Page 44 of Praised
Growing up, I was raised and conditioned to find women attractive, but even if I looked past the social constructs of society, I enjoyed the female form so I knew it was more than that. But the first time Billy Roberts had accidentally grabbed my cock along with the flag in a game of sixth-grade flag football, I’d known there was more to it than I’d suspected.
It had been easier to keep my attraction to men a secret, choosing instead to date cheerleaders by day and then fuck football players on the weekends. High school was probably when I stumbled onto my natural affinity for using my mouth to get me into and out of trouble, because I’d yet to meet a man in the closet who didn’t like being told what a good boy he was for taking a dick up the ass like he’d been born for it.
As an adult, I’d dated men and women, I’d slept with both, sometimes even at the same time, but I’d never wanted to have a relationship that lasted longer than a few days. It was partially a result of seeing Barclay getting his heart shattered in college that turned me off the idea, and partly because I didn’t want to have to choose one person for the rest of my life. People had always treated my bisexuality like a choice I made, a deliberate attempt to sit on a fence instead of picking sides, but that was never what it had been for me.
I understood the concepts of polyamory and open relationships, and knew I could lean into something like that to appease my fear of commitment, but I was also too jealous for that kind of thing. But I also knew I couldn’t ask someone else to let me play around and not give them the same courtesy. So, it had always felt easier to keep everything casual in every way.
And then there was Rose.
Rose, who was so gorgeous and playful and wonderful, and I’d immediately been willing to throw myself at his feet to get a chance with him. I realized after meeting him how absolutely transparent my attempts at casual dating had been, because one look from him, one kiss, and I was on my knees and begging for more. Like a man lost in the desert or something equally trite and metaphoric.
“Oh, you talk plenty, Flynn,” Dalton teased, and I huffed out a laugh, closing my eyes and resting my head against the back of the chair.
“But yes, to your other question. It’s about Rose.”
“Is his name really Rose? Like the flower?”
I thought about how pink and sweet his ass had tasted when he let me shove my tongue inside of it.
“It’s a nickname.” I shifted my weight and crossed my legs at the ankle. “His name is Ambrose.”
“That’s obscene.”
I laughed again. “I know. Hence, Rose.”
“And I take it you’ve seen him more than once?” he asked. “More than a casual weekend.”
“I’ve been seeing him here and there for a few weeks,” I answered. “He did a pretty good job at putting me off for the first week.”
“Getting you off?”
Another laugh. “He told me the first night we met that he deserved better than me.”
That earned another sharp rebuke from Dalton, who waved his empty wine glass at me. I snatched it out of his hand and stood, walking back into the house to get the bottle of wine we’d left open on the counter. I topped him off and brought the bottle outside with me, pouring another drink’s worth into my own glass and arranging myself back down in the chair.
“He’s probably not wrong.”
“Well, I was inclined to disagree with both of you, and I told him as much.”
“You must have been real convincing.” Dalton waggled his eyebrows at me and took a sip off the top of his wine.
“I would have been, but everything feels a little different with him.”
“Oh, shit.” Dalton heaved a petulant breath and twisted his mouth into something that looked like a stark lack of amusement. “Are you next to fall?”
“What?” I chuckled and shook my head. “Absolutely not.”
I wasn’t an idealistic man. I was an optimistic realist on my very best days and a brooding pessimist on my worst. Just because I’d come around on the appeal of seeing someone in a more serious way didn’t mean I was anywhere near delusional enough to think that there was a forever in anything for me and Rose.
“You say that like it’s a hard and fast fact.”
“I know myself well enough to know it is,” I said. “Whatever Rob and Archie have found with Gray and Owen isn’t for me.”
As I uttered the words, a sharp pang stabbed through my ribs, penetrating my heart. It was the first time I realized that there was jealousy lurking somewhere in the depths of my chest around them all finding some real kind of love and happiness for themselves. Seeing Rob, of all people, so content in his push and pull with Grayson had hit me the hardest, I suspected. Even though I was closest with Archie, I saw more of myself in Rob than anyone else in our friend group, and that longing was raw and rough.
“Your face says otherwise,” Dalton said softly.
I squeezed my eyes closed and blinked them wide open, hoping to clear the expression and the feeling at the same time.
