Page 25 of Praised
I haven’t beenable to stop thinking about you and I’m not sure how to be the kind of man you want me to be, but whenever I figure it out, I promise you’ll be the first to know.
I read and re-read the message I’d sent Rose earlier in the day until the words didn’t mean anything anymore. I’d read it about twice as many times before sending it, changing the words and the sentence structure, even though by the time I was done writing it, I had no idea what I’d wanted to say in the first place.
It felt disingenuous to say he made me want to be a better man, but it was also the opposite of what he wanted to hear. He didn’t want me to change for him, he wanted me to change because it was the right thing to do, but it almost felt unfair because he didn’t know a single thing about me. He had ideas and assumptions about me based on my looks and my money, and some of them were probably right, but I wasn’t a bad person.
I wasn’t a bad man.
But I didn’t date, and that was clear. And so I understood what he meant, what he wanted. And I didn’t see any harm in sitting with myself for a couple of weeks and trying to see if it was maybe time for me to grow up a little bit. Rob and Archie had both fallen in love and it wasn’t the worst thing in the world for them. Maybe letting someone get close to me wouldn’t be horrible either.
I’d spent my adult life avoiding serious relationships because I’d watched them go so wrong for so long. Barclay, for example, with his ex-fiancé and the disaster that their whole relationship had been was enough to sour me for at least two years, and after that it was basically muscle memory. But none of that was a drastic change. I would be the same man whether I was fucking people casually or fucking one person seriously. I wasn’t scared of monogamy or commitment. I knew what I could bring to the table, and the longer I sat with Rose’s words and unspoken assumptions about me, the more frustrated I found myself.
I relaxed against the familiar and soft leather of the oversized chairs at Cunningham’s, stretching my legs out with a groan and tucking my phone back into my pocket. The status of the message to Rose sat onread,and that was better than nothing. I hadn’t sent it expecting a reply. I had sent it because I meant it, because for whatever reason, I wanted another taste of him. I wanted to take my time and talk him through it, and really show him how good sex with me could be.
But that would take time, which I didn’t have anywhere near enough of. It had been almost a week since I met Rose. Days and days of sensitivity between my legs, being forced to remember the thick stretch from when he’d settled between my legs and pushed into me. Days on top of that when I’d been left to think about the way my chest flooded with heat when he kissed me. And I would have been happy to stay home and do nothing beside relive those hours, but it was Thursday, my standing drink night with all of my friends, and for the first time in the history of ever, I was the first to arrive. Staying home any longer would have driven me wild, and there was something to be said for the potency of whiskey that didn’t live in your own liquor cabinet. It wasn’t long before one of our regular waiters spotted me. He was quick to get me a drink while I waited for Rob, Archie, Dalton, and Barclay to arrive.
For years, we’d met on Thursdays for drinks. It was a chance to decompress from the week without interfering with any weekend-based escapades. But the timing and the frequency had turned a little more sporadic, with Rob falling in love with Grayson, and Archie moving Owen across the country, and all of that. I was happy for my friends, truly. But I wasn’t a huge fan of change and the shifts happening in our circle made me a little less than comfortable.
It was a spiral of thoughts earlier in the day about all of my friends falling in love and splitting off into their own little worlds that had me texting Rose about changes I had no right promising him. But I hadn’t been able to get him off my mind, and it wasn’t just about the sex either. It was the way he looked on the couch when I’d gotten out of the shower, and the way he’d squared his shoulders when he told me I didn’t deserve him.
No one had ever talked to me that way.
I mean, sure, Frankie had implied it, but everything with him had been in jest, it had been fun. I was used to getting my way in pretty much all things, in and out of the bedroom, so for Rose to look me in the eye and tell me to do better?
The words had lit a fire under my ass in a way I didn’t have words for.
But not because I thought I had any changing to do, but because I was ready to prove him wrong.
I’d never really thought there was anything wrong with me, nothing that needed serious levels of attention or alteration. It wasn’t as if I was bold enough to think I could buy whatever I wanted in life, not how Archie was or, rather, used to be. But I’d done well enough for myself. Born and raised upper middle class, an above-average education, and a trust fund that paid for my degrees. I’d worked hard for my money, but I started with enough to make that work possible.
I’d never imagined myself to be arrogant. Confident, yes.
Arrogant?
I didn’t think so.
I knew what I was good at, and I knew whatIdeserved, what I wanted.
Maybe not so much different from Rose after all, if you didn’t look at the bank accounts or the cock size, which…
“You look the same way Rob looked after he’d fallen in love with Grayson.” Dalton kicked the side of my shoe and threw himself down onto one of the chairs beside mine.
“Well, I’m not.”
I raised my glass in toast to him and took a sip, smacking my lips to mock him. The waiter appeared quickly, already knowing our orders by heart after so many consistent visits, and he slipped a glass into Dalton’s hand and he mimicked the toast right back at me.
“Are you sure?”
“Quite.”
“What has you so distracted then?” He cocked his head and studied me like he’d be able to sniff out the lie. “Is it Owen’s friend?”
“Frankie?” I scoffed, rolling my eyes. “I would have taken him to bed, but kissing him was like shoving my tongue into…”
“An electrical socket?” he offered.
“With one-hundred percent less sparks.”
Dalton answered that with a knowing sound, and took a sip of his whiskey.
