Sorry, Bro (3 page)

Bryce exhaled. Why the hell was this happening to him? Things were supposed to be different. Better somehow. He was supposed to feel different—
wanted
to feel different. But he didn’t.

And now Tim, who he hadn’t talked to in eight years, had shown up in a hospital fifteen hundred miles from home—the same hospital where Bryce just happened to be a nurse.

It had been his choice to shut Tim out.

Bryce shivered as he remembered moving away without leaving so much as a forwarding address. He hadn’t answered Tim’s calls, and he had ignored the barrage of desperate emails Tim had sent every day for nearly six months. It was his fault that Tim hadn’t been able to contact him when he arrived in New Orleans. It was also likely his fault that Tim had turned up lying in a ditch, drunk and beaten.

Bryce jumped as he felt a strong, calloused hand grasp his shoulder. He hadn’t heard anyone else come in.

Bryce was acutely aware that he wore nothing but dark green boxer briefs and a pair of black ankle socks, and as he glanced over his shoulder, he crossed his arms shyly over his chest to hide his hardening nipples.

Wearing nothing but a pair of flip flops and scrub bottoms, Tim’s surgeon looked down at Bryce with a concerned expression. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Adrian,” he said. “Uh, are you okay?” Adrian squeezed Bryce’s shoulder.

Adrian’s voice was smooth and deep—deeper, in fact, than Bryce remembered it from the day before. He had been so stunned by Tim’s appearance that he hadn’t paid much attention to anything else.

Looking away, Bryce planted his forehead in his open palm. “You’re the surgeon from yesterday,” he said. “That was my friend Tim in there.”

Bryce heard Adrian shift slightly, and his skin prickled when Adrian moved his large hand across his bare shoulder. The minute pressure felt exceedingly good.

“I see,” Adrian said. “Mind if I take a seat?”

Bryce shook his head, and Adrian lowered himself onto the bench next to him, his hand still on Bryce’s shoulder.

For three reasons, Bryce didn’t look up at Adrian. First, because he had acted like an idiot in the locker room the day before. Second, because he had made a klutz of himself in the operating room. And third, because he had fantasised about receiving a drunken hand job from this man only the night before.
Probably thinks I’m some kind of retard.

Bryce was now keenly aware of Adrian’s warmth on the bench next to him, and he shifted away even as he yearned to touch the man’s muscular shoulder and defined, downy abs.

“Your friend is going to be fine,” Adrian said, and when Bryce didn’t respond, he continued, “Anything I can do to help?” He paused. “I saw you walking to work today. Did something happen to your bike?”

“I crashed it,” Bryce said. He had crashed his bike, just like he had crashed his life. Had there been any way around it? Bryce thought about the upward-reaching roots of the old oak tree that had cracked open the sidewalk, creating the rut that had caught his tire and mangled the wheels on his bike. That, there had been no way around. Was his life so different? Could he have swerved to a different outcome, or was there truly no other way around the rut but straight through it?

“Hey, if you’re upset about your friend, I can leave you alone. I’m a doctor. I know how hard it is seeing friends go through stuff like this.”

Bryce jerked his head upwards, and Adrian drew his hand away from Bryce’s shoulder. Adrian’s peace offering had sparked something inside him, had lit a fuse that Bryce hadn’t known was there.

Things were supposed to be different in New Orleans. Tim, Tatum, the hospital. Things were sure as hell different for Tim—but not in the way he wanted them to be, that was certain.

“What the fuck do you know about it, anyhow?” Bryce said in a gravelly voice, the beginnings of tears stinging his eyes.
Fuck, if he didn’t think I was crazy before, now he thinks I’m psycho.

Adrian furrowed his eyebrows as Bryce turned away again.

Bryce was so ashamed of what he’d done to Tim. Bryce squeezed his eyes shut and pictured Tim stumbling down the stairs into his parents’ basement. Tim had looked so strong and solitary—but had he really felt that way? Tim hadn’t known what the fuck he was doing. Neither of them had.

People got confused, they got desperate. The fact that Tim had experienced those human traits was no fault of his own.

Bryce could practically feel Tim’s strong, sure touch. No, it wasn’t Tim, but the whisper of Adrian’s hands as he reached around Bryce’s back, encircling him softly, comfortingly. Normally, Bryce would’ve recoiled and cursed the jackass for touching him…but this was somehow…different.

