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“Hiding behind your girlfriend is cheating, but Hilary can check out the bug in my ass anytime,” Rick taunted, laughing as Liam growled a mock threat, gesturing for Rick and Jared to get on with their match again.
He and Jared bowed to each other again and then began circling, more cautiously this time. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the other sparring match, but he forced himself to focus. That was the whole point of this exercise, wasn’t it? Trying to make himself concentrate.
It got a bit easier after Jared accidentally knocked him on the chin with his elbow. That fucking hurt, but the pain made Rick buckle down and finally get his act together. He and Jared exchanged a flurry of kicks, turns and hits, which ended with Jared rubbing his stomach where Rick had kicked him and Rick feeling like he’d gotten hit by a freight train. Tomorrow he was going to be bruised in multiple places and, unlike Jared whose dark skin rarely showed a mark, Rick’s would be green and yellow, maybe even a bit black and blue.
By the end of the bout, Jared had thoroughly kicked his ass and they were both breathing a little easier, their inner tension gone. That was the beauty of sparring, for them. A way to work out major aggressions in a safe environment. Slumped next to each other against the wall, they watched as Liam and Patrick tormented Chris in what was supposed to be a free-for-all between the three of them but was looking more and more like two-on-one. Justin’s supposed refereeing was leaving a bit to be desired, as Chris pointed out whenever he had the breath.
“So... women troubles?” Rick asked Jared.
“I’m pretty sure that’s the definition of Marissa,” Jared rumbled, rubbing his hand over his bald head in a motion that looked like frustration, exhaustion, and resignation all rolled into a ball of despair. Sadly, not an unusual look when it came to Jared and Marissa. “You?”
“Had a bit of a run-in with my new neighbor this morning. She… made it clear she’s interested in me.”
“You aren’t?”
“No, I am.”
“Submissive?”
“No idea.”
Jared chewed over that for a minute while Patrick wrestled Chris into a headlock while Liam started drumming on Chris’ bent over back. They cheered Liam and Patrick on, with only Adam rooting for Chris to break the hold—which he eventually did by catching Patrick with his elbow perilously close to the gonads. He was still laughing as he rolled away from them, yelling “Red! Red!”
“Too bad we’re not in the club!” Liam shouted as he pounced. He and Chris began rolling around on the floor while Patrick laughed and started pushing their rolling bodies with his foot. Rick was a little surprised to see how chipper Patrick was being. He’d expected him to be nearly as wound up as him and Jared.
Then again, if Lexie was behaving and not entering the club unless she had adequate chaperonage, Patrick didn’t really have a whole lot to complain about at the moment. Especially if she wasn’t pushing for more than that like she had in the past. Patrick was always more relaxed when Lexie wasn’t pushing boundaries and she was acting more like the good little vanilla girl all of them wished she actually was.
Although, Rick had noticed more of them were becoming resigned to the realization that she probably wasn’t vanilla and one day she would probably be in the club, and not just on the main floor. Even though no one talked about it, Rick thought they had all probably observed the same thing as him. Patrick was fighting a serious attraction to his best friend’s little sister and she wasn’t making it easy for him.
“If she’s not submissive, probably better to stay away,” Jared said, dragging Rick away from his thoughts and surprising him with both the advice and the bitterness in Jared’s voice. “There’s nothing worse than being in a relationship built on a false premise.”
The group of them, other than Jared, had long held the opinion that Marissa wasn’t really submissive, but this was the first time he knew of that Jared had indicated he might share the opinion.
“Is there anything I can do, man?” Rick asked quietly, not wanting to draw their friends’ attention. They were still laughing and playing in the middle of the floor, oblivious to the serious conversation happening along the wall. Jared didn’t often open up much about whatever was going on between him and Marissa, and if he was doing so now then Rick didn’t want to break his trust.
Jared stared up towards the ceiling for a long moment. “No. It’s my own fault. Nothing you can do.”
Hesitating for a moment, because he didn’t really want to hand out unwanted advice, Rick decided to just go for it. “You don’t have to stay with her, you know.”
“I tried to break up with her a couple weeks ago,” Jared said quietly, still staring up at the ceiling. Rick wasn’t even sure the other man was really aware of Rick’s presence. It was like he was a pot that had been overfilled and set to boil, and now the water was sliding over the sides, but it wasn’t by choice. “She locked herself in the bathroom and told me she was swallowing all the pills in the medicine cabinet. I had to break the door down.”
Rick sucked in a breath. “Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“Had she?”
“She was holding the bottle.”
“Do you think she’d really have done it?”
“I don’t know.”
But he wouldn’t take the chance. That was something Rick knew instinctively. None of them would. Their entire group of friends was demanding, stubborn, and occasionally cruel in the bedroom, but they would never allow someone in their care to come to any kind of harm.
Part of Rick wanted to point out that, of course Marissa knew she hadn’t been in any real danger. She was still manipulating Jared, knowing he would get to her in plenty of time. Even if she had swallowed the pills there would have been plenty of time to get her stomach pumped. But he also knew that while Jared might know she was playing him intellectually, it was another thing to live it and he was too much of a caretaker to let his damaged girlfriend go if she so desperately wanted to stay with him. Rick was starting to wonder if she was actually that manipulative, or if she really might be more than a little damaged.
“Isn’t she seeing a therapist?”
