Page 22 of Edged
“So, I went to check on him because I didn’t want him to be mad. He was…”
“Important,” Rob said softly.
The truth of that stuck like a glob of tar in the back of my throat. I nodded, the rest of the night as clear in my mind as if it had just happened.
“Owen had written me a letter earlier that day and he’d come clean. Told me how he was jealous of his sister, how he had feelings for me. And I loved him. Even back then I loved him, but I hadn’t thought I loved him likethat. But I found him in their basement and he was wrecked, like out of his mind with it.”
“You don’t have to tell me all of this if you don’t want to.”
“I have to now,” I said, and I didn’t know why, but it felt true in the moment.
“Let me top you off.” Rob took the glass out of my hand and went back inside, filling both of our glasses with more amber liquor. He sat back down in the chair beside me and I took a smaller than fair sip of my drink before continuing.
“Long story short, Owen and I slept together.”
Rob choked, whiskey sputtering out all over his shirt and his lap. He sat up straight, coughing, more whiskey sloshing over the edge of the glass and down his hand. I gave him a dubious look, mouth twisted in the corner.
“Not what you were expecting?” I asked.
Rob switched his drink from one hand to the other, shaking the drops of booze off as best he could. “I figured that you were going to say you dumped Mandy and dated Owen, and then it all went wrong when you left for grad school in California.”
“I never did either of those things. I slept with Owen and then left both of them without so much as another word. I stopped answering their calls, changed my plans for school, and moved to California without saying goodbye.”
“Jesus, Archie.”
I shrugged helplessly. “I know.”
“And what’s brought all this back around to the front of your mind?” he asked.
“Honestly, Rob, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about Owen in some capacity, but I don’t think you could imagine my surprise when I walked upstairs at Rapture tonight and found him with Val’s mouth wrapped around his cock.”
Rob choked a second time, and I reached over, taking the drink from his hand so he didn’t spill the rest of his expensive liquor all over the concrete.
“Archie, come on. Warn a guy.”
I took a large swallow of my drink and set it on the small table next to Rob’s. “Consider yourself warned, then. Because after that, I followed him into the alley and jacked him off. Made him come for good measure, then ran away from him. Again.”
Even in the dark of the back yard, I could see the shock on Rob’s face. I didn’t know if he thought less of me for the story itself or the actions within the story, but I didn’t want to think about it and there was a small and relieved part of me that didn’t care. The truth was at least somewhat out in the open now, and there had to be some relief in that for me somewhere.
“You know what? I think I’ll take you up on the offer, Rob. Thanks.”
I stood up and stripped out of my clothes, the precum stain on my underwear long dry, then I dove headfirst into the pool.
CHAPTER6
OWEN
There werefour things in front of me.
A leftover plate of hors d’oeuvres from the last venue I visited for Mandy, a bottle of beer, my cell phone, and a crumbled up business card that I’d unfolded and re-crumpled no less than six times since Archer had slid it between my teeth.
“What do you think?” Mandy’s voice echoed out from my phone and I glanced at the business card before reaching for the beer.
“They’re all good,” I told her. “I sent you pics and videos.”
“Which has the best food?”
“The hotel I’m staying at has the best foodandthe best view.” I picked up the beer, the phone…and the business card, and carried all of it to the patio. Beyond the balcony rail, waves crashed against the sand, a beautiful and loud beat that faded into the background the longer I listened to it.
