Page 18 of The No Repeat Policy

“It’s so cold,”

Madison complains again.

“How many times are you going to complain about that?” I ask.

We’ve been walking by the tree line for the past half hour.

The property is massive.

There’s an expansive backyard with a couple foot-trodden paths into the woods and a clearing leading to a small creek a bit farther back.

We just left the creek.

It’s capped in crystal-clear ice, with the sun bouncing flickers of light about it. It’s beautiful, but it also means the cold is crazy right now. Hence Madison’s complaining.

Sasha’s been living her best life. That girl loves the snow so much. She’s been bouncing around the snow, biting at the flakes before they can hit the ground.

“I’ll keep you guessing.”

She smirks at me.

We’re making shoe impressions in the snow with each step, like real ones. The weather took a turn last night. Instead of lightening up, it got colder and the snow started falling faster, and it’s shown no sign of slowing.

“So.”

Madison strings it out and I know exactly what’s coming. “Why’d you ignore Xander this morning?”

I slouch. In my defense I hold back an annoyed huff. She’s been waiting for this one. She didn’t say a thing earlier, so I hoped maybe, just maybe, she hadn’t thought anything of it. My hope was in vain.

This morning has been…stressful.

I might have slept better last night than I have in weeks, but the warm fuzzies were short-lived.

Xander’s warmth calmed my senses and my brain through the night.

It brought me a comfort I’ve not felt in months.

Then I woke up.

He was there, lying unconscious next to me, breathing calmly, eyes closed but facing me in a beautiful serenity.

All I wanted was to cup his face and lay with him, watch him sleep.

Yeah, I wanted to kiss him, but I didn’t need to.

Somehow being there calmed my mind.

It was enough.

It didn’t last.

The last time I remember feeling that calm was before my ex took it all away from me.

The memory came racing back, and it was all I could do to drown it out with the movements and sensations of last night.

It worked, eventually, and it didn’t at the same time.

“Why should I talk to him?”

I turn away from her, facing the mix of barren trees and snow-laden pine leaves.

“’Cause you like him?”

She makes it sound so obvious. Like the reason is just a fact, but a fact doesn’t change that it’s stupid.

“So?”

I ask. Hmm…I could abandon her and go play with Sasha, but that would be low. Sasha would love it though, even if she seems to be enjoying herself quite well on her own. “What does that matter? I liked my ex too.”

“But he’s not your ex,”

Madison says.

“But he did ignore me until he had to see me again, and he definitely hadn’t intended to see me here,”

I remind her. “He made that very clear.”

What happened last night doesn’t mean anything, even if a little childish part of me wishes it did.

“But he did,”

she continues our little string of buts.

I roll my eyes. She still doesn’t know about last night. Of course, she will soon. I have to tell her. It’s best friend code. At the same time, not telling her would only embolden her stance, so it’ll have to wait. I stop and lean to pick up a scoop of snow. Time for a distraction. I pack it together with another handful before she realizes I’ve stopped walking. She’s a few steps ahead when I rear my arm back, a grin finally creasing my cheeks.

“Hey,” I shout.

It’s too late when she turns. I’ve already slung my arm forward and let the ball of snow loose. It smacks her shoulder and bursts brilliantly into a thousand pieces, showering her jacket and melting on her face on contact.

She gasps. “You little shit.”

I’m already gathering more snow into a little ball while she’s recovering from my surprise attack. The amused betrayal in her eyes sends a giggle from my mouth while I fight back images of angelic bums and lips lying calmly in bed. Focus. Attack number two! Go!

I sling while she’s crouched over the snow, trying to make her own. It explodes on the top of her white and black-striped beanie and she goes flying back from surprise.

“Kolton!”

she screams, her hand somehow managing to keep hold of her baby snowball. It takes her a second to regain her footing, but in no time she’s packing in more snow and letting it fly from her hand. “Take this!

I put up my arms, but I misjudge it. The ball smacks my side and I’m covered in snow.

“Someone’s got an arm on them,”

I yell back.

“I played softball in college,”

she says before shielding herself from my next offensive.

I’m off by a good foot. Softball? No wonder it smacked that hard. Another snowball hits me before I’ve got my next finished. I rear back to throw it prematurely, but Sasha has other plans. She jumps me and I fall back into the snow. She nuzzles me and starts jumping about. She’s so excited. I tease her with the snowball and then throw it at Madison. She takes off after it and jumps Madison right after it hits.

“Softball? Damn,”

I say, getting up and dusting off my jacket.

