Page 36

ARUSH

“This is Julian’s friend, Arush.”

The words whisper in my head as soon as I wake up. Julian’s friend. That’s how Hilt introduced me to this wife yesterday afternoon when we arrived at Keno and Etna’s house. Julian’s friend.

Julian didn’t correct him.

It’s a little thing. It shouldn’t bother me. Labeling what we are doesn’t make what we are any less or more substantial. And yet, it felt like an arrow in my chest.

Which is ridiculous. Throughout the afternoon, especially as it progressed, all of them were making teasing, exaggerated comments about me being Julian’s friend. They placed jesting emphasis on it, and Julian just grinned, meeting my eyes like we shared a secret.

I don’t want to live in a secret, though.

The truth is, we’re really not living a secret. Julian held my hand almost the entire afternoon. When he wasn’t holding my hand, his arm was around me or he was leaning into me with my arms around him. He even kissed me in front of all his friends at one point.

So what if he let them introduce me as his friend?! We can be friends too, right? It’s good to start as friends. It builds a foundation between us. Some trust and… and…

It shouldn’t bother me. This is heading into that childish feeling again. I can tell. I know I could make it go away if I said something to Julian when he wakes up. It just feels so nitpicky.

But why do I feel sick to my stomach over it?

I turn my head to look at Julian. He’s peaceful. His face is smooth, suggesting that he’s not stressed over anything in his sleep.

I’m definitely overthinking this. He’s right here in bed beside me. I can feel his fingers pressed up against my ribs. I know the truth of what’s between us. He knows. It’s pretty clear that everyone else knows, too.

I remind myself it doesn’t matter what label we wear.

Julian’s eyes open as if he’d just barely closed them. His eyes meet mine, and he smiles. “Morning.”

“Morning,” I murmur in return.

He slides a little closer, pressing his lips to my shoulder. The hand touching my ribs moves around my stomach. Just like that, the tension I’d been holding onto begins melting away. I roll onto my side and pull him close. Our arms and legs tangle as we press flush together.

There’s honestly no better feeling than this. I need to stop letting silly things bother me. They just don’t matter. They need to stop taking up so much room in my mind.

We’re only lying there for a few minutes when the alarm goes off. Julian picks up his head to look over my shoulder and sighs. “How is it already nine-thirty? I feel like I haven’t slept the whole night.”

“We binged several episodes of that cooking show,” I remind him. When I look at the television, I can tell that it’s just gone to sleep. There’s a glow around the edges of the dark screen telling us it wasn’t properly shut off.

Julian’s mouth presses against mine, and for a minute, we ignore the alarm. I think I could drown it out entirely if we continued to kiss for too long. Everything outside of his mouth on mine ceases to exist.

Right until someone slams their fist against the wall behind us. Maybe we can tune out the alarm, but the people in the room beside us cannot. Julian laughs. He rolls us so I’m on my back with him on top of me, and turns it off. Now hovering over me, he smiles.

“Ready for the day?” he asks.

I nod. “Yep,” I answer, but I also pull his mouth down to mine for another long kiss.

Eventually, we climb out of bed.

Julian volunteered us to stop at the farmer’s market to pick up some freshly baked brunch things, so that’s the first stop this morning.

Hilt’s wife won’t be joining us, but Caulder and Lo will be there for brunch.

I’ve heard them over the game they play together, but unlike the Arizona guys, I haven’t met them prior to today.

We end up with two quiches, a whole load of pastries, some mini meat pies, and things I can’t remember since none of them were entirely familiar.

I hadn’t realized just how much Julian made sure I had the familiar foods of India until we started traveling around the Great Lakes last week.

Everywhere we stopped, there was an American-style breakfast. Only American.

The foreign cuisine restaurants don’t open until later in the morning, closer to lunch.

Laden with bags and box tops of food in hand, we step up to Keno and Etna’s front door.

Julian somehow manages a balancing act as he presses the doorbell, but that little bit of movement makes him nearly lose it all.

The door opens as I’m trying to grab him, his load, and keep mine while the two of us laugh.

