Page 106 of Praised
“That’s not what they said,” Barclay assured him with a pat against his elbow.
“This place is too small for eight of us is all I’m saying. We’d be too loud and annoying,” Rob explained.
“We’re already that.” Archie laughed, accepting a drink from the waiter, who had appeared with five fresh glasses. He collected the empties and again left us to our conversation.
“You know what I mean.”
“What do you propose?” I asked.
“Sex party at Rob’s house,” Dalton suggested with a cocky grin.
“Just because I allow Grayson to tag team touch-starved men with you doesn’t mean he’s allowed to run amuck on the general population,” Rob drawled with a half shrug.
“Wait.” I raised a hand to stop him. “You let Grayson what?”
“It’s not nearly as exciting as he’s making out.” Dalton shook his head, the earlier grin turning into a pretend frown. “He lets Grayson play with rope and then steals him away. If I want more than that, it’s all on Barclay.”
“Don’t sound so excited about the prospect,” Barclay deadpanned.
“I just mean you and I go back.”
“Don’t we just,” he mused.
“My house is an option,” Rob said, cutting off Barclay and Dalton’s back and forth. “So is yours.”
“Mine?” I asked.
“With that nice new couch of yours,” Archie teased.
I sighed, rubbing the bridge of my nose while I entertained the idea.
Now that Rose lived with me, I did enjoy being home more than I had before. Having a comfortable couch was a cherry on top of the cake that looked a lot like him running around mostly naked in barely there underthings. At the end of the day, with the expansive open floor plan, my house had been designed for entertaining, even though I rarely used it for that. Rose had invited Drake over more times than Rob had been over in the past year, and I wondered if I was a bad friend, if not just a distracted one.
“We could try my house,” I offered.
Dalton chuckled. “I still vote Rob’s.”
“We could also just go to the turtle races with the other menfolk,” Archie suggested.
“How is that bar any different than our bar?” Barclay asked.
“It’s a lot louder, for one.” Archie raised a finger, then added a second. “And the drinks are cheaper.”
“Since when have you cared about how much a drink costs?” I asked.
“Since Owen.”
The answer came quick and easy, and it was enough to drown any retort in the back of my throat before the words had a chance to come together.
Since Owen for Archie, and since Rose for me.
It was one of those things between us that even though my taste in liquor wasn’t something he’d ever poked at, I knew it was one of the expenditures that had always sat uncomfortably with him. Undoubtedly as a result of the time he’d spent in the service industry. Even living with me, he’d kept his job, which I knew better than to complain about. Without the rent to pay, though, he’d started buying things for himself, which ended up also being treats for me, and I would never complain about that.
One of his most recent splurges was monthly manicures, sometimes with colored polish and sometimes without. There was definitely something to be said for his finely cleaned cuticles and smooth palms wrapping around my cock at the end of a long day.
“Rob’s kitchen whiskey costs more than the shit here,” I reminded Archie.
He turned to me with the corner of his mouth quirked up into a grin. “Your house it is then. Next week.”
