He let it happen.
And it did happen. Skyler was maybe a split second ahead of Craig, but it was so close that it hardly seemed to matter. Their cries mingled between them as they kissed, bodies sweaty and straining closer until they finally relaxed, their fluids spurting from them to mix between them.
What it meant, Skyler didn’t know. As soon as the pleasure had retreated to nothing more than a low, satisfied tingle through his whole body, that sense of connection also disappeared, and Skyler had no idea what any of it meant for them.
* * *
The aftermath of that intense, shared pleasure lasted longer than Skyler would have expected. He had heard of people giving in to their passions to get over another person, but in his case, it didn’t seem to work.
If anything, it had made him more obsessed than ever with Craig. It had taken him a while to notice the man, but now that he had, it was like he couldn’t think about anything else.
It wasn’t just the sex, either. Craig’s struggle to figure out what he should be doing with his life roused something in Skyler. He had always been so complacent, generally content doing whatever, but now he wondered. Was there something else? Something more rewarding he could be doing?
Not that he didn’t like his job. He was good at it, anyway. In truth, he neither liked nor disliked it. He had a place to live, and food to eat, and money in the bank, and that had always seemed good enough to him.
“Skyler? You okay?”
Startled, Skyler glanced up, giving the man who had addressed him a little bit of a smile. It was Derrick, and Derrick was one of the more perceptive people that Skyler had ever met.
It was night, and Skyler had been curled up in the armchair in the living room. He was, in theory, reading, but in practice, his book had flipped closed and rested that way on his lap. He didn’t even know when that had happened. He had been too busy daydreaming about what had happened earlier that day.
“Yes,” Skyler answered, and it wasn’t dishonest. He was okay. Just distracted. But from the look on Derrick’s face, Skyler wasn’t entirely convinced that the other man believed him.
“I forgot to tell you, this came for you in the mail,” Derrick said, thankfully changing the subject. He dropped an envelope, a thick cream-colored one, onto Skyler’s lap, and Skyler, pleased for the distraction, opened it.
Derrick seemed very nice, from the little that Skyler had gotten to know him, but it was still beyond him to tell Craig’s brother that they had gotten intimate, especially since he had no idea what name to put on it. There had been no discussion of that.
Instead, Skyler opened the envelope and pulled out an invitation. It made sense. He didn’t get a lot of mail or anything. But Hannah must have paid a lot to get it to him so fast.
“What is it?” Derrick asked, not quite peering down at the invitation, he was too polite for that, but he was definitely curious.
“It’s my sister’s wedding invitation.” Even to Skyler’s own ears, his voice sounded dull and flat, and from the frown which touched Derrick’s lips, he heard it, too.
“You don’t sound exactly happy about that,” he noted. Skyler shook his head, avoiding Derrick’s gaze, slipping the thick card back into the envelope. He wasn’t going to get into it with him. He really barely knew the guy.
“I’m not,” he said, and that should have been where it ended. But maybe there was still some whiskey in his system. It seemed unlikely since he hadn’t really drunk that much, and it had been hours ago, but he wasn’t sure what the other explanation for that was. “My sister is getting married, but she doesn’t want me to go with who I actually want to go with.”
Derrick frowned, and Skyler sighed softly. He should have said nothing, but now that he had, he couldn’t just leave it there. And that was how he found himself coming out to one more person. It had been years since he’d last done that, and now he was doing it all over the place.
“If you really want to go,” Derrick replied, after giving it some sober thought for a few moments, “I bet I could find someone to go with you. Jessica would do it.”
Jessica. Skyler knew her. She’d been around for a while. Although she’d gone back to school, she had seemed very nice, very friendly. He’d even had a few conversations with her.
She was exactly the sort of girl that his mother would do cartwheels down the aisle for if he brought her to Hannah’s wedding. Smart, funny, pretty, the only issue would be that she would be too perfect and his mother would start planning yet another wedding.
“So you think she would?” Skyler asked, and Derrick nodded, giving him a reassuring pat on the hand before he tactfully withdrew to give Skyler some time to think about it.
Once more, he slipped the invitation out of the envelope, and it was starting to seem like maybe this actually could happen. Jessica wasn’t going to think that Skyler was interested in her, and she was nice enough that Skyler could explain the situation and she wouldn’t judge.
His gaze skimmed over the invitation once more. He was cordially invited to the marriage of Hannah West and Matthew Davis.
Wait. Matthew Davis?
But no. That was a very common name. It couldn’t possibly be who Skyler was thinking of. It just couldn’t. Because for his sister to be marrying the person who had convinced Skyler to come out to his parents all those years ago, that would just be too much to take.
The idea of it jangled uncomfortably at the edges of his nerves, but it really wasn’t likely. There was probably nothing to worry about. Because the Matthew Davis he had known in high school was gay, so of course he wouldn’t be marrying Skyler’s sister. That was just ludicrous.
So he did the only logical thing and did his very best to put the whole thing out of his mind. It wasn’t even worth worrying about.
