Page 20

Chapter 20

Nolan

I was starting to regret bringing Riley with me. I was glad I’d been there for him in California, and the nights we’d spent together had been hot as hell. But having him here with me and my family—this wasn’t a good idea.

He was too smart to not pick up on things, and I was worried he’d put pieces together that no one else in my family or social circles ever had. I was terrified he was going to suss out the details of why I didn’t like coming home. Why I’d left in the first place.

And when he did, he would do what everyone inevitably did if they saw too much of the mess I really was:

He’d leave.

Everyone always did. And if they didn’t, I did.

We should’ve just stayed roommates who blew each other sometimes. I should’ve come home alone.

No, we wouldn’t be having the amazing sex we were now—well, when my stupid dick cooperated—but I also wouldn’t be getting this attached to him. Because I was getting attached to him, holy shit. All that ever got me was heartache, especially once the other person saw enough of my cards to realize they needed to cut their losses.

I watched him talking to Andrew and Matt. He was telling them a story about something that happened on his last shipboard deployment, and they were both listening raptly.

I just watched him and silently begged him not to cut his losses until after we’d made it back to Okinawa. I was already struggling to keep my head above water; if I suddenly lost him, too, I’d be a wreck. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought him along, but I wasn’t so sure I could get through the rest of this trip without him.

Unaware of my mental freakout, Riley gestured with his drink and laughed. “I mean, the Navy keeps trying to tone down Wog Day because it’s like hazing or whatever, and they’ve managed to kill some of the really crazy shit. But like, when will we enlisted peons ever get any other chance to dunk officers into the Tank of Truth and Wisdom?”

Matt laughed. “What was in the tank, anyway?”

“Oh, I don’t even know.” Riley shrugged. “I guess people used to throw in garbage and stuff, but they decided that was unsanitary. And we couldn’t use dye packs anymore because they stain everything.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m not sure what they managed to put in it, only that it smelled disgusting and turned all the Wogs green.”

I chuckled, grateful that hilarious military stories were always good for lifting me out of a dark mood, or at least distracting me from it.

Andrew wrinkled his nose. “So they just… put all that shit in a tank, and then dunk people in it?”

“Or make them crawl through it,” Riley said. “Sometimes both. Depends on what kind of equipment they have handy, how much space—all of that.”

“Eww,” Andrew said. “And they even put officers through it?”

“Anybody who hasn’t crossed the equator.” Riley flashed a toothy grin. “And the longer you stay a Wog in your career, the more the younger Shellbacks are going to make you suffer when you finally cross the line.” He paused. “There’s even a legend of an admiral who was still a Wog.”

“What?” I scoffed. “How the fuck does someone get that high in the ranks without ever crossing?”

“Hell if I know. And like I said, it could be a legend. It’s funny as shit, though. Allegedly the admiral was aboard a ship, and the morning of Wog Day, he went over the 1MC—the intercom that goes to the whole ship—and announces that it’s cancelled. All of it. So of course the whole crew is bummed out. But like five minutes later, the CO gets on the 1MC and says, ‘Disregard that. We will be doing Wog Day. And I also need the lowest ranking Shellback on the boat to report to the bridge immediately.’”

I raised my eyebrows. This was one sea story I hadn’t heard. My brothers also leaned in, clearly as curious as I was how this was going to go.

“Everyone asked around,” Riley went on, “and they found this E-2 Shellback. I don’t know if they threw him on a boat right after boot camp or what, but this kid was still wet behind the ears and he’d already crossed the equator. So he goes up to the bridge, and…” Riley snickered. “ Allegedly , the CO had put a leash on the admiral, and he handed it to the E-2 and said, ‘he’s your Wog for the day. Have fun.’ And that fucking one-star admiral spent the whole day walking around on a leash held by an E-2 Seaman.”

My brothers and I all howled.

“Oh my God,” I said. “That has to be an urban legend.”

“I mean, probably?” Riley grinned. “But there’ve been enough ‘no fucking way that’s true’ sea stories that turned out to be true, so… anything is possible.”

