Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
I should be surprised he’s the guest, but somehow I’m not. I’m actually more surprised that the guy knows how to properly tuck in a damned shirt.
“Alright, let’s get this over with,” he says.
I can already smell the alcohol. “Huh?”
He extends my jacket at me like it’s diseased. “You left this.”
I don’t take it. “I meant to leave it for you.”
“Why?”
“What else would you have rested your head on?”
His eyes scrunch up. “Are you tellin’ me you carried me over to that pew like a princess and put me to bed?”
I shrug. “More like dragging a sack of potatoes, but sure.”
“And then you finished my work for me?”
“Just a few lights, old one out, new one in, took ten minutes.”
I’ve got him completely baffled now. “Why’d you do that?”
“No reason.”
“You expecting a thanks? I didn’t ask you to do any of that. Take your stupid jacket back.” He extends it again.
I can play this game with Anthony all day. We can avoid any mention of the kiss, if that’s how he wants to go about it. But that doesn’t mean I can’t talk civilly to him. “Like the patches on it?” I ask. “This jacket is actually my younger brother’s.”
He glances at it, likely not having taken the time to actually notice them.
His grip turns gentle.
It’s subtle, but I notice.
“So?”
“Means a lot to me,” I explain. “That jacket. We’ve passed it back and forth between us for years. My younger brother and I are survivors of our prick father. That jacket, it’s like magic armor to us. Whenever one of us wears it, nothing bad happens.” I smirk, thinking of the restaurant. “Well, usually. Did you drink already?”
“A little, so what?”
“More like three whole bottles. And before dinner?”
“Shove that judgment up your butt and take your jacket.”
I step back and nod inside. “Coatrack’s here next to the—”
“I know where the coatrack is.” He brushes past me. When he hangs the jacket, he does so with startling delicacy, like it’s gone from being total trash he fished out of a dumpster to a national treasure. “Why’d you go n’ tell me all a’ that about your brother? So annoying,” he mutters under his breath, then heads on further into the house, stumbling slightly.
The truth is, I didn’t get up from the church floor right away.
I just lay there with Anthony sleeping like a rock, his face half on my chest, half on my arm, lips hanging open, as I reeled from that intense, body-groping kiss I was not expecting. After realizing he had fallen into the deep kind of sleep, I tried slipping my arm out from under him, but the moment I started moving, he grunted and curled his fingers into my shirt.
Clinging to me.
Tightly.
That made me grow still, then lie back again, surrendering my body to him as he resumed his deep slumber. I stared up at the ceiling and the bright fluorescent bulb that decided to magically work again.
And my thoughts, strangely, became pretty damned singular.
Just me. Anthony’s breath. Our bodies. Nothing else existed.
Nothing else touched me.
As if the calmness I’d come here to this town seeking found me right then, in that dim church annex, in the most unlikely of places, with the most unlikely of company.
Maybe it makes perfect sense, that the source of my agitation would also contain the solution.
I guess his fingers relaxed once his unconscious body decided I wasn’t trying to abandon his side anymore. I gave up trying to get out from under him for a while. I even closed my own eyes at one point, wondering if what I needed was some sleep, too.
But how could I sleep after what just happened?
All I could think about was his lips on mine. His hands on my body, groping my dick. And how he was hard as steel, humping my leg like a damned dog, for however many seconds that feverish, aggressive kissing lasted.
Was he trying to tell me something?
Did he even realize he was doing it?
It was about an hour later that Anthony sniffed loudly, then rolled off my arm and cuddled himself. I took the chance and got to my feet. But watching Anthony on the floor, neck bent, mouth agape, I knew he was gonna wake up with a bad crick in his neck and probably a sore back, too.
Some kind of compassionate demon must have possessed me right then, because I bent down, scooped him into my arms (it was surprisingly easy) and carried the guy to a pew at the back of the main chapel. With nothing cushy in sight, I took off my denim jacket, rolled it up, and tucked it under his head for a pillow. He didn’t even so much as flinch the whole time, asleep like the dead.
I decided right then that he likely wouldn’t even remember what he did. The kiss might as well have not happened. He’ll deny it even if I was bold enough to ask him about it.