Family Man (6 page)

I almost laughed. Almost. “There’s nothing wrong with being turned on. There’s nothing wrong with what we’re feeling.” My words clearly embarrassed him more, and this time I really did laugh. I couldn’t believe I had to tell a guy more than ten years my senior that it was okay to have a boner. I tightened my left arm around his neck. I didn’t so much pull him down as I used my arm around his neck to pull myself up, so we were nose to nose, forehead to forehead, our lips almost touching. “Dancing feels good, Vin. Being close like this feels good. Why do we have to be embarrassed about that?”

I thought for a second he was going to pull away. He was looking into my eyes, as if he couldn’t decide whether to believe me or not, but he sighed, and some of the tension went out of him. “Okay.”

He let me direct his head back down where it had been, so his warm breath bathed my neck. He let me push my erection against his. He held me tight against him.

We danced.

Admittedly, it probably wasn’t much of a dance. I wasn’t even sure we were still moving. It was more like we were in contest to see who could get closer to the other, like we were trying to occupy the very same tiny space on the floor. I wondered if he could feel the frantic beat of my heart. It felt like there was nothing but music holding us up. Song after song after song. I lost track of how many. The music was sexy and sultry, and if smoke had a sound, that would have been it. Vinnie never let me go, not even in those quiet seconds between songs. I lost myself in his smell, his hand caressing my back, his breath against my neck, his groin hard against mine.

We might have been the last two people in the bar, or in the whole wide world, and I wouldn’t have noticed. My head was spinning, my groin aching, my body practically thrumming with the desire to feel him touch me more. I kissed his neck. His hand slid down my back, past my belt. He squeezed a little, and I whimpered.

“Oh Jesus,” he whispered again, but he didn’t pull away.

I’d laughed so many times at people who claimed sex “just happened,” but for the first time in my life, I thought I understood. I wanted him so much. I didn’t care that we were in public. I didn’t care that I barely knew him. I only knew the pressure in my groin was the sweetest madness I’d ever felt. Knowing he was as turned on as I was made me breathless. I would have thrown my virginity away in a heartbeat, if he’d been willing to take it. It would have been easy for him to convince me to go home with him. I imagined being alone at his place, dancing as we were now, only without our clothes. Dancing to nothing but flickering candlelight.

“Trey,” he whispered at last.

He pulled away a bit and looked down into my eyes. Had he changed his mind about the sex? Had I?

“I should go,” he said.

I wasn’t sure if I was disappointed or relieved. I wanted to keep dancing, but I knew we were asking for trouble. “I know.”

It took us a minute to disentangle. If we’d let go too fast, I’m sure neither of us would have been able to stand. It was more like a slow transition from being one body back to being two. It made me sad, but it also made me aware of just how lost I’d really been.

He pulled his shirt out of his pants as we walked back to the table, letting it hang over his groin. I didn’t bother. Nobody was paying any attention to us, and even if they were, I suspected we weren’t the only guys in the place sporting wood.

My hand shook as I picked up my Coke and drained it. Vin was pointedly not making eye contact, but I saw him run his hand through his hair, and I was pretty sure he was shaking as much as I was. Somehow, that gave me confidence.

“Good thing this isn’t a date,” I said, and he smiled over at me.

I led him back out onto the street. The sidewalks were still damp. The air was still cool. Was this still the same night? Was it even my same life? I glanced down at my watch. It was almost three o’clock in the morning. We’d been in the bar for more than three hours? It seemed impossible.

I looked up to find him watching me. “You taking the EL?” he asked, nodding down the street toward the station.

“Yeah. Are you?”

“I drove.”

He cleared his throat uncomfortably, and in the blink of an eye, it was
the moment
. The awkward fucking moment where nobody knows what to say, nobody knows what to do. Should we kiss? Should we shake hands? Should we just turn and walk away? I wanted him to kiss me, but I knew there was no way he would. I’d have to make the first move. I wasn’t sure I had the courage. In the bar, with the lights down low and the music playing, it had been easy to flirt. But in the cold crisp air of night, with the streetlights looking on, I didn’t think I could do it. I wondered how he’d react. I had a feeling it wouldn’t please him.

