Page 65 of Center of Gravity

You should be illegal.

I think I am in a few counties.

On Saturday night I was in his bed by 5:30 and we didn’t leave until the next morning except to let Winslow out. The weekend after that was the same, and the one that followed. I needed an out and Rob was my out. He was the perfect fucking distraction. Sex with him left me buzzing and euphoric. Together, we were our own little world of traded orgasms. Nothing got in and nothing got out. It was like Vegas, really. What happened in Nook Island stayed in Nook Island, and I was okay with that because everything with him was so highly-charged and erotic, and I couldn’t get enough. I couldn’t fucking get enough of him.

* * *

“Dude!”Tom gave me an exasperated look as I blinked up at him from where I’d gotten lost staring at my beer label.

“What?”

“I said do you want to do another round?”

“No,” I groaned. “I’m good.”

We were at The Tap House on a Wednesday night and Tom was on a mission to sample every shot in the bar. I’d stopped after two Fireballs, but he’d plowed through a Jaegerbomb, a Captain Coke, and a Mind Eraser since then. His eyes were glassy, his smile loose, and I figured he was about two shots shy of thinking the twitchy cougar sitting at the end of the bar was a good idea. She had pill habit and leopard print underwear written all over her and had been eyeing up Tom since the moment we’d arrived.

“C’mon, one more round and then we should cash out and go to Razz.”

My brows shot up. Tom was well aware that Razz wasn’t the typical hetero swimming pool. If he was on the prowl—and he usually was—that was a strange option, unless he was going to be all sketchy about it.

“I don’t want to be your wing-dude while you try to use your hip-to-the-gays street cred on chicks.”

“Maybe I just feel like dancing.” Tom gave me a big grin that I didn’t buy for a second.

“You’re acting weird. What the fuck is up with you?”

He shrugged and corralled another shot closer.

“I might go to Razz with you. But only if you start talking.”

Tom swallowed the shot with a wince, then pushed it away, knocking over a couple of other shot glasses in the process. I caught them just before they rolled off the lip of the table. Yeah, he was definitely hung up on something.

“I’ve been trying to talk to you for weeks. You’re too fucking busy or the time doesn’t seem right or I open my mouth and nothing will come out.” He swiped his hand across his forehead and blew out a long exhale. I think he was waiting for me to say something, to prompt him on, but I was running out of energy. For everything.

“I want to go back and see that dancer, Reese, and I don’t want to go alone.”

“Reese? The go-go dancer Reese?” A cool wariness slithered through me. I knew Reese. Peripherally, but I knew him.

“That one, yeah.” His expression sobered and he was now watching me like I knew something he didn’t.

“I am one-hundred percent confused.”

“Me too,” he said miserably.

“Wait,” I said. My birthday came rushing back to me in neon flashes. Tom disappearing into the crowd after Reese, his odd behavior the next day. “Something happened.”

“I didn’t know, dude. Not at first. He looks just like a fucking chick. Just fucking like one, not drag-queeny, and you know how the lights are in there and how fucking loud it is and we were dancing and he was grinding his ass all up on my cock and maybe I started to have an idea at some point, but I was also kind of drunk and I wasn’t sure and shit, I wasn’t even sure I was supposed to ask, considering how recently offended you’d been. Then his hands were in my pants right in the middle of the goddamn dance floor and I was fucking into it. I was kissing him and it wasn’t any different and it was fucking…Fuck.” He paused his stream of verbal diarrhea, folded his arms over the table, andthunkedhis head down on them.

“What happened?” I didn’t want to ask. I felt bad about that, too. This was obviously weighing on Tom and all I could think was…let him figure it out for himself. I was being a shit friend, I knew it, so I tried to muster up some give-a-fuck.

He let out another long exhale. “So he leads me down into this hallway. Supply closet or some shit. I don’t know. He has a fucking keycard and he gets me up against the wall like he’s going to finish me off. He’s got a hand on my dick, and he grabs my hand too, and he puts it under his skirt and there it fucking is. For a second I’m holding it. I don’t know what was going through my head. Like, I wasn’t turned off. I wasn’t revolted. I just fucking…panicked, made up some lame excuse, and bolted. And I’ve been panicking for weeks because I don’t know what the fuck it means.”

“Jesus, Tom.”

“I know,” he groaned. “I know. And here’s the thing. I can’t stop thinking about it. Alex, I was legit turned on. So I started doing all of this research and I still don’t know what it means about myself. Am I gay? Am I bi? Am I curious? Am I fucking fetishizing this whole thing? Him?”

I took a long swallow of my beer and studied him. Definitely not the story I expected to hear out of him. “Tonight is not the night to go back to Razz, then.”