Thankfully, Etna takes some of our items and leads the way inside. Julian’s still grinning at me as we follow him to the backyard, where Keno is waiting with Hilt and the men I assume are Caulder and Lo.

“Hey,” one of the guys says, getting to his feet to take the rest of the bags from my hands. Julian sets his load on the table. He offers Julian his hand and I watch their slap-shake-half-a-hug thing.

Julian grins. There’s the same exchange between Julian and Caulder, and then they’re looking at me. “This is my friend, Arush. Lo and Caulder.”

There’s a pit in my stomach again. It just doubled in size and became a knot. A sour taste coats my tongue.

It doesn’t matter!

I give them what I hope is my usual smile as we take our seats around the table. Julian pulls my chair out and waits for me to sit before taking a seat beside me. His hand lands on my thigh for a minute before he helps unpack the items we brought.

They talk hockey, as if a lot has happened since they talked hockey yesterday. Maybe this is a ritual between hockey players. They must speak of the thing that connects them first before they can move on to other topics.

“Where’s Horny?” Julian asks.

“Texted and said he’s running late,” Keno says.

“He’s going to need to reheat his breakfast then. Everything is already less than hot. Let’s eat,” Julian says, and everyone reaches for something.

He passes me the dishes once he’s finished, but if my hands are full waiting to pass something on, he’ll put some of whatever he has on my plate. It makes me smile and reminds me we’re not just friends. We’re more.

This needs to stop bothering me. Even I’m frustrated with myself over it.

Horny arrives just as we’re beginning to dig in. He’s all rumpled, as if he just rolled out of bed.

“Dude,” Lo says, laughing. “What’s with your hair?”

Horny’s eyes roll up as if he can see it. His hands rise, patting lightly as he tries to figure out what his hair looks like.

“You look like you just sucked some good dick,” Keno says with a smirk. “You hook up with that guy last night? Is that why you’re late?”

Horny’s confused for a minute before he starts laughing. “No. I stopped seeing him, though I did suck his dick. I’m now—” He stops abruptly when his eyes meet mine. “Uh… sorry. Maybe you don’t want to hear about my sex life.”

“I can tell this is going to be a far more entertaining breakfast conversation than I grew up with,” I say, shrugging.

“Yeah? I can talk about dick for a minute?” Horny asks.

“Dude. Indian culture invented the Kama Sutra. He’s likely not a prude,” Keno says, still laughing.

“Ohh,” Horny says, looking at me with new consideration.

Beside me, Julian chuckles. I don’t say anything as I continue to smile at him.

“Okay, then. Let me catch you up. I’ve maybe always been a little curious, but the world never felt like a safe place for exploration, and I didn’t have a long college experience since I was drafted early.

But when Keno and Etna got married, I started asking prying questions, and they were nice enough to support me.

I joined Thrustr a few months ago and met this guy who sucked my dick a few times. That’s where we are.”

“Got it,” I say, amused.

Horny nods and goes back to his meal as he shares the things he wanted to share. “So, I did suck that guy’s dick once, but it kind of freaked me out and I wasn’t really good at it, so I blocked him.”

“Ouch,” Hilt says.

Horny shrugs. “It was really awkward. I think he was probably thankful that I blocked him. He probably didn’t even notice since he probably wasn’t going to message me again after that, anyway.”

“You were that bad?” Lo asks.

“Did you bite him?” Caulder asks.

I’m not the only one who flinches and nearly chokes on my bite. The table is filled with sputtered laughter.

“No,” Horny says, bemused. “I might have made some unpleasant faces and… you know what? I don’t want to talk about it. Anyway. I hooked up with a couple more guys, but—” He shrugs.

“You’re looking for a diamond in the rough on Thrustr, aren’t you?” Lo asks. “Dude, you need to try Spark or something. The dogs are on Thrustr.”

“You know this from experience, Lo?” Etna asks.

“Yes,” Lo says. “Thrustr is everywhere, and hookups when you’re not close to home feel the safest since you’re incredibly unlikely to run into them in the grocery store later.”

I flinch. That sounds awkward.