Matt and Andrew looked at me, eyebrows up as if asking for confirmation.

“He’s not wrong,” I said. “I’ve heard a lot of bugfuck insane bullshit stories, and then later on, I found out they were true.”

Their eyes widened.

“Yeah?” Matt asked. “Like what?”

I thought about it. “Well, there was this story going around about this one lance corporal who showed up to formation, still drunk with a pair of panties stuck to the ass of his pants. And like, everybody was laughing at him, and he didn’t know why, but then this other guy yanks the panties off the dude’s uniform and screams, ‘You want to tell me how my wife’s panties got on your utilities, motherfucker?’”

Andrew’s jaw dropped. Matt just stared, gobsmacked.

Riley was eyeing me like he wasn’t sure if I was bullshitting. “And this one turned out to be true?”

“I swear I thought it was an urban legend,” I said. “I mean, we’ve all heard like fifty variations of it, so…” I shrugged.

“But this time…?”

“Right, so one day, I’m in Iraq, and we’re all sitting around bored. One of the guys starts telling the story because someone hadn’t heard it before. I’m just chuckling along, because I know how it goes. Kind of watching the other guy’s reaction, you know?” I snickered. “But then after he’s done, it turns out this gunny was listening in. And he tells us about the time he was telling the story, and a sergeant major walking by starts yelling at him like, ‘Are you motherfuckers still telling that stupid story? It’s been ten years. Why the fuck is everybody still talking about it?’”

My brothers’ eyes went huge, and so did Riley’s.

“No shit?” Riley asked. “So was he the drunk guy? Or the one who recognized the panties?”

Laughing, I shrugged. “He never said. But somebody else had worked for him before and said he’d gone through a nasty divorce and lost a rank at one point for beating the shit out of someone, sooo… My money’s on, he recognized the panties.”

Riley whistled. “Damn. Now I want to know who the other guy was.”

“Probably some pretty-boy officer who everyone thinks is God’s gift to the Marine Corps,” I muttered. “And no one would ever know he got drunk and banged someone else’s wife.”

“Yeah, that’s on-brand,” Riley said.

Andrew peered at both of us. “Is that a thing? Dirtbags making rank and—”

Riley and I both burst out laughing.

“Oh, my sweet summer child,” Riley said. “That’s the military in a nutshell.”

“Is it?” Matt said. “Like, for real?”

“Oh, yeah. Have you seen the Top Gun movies? Both of them?”

My brothers nodded.

“Right,” Riley said. “So, you know how Val Kilmer’s character is a total bag-of-dicks lieutenant in the first movie? And then he’s an admiral in the sequel?” He nodded sharply. “That’s probably the most realistic portrayal of the military that Hollywood’s ever shown.”

Andrew and Matt looked to me for confirmation.

I nodded. “I haven’t seen the second movie, but yeah, Iceman making admiral? Definitely realistic.”

Matt laughed, shaking his head. “Damn. And here I thought the military was just a lot of running, drinking, being bored, and shooting at shit.”

“I mean…” Riley waved a hand. “It mostly is.”

“Pfft.” I nudged him with my shoulder. “You’re in the Navy. What the fuck do you know about ‘a lot of running’?”

“Hey! I run!”

“Do you, though? Do you really?”

He narrowed his eyes at me. Then he flipped me off. “Fuck you.”

I just laughed and elbowed him.

Andrew chuckled. “So much for the military teaching discipline and respect.”

“Hey! They teach us those!” I protested. “I just don’t give a shit.”

“Uh-huh. That sounds like you.” Andrew sipped his drink. “Oh hey, by the way—you coming to the bachelor party?” He slung an arm around Matt’s shoulders. “Seems like both his big brothers should be there to supervise.”

“What?” Matt shoved him away. “You’re going to keep me out of trouble at my bachelor party? Fuck off.”

“No!” Andrew scoffed. “We’re there to supervise and make sure you’re getting into enough trouble. Jesus, dude.”

