I laughed so hard I inhaled nearly a gallon of pond water, and in the end, I was the one who nearlydrowned.
Julian helped me out of the water and onto the one large, flat rock on the shore. I sat there curled on my side,coughing.
“Serves you right,” he said primly. “For making fun ofme.”
I coughed even harder. “And here I thought you loved all animals,” Isaid.
“Not.Sunfish.”
I sat up straighter and grinned at him. He’d spread his towel on the stony beach, which could not have been comfortable, but he didn’t complain. He hardly everdid.
I was pretty sure I knew why he hadn’t sat next to me on my towel. Julian had always been very careful not to do anything too flirtatious or too overtly gay around me, like he didn’t want to scare off his poor hetero friend. I could have told him it would take more than that to shakeme.
“You okay over there?” he asked, and I realized I’d been staring at him toolong.
“Fine,” I said. “Perfect.” The breeze had kicked up a tiny bit, and it felt amazing against my wetskin.
But Julian frowned and reached for his t-shirt, dragging the thin cotton over his head, like he wondered if his nakedness was making me uncomfortable. Which it absolutely wasnot.
Ironically, my discomfort began when he put the shirton.
His chest was still wet, just like mine, and when he pulled the shirt on, it instantly dampened and clung to his shoulders and chest, highlighting every curve and angle. His collarbones, the slim contours of his torso, the strength of hisarms.
I felt a little frisson of awareness on the back of my neck, a little electric buzz I’d only ever felt when looking at awoman.
It was so unexpected, I didn’t realize it for what it was at first. It was all tied up in the pleasure of the day, just one more way that Julian was amazing. Of course I wondered what the lake water tasted like on his skin. Wouldn’tanyone?
And then my cock stiffened, despite the chill and the dampness of my fucking bathingsuit.
* * *
~Present~
“And that’s when shit got complicated,” I told thecat.
I’d gone back in the water, man-eating-sunfish be damned, and I’d stayed there until my equipment had practically inverted itself into my body in an attempt to findwarmth.
Since then, I’d learned that the weirdest things turned me on—the sharpness of a cheekbone in the firelight, the restrained power and affection in a pair of hands as they mussed Honoria’s fur, the lean strength in a pair of short but well-formed legs stretched out on my rug, the jut of collarbones peeking out ofthat damnsweater.
But a tiger didn’t change his stripes. Not at thirty-three. I wasn’t gay. I probably, almost certainly, wasn’t even bi. I wasconfused. I was… lonely. This was all a part of my mid-life crisis.More drama, I could hear my fathersaying.
And in this case, he might have apoint.
When I’d first met my ex-wife, years ago, I’d fallen in lust with her and confused it with love. We’d had sexual compatibility, so I’d inferred that we were compatible in other things, but we most definitely hadn’t been. So wasn’t it possible that I was somehow reversing the process here? Imagining sexual attraction because Julian was so very important to me in otherways?
“I’m definitely not imagining this fucking erection,” Imuttered.
But whatever the hell this attraction was, I wasn’t about to experiment with my best and only friend. I willed myself tocalm the fuckdown.
“Daniel?” Julian yelled. “Can we please talk aboutthis?”
“Coming. I was… grabbing a book foryou.”
I heaved myself off the bed, grabbed a random paperback from the bookshelf, and grimaced.Mutual Destruction:A Dark Crime Novelby ChuckKemper.
Well. That was an erection-killer rightthere.
I’d read an early version of the book and loved it. Too bad almost nothing of that quirky, honest book with the gay protagonist actually made it to publication. Heather Charles, aka Chuck, had caved to pressure from our publisher and gotten herself a bland, happy bestseller. I’d refused to write tomarket…