“Pitcher,”

she says once she’s back up, patting Sasha’s head. “Mostly.”

“Mostly?” I ask.

“Long story. Another day,”

she says. “I want to know more about last night. You’ve been real tight-lipped about it.”

“And I will continue to be.”

I grin at her. “What happened in that bed is staying in that bed. I’ll just say he—”

My mouth shuts. Xander is on the back porch.

“He what?”

Madison asks.

“Shhh! He’s over there,”

I whisper.

“Huh?”

she says really loud.

“Shh!”

I do it a little louder.

“What? Why you—”

“Shh! He’s over there,”

I say, and the surprise on her face tells me she gets it finally.

“Oh.”

Her lips form an O. Then she says it again, but the tone is super suggestive. “Oh!”

“Shut up.”

I slap at the air toward her.

“Y’all got it on, didn’t you?” she says.

“Is it that obvious?”

I ask, leading her around the other direction.

“Now it is.”

Madison catches up, and Sasha runs ahead of us.

“It means nothing though,”

I tell her. “It can’t.”

“Why not?”

Madison asks.

“It just can’t,”

I tell her.

“Sounds like a you problem to me.”

* * *

“Ooh ooh! You’re a writer!”

Lawrence’s girl—whose name keeps escaping me—screams, nearly jumping from her chair.

Heather huffs and shakes her head. She’s up by the fireplace while the rest of us, some more than others, scream and holler answers at her. She slings her hands in the air like she’s tapping buttons on something. So far the wrong answers have been waitress, fingering, cashier, a very loud dancer from Xander, and now writer.

It’s charades. Adult charades, to be exact. Not every answer is spicy, but most of them are. It’s too cold outside to do much, so we opted for some inside entertainment by the fire while making fools of ourselves.

Heather shifts on her hips, the sand in the tiny hourglass sinking away quick. She grimaces and then bends forward, looking intently at something that isn’t there, skewing her lips and tapping at her cheek.

“Meter maid.”

Gregory shrugs. I think they’ve given up.

“TICKET!”

Xander yells and jumps from his seat.

“Yes! Finally.”

Heather throws her head back. “Y’all suck at this.”

“At least I didn’t say fingering,”

Jon laughs and looks straight at me.

Yeah, it was me. “It looked like it, she was… You know what, nope.”

I fall back on the sofa, brushing up against Madison. She throws an arm around me and squeezes while everyone laughs. It’s adult charades. I can’t help it’s his daughter who looked like she was up their fingering something.

“Your turn, little bro.”

Heather nods to Xander. Winner goes next.

He jumps up, looking all warm and cuddly in blue and black pajama bottoms with little stars all over them and a matching softer blue sweater. Once he’s settled next to the fire, he scans the crowd. He gets stuck on me for a second. Like, the fuck? I jerk away, pushing back the lump in my throat. I still haven’t said a word to him since last night. He’s been avoiding me too. I think… I came around the corner earlier and he was there, but immediately about-faced and went the other way.

“Pick your answer.”

Lawrence holds out a deck to him from the far end of the sofa. The old guys, the owners, are all sitting together, while the rest of us are spotted around the living room. Logan commandeered a big throw the moment he walked in the door, and he’s been draped in it ever since. Madison and I are sharing a thick cow-print fleece that’s so big, it’s bunched at our feet.

I try not to watch as Xander picks a card and reads it. I don’t want to see his expression. I just hear a drawn out “Oh shit.”

Jon laughs. “This is going be good.”

Xander rolls his eyes and sucks in his lips. I let myself look out of the corner of my eye, trying not to make it too obvious. He’s in thought when Lawrence flips the timer.

“Go,”

Lawrence says, and Xander starts jumping.

Huh? It’s such an odd sight, the awkwardness flees for a moment, and I look right at him. He’s just jumping. Like he’s literally just standing and jumping.

“Jumper.” I shrug.

He shakes his head. Then he crouches and jumps again from his crouch.

“Lunges, jumping squats.”

Madison throws out a few exercise terms.

“Are those the only exercises you know?”

I lean in and ask her jokingly.

“Nah, squats too.”

She grins mischievously. That’s my girl.

Xander shakes his head again and again. Now he’s squatting down—maybe it is squats, just not jumping squats—and lifting himself up and back down, but he jumps each time.

“Squats?”

Logan shrugs.

He wouldn’t be jumping if it were squats.

“He already said no to that,”

Chad says.

“Well sorry, Chad.”

Logan rolls his eyes.

Oh damn, Logan. He’s had a few drinks. Madison warned me, but I didn’t expect it this quick. Chad rolls his eyes and goes back to being useless.

