Page 44 of Worth the Risk

He cleared his throat. “Messy.”

“Don’t get cagey with me now, man.” Aaron shoved his phone back into his pocket and crossed his arms over his chest.

“We were involved in high school. We did all this shit together.” Gregory untied his apron and tossed it on his workbench then turned the heat off the wax vats.

“Was he your first?”

“He was my first lots of things.” He turned off the lights, leaving Aaron in the dark.

“Hey!” Aaron jumped up from his seat and followed him out of the workshop, which was really just a shed, and out into the small backyard.

Gregory stepped up onto his back porch, opened the small fridge he kept there and pulled out two beers, holding one behind him for Aaron. He dropped down into an old Adirondack chair and took a long drink.

“We broke up when we left for college. It was…” Gregory searched for the right word. “Difficult.”

He didn’t want to say anything that would make his friend think poorly of Landon. They had both, after all, made bad decisions when it came to the other. Gregory hoped Verity wouldn’t judge him for the mistakes of the past and he wanted his friends to offer Landon the same courtesy.

Shit.

He wanted Landon to meet his friends.

Gregory thought about Landon beside him on his back porch, kneeling on a pillow while they watched the sunset and his dick twitched against his thigh.

“Did you know he owned Rapture?” Aaron asked, taking a seat beside him.

Gregory shifted and crossed his ankle over one knee. “No. I was as shocked to see him at Justin and Micah’s thing as he was to see me, I think.”

“How fortuitous.”

“Oh, Aaron.” Gregory set his beer down and pulled his wallet out of his pocket, extracting a bill and waving it in front of him. “That was a five dollar word for sure.”

Aaron swatted at the bill, but Gregory snatched it away with a laugh, sticking it back into his wallet.

“You’re an asshole. I don’t know why anyone would want to fuck you.” Aaron laughed and took a pull of his beer.

“Do I look like a bottom to you?” Gregory chuckled. “I’m all for Doms who bottom, but that’s not me.”

“You should try it out sometime. There is something liberating about having the tables turned.” Aaron stared out into the yard, mindlessly spinning the beer bottle around the arm of his chair.

“I get it,” Gregory agreed. “I really do. I just…” he trailed off.

“It’s a lot to process up here.” Aaron tapped his temple.

“Yeah,”

“I think with the right person, being able to switch roles like that is probably one of the most satisfying things a person could do.” Aaron nodded then looked at Gregory. “Would you switch with Landon? Or flip?”

“He wouldn’t.” Gregory shook his head. “Landon hasn’t ever had that in him. Submission comes almost unfairly natural to him.”

“You’ve always wanted things too easy. I like to work for it.” Aaron finished his beer and passed the empty bottle to Gregory.

“That’s the masochist in you.” Gregory passed Aaron another beer.

The doorbell rang and Aaron stood up, popping the top off his new beer. “I’ll let them in.”

Gregory looked at his watch, then pushed up from his chair then fired up the grill. It was just shy of seven, and that meant it was dinner time. Micah and Justin were on the deck first, Micah’s arms laden with bags of food and a six-pack of beer. Their other friend, Keith, trailed behind, and Aaron re-emerged behind him, closing the sliding screen door.

“Hey, hey,” Micah said, shrugging off half his bags onto the table beside Gregory’s grill. “We got steaks and potatoes. So fucking heavy.”