L. A. Witt - Rules 1 - Rules of Engagement (21 page)

I laughed, still playing with his hair. “Glad you weren’t disappointed.”
He raised his head, his eyes wide. “Disappointed? I just hope it was half as incredible for you as it was for me, because….” He shook his head. “Wow. Just.
Wow
.”
An odd sense of relief flooded through me, as if I’d expected him to have gotten less out of it than I did. If he was just trying to stroke my ego, he was doing a damned fine job of it, but I doubted he was insincere.
He pulled out slowly and moved away to get rid of the condom.
“I could go for a shower right about now,” I said, sitting up slowly, waiting for the room to stop spinning.
“Any excuse to be hot, wet, and naked with you, I’m game,” he said with a smirk, kissing me quickly.
I grinned. “Why do I get the feeling a shower with you is going to necessitate
another
shower with you?”
He shrugged, making a feeble attempt at looking innocent. “Maybe because it always does?”
I kissed him again. “Then what are we waiting for?”

T
HE
shrill squeal of my cell phone roused me out of a sound sleep. Barely awake, I fumbled around for it on the nightstand.
Just as I found it and flipped it open, movement beside me caught my attention, reminding me that I wasn’t alone. I opened my eyes as Brandon rolled over and smiled sleepily at me. I gestured at the phone and put a finger to my lips.
“Hey Mom,” I said, lifting my arm as Brandon moved next to me and rested his head on my shoulder.
“Dustin, I tried to call you three times last night,” she said, her voice setting my teeth on edge.
“I know. I was out and got home too late to call you back.” A sharp breath on my chest told me Brandon found that amusing, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing myself.
“Out? Out where?”
I rolled my eyes. Damn near thirty and my mother still thought I needed to tell her what I was doing and who with. As if she wanted to know this time. “Out. Not home.”
“Did you at least go out with a girl? Dustin, I’m so—”
“Mom, it is way too early in the morning for this,” I groaned.
“And you’re way too close to thirty to be single. You need to start—”
“Mom, please.” I ran my fingers through Brandon’s hair. “I’ll meet someone when I’m ready.” His cheek moved against my chest, probably trying to suppress a laugh.
“But at this rate, you’ll be forty by the time you meet someone. What about children, Dustin?”
“When I’m good and ready, I’ll meet someone. I just haven’t met the right girl.” A laugh tugged at the corner of my mouth. Brandon put his hand over his, shaking with the effort needed to contain his amusement.
On the other end, my mother huffed. “So what are you doing? Just going out drinking and wasting your time? You’re not messing around with hookers, are you?”
“Mom, I am not messing around with hookers—”
Brandon couldn’t stand it anymore. He rolled onto his back, his hand still over his mouth.
Barely keeping myself together, I said, “I’ve just been out with friends. Playing pool, having a few beers, nothing that exciting.”
Brandon gave me a look of feigned offense, and I quickly put my hand over his mouth as we both struggled to keep from laughing.
“Well,” my mother said, the scowl in her voice making me laugh instead of annoying me like it always did, “just don’t go out and do something you’ll regret.”
“What? Like go out and knock up some chick?”
Brandon buried his face in the pillow, and I chewed the second knuckle on my index finger.
“Dustin!” she said. “Honestly, I worry about you.”
I glared at him when he turned and kissed the inside of my forearm. “Mom, I’m a grown man—”
“You’ve got that right,” Brandon whispered just before flicking his tongue across my nipple as his fingertips drifted down my side.
Chewing my lip and screwing my eyes shut, I tried not to laugh. “I’m an adult. I’m not stupid. Just, really, stop worrying about me.”
“Tell her I’ll take good care of you,” Brandon said.
“Fuck you,” I mouthed.
His eyes lit up. “Okay!” He kissed my neck and made a circle beneath my ear with his tongue, making it almost impossible for me to speak, let alone keep a straight face.
My mother, completely oblivious to Brandon’s presence, went on. “You know, my neighbor Frances’s niece is going to be in town again soon. She’d really like to meet you.”
I rolled my eyes, partly at what she had said, and partly at the way Brandon whispered, “Hang up, I want to fuck,” in my other ear. I stifled a laugh and nudged him away playfully.
“Mom, really,” I said. “I don’t want to meet her.”
“But Dustin, you don’t even know her! She’s a nice girl. And pretty. Oh Lord, Dustin, she’s beautiful.”
“I’m sure she is, but—
shit
!” I jumped as Brandon flicked his tongue across my nipple.
“Dustin! What on—”
“Sorry, Mom, a—” I thought fast as I flipped Brandon off. “A bird flew into the window and startled me.” I glared at Brandon and, through my teeth, added, “I think it broke its neck.”
He grabbed my hand and ran his tongue up my middle finger, sucking the tip gently.
“Well, I should let you go,” she said, her voice tinged with disapproval. “But give it some thought, will you?”
I rolled my eyes, trying not to gasp as Brandon moved over me and kissed his way down my chest. “I’ll think about it, okay? But no promises.”
“Okay, then. I love you, sweetheart.”
“Love you too, Mom.”
“Aww,” Brandon murmured against my hipbone.
I snapped my phone shut. “You’re evil.”
He shrugged, trailing his tongue along the shaft of my cock. “I’ve never heard you complain about it before.”
Moaning softly, I closed my eyes. “You’re not going to hear me complain about it now.”
“I should hope not,” he said, and took my entire cock into his mouth.

O
NCE
we’d showered and dressed, I said, “Up for a run?”

Brandon raised an eyebrow. “Last time I agreed to a run, you damn near killed me on the treadmill.”
I kissed his forehead. “And you deserved it that time.” Nodding out the kitchen window, I said, “This time, just a jog around the lake.”