I laughed. “Okay, well, in that case—fuck yeah, sign me up.”

Matt grinned. “Sweet!” He tipped his glass toward Riley. “You bringing him too?”

I glanced at Riley, who was looking at me like, “it’s your call.” To my brothers, I said, “You guys want us both to come?”

“Are you kidding?” Andrew rolled his eyes. “Yeah, man. Please don’t bring a fucking Sailor to go partying with us.”

I turned to Riley again. “You game?”

“Fuck yeah.” He flashed a shit-eating grin. “Don’t know if these civilians can keep up with us, but—”

“Ooh, he’s got jokes,” Andrew said. “You talk a good game. Guess we’ll find out on Friday night.”

Riley shrugged and brought his drink up to his lips. “Guess we will.”

“You sure you can handle this?” Tristan, one of Matt’s groomsmen, teased as we crossed the parking lot. “Gonna be a whole lotta tits and ass without a dick in sight.”

“I don’t know about that.” I inclined my head. “I’m looking at a dick right now.”

“Oooh,” all the other guys said in unison, including Riley.

Tristan chuckled and rolled his eyes as he flipped me off. “Fuck you, Jarhead.”

I just laughed.

At the door to the strip club, we all paid the cover—though obviously Matt didn’t have to pay for his—and we were shown to a VIP booth. It was a horseshoe-shaped bench surrounding a round table with a pole in the middle, and we also had an unobstructed view of the main stage at the center of the room.

This place was a typical strip club. A lot of shadows and colorful flashing lights. Waitresses falling out of their tops. Bouncers who looked like they could break any of us in half and would do so at the slightest provocation. A deejay in a douchey sideways hat and a T-shirt from some band I’d never heard of.

It really wasn’t my scene and never had been. I didn’t even enjoy male strip clubs, mostly because they were too loud and too full of drunk idiots.

But this was my little brother’s bachelor party, and I was bound and determined to have a good time.

Our asses had barely landed in the booth before Andrew ordered a round of shots. A waitress arrived almost immediately with a tray of shot glasses, each full of something that might’ve been whiskey or rum. It was hard to tell in this light.

When I threw mine back—yeah, there was rum along with some kind of way-too-sweet liqueur. Probably a house special with a ridiculous double entendre for a name. Wasn’t bad, but a bit sweet for my liking.

Riley peered at his empty shot glass. “Was there even alcohol in that?” He looked at me. “Did you get booze? Because I think I got apple juice or some shit.”

I snickered. “Too weak for your Sailor palate?” I gestured with my own glass. “It was pretty tame.”

“Yeah, here we go,” Andrew said. “The Sailor and the Marine think they’re gonna drink us all under the table.”

“Nah.” Riley shook his head. “Only one I want under this table is…” He patted my chest.

Andrew and Matt both laughed. Tristan took a second to catch up, and then he joined in. Chase, the other groomsman, still looked confused.

Tristan helpfully clarified, “He wants his boyfriend to go under the table and—”

“Ooh,” Chase said. “Got it.” He laughed, though he seemed mildly uncomfortable. Less like he was offended and more like he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to laugh.

I chuckled and bumped Riley with my shoulder. “Maybe you should get under there. Lead by example and all that.”

“Oh my God,” Matt groaned. “I’m telling Mom!”

That got everyone, including Chase, laughing.

“And you think this shit is weak?” Andrew held up his empty glass and jiggled it at Riley. “How about you order the next round?”

Riley shrugged. “All right. Who’s game for shooting tequila?”

Matt, Andrew, Tristan, and Chase were all in, but I declined.

Matt turned to me. “What? You don’t do tequila?”

I shook my head. “Not unless you all want to see me act out that one scene from The Exorcist.”

He grimaced. “Okay. Yeah. No tequila for you.”

“But order his shot anyway.” Riley grinned. “I’ll do both of them.”

That prompted another “Oooh” from everyone at the table. I laughed and rolled my eyes; he wasn’t going to be able to walk at the end of the night, was he? Ah well. I’d seen him drunk a handful of times, and he was an exuberant, fun drunk. I could live with that.