Bryce whipped around. He was nose-to-nose with Adrian now, so close that he could smell the other man’s faintly masculine scent and musky cologne. He groaned, and his cock pushed reflexively against the centre pouch in his boxer briefs. Bryce closed his eyes as Adrian pushed his lips greedily against his mouth. Bryce sighed and turned his head, the stubble on his cheek catching on Adrian’s short beard as Bryce nipped at the man’s ear.

Suddenly, he remembered himself, and he pulled away.

Bryce’s cock bulged upwards, the tip spilling out of his boxer briefs. Startled, he looked up at Adrian, half out of confusion, half out of some incomprehensible desire, some longing he had held inside himself for so long, but had never been able to fulfil. He brushed Adrian’s arms from his bare shoulders and stood, pulling on his shorts and covering his bulge with the thick, khaki fabric, locking it away behind the garment’s clumsy plastic zipper.

Crossing his arms, Adrian leant back, a concerned expression on his face. “Man, I didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable. Can I at least give you a ride home? It’s got to be a hundred degrees out. Let’s not even start talking about humidity.”

Bryce glanced back at Adrian. He didn’t know what the hell had got into him the past few days. The sudden breakup with Tatum. Tim, still out cold. Plus, he was fucking horny as hell…and Adrian seemed so honest, so genuine, so empathetic.

What was it about this masculine surgeon that caused his cock to spring to life and his heart to race? Could it be the man’s certainty, his steadiness? The fact that he had saved Tim’s life? The fact that he was so god damned beautiful…but in a different way than either of his two previous girlfriends? Sure, Tatum had had a great ass and a nice face, had one hell of a cunt and knew how to ride like a cowgirl. But this man was both powerful and tender. Somehow, Adrian reminded Bryce of Tim.

But the most important question—why the hell did the kiss have to be so good?

Bryce pulled his shirt down over his head and nodded. “Sure,” he said.

* * * *

Even with the air conditioning running full-blast in Adrian’s Beemer, Bryce’s shirt was practically soaked through by the time he clicked the lock open on the flimsy door to his apartment.

Bryce stammered, “Hey, man, thanks for the ride…”

Adrian had seen Bryce to the door. He nodded curtly and cleared his throat. “Mind if I come in for a drink before I go? I could use something to cool off.”

Bryce shrugged and pushed the door open so that he could slip inside, holding it open for Adrian to follow. Inside, Bryce paused in front of Adrian, staring at his wrinkled scrubs. “Beer…coke…?” Bryce glanced up, waiting for a response.

Without a word, Adrian took a step forward, studying Bryce before placing his hands on the other man’s hips, grasping the fraying hem of his white undershirt, and pulling upwards, peeling the damp fabric from his body.

Almost immediately, and without explanation, Bryce was lost in Adrian’s dark eyes, released by the power in this man’s hands. Mechanically, Bryce lifted his arms and allowed Adrian to whisk the fabric up over his head.

Dropping the rumpled shirt onto the floor beside him, Adrian leant forward and gripped the nape of Bryce’s neck, guiding his head up so that their lips met, just softly at first.

The moment before, Bryce had felt too self-conscious to speak, but without explanation, he suddenly felt giddy, and his heart raced. “Bro, that’s nice,” he whispered between kisses. He thought fleetingly of Tim, then closed his eyes. He focused on Adrian’s bulk, the soothing warmth of his hands and his torso, the insistence of his exquisitely shaped mouth and the ticklishness of his scruff.

Bryce parted his lips just barely and welcomed Adrian’s tongue—a warm flick inside his mouth at first, until Bryce sighed and pushed upwards more forcefully. The stirring inside his pants hadn’t gone away between their kiss in the locker room and their arrival at Bryce’s apartment, but now his cock pulsated to life, straining against his underwear and shorts. He brushed the growing bulge in Adrian’s pants, and again, he strained forward.

As Adrian’s lips tickled his neck, Bryce considered the situation and wondered whether Adrian would leave any hickeys, and whether they would be noticeable above the low neckline of his scrubs at work the next day. And if they were, he tried to imagine the explanation he would give to Trina—breakup sex with Tatum?—then considered whether she would even believe his story. And if she did, how long would it take for the lie to reach Tatum’s ears? After all, New Orleans was a small city.