“Well.” He rocked back on his heels like he was getting ready to run for his life. “Good night.”

I sighed, disappointed that I’d lost my chance. “Good night.”

He started to walk away, and I called out before I knew what I was going to say. “Vinnie, wait!”

He stopped and turned toward me. Why the hell had I stopped him? Shit! He was waiting for me to speak, and I felt like an ass. I took a deep breath and said the first thing that came to me.

“Thanks for the dance.”

He smiled at me—that goddamn cute smile, like the whole world could kiss his ass—and I kind of hated the way it made me so happy to have him point it my way. “See you around.”

Chapter Six

It didn’t hit Vince until he was halfway home what he had done. He wandered back to the lot where he’d parked, paid the attendant and meandered into the early morning traffic to make his way home. On LaSalle he got caught in traffic behind an accident, and rather than detour to a different route, he stayed with the glut of cars, using the time to process what had happened that night. He thought about how he’d gone to Boystown, gotten picked up in a club, gone to another club and danced with another guy.

With Trey Giles.

That hadn’t been what freaked him out. What had made him double over his steering wheel was realizing that he’d liked it.

A lot. He didn’t know when he’d been that turned on, in fact.

And he’d been with a guy.

With Trey Fucking Giles.

He’d gone to see if it would help him make sense of what he was feeling, but it had only left him more confused. It had been going so well until Trey had shown up. Rather, it had been going terribly, which he’d thought meant he wasn’t gay, that this was some crazy idea he’d had like usual. Nobody had turned him on. Not really. No one had wanted him either, and he hadn’t imagined several young things murmuring “old man” and “grandpa” as he passed. He’d planned on finishing his drink so he could say he’d well and truly tried—and then there was Trey.

Trey, and the jazz club, and the “just flirting” and the dancing, and the almost coming in his pants on the dance floor because holy shit, did Trey’s hair smell good.

So he hadn’t reacted at the first bar, not to a room full of sex-crazed men, but he
had
reacted to Trey. The thing was, he’d thought when he figured this out one way or another, he’d feel good. That he’d be gay or not gay, and he’d know, and he’d deal with it. Except now that he’d gone, he felt more confused than before. He felt…not sick, but…terrified. That was what he felt. Absolutely fucking terrified. Of what he couldn’t quite tell. Of being gay? Except he didn’t feel gay.

Of course, maybe gay felt different than he supposed, and that meant he was.

Except—
shit.

He parked in his garage and began the four-block trek back to his building, his brain continuing to spin out into full-blown panic. By the time he got to the Marshall Hotel he was almost hyperventilating. He had to stop and rest his head against the Thai restaurant’s basement window until a homeless man asked him if he was all right. Vince had tried to lie and say yes, but he could only gurgle, so he handed over a five instead and made himself keep going until he got to the courtyard of his building.

He sat there for awhile, staring out at the neat, newly planted rows of marigolds by the long-defunct fountain.

He wasn’t gay. He’d know if he was, right? That was what he had gone to do. To go and see. And he didn’t know. He hadn’t gone to Boystown and felt like he’d gone home. He’d gone to Boystown and felt very fucking old.

Dancing with Trey had felt…good. But weird. Hot. It had made him feel like he was on fire, like every nerve ending in his body had turned on.

Shit.
Shit, he
was
gay!

No, no,
the terrified part of his brain argued back.
No. I’m just confused. Confused and—confused.

Vince shut his eyes and slouched down on the bench.

Well, whatever it was, whatever it had been, it wasn’t happening again. He’d gone to see what it was like, and it had been a disaster. Except for those parts where it had felt amazing. Mostly it had been a disaster, though.

Right?