Riley ordered, and a few minutes later, I suppressed a shudder as I watched the server distributing tequila shots. Tequila didn’t actually make me sick. It put me to sleep. Or, well, the one time I’d ever touched it, it had put me to sleep, and I didn’t want to find out if it would happen twice. Once was enough, and that had been a million times worse than the projectile vomiting I warned everyone about. I was also pretty sure my drink hadn’t only been tequila that time, but why take the chance?

Ironically, thinking about that did make my stomach roil, so I just sipped my water and willed myself to calm down. I was here with my brothers and with Riley. Nothing bad was going to happen.

Riley and the guys did their shots. Riley did both of his in rapid succession, and he looked ready for more while Andrew and Tristan might’ve bitten off more than they could chew. Matt just loudly complained about how he hated lime, and Chase high-fived Riley.

I laughed as I watched them. Something told me those wouldn’t be the last tequila shots at our table tonight.

Not long after that, the show kicked off on the main stage. Riley and I watched, laughing, as my brothers and their friends whooped and hollered over the strippers. Chase even dragged Matt up to the stage, threw some money down in front of him, and got him a lap dance. Matt was bright red by the time he came back to the booth, weaving from his various drinks and blushing from the dance.

After the main show, some of the strippers came around to the VIP booths to dance on the tabletops and give more lap dances. Between a steady stream of alcohol and the dances we kept buying him, I was surprised Matt was still conscious.

The latest dancer—a petite brunette wearing nothing but a G-string, hoisted herself out of Matt’s lap and back onto the table.

“Wait, wait!” Matt called out, shoving his hand in his pocket. “Don’t go yet!”

“What the hell?” Andrew laughed. “Do we need to tell Sophia you’re—”

“Shut the fuck up.” Matt slapped down a twenty beside his drink. “This one’s not for me.” He snatched up his beer bottle and tipped it in my direction. “It’s for him!”

The bottom fell out of my stomach. My throat constricted around my breath.

The dancer picked up the twenty, and panic surged through me. The thought of her on top of me… thighs clamped against mine… my hands glued to the sides of my chair… not allowed to touch her, not even to push her off…

My internal freakout must’ve made it into my expression, because the dancer’s smile fell. “Do you want a dance, honey?”

“I, uh…” All eyes were on me. What was I supposed to say? What was I supposed to—

Out of nowhere, Riley was sitting across my lap, one arm slung around my shoulders. Gesturing drunkenly with his glass, he told the dancer, “Sorry, sweetheart. Nobody gets on this lap except for me .”

As much as I hated anyone on my lap, I couldn’t deny the relief. I put an arm across his thighs and squeezed gently.

The dancer looked about as relieved as I felt. She held up the twenty as she said to Matt, “You still got a dance paid for, hon.”

Matt frowned, but then he motioned toward Andrew.

As the stripper started lowering herself into my older brother’s lap, my pulse ticked down. Oh, thank fuck.

Riley leaned back to kiss my cheek, then whispered just loud enough for me to hear over the music and my pounding heart, “You okay?”

I squeezed his leg. “I am now.”

He studied me, clearly concerned.

“I’m good.” I forced a smile. “Just… not a fan of lap dances.”

He didn’t buy it. Or at least, he knew me too well to believe it was the whole story.

Whether he was going to ask me about it later, I had no idea, but he let the subject drop for now. Instead, he leaned against me and egged on Andrew as the stripper did her thing.

I didn’t pay much attention to the dance or everyone’s reactions to it. I was mostly trying to peel myself off the ceiling and get back into the moment. Matt hadn’t known. No one in the booth knew. I needed to pull myself together enough that nobody caught on to what Riley already had.

As the stripper finished and got off Andrew’s lap, he craned his neck to look past her at me. “See, Nolan? She doesn’t bite!”

The stripper offered me an uncertain look, as if she’d picked up on more of my discomfort than my brother had.