The time is ticking away, and Xander’s hands are flinging around. I don’t think it’s part of the charade, more like begging someone to get it.

Someone yells, but it’s a blur of words. An image blooms in my head. Last night. Him on my dick, jumping. I blurt before I think it through.

“Riding a d…” I stop.

His eyes flare into panicked orbs, while I’m fighting to keep from going into damage control. Just own it, and either hope no one heard, understood, or cared. The eyes locked on me say otherwise. I can’t help it looked like riding my cock last night, and fuck, now I want him to take another ride.

“It’s adult charades, but damn,”

Rachel says.

Lucky for me the others start laughing while Xander’s still trying to recover and have someone guess his charade. It’s not going good.

“Exercise?”

Pam yells.

Xander nods excitedly but pinches his lips tight and motions for her to keep going. If nothing else we were on the right track. I mean, they were. I wasn’t. Then again, sex is exercise.

It’s too late though. Lawrence yells, “Time!”

and Xander slumps his shoulders. His arms drop to his side in defeat.

“Bouncing on an exercise ball,” he huffs.

“Oh,”

I and a few others mumble. In my defense it is roughly the same motion.

The rest of the evening is a rush of charades, Cards Against Humanity, and pockets of conversation around the living and billiard room I realized they had this morning. Madison and I played a round of pool while I tried to act completely uninterested in Xander. Every time I’d move around the table I’d somehow manage to look into the living room where he was talking to Heather and Pam. At least he was smiling and laughing. He looks good with a smile.

When I get back to the bedroom he’s already there. I made Madison wait with me an extra half hour, hoping he’d be asleep before I got back. I’d just slip into bed and go to sleep, but nope.

“Riding dick?”

are the words that greet me once the door closes.

I look up to find Xander’s silhouette on the bed. He moves into a sitting position but doesn’t turn on a lamp. Shit. I was hoping the two peach sangrias he’d downed between the games would be enough to make him forget it had happened. No luck for me though.

“I actually said, ‘Riding a dick,’ for the record,”

I correct him. “And in my defense, I didn’t even get the dick out. I mean, you know, like I stopped before I said it.”

Get the dick out. I laugh at myself. Wish I would get it out about now. Maybe it’d be enough to make him forget me bringing it up in front of the rest. Maybe he’d be more excited about tasting it than complaining, but no. I don’t.

I can feel him rolling his eyes, which for some reason amuses me, and I move to the chair next to my suitcase and start undressing. His body falls back flat on the bed, and I have to hold myself back from jumping him. I think last night was the last time I’ll ever have that honor again.

“In front of everyone though?”

He keeps on it. “Did they really need to hear it?”

“It was adult charades. It gets spicy. Actually, it’s meant to get spicy,”

I say as my pants drop to the floor, leaving me in nothing but my briefs. Which unfortunately means my slight hard-on is showing. Whatever. “That’s why it’s called adult charades and not kids’ charades.”

“Obviously, but still.”

He won’t let it go.

“What the fuck is up your ass?”

I ask, and jump onto the bed. Maybe I’m being a bit of an ass, I don’t know, but as awkward as this is already, someone has to do something.

“They don’t know.”

He throws his hands over his face.

The moonlight is barely a glow in here, but it’s just enough to see the curves of his jaw and cheeks, and the slope of his lip just before he covers them. I hate how beautiful he is. I hate experiencing him, not just his body, but him as a person, and knowing this will be the last night I probably am ever this close. Tomorrow we go home.

“Don’t know?” I squint.

He huffs and lets his hands down but refuses to look at me.

“The riding dick thing,”

he says. The last light goes off. “Me liking guys. That.”

“Ah,”

I sigh and fall onto my back, eyes searching the log-covered ceiling. “I see. They know I am though…I think.”

“So?”

He shrugs and finally faces me.

“Maybe they just thought I was being gay, because you know…I am.” I grin.

“Maybe, but still,” he says.

“Sorry,”

I apologize even though I don’t think there’s really anything to apologize for. It’s one of those times you just do it to make another human feel better, or maybe it’s to make yourself feel better.

It’s quiet for a minute. Plenty of time for me to consider the night. He has to be horrified with me here right now, right? The guy he hooked up with once in his bed at his family’s cabin. Wondering if someone is going to accidentally barge in and see us and think we’re too close because I’m gay. Horrified he might want to have sex again. I can’t imagine it, and I’m sure I’m missing some worry going through his mind. I never had to deal with that. Yeah, my family sucks, but I didn’t hide it long. Hell, they found out because I got caught sucking Kai’s dick in my bedroom sophomore year. He was my “study partner.”

