I’d slept with a couple of women by this point, pressured into it by Jake, who had no clue why I struggled to get excited when a woman gave me attention. I hated both encounters, but I kept telling myselfthatfucking a woman meant I was normal.Thatthere wasn’t anything wrong with me, like so many people said there was.
Drawn to the vision, I stepped closer, my heart thudding.
“So, handsome and successful. How come there’s no lady in your life?”Jennifer purrs before sipping on her wine.
I hide my cringe when she rests her hand against my chest, oblivious to how uncomfortable I am. I open my mouth to reply when my gaze catches on someone staring at me from across the bar.
He’s fucking gorgeous. Tall, broad, olive-skinned, with a perfectly trimmed beard. His black shirt is tight around his shoulders and chest, showcasing his athletic frame. His lips lift into a shy grin when he catches me ogling him, and my cheeks heat as we stare at each other.
“Are you okay? You kinda slipped into a trance?”Jennifers says, pulling my attention away from the gorgeous stranger.
“Yeah, sorry. I thought I saw someone I knew,”I reply, trying to ignore the way my body is heating.“Why don’t you tell me what you do for work?”
Jennifer launches into a spiel about her work, but I’m not listening. My attention has fallen back to the guy who’s still staring at me. His eyes drop to Jennifer, who is animatedly talking, before they meet mine again, and he smirks.
I can’t help but return it, and for the first time in alongtime, my cock twitches. Not because a woman is sucking it in an attempt to get me hard, but from a simple look from a stranger.
An elbow nudges me in the ribs, and I rip my gaze away from the man to find Jake glaring at mejustas Jennifer and her friend disappear into the crowd.
“What the fuck? What’s wrong with you? She was putty in your hand, man, and youjustlet her walk away.”
“Yeah, sorry. Ijust…I wasn’t feeling it,”I reply, trying to ignore the little voice in my headthattells meevenJake knows there is something wrong with me.
Jake snorts.“Well, I hope you’re not feelingthatguy over there.”
“What?”I say, a little too quickly, as panic stabs me.
“Thatguy over there,”Jake replies, nodding across the bar.“He’s been blatantly eye-fucking you for the last few minutes. To tell you the truth, it’s making me feel sick.”
“Don’t be stupid,”I protest.
“I’m being serious. And for a moment, it looked like you were giving him the come on.”He pauses to finish the rest of his wine before placing his empty glass down.“Please don’t tell me you prefer cock over pussy. I’ll have to consider my life choices if I discover my best friend is a cock-sucking faggot.”
I closed my eyes as the memory ofthatvile insult made my fists clench. There’d been times during our partnershipthatJake made homophobic comments, and every time, I’d wanted to smack him as hard as I could.
But I never did.
I was nothing but a coward, too afraidthathe would be another person to abandon me if I admitted the truth.
“If you ask me, Jake was a narrow-minded asshole who deserves those chains,”Barbara hissed, her tone laced with venom, before she added softly,“Do you remember what happenedthatnight after you left the bar?”
I sighed.“You mean when we took Jennifer and her friend back to the hotel, and she got so fed up trying to get me hardthatshe decided to join Jake and her friend? Yeah, I remember.”
I also remembered how, for weeks after, Jake had teased me about having erectile dysfunction, to the point where I hooked up with a random woman,justto prove to himthatthere was nothing wrong with me.
“Were you happy for him?”
My brow quirked.“Happy Jake was getting laid?”
“Happythathe had someone to enjoy being with. And notjustthis woman, but any woman he was with?”Barbara clarified.
I shrugged, confused by the question.“I guess.”
“Thenanswer me this. Why is itthatJake got to be happy, but you don’t? Is it because men and women only get to be happy when they’re hooking up with the opposite sex?”
I didn’t believethat, but I couldn’t bring myself to say the truth.
ThatI didn’t deserve to be happy.