I laughed it off. “Nah, not my thing, man.” I patted Riley’s thigh and said to her, “No offense.”

She smiled, and she seemed genuinely relieved. As she climbed down from the table, she said, “That’s okay. You two are a cute couple, by the way!”

From the warmth in my face, I was blushing. So was Riley. Eh, I could live with that, just like I could live with all the guys thinking I’d shied away from a lap dance because I was gay.

But oh my God, I was grateful for Riley’s intervention.

Fortunately, we didn’t stay at the strip club all night. We walked across the street to an all-night dive bar that Matt and Tristan swore had the best wings on the planet. There were also pool tables and darts, and the whole thing was way more low-key than the strip club.

We commandeered a six-top round table near the games and away from the blasting TVs, and everyone shifted to beer instead of hard liquor. We ordered wings, and I had to agree with my brother—they were pretty damn good. Tristan and Riley both thought they could be spicier but conceded that they still tasted great.

Riley sat beside me now instead of in my lap. Probably safer in a place like this, since I didn’t really get a queer-friendly vibe when I walked in the door. There was nothing outwardly hostile toward us, but my spidey senses told me this was like a lot of the places I went with my fellow Marines—best to just be one of the guys and not stand out as gay. Maybe it was just a habit. Maybe I was just on edge tonight. Either way, I erred on the side of blending in as a straight guy.

Riley had either picked up on the same thing or he was following my lead. He didn’t bring his chair closer to mine, and neither of us touched or held eye contact. We just bantered and laughed with each other the same way we did everyone else in our group.

Normally, that didn’t bother me too much. It was the reality of being a gay man out in public, and I’d mostly made peace with it even if I didn’t particularly like it. After the strip club, though, I itched for that constant contact with him. Not in my lap, but close to me. Touching me.

The moment he’d parked himself in my lap to let the stripper know I was off-limits had been… weird. I hated having someone on my lap. Cats were fine. People? Absolutely the fuck not.

Riley, though… Having him there hadn’t left me feeling threatened or cornered, though. It left me feeling safe.

Because Riley was safe.

Everything about him was safe.

And at the club, he’d seen my discomfort over getting a lap dance. He had no idea the reasons why—no clue what rocketed through my head just thinking about having her on top of me—but he’d stepped in anyway, no questions asked.

Very few people in my life had ever made me feel safe.

No one had ever made me feel protected .

And he didn’t do it in an emasculating or belittling way. He didn’t make a big deal out of it or draw attention to how much I didn’t want that lap dance. He’d just jumped in and played the possessive, jealous boyfriend who refused to share. The guys might give me shit later about being whipped, but I could live with that over people asking questions about why a lap dance freaked me the hell out.

I thumbed the label on my beer bottle as I stole a glance at Riley. Was it time for us to go back to the hotel yet? Because I didn’t want to be here anymore. I wanted to be alone with Riley. Like… now.

We still had a couple of hours yet, though, so I took a swig of beer and settled in to enjoy the rest of the evening.

It was a lot more fun than I’d expected. The guys were still drunk, but they’d slowed down a bit, especially now that we were all drinking beer. We played darts and pool, and we ate wings, and we sat around shooting the shit. Riley and I told some stories from the military that had everyone doubling over laughing. Matt told us all about the misadventures he and Sophia had when they went up to Whistler Mountain last summer; apparently there’d been a snafu with the timeshare condo, Matt had turned his ankle really badly on a hike, and Sophia’s kayak had overturned three times before they realized—two miles away from where they’d started—that it was cracked.

“Good thing the timeshare place upgraded us to make up for the crappy one they gave us to start with,” he’d mused. “We spent the whole last day there because I couldn’t walk and Sophia was just done. ”

“Just think,” Tristan said. “With all that shit out of the way, you’ll both be ready for whatever chaos happens on your honeymoon.”

“Fuck. You.” Matt tipped his beer bottle toward Tristan. “If anything happens, I’m telling Sophia you jinxed us.”

“Yeah?” Tristan challenged. “And?”

