Games Boys Play (13 page)

Dylan stretched out next to him, on his side, head propped in his hand. “Are you really okay?”

In answer, he rested his fingers on Dylan’s hip. After a few seconds, Brian turned and put his forehead against Dylan’s chest, breathing in the warmth of Dylan’s body. After another few seconds, Dylan’s fingers touched his hair gently, then pushed lightly into it, sending tingles like little breaths along the back of his neck. Cotton and laundry soap and the beat of Dylan’s heart against his brow. This was probably kind of weird—even considering the weirdness of everything else they’d been doing. He pulled away reluctantly, forcing a laugh. “I’ve gotta piss like a racehorse. You wanna go grab something to eat?”

Dylan rolled onto his back, his knee cocked toward the ceiling, two fingers laid across the upturned tattoo on his inner wrist like he was taking his pulse. “I could eat,” he said to the ceiling.

“You’d better do a better job of washing that eye makeup off first.”

“Fuck that stuff.”

Brian grinned, heading for the bathroom. Closed the door behind him. In normal life, he wouldn’t care if Dylan came in to use the sink while he was taking a leak, but right now he had to get his situation under control so he
could
take that leak. He braced a hand on the wall above the toilet, leaned his head against that arm, and worked his way through the Rolling Stones’ discography until the pressure eased up and the stream started.

Once it was going good and hard, his thoughts wandered back to lying on the floor with his face in Dylan’s shirt. The warmth of his body. The light tickle of Dylan’s fingertips moving over his scalp.

As he zipped up his jeans, he wondered whether and how much Dylan was experiencing reactions to what they were doing. Was he lying out there with a bulge straining his jeans, working his way mentally through the process of rebuilding an engine in an attempt to get his mind off it? Was he thinking about the feel of Brian’s head against his chest, Brian’s fingers resting on his hip?

The hard throb in his groin was like a hand closing around his balls.

Hotfaced, he flushed the toilet and washed the thought from his head.

Chapter Eighteen

“So, how’s it working out for you?” Dylan asked, dragging a french fry through ketchup. They’d gone across town to a twenty-four-hour diner, taking separate cars so Dylan wouldn’t have to come all the way back to drop Brian off.

“I’m having a blast.” Endorphins were still kicking through his bloodstream.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. What about you?”

“Me?” Dylan wiped his fingers on a paper napkin. “I just keep hoping you’re still cool with it, because I keep coming up with ideas to try out.”

Brian grinned.

“Although with this one, I put more thought into jumping you when you walked in than I did the endgame. I mean, I just conveniently showed up again. ‘Hi, I’m Dylan, and I’m here to get you out of this.’ I think I could have come up with something better. Something different, at least.”

“You’re really into this?”

Dylan shrugged.

Brian chewed on a french fry, thinking. Then, “I think if you’d done like last time and had an elaborate return of the bad guy, my head would have exploded. I was on overload as it was, from, you know.” He glanced toward the closest table with people at it, a middle-aged couple eating pie, looking tired. In a lower voice, he added, “The gag and stuff.”

“It was intense, huh?”

“You could say that.”

“Maybe a little too intense?”

Brian tried to suppress a smile. “Don’t worry; I managed.”

“Is there anything you would have had different?”

He shook his head. “Not really. You freaked me out a couple times—it’s probably a good thing I didn’t have to take a shit when I walked through the door. Fuck.” Being jumped
had
been intense. For a split second, he’d thought it was real. “I wouldn’t change it.” After a sip of Coke, he added, “What about me? Anything you wish I’d done different?”

“Nah. As long as you’re acting and reacting however feels right for you, it works for me.” Dylan pulled the check toward him to figure out his share of the bill.

Brian felt his back pocket for his wallet.

Shit.

“Uh…you got that backpack handy?”

Dylan looked at him, not understanding for a second—and then he laughed. “Forgot about that. I’ll get this, and get your stuff out of the trunk when we leave.”

Chapter Nineteen

Three days later, as he sat cross-legged on the couch, scratching out a line in a notepad on the coffee table, Brian’s phone chimed with an incoming text. He finished changing the lyric he’d decided was too awkward, then slid the phone toward him.