Swearing under his breath, Vince rose from the bench and headed for the door. Disaster or not, he took solace in the fact that he only saw Trey at the restaurant, and even then not unless he got there early. The odds of them ever meeting again were slim to none. Anyway, the kid was probably off laughing with his buddies over what a case he’d been. It wasn’t like Trey was going to be looking for a repeat of their—not date, but whatever it had been.

He refused to let himself think about what it meant that the idea of Trey laughing about their night together made him achingly sad.

Chapter Seven

A smart man would have stayed far, far away from the train wreck that was Vincent Fierro. I knew that. But my Gram always says, “Follow your heart.” And what my heart wanted was Vin.

It wasn’t that I loved the guy. After all, I barely knew him. But I couldn’t get that night out of my head. I couldn’t get
him
out of my head. I couldn’t stop thinking about how good it felt to be in his arms, tight up against him, dancing. I couldn’t forget the tickle of his breath against my neck, and the way his hand felt as he caressed my back.

More than anything though, I couldn’t get over how fucking good it felt to be
free
. Free to flirt and touch and to be honest about what I wanted. It wasn’t that I was a virgin because I was a prude, or because I thought sex was a sin. I was curious about sex. I woke up with a boner. I jacked off like any other guy. And I sure as hell wasn’t a virgin because I couldn’t get laid. On the contrary, sometimes I felt like I was constantly warding off attacks. But my Gram taught me that sex should be about love, and I think she’s right.

I’d told plenty of guys over the years that sex wasn’t an option, but none of them had ever taken it with as much grace as Vinnie had. Some guys decided as soon as the words were out of my mouth that they were wasting their time. They’d bail on the date in record time, never to be heard from again. Some guys took it as a challenge, and I’d spend the rest of the night fighting off advances. A few had said, “Sure, Trey, I understand.” They’d allowed the rule to stand through the first date, and even the second. Only one of them had made it to a third.

Nothing beyond that, though. Not a single guy yet had thought it was worth putting a fourth date into a possible relationship if sex wasn’t part of the deal. Sharing my body with somebody was a gift, and I wasn’t about to give it away to some asshole who couldn’t bother to appreciate it.

The problem was, I still wanted to flirt. I wanted to make out. I wanted to do all those things that people did, but it never worked. Even when I’d been with guys who claimed they understood, I’d had to be so careful, lest I hear that word that seemed to follow me everywhere I went: tease. As if there was no middle ground between friendship and fucking. As if I couldn’t even touch them without inviting more. It was like living in a cage. Like having wings but never being able to stretch them out, let alone fly. I hated it.

Vinnie had been different. Vinnie had actually seemed
relieved
to hear I wouldn’t sleep with him. I could flirt, and touch, and maybe make out a bit, and I wouldn’t be expected to put out at the end of the night. At the time I’d been fixated on that, loving the novelty of it, but as I thought about it more, I realized his relief had been not out of respect for me, but because sleeping with me was too far for him right now. He was experimenting. He was confused. He was…

Well, he was in the fucking closet with a raging case of denial, was what he was, but I could deal with that.

The more I thought about it, the more I thought it might work. As long as our clothes stayed on, he’d be able to tell himself he was straight, right? And me?

Well, I knew it was stupid as hell to get involved with a closeted guy just because he wouldn’t expect sex, and yet, who the hell else was going to take me to a jazz club, let me be close to him and hot for him and crazy about him, and yet
not
expect me to jump into bed with him when it was over? Who the hell else would let me see what it felt like to spread my wings?

Nobody.

That
was why my heart wanted Vin. And the more I thought about him, the more determined I was to have him.

I started going by the restaurant every morning, waiting for the day I’d see him. Part of me hoped he’d be happy to see me. I imagined him looking at me, his face lighting up. Logically, though, I knew that probably wasn’t the way it would be. I’d given him my number, and he’d never called, despite the fact he’d been as turned on at the club as I’d been. It was safe to assume he was going to be a bit weird. It also stood to reason that I’d have to do all the work.