Page 41 of Wingmen

“Holy shit,” murmured Dustin. And then, “Oh fuck, fuckfuc–”

Elliot opened his eyes as Dustin stood up on his knees, pumping furiously and spurting over his fist, eyes shut tight, breath ragged.

Elliot watched him spill all over the floor and the seat between Elliot’s thighs, and when it was done, Dustin knelt there with his eyes closed, squashed into the tiny space with his shoulders trembling.

Elliot stared at him with one hand still braced against the roof and the other pushing hard against the seat beside him like he was trying to escape. The car smelled like sweat and whiskey and come and the only sound was the scrape of his breath against Dustin’s.

After what felt like minutes with neither of them moving, Dustin put himself away. He looked at the mess on his hand, then at the mess on his shirt, and apparently figuring both were fucked, wiped the hand on the shirt.

When he looked up, his face was flushed and his eyes were bright. He met Elliot’s gaze, and Elliot was so overwhelmed with embarrassment, he wanted to look away. When Dustin spoke, his voice was rough.

“Why don’t I just drive you home,” he said.

Swallowing, Elliot nodded. It was about the only thing he could manage.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Dustin

You alive?

Hello?

Earth to Little Man

Seriously kid. Text me back.

Dustin sat on his couch in a pair of sweats and a sleep shirt with his phone in his hands. It was Tuesday morning and the sun was already warm through the window. He was halfway through his coffee and another text to Rodriguez, but reading back the one-sided conversation he’d been having with himself since Thursday was making him feel pathetic. It had been five days and he hadn’t heard from Elliot.

Which made sense. What happened on Thursday was totally insane. Elliot was probably freaking out.Dustinwas freaking out. On top of the fact that he’dsucked someone’s cockfor the first time in his life, he hadn’t even asked if Rodriguezwantedhis cock sucked. Was that assault? Was it statutory something?Was Dustin a statutory cocksucker now?

No. Calm down, Bennet.

It was borderline. He didn’t know for sure that Rodriguez had wanted him toblow on his cue. But Elliot was twenty-one. Dustin wasn’t a statutory anything.

He was a cocksucker, though.

He checked the phone again, and his heart nearly stopped as three dots appeared. They bubbled for a moment, then disappeared. Dustin waited.

They didn’t come back.

Sighing, he locked the phone and put it on the coffee table. He was absolutely shitting the bed on this mentoring thing. He wasn’t sure exactly what a mentor wassupposedto do, but he was almost certain it wasn’t, “Get your mentee drunk at a dive bar, then suck him off in the parking lot in the back of your rented Lexus.”

He checked his watch. He’d been keeping himself busy for the last few days: his buddy Nate had been in town for the weekend from Denver, which kept him from thinking about Elliot, and yesterday getting all the come out of the carpet in the rental car had taken him all evening – but today he had a rest day and nothing planned to fill it. He thought about going for a hike, but his knee hurt and he was worried he may have overdone it with Rodriguez at basketball, and felt like he should stay off it.

So what the fuck was he gonna do with himself? Because worrying about Rodriguez all day was just going to make him crazy.

He got up and went to the pull-up bar that hung in the doorway to his bedroom and did five. Then he went to the marble kitchen island to make another cup of coffee. He went back to the pull-up bar, then back to the kitchen to sip coffee, then back to the pull-up bar, back to the coffee, until the coffee was gone and he’d done twenty-five pull-ups. He checked his watch.

He’d killed thirty whole minutes.

His laptop was on the couch, and he eyed it across the room. He’d been avoiding it, because he knew if he opened it, he’d end up Googling things like, ‘did gay thing but I’m not gay help’, and ‘nearly thirty suddenly gay why’, and he wasn’t sure if that would be helpful or just send him down a weird rabbit hole. He was also afraid he might wind up back on Rodriguez’s Instagram.

But he needed answers. Something had happened to him at that basketball game. Maybe it had already been happening. Getting pulled into dumb games with Elliot at that charity thing. Telling him about Pineapple. Giving him the name of his gym. He’d invited Elliot to Bernie’s the first time. Texted him afterward. Suggested the bet, basketball…

When you laid it all out like that, it didn’t look so much like a guy innocently deciding to mentor his protégé, as a predator grooming a victim.

But that wasn’twhat he was doing!