“How big is the lake?” he laughed.
“Mile and a half.”

He considered it, then shrugged. “Sure. I’ll get my gym bag out of the car.”

 

Twenty minutes later, after we’d both changed clothes and stretched, we hit the trail.

“So what is your mother’s damage?” Brandon asked out of the blue.
I laughed. “Besides the fact that she can’t stand the fact that one of her golden children fell from grace and got divorced?”

“Yeah, basically.”

“She’s always been that way,” I said. “Trust me, if she’s not on my back about being divorced, or being single, or not being President of the United States, she’s harping on my brothers and sister about whatever they are or aren’t doing.”

“That would drive me insane.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” I said. “She pushed all four of us into the military. None of us stayed past our first enlistment, and she was pissed each time one of us got out.”

“Doesn’t she have any hobbies?”

 

“Absolutely. Their names are Rick, Tristan, Kari, and Dustin.”

He rolled his eyes. “So what would happen if she found out about, you know….”
“This?”

“Yeah.”

 

“She would shit bricks and have my father exhumed just so she could scream to him about what a disgrace I am.”

He turned his head so fast he stumbled. I grabbed his arm as he recovered, and we continued on. He chuckled. “Shit, I can’t believe she’s that crazy.”

“She’s a piece of work, that’s for sure. She still refuses to let up about trying to hook me up with every single woman she hears about.”

“Oh God,” he said, rolling his eyes. “And let me guess: If you did start seeing one of those women, she’d find a reason to disapprove of that girl?”

“Not if she hooked me up with her,” I said. “Any woman I choose on my own, absolutely. Any woman she chooses for me? Woe unto me if I dare break up with her.”

“You can’t win for losing, can you?”
“Nope,” I laughed.
“Has she always been like that?”

“She’s gotten worse since my dad died,” I said. “Once she didn’t have him to nag and harangue, she put that much more effort into pestering all of us.”

“I can only imagine what holidays are like with your family.” “You don’t know the half of it. And honestly….” I trailed off. “What?”

Wetting my lips, I said, “Honestly, my siblings and I think she might have been what drove my dad into an early grave.”

 

“Like, literally?”

“She always stressed him out. Drove him absolutely batshit.” I paused, wiping sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand. “The year he died, she was absolutely hell on wheels. I mean, you could see it. The man looked like he had aged ten years in as many months, and then he dropped dead of a heart attack a week after Thanksgiving.”

“Jesus,” Brandon said. “Were you close to him?”
I nodded. “Very.”

He didn’t press. We jogged in silence for a while before I said, “What about you? Do you get along with your folks?”

“My dad and I aren’t as close as we were before I came out.” He shrugged. “He’s accepted it and everything, even been okay with some of my boyfriends, but it drove a bit of a wedge between us that’s never gone away.”

“What about your mother?”

 

He smiled. “We’ve always been close. She was the only one that wasn’t surprised when I said I was gay.”

 

“Mother’s intuition?”

 

He laughed. “Pretty much. That and she found a couple of magazines in my bedroom that gave me away.”

“And she didn’t say anything to you?”
“Not a word.” He chuckled. “In fact, she told me a few years ago that I would have been in a world of trouble had she found straight porn.”
“Why’s that?”
“She wouldn’t have been as embarrassed to confront me about it.”
“Oh God, that’s priceless,” I laughed.
“You’re telling me,” he said. “If I’d known gay porn wouldn’t have gotten me in trouble, I wouldn’t have put so much effort into keeping it hidden.”

“Knowing you, you’d have left it on the coffee table for everyone to see.”

“Well,” he said, running a hand through his sweaty hair. “It would have added some variety to the
Good Housekeeping
and
Consumer Reports
crap that my parents had on the table.”

“
Good Housekeeping
,
Consumer Reports
, and gay porn,” I said. “Now there’s a versatile household.”

“No shit,” he laughed.
“Okay, so as long as I’m grilling you about your family—” “No, you can’t sleep with my sister.”
“Aw, damn.”
“Or my brother.”
“You’re no fun.”

He glanced at me and shook his head. “Okay, anyway,” he said, “I have two sisters and three brothers.”

 

“Another big family,” I said. “Guess we have more in common than I thought.”

He shrugged, chuckling. “Born into a Catholic family, what can I say?”
“Yeah, same here.”

“Good thing our families live on opposite coasts,” he said. “I’d hate to have them bump into each other at church.”

“Oh God,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“So what are you? Oldest? Youngest? Middle?”
“Number two of four,” I said. “You?”
“Youngest.”
“You’re the baby of the family? Aww, how cute.”

He elbowed me playfully and laughed. “I was the afterthought. The ‘we’re done having kids, oh wait, guess we’re not’ kid.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but movement caught my eye.

“Hey, Dustin,” Sharon said, running up beside me. She gave Brandon a puzzled look, then smiled at me.

 

“Hey, Sharon,” I said. “Where’s Bill?”

 

“Oh, he went to church this morning for a fellowship breakfast,” she said.

 

“That’s right, he said something about that the other day.”

She looked at Brandon. “I haven’t seen you out here before. Did you just move into the complex?”
He and I exchanged a quick look, his eyes asking me what he should say. I cleared my throat. “This is Brandon. He’s a friend of mine. Lives in the area. Brandon, this is Sharon.”

“Nice to meet you,” he said, smiling politely.

 

“Likewise.” To me, she said, “Have you given any more thought to meeting that girl I told you about?”

 

“Oh, right,” I said, clearing my throat again. “I, you know, I’m just not really ready for anything right now.”

I hoped I was imagining the odd look she shot Brandon. Then she said, “Well, like I said, if you change your mind, I have her number. She’s very interested in you.”