But Adrian’s touch, his practiced mouth and sure hands, were overpowering, and Bryce pushed the worry far from his mind.

Adrian smiled and, kissing Bryce’s neck, grasped his hands and led him to the couch. Adrian lowered himself onto the tan pillows and pulled Bryce down next to him.

Bryce closed his eyes, relishing the sensation of strong, warm hands sweeping over his naked torso. Reclining deeper into the plush of the couch, Bryce became acutely aware of his cock pushing against his shorts and boxer briefs. Once already, he had failed to relieve the pressure in his loins. Bryce wondered whether he would leave without going below the belt, and if Adrian did, would Bryce let him?

“Why are your eyes closed?”

Bryce opened his eyes, and saw Adrian’s dark features hovering directly in front of him.

“Are you okay?” Adrian asked, smiling.

“Yeah, man, I’m good,” Bryce whispered back. He shifted upwards on the cushions and leaned his head back, accepting a kiss from Adrian.

Adrian laughed. “Your eyes are closed again.”

Bryce smiled and opened his eyes. Hesitating, he said, “It’s good, man.” But was it? Bryce had never touched another dude before. At least, not quite like this. Yet he was keenly aware of the yearning in every muscle, in every fibre of his body.

Was what he was doing even right? Bryce frowned, realising that he had asked himself the same question eight years before. Then, the answer had been ’no’.

“It’s okay, man,” Adrian said, brushing Bryce’s cheek. Bryce turned his head. The feeling of Adrian’s rough hand gliding across his stubble felt exceedingly good.

Adrian furrowed his dark brows. “Should I stop?”

Bryce’s cock throbbed painfully inside his pants. He needed release. He had no choice but to give into his inner craving to let go. Bryce sighed. And for once, he actually surprised himself.

“No, bro. It’s all good.” He leant forward and planted a kiss directly on Adrian’s lips and reached to catch the hem of Adrian’s scrub shirt. He pulled upwards, and Adrian stopped, helping Bryce strip it from his body, revealing the man’s built torso. Slowly, Bryce touched the layer of short hairs on Adrian’s upper chest, delighting in the foreign sensation of the thousand rough strands under his curious fingers.

Adrian moaned and, grinning, reached for Bryce’s pants. He fumbled at Bryce’s frayed, cloth belt, unhooking the fastener, quickly popping open the button and undoing the zipper before sliding the fabric down to Bryce’s ankles. Adrian met Bryce’s eyes. “Do you mind?”

“No man, go ahead.”

Adrian grasped the elastic bands of Bryce’s pants, and as Bryce lifted himself minutely upwards from the couch cushions, Adrian slid the underwear down past his ass, pulling both the shorts and green boxer briefs completely over Bryce’s feet, then discarding them on the scuffed floor.

The air that washed over Bryce was cool and refreshing, and the sensitive skin on his cock and balls tingled with anticipation. Adrian stood and slipped his pants and underwear off in one, fluid motion. He was completely naked.

Bryce studied the man’s chiselled muscles, well-defined pecs and arms, his abs, thighs, calves and feet, his beautiful, tanned skin, much darker than Bryce’s own. Adrian’s uncut cock—straining upwards against his stomach—was long and thick, shot through with bulging veins above two large, round testicles which dangled invitingly between his legs. Bryce’s body screamed for every part of him, demanded to feel the firmness and warmth of Adrian against his flesh and in his throat.

“Want to suck me off?”

Bryce pursed his lips and looked up at Adrian, nodding, ready.

Adrian sat, and Bryce stood, then knelt between Adrian’s legs.

“It’s okay man, just take it slow.” Adrian ruffled Bryce’s hair and left one hand atop Bryce’s head, guiding his mouth downward.

Bryce closed his eyes again, licking uncertainly at first. The tip of Adrian’s cock tasted salty. Bryce parted his lips just slightly, slipping the very tip into his mouth, curious at the sensation of the foreskin gliding over the head shielded beneath. It was complex and delicious, and as Adrian moaned for more, Bryce pushed the man’s dick deeper into his mouth and against his tongue.