a chair beside him, came bounding in. He petted them both, brought the litter pan in from the bathroom, and shut the door.

Sam met him in the hallway, which was good. He looked a little wild-eyed.

“You don’t have to do this,” Ethan said to him. “But I think I’m going to.”

Sam bit his lip before answering. “He hasn’t done drugs ever around me before, outside of alcohol. I think he’s really upset.” He rubbed his arms. “Me too.”

“You don’t have to,” Ethan said again.

“It really is a big deal with my job. But at the same time, I know other nurses who use. I don’t know. I knew a guy once who was a total pothead, and I just don’t like it, period. It just always scared me.” He tapped his fingers on his arm for a minute, then shook his head. “I’m not going to do it.”

Ethan approved of his moral standing and wondered if he shouldn’t follow, but knew he wouldn’t. This once, he’d try. “Do you want to go into our room, with the cats? Or move them to your room?” he asked.

“Oh no,” Sam said, his reply almost silky. “I’m staying in the game. I’m just not smoking. And we’re opening a window.”

They
came back to the living room, Ethan sat down, and Randy, already slightly stoned, grinned at them.

“Joining my party, are you?” he said, and inhaled again.

“Ethan is.” Sam opened a window, then took a seat in the chair between Ethan and Randy.

Randy glanced at the window, then leaned his head to the side and stuck his lip out in a little pout at Sam. “Come on, Peaches.” He looked ridiculous, Ethan thought. Also, oddly sexy.

Sam remained lounged in his chair and looked Randy straight in the eye. “No.”

Randy sighed, sat up, and passed the joint across to Ethan.