There wasn’t much to hide after that, even if Dad still acts like he doesn’t know I’m fucking gay.

“I’m going to sleep on the couch,”

I say. It’s not a question for him to decide. I’m just doing it. Yeah, I want to be close to him. I want to hold him and feel him. I want to lie there and talk all night, but I know it’s not what he needs.

“You—”

Xander starts but stops, half lifting from the bed.

I allow myself to take a glimpse at his bare chest as the covers peel back, then turn and slide my feet onto the floor. It’s cold against the pads of my feet, lonely, but it’s best. Right? I walk the massive gap to the couch, grabbing a blanket from the chair opposite it, before dropping onto its cushions and covering myself. I wait to see if he says anything. I’d say no even if he did ask me to come back. At least I think I would, but he doesn’t give me the opportunity.

It’s so quiet. Wood creaks every few minutes. It’s just the house. It’s adjusting to the temperatures and the wind whooshing against the windows and logs. I remember it well from my youth. It wasn’t like this, fancy, but it was a cabin nonetheless.

Seconds move like minutes, and minutes seem to drag on like hours, and all the while I’m thinking of him. Not like I used to, or maybe I made myself; not as an object to want, but a heart to need. Why? Why do I want him so much? Why do I crave him unlike the others I’ve been with? It reminds me of when I first met…him. I refuse to even think my ex’s name again, but it fills my chest with that same feeling I remember from years ago. Why? I barely know him.

I tried to keep my distance, stick to my no-repeat rule. I even gave up texting him after a week. I focused on his body instead. Didn’t let myself think beyond the tip of my dick. He’s made it clear too, crystal clear. He’s not interested, but my head just keeps blaring his face behind my eyes like he’s a prince, a god, the only thing it seems to be able to focus on. I want it to stop. Need it to stop. Not because I don’t want him, but because I can’t have him and it would feel better not to think of him.

“So what’s with your dad?”

I blurt. I swear the thought hadn’t entered my mind before it exited my lips.

“Huh?”

Xander shuffles.

I don’t turn. I keep my back to him. It’s just the dark and us.

“The other night,”

I preface it. “Your dad. He wanted me to talk you into doing something more meaningful. You even mentioned it back—”

“Oh…that,”

is the most I think I’m getting. I swear he doesn’t even breathe for half a minute. “He just wants me to, uh…I don’t know…to do something he thinks is worthwhile. Something with lots of money, mainly, I think.”

“But movies are worthwhile,”

I say. “And you can make a living. Who says you have to be rich? Like this?”

“What do you mean?”

Xander asks.

“I mean, we’re in a massive, like…hunting lodge?”

I’m not sure what to call it. “Cabin”

is too cozy and little sounding. Cabins aren’t meant to be this big, and we’re in the middle of the mountains.

“Hunting lodge?”

Xander questions.

I hear his headboard move and his voice gets louder. Did he turn around? I’m not checking.

“Yeah,” I say.

“My dad hates hunting. All the fur-looking stuff here is faux,”

he says. “And my mom’s pescatarian. Practically vegetarian because she can’t stand the thought of little animals dying. It took her years just to let dad put the faux pieces in.”

“Oh,”

I say, unsure how to react to that. Not going to lie, I like it. It’s good to know the rug I walked on earlier wasn’t Winnie the Pooh. But he’s hyper-focused on something that wasn’t the point at all. “Back to what I was saying though. Why does he think you have to be wealthy?”

“Not wealthy, I guess. He didn’t grow up like this. His family had it harder,”

Xander explains.

“Okay, I get that, same with mine, but it doesn’t mean he gets to rule your life,” I say.

It isn’t his dad’s to rule. He doesn’t have to deal with the result of it.

“I know. I’m trying,”

he says, and it gets quiet again. “Thanks for not entertaining him though. He’s used to people listening. I know he’s your boss and all, so that was really cool, actually.”

“Sure,”

I say. “About a few weeks—”

“Good night,”

Xander interrupts me. “We’re leaving in the morning. Best not to talk about it.”

Okay, I guess that’s the end of this conversation. I don’t even know what I was going to say. Maybe something about how much I admired him talking to me about it back then. Maybe something less amazing, like how incredible he tasted. It’s probably best he stopped me.

This is the last night here. He’s right. Just sleep and be gone in the morning, and this is going to be my first and last company retreat. I won’t ever have to see him again.