Free tonight?

His next breath was shallow.

Tonight.

He pushed the phone away and straightened, stretching. Thinking. He didn’t have to think about what to answer, just
how
. Somehow it seemed important to get it right.

He picked the phone up.

I am.

Damn it. He wished he could think of something better.

He hit Send and kept hold of the phone, its case growing warm in his hand as he leaned forward to reread the words on the page. “…Nothing changes, pieces of chance…” The phrasing skated over his consciousness, not sticking. He was waiting for the phone to chime again. Creasing his brow, he forced himself to hear the words. “…Nothing changes, pieces of chance…”

When the next message came, it said,
You might want to turn in early.

Why?
he wanted to ask. He chewed his lip, looking at the words.
You might want to turn in early.

You might want to turn in early.

Dylan was going to come at him while he was asleep. Or “asleep”—there was no way he’d actually fall asleep. Unless he took sleeping pills?

Terrible idea.

He typed,
Yeah, maybe I will.

Sent.

He watched the screen for another three or four minutes, but no more messages came.

Pushing the coffee table away, he settled onto the floor, his back against the couch, his shins against the table. He set the notepad on his lap and tapped the page with the back of his pencil, rereading but not really reading the words, trying to get back into the flow of it.

“…Nothing changes, pieces of chance…”

Pieces of
a
chance. Yes—that was better, a specific chance.

His phone rang, Dylan’s photo displaying on the screen. His fingertips thrummed as he picked it up. “Hey.”

“Hey. I thought we should maybe have another conversation first.”

His fingers actually felt like they were tingling. He switched hands and rubbed them against his jeans. “What’s on your mind?”

“I just wanted to check that you’re still good with the things we went over initially.”

“Yeah.”

“Is there anything else you’ve come up with you might want to add to the no-go list?”

“No, I don’t think so. I mean, I haven’t had anything pop into my head.”

There was quiet on the other end, and Brian started to wonder what that meant, but then he heard the rasp of a lighter, the draw of breath, and figured Dylan had just been fishing a cigarette out of a pack or patting his pockets for the lighter.

“Is there anything
you’ve
thought of?” he asked Dylan.

A pull of air. An exhale. “Okay…don’t freak out if I ask this. I just want to delineate the boundaries, okay?”

Just hearing
don’t freak out
freaked him out, deep down in the heat of his groin.
Don’t freak out if I ask this
. Whatever Dylan was about to ask, Brian wanted it. His throat felt thick when forced the words “Okay, sure” through it.

Another inhale of cigarette smoke.

He tapped his pencil on his knee, the palm of his hand suddenly clammy.

“Did you think I got too rough with you last time?” Dylan asked finally.

There was the struggle over the gag, and that had been rough, but not so rough he’d go back and change it. His cock twitched;
it
wouldn’t go back and change it either. And there had been when he’d ended up on his knees with his arm torqued up behind him, but that had been more of a rush.

All of it had been a fucking rush.

He said, “No.” He squeezed the pencil in his fist. “No, not really.”

“What if…what if things got a little more rough? Or was where we were at good for you?”

A little more rough
. Rougher than getting the gag in? He ran the tip of his tongue across his upper lip. He was going to have to jerk off after this phone call.
Christ
, he was going to have to jerk off. “We could give it a try. I mean, worse comes to worst, I just put on the brakes, right?” Was his voice hoarse? Could Dylan tell?

“Absolutely,” Dylan said. Was
Dylan’s
voice hoarse?

“Like I said.” His head was a balloon filled with hot air, ready to lift right off his shoulders. “Like I said, just don’t kill or maim me. I need to be able to play, in order to pay the bills.”

A soft
chuh
of a laugh came through the handset. “
I
need you to be able to play, in order to pay the bills.”

“So just watch my hands and fingers, okay?”
What if it got a little more rough?
He dragged his bare heel across the rug, tipping his head back, sliding his palm up under his shirt, skin on skin. “Just, you know, do whatever fits the situation.” The words left his mouth dry. He needed to get off the phone. He needed to take care of this so it wouldn’t be a problem when Dylan showed up, because if Dylan were to walk through the door right that instant, just the grip of his fingers around one of Brian’s wrists would set him off.

