“We pretended for over a week,” I said dryly as I took my seat and considered another drink before shrugging it off. I’d probably had too much as it was, although I felt perfectly lucid. That could be a warning for someone like me who wasn’t a stranger when it came to alcohol; confidence in your ownsobriety could be a warning that you were not nearly as sober as you thought. “And look how well that turned out.”
“Good point,” he said with a smile. “If we tried to pretend this didn’t happen, we might end up with you fucking me instead of actually talking it out.”
“Or you fucking me,” I muttered and then snorted when his eyes widened. “I’m sorry, did you assume I wouldn’t be up for being on the receiving end?”
“Well, I…didn’t want to assume,” he said slowly.
I rolled my eyes. “And instead, you assumed anyway.”
“Maybe,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “Either way, huh?”
“Yes,” I said with a grunt, reaching up to adjust my tie because I knew that thing was crooked, it usually was and that was after a normal day, let alone when sharing mutual head with a long-time friend and business partner. “Ah, now there is where common sense and logic reassert themselves, unlike minutes ago.”
“Post nut clarity,” he said in a singsong voice that, while not surprising, seemed out of place considering the circumstances. Then again, if Reggie kept things on brand and stuck to the theme, he wouldn’t be the man I’d known for years.
“Please do not turn that into a song you can torment me with,” I said with a weary sigh. “I think we have enough on our plates without your attempts at musical styling.”
“Just because you nut in my mouth doesn’t mean you get to go back to being rude to me,” he said and then scratched the back of his head. “Though I guess that was a choice I made, wasn’t it?”
“You didn’t have to swallow,” I pointed out.
“True,” he said, and smiled. “You really weren’t kidding about having been with a guy before.”
“What gave it away? The fact that I don’t lie to you?”
“Well, there isthat. But I was thinking more along the lines that you didn’t hesitate in the slightest to suck my dick or swallow,” he said with a curious look. “How the hell did I never know that about you? Like, I know you don’t talk about your personal life, let alone your sex life, but c’mon…I should have suspected you were bi.”
“A little,” I said, and when he rolled his eyes, I scoffed. “Well, it’s true. My experiences and interest in men have been dwarfed by those I’ve had with women.”
“A bit of bi is still bi,” he said, looking done with me. “I just…why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it didn’t seem necessary for you to know,” I said automatically, and then closed my eyes. “Sorry, that was…knee jerk.”
“Okay, well, my feelings are only a little hurt. But you’ve got the chance to give what must be the real answer so I don’t have to sit here and feel bad about myself,” he said brightly, as if he were just giving me shit. Except I knew Reggie, I’d watched him deal with many people over the years, and I learned he was one of the best at hiding a lot behind a smile and a joke.
“Don’t do that,” I said with a shake of my head. “I apologize for being…an ass, but you don’t have to pretend it was funny when it wasn’t. The truth is, I didn’t tell you because I just didn’t tell many people…at first, when we became friends. Afterwards, it just…well, a large part of it was habit, an old one.”
“Which die the hardest deaths,” he said with a smile. “I know that well. I sense there’s more?”
“At some point, and don’t ask me when, I started having…complicated feelings for you.”
“Complicated or horny feelings?”
“I…horny ones,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “You really know how to take the gravitas of a situation and throw it right out the window.”
“Well, being horny isn’t really complicated…you’re just horny,” he said with a shrug.
“Yes, but it can make a situation or relationship far more complicated by existing in the first place,” I told him dryly. “Such as when you’re having feelings for someone you shouldn’t be having feelings for because they’re your close friend, and also the same person who was your late best friend’s husband.”
At that, Reggie’s smile faded, and he scratched his collarbone. “Right, yeah, I suppose…I can see how that would be complicated.”
I watched him for a moment, wondering if he had felt the same complications, or if I had just manifested them in his head. “Sorry.”
He glanced up and shook his head. “Don’t be. I-I loved him, and in a way, I still love him, and I’m always going to remember what we had. But I’m not going to live my life as if he’s still here, or that I should live my life as if waiting for him to come back. And get that look off your face. You didn’t make me feel guilty because I gave my late husband’s best friend a blowjob in his office.”
“I feel like this would blow his mind,” I said with a shake of my head. “He was always trying to get the two of us to be closer, to get along better.”
“We got along, but you were busy, I was busy, all we really shared was him…while he was alive,” he said quietly. “You know what he’d say about us getting close after he died, right?”