“But I did meet someone, and I’ve been seeing him a lot,” Horny says. I don’t know Horny well. Not by a long shot. But even I can see the flush in his cheeks and the way he’s keeping his eyes on his plate while he hesitates to continue. “Actually… I’ve been hooking up with him and his wife.”

Silence. Everyone stares. I do, too, but only because everyone else is. Maybe that’s a big deal?

“Really?” Hilt asks.

Horny nods. “It was just him at first, and he was really cool about me awkwardly trying to figure out how to suck a dick without making gross faces like I was putting shit in my mouth.”

Caulder chokes on whatever he’d been chewing. Lo laughs, patting his back as Caulder glares at Horny. I try not to smile and hide it behind my napkin.

“He was really nice and… he brought me into the shower and let me watch him wash his cock really thoroughly. I felt better about putting it in my mouth then.”

“I’m strangely morbidly fascinated by this story,” Julian murmurs.

I’m not the only one who nods.

“We started fooling around more often, and doing more things, and I might have freaked out when he told me he was married, but he promised his wife knew where he was and what he was doing. I didn’t believe him, so he got his wife on the phone.

She’s really beautiful. Like, so beautiful.

I might have said so when she got off the phone, and the next thing I knew, I was hooking up with both of them together.

Guys.” Horny leans forward, his eyes moving around the table to take us all in.

“It’s seriously the hottest sex I’ve ever had.

Like… watching her peg him while he’s on top of me…

god, I’ve never seen anything so damn hot in my life. I’ve never come so freaking hard, man.”

I glance at Julian. His eyes meet mine, and there it is again. The feeling we’re sharing a secret. I bow my head as I smile.

“So, are you seeing them or just hooking up?” Keno asks.

“Oh… I don’t know. Maybe both? No, I think we’re just hooking up.”

“Do you see them for activities other than sex? Do you hang around before or after sex?” Etna asks.

“Do you only text to schedule a hookup, or do you have conversations—sexy or otherwise?” Lo asks.

“Uh… yes.”

Julian snorts.

“Hmm,” Hilt says, patting Horny on the shoulder. “We don’t need to pick at what you’re doing. If you’re happy, we’re happy.”

Horny’s shoulders relax. “I really enjoy it. And they make me feel comfortable trying new things. There’s no pressure and I don’t feel put on the spot. Also, they’ll shower and let me watch them wash if I’m uncomfortable putting my mouth somewhere.”

Lo chuckles. Caulder has a hand over his mouth, but I can tell from the way his eyes are wrinkled in the corner that he’s grinning.

We continue to talk about Horny’s married couple for a while, far after brunch is finished, and then move on to paintball tomorrow. They’re still talking about the details when Julian takes my hand and leans in.

“We’re really close to the Grand Canyon and Vegas. You have any interest in visiting either?” he murmurs.

My heart jumps in excitement. You know what? He can be my friend or boyfriend or lover or partner or whatever. I know he wants to spend time with me. I know I’m important to him. My weird insecurity is a me thing. It’s not a reflection of the relationship between us.

I nod. “Both. If we have time.”

“We have all summer, Arush.” He leans further into my space and kisses my cheek. “I’ll show you as much of the US as I can over the next couple months and whatever we don’t get to, we’ll see next summer.”

The knot in my stomach unravels as I stare into his eyes.

The moment is broken when my phone rings. Which is super weird because it’s almost noon. The only people who have my number are in India and they should be asleep or getting ready to sleep.

Pulling my phone out, I see my father’s face filling the screen. My stomach falls as chills break out over my body. I have a really bad feeling about this.

I meet Julian’s eyes as I get to my feet and answer. “Dad?”

“Arush. I need you to come home. Your sister has been in a car accident.”

My breath catches. “Is she okay?”

He doesn’t answer and I feel the world heave under my feet.

“Dad? Is she okay?”

“Get here as soon as you can, Arush. Hurry.”

“Okay.” Tears fill my eyes. Ohmygod. I’m going to be sick.

Julian’s there in the next breath, his arms wrapped around me, holding me tightly to his chest as I try to catch my breath enough to get the words out. I need to get back to India.