Page 16 of Jealous Guy

He tells me everything, even things I don’t want to know, and he’s never, ever mentioned butt play to me. Never. Not once.

Believe me, I would have remembered.

To make matters worse, he’s completely comfortable with the admission. Pleased with it even. He’s happy to be here, in a public place, dismantling toxic masculinity one brick at a time.

The things that happen in my body in response to his words are hard to describe. Blood rushes south so hard and fast that my lips feel frozen. My mind swims, thoughts swirling into a blur as my dick swells.

Summer raises her chin, looking down her nose, as if she’s seeing Jordan for the first time. “Well, aren’t you evolved, straight boy?”

Bitch, that’s my line.

I try not to glare at her, but this conversation is way out of hand, and it’s thrown me badly. I’m not equipped to deal with it at all. It’s fucking me up big time because one of the things I’ve been telling myself repeatedly to help get me over my little issue with Jordan is that he has no interest in exploring that part of his body whatsoever.

What the hell am I supposed to think now?

You should think that it has nothing to do with you, I tell myself sternly. Straight guys have every right to be interested in their prostates. Putting things in your butt doesn’t make you gay. That’s what you should think.

It takes a second, but after a brief internal struggle, I return to my center. I take a long sip of beer, and when I’m positive no one’s looking at me, I throw a surreptitious side-eye at Summer. She’s resting her chin lightly on her hand and gazing at Jordan with a faraway expression.

He’s trying not to make eye contact or notice how she’s looking at him. He has a major talent for reading sexual signals from women, though, so I can tell the effort is costing him.

Their chemistry is palpable. A living, beating thing that crackles and sizzles across the table.

It’s because she’s perfect for him, isn’t it? And because he’s perfect for her. They’re probably soulmates. They’re probably meant to be. Their story is probably written in the stars or some shit like that. They’re probably irrevocably drawn to each other by fate, destiny, and a mutual interest in prostate play.

And they’re being kept apart on the whim of an asshole like me.

Oh God. I’m going to hell, aren’t I?

I’m so lost in the quagmire of my own thoughts, contemplating my damnation and all that, that I hardly notice the music being cranked up. I’m only dimly aware of people at the table getting up and starting to move around. Riley and Rowan head to the bar, and by the time I drop back into my body, Jordan has left the table too.

I spot him near the back of the room, to the left of the bar, with three or four girls around him. “I like the way you kiss me” by Artemas is playing, and Jordan is dancing. Of course Jordan is dancing. He loves dancing, and he’s good at it. He has a talent for it. He moves in a way that slows the air around him, making it grow heavy and thick. Like sex on a Saturday night. Like a slow song he feels in his hips.

Like he’s having the time of his life and has no idea how sexy he looks when he does it.

I look away quickly and plaster a bright smile on my face. My gaze collides with Andy’s, and I’m hit with a gentle, coffee-brown question. He doesn’t blink or ask it aloud, but it unsettles the living hell out of me anyway.

“Another drink?” I offer a little too loudly.

Andy motions to his glass. It’s almost full. “Still going strong, thanks.”

I bolt from the table and go to the bar, leaving a more than half-full beer on the table. I order another one and nurse it at the bar, keeping my back to Jordan and making sure I don’t look in Andy’s direction either.

I can’t believe Jordan said I know like that.

I can’t believe he’s into that kind of thing.

It makes sense, I guess. He’s open-minded and very sexually liberated, but Jesus. To say it aloud in front of a group of guys like that. I don’t know, man. That takes some balls.

Hmm.

I wonder if he likes having his balls played with too.

No.

No, no.

I’m not going to think about him like that anymore. I’ve spent years doing that, and all it’s gotten me is depression. And blue balls.