Matt inclined his head. “You want to explain to your wife why you don’t get homemade cheesecakes at every party anymore?”

Tristan sobered and put up his hands in surrender. “Okay! Okay! You win!”

We all laughed at that. And I couldn’t blame Tristan for backing down; I’d tried one of Sophia’s cheesecakes at the party the other night, and it was amazing. I’d known her since junior high, but apparently she’d seriously upped her cooking game in recent years.

We continued shooting the shit and playing games in between drinking. I’d slowed down quite a bit just because I didn’t like getting more than a little buzzed. Andrew and Chase were completely fucked up, which was hilarious. Matt, Tristan, and Riley were slurring and weaving, but they were hardly blackout drunk.

Good thing we’d prebooked an Uber van to get all our dumbasses home at the end of the night.

Around one in the morning, Matt and I were finishing up a game of darts when he turned to me. “Listen, do you have plans tomorrow night?”

I racked my brain, then shook my head. “No. Why?”

“Because that’s Sophia’s bachelorette. Is there any chance you could do me a solid and go with her?”

My heart stopped. “Me? Why?”

“Because Sophia would be way more comfortable if there was a guy with them.” He sighed and shook his head. “I guess the bridesmaids have kind of a wild evening planned, and that’s not usually her scene. But she still really wants to go, you know?”

I gulped. “Oh. Uh. So you… You want me to go with her?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.” He laughed nervously. “You’re one of the only people I’d trust, and anyway”—he gestured at his friends and our brother—“I don’t know what other guy I can ask to go to a male strip club.”

My stomach was doing flips, but I tried not to let it show. My skin still crawled just thinking about the almost-lap-dance tonight, and Sophia’s bachelorette promised to knock against some of the landmines I tried so hard to avoid. “Who else is going?”

“Just her and her bridesmaids. So, some of her friends, and Leann.”

My stomach stopped doing flips and just clenched itself to a tight ball. “Leann’s going?”

“Well, yeah.” Matt laughed. “She’s the maid of honor. Or, matron of honor.” He waved his hand. “Whatever it’s called when she’s married.”

“Oh. Um.” I pressed my lips together. The words “no fucking way” were dangerously close to coming out. But I didn’t want my brother to ask questions.

I could decline just because I didn’t want to go. I didn’t need a reason.

But… could I say no to Sophia? Especially if having me there would make her feel safer? I understood why she might not feel safe in that kind of setting without someone there. I’d been DD for some of my female friends when they wanted to go clubbing and drinking, and that was only partly so they had someone to drive them home. They had a lot more fun when they knew there was a sober guy they could trust keeping an eye out in case some asshole decided to make trouble for them. And I knew for a fact that my presence had made at least two such assholes rethink their life choices; I hadn’t had to say a word or lift a finger, but when they realized I was with the women, they suddenly disappeared.

What if something happened during Sophia’s bachelorette and there wasn’t someone there to help? What if she had a miserable time because she was too anxious about her surroundings? Sophia wasn’t the kind of person who was too scared to leave the house, but she was wisely aware of the dangers.

She wanted me there so she could feel safe. And didn’t I know a thing or two about wishing someone had been there when I’d been unsafe?

Fuck. As much as I hated the idea—as much as it threatened to do to my stomach what I’d said tequila would—what kind of brother-in-law would I be if I told her she was on her own?

“Okay,” I told Matt. “On one condition, though.”

He raised his eyebrows.

I tipped my head toward the table where everyone else was still drinking and eating. “I can bring Riley, too.”

Matt blinked as if that wasn’t what he’d expected. “Oh. Uh. Yeah, sure.” He shrugged. “I don’t see why not.” Then he grinned. “I mean, with two gay dudes who look like they could kick anyone’s ass, she’ll be totally safe. So, hell yeah! Bring him along!”

Well, there was that. At least I’d have Riley with me.

I didn’t know if that would actually make a difference—if I’d get through tomorrow night without losing my damn mind—but Sophia would be safe with me.

And I would be safe with Riley.