Page 6

James

“ O h my God,” I collapse onto the queen-sized hotel bed next to Evan, scrubbing my palms over my face, “who knew that getting five teenagers to go to sleep in their own beds would take more effort than putting a colicky newborn to bed?”

Our room is between the room Darcy is sharing with Joey, and the room allocated to the girls. We’ve been listening to the doors opening and closing and the kids running between the two for hours.

I’m torn between relief that Mia is settling in and making friends, and exhaustion at having to try and control their antics. We have an early train to catch in the morning, and I also don’t want to have to face the ire of the principal or other parents if I return their kids all rumpled and sleep deprived.

“Well, I never really had to do the newborn thing, so this is eye-opening,” Ev says, then yawns. “Fuck,” he adds, “remember when we could stay up all night and seem rested the next day? It’s not even midnight and I’m buggered.”

I fold the covers back and try not to groan as I finally relax into the mattress. “Maybe Joey was right. Maybe we are old.”

“Bite your tongue,” he grumbles, then carefully removes his glasses and folds them, setting them on the nightstand. I feel a pang of something undefinable at that. I like it when he wears his glasses instead of contacts, but it’s not as if I’m not used to seeing him without them. He points his finger at me, shaking me from that random thought. “I was still a night owl until you roped me into co-parenting. This is your fault.”

I can hear the teasing in his words, which is the only reason my guilt at making him continue this charade doesn’t come bubbling back to the surface. Honestly, I don’t think I could have handled the demands of this school without him. Having a partner to handle all the parenting stuff has not only been a novel experience, but it has taken a huge weight from my shoulders. A weight I didn’t even know was that bad until I got the opportunity to share it.

“I really do appreciate this,” I still tell him, even though I know he was being playful.

Suddenly, it hits me how lonely I’ve been these past sixteen years. Ev’s always been there for me if I asked, but I’ve never really tried to share any of my responsibilities as a dad. Now? I can’t imagine not having him by my side through any of this.

Gah . I’m getting maudlin.

I’m overtired.

After leaning over to switch off the lamp on the bedside table, plunging the room into darkness, I hear him chuckle.

“Does this remind you of sleepovers when we were kids?” he asks softly.

It’s not hard to reminisce, to remember years of sleeping in the same bed, or in sleeping bags on the hard ground inside a tent in his backyard. It does make me a little sad that I can’t remember the last time we had a sleepover — only that one day we never had any again. I can’t help but think that if we had known our last one was going to be the last, we would have made it memorable somehow.

Unsure why I’m so intent on upsetting myself with such silly thoughts, I force a laugh, “We don’t have a metric tonne of lollies or chips right now.”

“Pity. I could go some M&Ms.”

“ Mmm . Maltesers.”

“Great. Now I want chocolate. This is also your fault.”

Stuck somewhere between a laugh and a huff of irritation, I roll onto my side, facing away from him. “Go to sleep, you child.”

***

It’s been years since I last woke up wrapped in someone else’s arms. That’s not an exaggeration, either. I’ve had flings and hookups over the years, but I haven’t been in a serious enough relationship that I’ve slept overnight in a woman’s bed.

So it is a little jarring to wake up being smothered by a lean, masculine octopus.

Sometime in the middle of the night, I must have rolled back over and directly into my best friend’s embrace. He’s got me tucked right up under his chin, his bearded jaw resting on top of my head while his arms are tightly wrapped around my torso. Our legs are intertwined, with one of his hooked over my hip.

And his morning wood is pressing into the side of my stomach, while mine —which is far too happy to have any kind of human contact outside of my own hand— is nestled into the crease of his thigh. It should not feel as good as it does. It shouldn’t.

Not only is Evan a man, he’s my best friend.

My dick is only acting this way because he’s sick of being neglected for so long.

I’m still considering the best way to extricate myself from this situation when Ev makes a cute, almost feline chirping sound and stretches, simultaneously tightening his hold on my upper body while arching his back and grinding his swelling cock into my soft abdomen.

I can feel the moment his brain engages —right around the same time I’m afraid I’m going to lose the last hold I have on my sanity and start rutting into him— because he tenses and then laughs.

“Well,” he says, letting go of me and flopping backwards, not at all embarrassed by the tenting in his boxers, “ this reminds me of grade nine, for sure.”

My cheeks flame, and I grab my pillow and plonk it over my erection. “We made a pact not to talk about that.”

Ev turns his head lazily to face me, his expression one of pure amusement. I’ve always been a little jealous of how easily he seems to take everything in stride, like nothing ever fazes him. “It’s been over twenty years, Jay. We were fourteen. Wet dreams happen a lot during puberty.”

I squirm and squeeze my eyes shut. I can’t admit, not even now, that while he might have had a wet dream when we were sharing a bed as teenagers, I had been fully conscious of the fact that I was about to come from him grinding against me in my sleep. Then I had come, and he had woken up, and I had been so embarrassed and distraught that he’d agreed that we would never speak about it.

“Okay, okay,” he laughs and backs off, literally climbing out of his side of the bed, which I only know because the mattress bounces with his movement, “I’ll stick to the pact.” I crack an eye open to watch him pulling fresh clothes out of his overnight bag. “I’m gonna shower.” He glances down at my pillow and smirks. “Unless you need to deal with that first?”

“Shut up and fuck off,” I respond without any heat. “Worry about your own…situation.”

“That’s what the shower’s for,” he acknowledges easily, then ducks into the ensuite.

My heart hammers as I hear the water run, and for some strange reason I can’t stop thinking about the fact that he’s probably jerking off in there. He’s left the door open to let the steam circulate —because he hates trying to dry off in a humid bathroom, something I learned during out first ever sleepover when we were kids— and my stomach does a funny flip to think that I could just lean around the corner and…what the actual fuck am I thinking?

The shock of realising that I’m contemplating spying on my best friend as he jerks off is enough to make my own erection wilt.

It has to be because I’m projecting all my feelings about finally having someone to share the load — Wrong word! Weight! Share the weight! — of parenting, right? Especially when it’s someone I have such a history with, who I love like family.

That’s got to be it. My brain is finally cracking under the strain of the past few months. Years. Whatever.

By the time Ev emerges from the bathroom, I’m calm and collected, and I’m back to feeling like my usual self, no inappropriate, unexpected thoughts in sight.

At least this will be the last time we have to share a bed for a while.