“Oh, it was a spectacular failure.” Brent slumped down in the chair and took a sip of his coffee.
“You’ve been talking to that guy, the one you met on the kink site?” He thought that was right. Brent was a little shy sometimes, so he didn’t always volunteer information on who he was dating. Leftover shit from growing up with mostly Dominants in the house.
“Yeah.”
Garrett was still getting one-word answers, but the tone was starting to change. A little softer and Brent’s frustration was starting to ease because he actually took a bite of the mangled muffin. “I thought things were going pretty good. He said he wasn’t into something completely lifestyle but he didn’t want to just keep stuff in the bedroom.”
“Well, that’s what you’ve been looking for. Y’all have been talking for a while, right? Like about real life stuff first?” At least, that’s what he thought Brent said. Something about wanting to take things slow. It had helped that the guy lived a few hours away. No way to rush a three-hour car trip.
“Yeah, good thing too. We were on FaceTime last night and hiswifecame home early from her business trip.” Brent said it so matter-of-factly that it took Garrett a minute to get what he’d said.
“What!”
“Yup,turned out he was married. His wife andDommecalled me back about an hour after he hung up unexpectedly. He’s a sub who evidently does this every couple of months if she has to travel too much for work. She apologized and said she thought she’d found all the fake accounts.
“Are you sure? That sounds weird.” It sounded less real life BDSM and more like something on TV.
“Yeah, he even got on the phone too. He’s bi, and she was gone for a couple of weeks with some kind of international business deal. It didn’t seem like anything was off. He was trying to get her attention, but she’d been too busy to notice. She said that usually she catches on in a few days. Recently her work hours have been crazy, it just got out of hand.” Now Brent was back to picking apart the rest of the muffin.
“Man, you have the worst luck. I’m sorry.” He reached over and gave Brent’s shoulder a squeeze. His brother closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“It’s not like I loved the guy. We hadn’t even met in real life. I’m frustrated more than anything. It sucks.” Brent really did have terrible luck with men. If there was a loser in a hundred-mile radius, he’d tried to date Brent.
It wasn’t even like Brent was ugly or something. Average height, trim and muscular without being too big, he looked like the rest of the guys in the family. Even Garrett could see he was cute. Other Doms had to find him attractive. But Brent didn’t come across like most guys thought a sub should. He wasn’t a twink, and he was so calm and in charge at work and with regular day-to-day stuff most people in the lifestyle thought he had to be a Dom.
“We need to get you back to the club. D.C.’s dripping with Doms.” They’d all been too busy to relax lately. He wondered how long it’d been since Brent went up to even hang out.
“That doesn’t help. Going up there alone is boring. Most of my friends are either vanilla or paired off with theperfectpartner. And when I go with you guys, people either assume I’m taken by the sheer number of Doms I’m with or that we’re allreallykinky.” Brent was starting to come out of his funk because he started laughing. “Remember that old guy with the bad hairpiece. He was so sure we were in some kind of incest relationship when he realized we were brothers.”
Garrett shuddered. “That guy was weird. Just the look on his face. It went way beyond being open-minded to creepy giddy.”
Brent nodded. “Ben and Conner said they had to banish him not long after that. He was making some of the other couples uncomfortable.”
There was only one couple Garrett could think of that the guy would have upset. “You mean Aubrey and Lincoln?”
“Yeah, as soon as someone outed them as brothers to the douche he wouldn’t leave them alone. It was creepy.”
“I hadn’t heard.”
“You’ve been busy. And possibly avoiding the club?” Brent looked like he was fishing for more information.
Maybe.
Not that he would admit it. Something about going up there without his own sub hadn’t been appealing lately. Sure there were other guys looking for serious relationships, but he always attracted subs who were just looking for a good time before they went back to their high-powered jobs. He didn’t have a problem with subs who had full-time, important jobs. It just meant they couldn’t relocate. His life was in Richmond. Between family and the business, leaving wasn’t an option.
“I hope whoever outed them got in trouble too. It was so easy to see the guy was disturbed, whoever mentioned it had to be doing it on purpose.” That shit was wrong. A few members had a problem with them, but anybody who remembered what happened didn’t begrudge them happiness.
“Ben and Conner were kind of quiet on that but I had a feeling they had a serious talk with someone.” Brent seemed to be pushing past his own issues because he looked up at Garrett and smiled. “So you had fun last night?”
Garrett laughed. “Notthatmuch fun but he was so cute. And God, the furniture. It’s the stuff from the club but there’s more too. He makes custom stuff for people. He’s going to show me some pieces he has at his house, after we have dinner.”
Brent gave him a look like he could see where that was going. “Dinner at his house?”
“Yes.He offered, not that it’s your business. I asked him out on a real date but he wanted to cook for me. I couldn’t say no to that.” Garrett had found that offer entirely too tempting.
“Did he calm down when he realized you were interested in him?”
“Nope, just made the twitchy boy even worse. But now I don’t have to sit there and watch him bounce around. I can say or do something to help him relax.” Staying professional and keeping his hands to himself had been a lot harder than he’d realized.
