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I had to grin at that. He didn’t think twice about taking my cock in his mouth, but my toothbrush was another matter. “There’s actually a new one in the cupboard. I got a five-pack at Costco, so you’re in luck. And obviously help yourself to anything else you need.”
“Thanks.” He ducked into the bathroom.
I decided to be helpful, so I rolled out of bed and grabbed a t-shirt (the Pink Godzilla one Dmitri had been wearing yesterday) and shorts from the floor, and pulled them on. Then I went over to the new clothes piled on a chair in the corner and put an outfit together for Dmitri. As I pulled off the price tags, I mused that this was all going to be a bit baggy on him since he wore a size smaller than I did. But then I thought, Good. That way the bartender candidates won’t get to ogle my man’s assets.
Ah, jealousy. What a pointless emotion.
I found his shoes and belt and set them with the outfit. Then I scooped up his clothes, which my nephews had pretty much destroyed yesterday, and set them in my laundry basket. There was still one thing he needed, and with a wicked grin I went to my dresser and found one of the pairs of skimpy underwear that Jess had insisted I buy. This one was basically a tight-fitting black jock strap. I had to wonder if Jess watched more gay porn than I did to come up with something like that.
I’d just added the jock strap to the rest of the outfit when someone knocked on my door. Another sister invasion, I assumed, and with a dramatic sigh went and opened my front door. And my eyes went wide with shock.
Charlie – Charlie! – my ex stood there, looking crisp and pulled together in a light blue short sleeved Oxford shirt and khakis. “Hey Jamie. Is this a bad time?”
I couldn’t form words for a minute, I was that completely stunned. I’d avoided him like the plague since he broke up with me five months ago. And to now be confronted by my former friend, my former boyfriend, my former almost-lover, all before coffee (and before toothpaste…and a shower…and a comb) was just a little too much to process.
“Can I come in?” he asked, his brow wrinkling in concern as his pale green eyes slid from my rumpled hair to my rumpled clothes.
I stepped back automatically, and he brushed past me into my apartment. He looked around curiously, as if he expected big changes since he’d been gone. And while he did that, I just stared at him.
Charlie was dark haired, 6’2 and broad-shouldered, and still had the muscle definition of a football player, which he used to be in high school. He looked good, as much as I hated to admit it. His fake straight lifestyle was apparently agreeing with him, and I almost said so, except that even in my head it sounded catty.
I finally did manage to say, “What’re you doing here, Charlie?” I wished to God I’d had a shower this morning and put on some of my new clothes. He really had a way of bringing out my insecurities, and not being dressed like a disheveled high school kid would’ve helped shore up my self-esteem a bit.
Charlie turned his gaze away from my living room and focused on me, his brows again knitting in concern. And he said, “I ran into your brother-in-law Jeff at Flannigan’s during Monday Night Football. He…well, he told me some worrisome things, Jamie.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. San Francisco sometimes felt like such a small town. “Like what?” I asked, as if I didn’t already know what he was about to say.
Charlie shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. The polite thing would have been to offer him a seat. But I wasn’t feeling polite, so I just let him stand there and fidget. After a moment he said, “Well, he told me…he said you’re dating some guy, some criminal. Naturally, I got concerned. So I thought I’d come here, talk to you. Plus, I wanted to see how you were. I’ve been worried about you. I know you took…well, everything kind of hard….”
“You mean when you broke up with me to go off and pretend to be straight? Yeah, you could say I took that hard,” I told him, anger building as I anticipated his rebuttal.
And there it was: “We didn’t break up, Jamie. We were never really together.”
I seriously wanted to punch him in the face. But instead, I managed to keep my voice relatively steady as I told him, “So even now, you’re living in denial. That’s fucking awesome, Charlie. That after eight years of telling me you loved me, you can now pretend that none of it ever happened.”