“You have to promise that if I cross a line, you’ll safe word it,” Dylan was saying. Over there, wherever he was. Having no idea of the state he’d put Brian in. “I don’t want you going through the whole thing pissed at me.”

“If I don’t use it, the only person I’ll be pissed at is me.” He was pushing his shirt up, exposing his belly button, the trail of dark hair down his stomach. After Dylan didn’t respond, he added, “I’ll say it if I need to. I promise. ‘Banana split.’”

“Thanks. I mean it.”

“Me too.”

“All right. Well. I’ll see you when I see you, then.”

“Yep. See you.”

He dropped the phone, pushed his notepad away from him. Shifted downward so he could unzip his jeans and pull his cock out, his eyes closed, his neck arched against the seat of the couch, lip caught under his teeth. The touch of his hand, skin on skin, sent shivers through him. He didn’t waste time teasing himself, just jerked, quick and hard, using only his precum for lube, a cry ripping out of him as he came, the mess spilling, hot, onto his stomach, his other hand holding his shirt up out of the way, clenching it into his fist.

It was five minutes before he had the energy to move either of his hands, much less get up and make his way to the bathroom to wash up.

He grabbed a glass of water on his way back, carried his notebook over by the balcony door, and sat on the floor with his back against the glass to work on the lyrics some more.

The tone of the song he was working on began to change. He moved a phrase, rewrote another, drew his guitar into his lap to see how it fit together. A couple hours passed before he realized it, the song just about presentable enough to show Dylan once they got around to doing normal stuff like that again.

He set the guitar on its stand, stuffed the notepad away, and went to stand under a hot shower, blanking his mind, letting the coming evening be a surprise.

Chapter Twenty

After a tuna sandwich he hardly tasted, he brought a James Smythe novel into the bedroom with him and stood in front of his closet, trying to figure out what to wear for bed. Normally he’d just strip down to skin. On the bus or in a shared hotel room, he’d go with boxer shorts. He didn’t mind the idea of being tied up in boxer shorts—what he didn’t know was how weirded out Dylan would be by that.

He didn’t know how weirded out
he’d
be.

He pulled on a pair of chill pants and climbed in bed with the book, his chest bare because nothing bugged him more than waking up with a shirt twisted around his torso. Dylan was just going to have to deal with some amount of bare skin.

The novel took place during a mission in deep space. The ship’s crew had all died off, save for a journalist who’d been included in the mission to handle media coverage. A major plot twist just a few pages beyond where he’d left off introduced a whole new facet to the story, sucking him in, helping the time tick by.

After he turned the last page, he got up and used the restroom, brushed his teeth, drank a few swallows of water. It wasn’t even eight o’clock. The last thing he felt was tired. Looking in the medicine cabinet, he considered the sleeping pills again. Prescription strength, to deal with his intermittent insomnia. He put his fingers on the bottle.

Stupid idea. Stupid, stupid idea.

He closed the cabinet.

He slipped under the bedcovers and settled his head on a pillow. After a moment, he reached out and turned off the lamp.

Time bogged, like wagon wheels in mud. The apartment ticked and clicked around him. Someone crossed the room above his with the soft thuds of bare heels. He shifted under the sheets, trying to put his mind elsewhere: the book he’d just read, the things on his to-do list… He tried planning out his own one-man “kidnapped” scenario, like in the good old days, but it fell apart every time he came up against a logistical or practical problem—how to tie his arms this way or that way while still being able to get back out. The kind of thing he’d normally have to work out some kind of compromise for.

Instead he found himself thinking, Well, if Dylan…

Was that a good idea, he wondered, lying on his back with his arm thrown across his chest—letting Dylan into his daydreams? The next time he had some fun alone with his bag of rope, was he going to be sitting there imagining Dylan had tied him up?

Was
that
a good idea?

Minutes passed, a quarter of an hour.