He cringes. “That sounds like a breakup.”
“Damn.” I rub my hand over my face, thinking. “She said I was irresponsible, so if I fixed that, do you think she’d come back?”
“Why are you irresponsible?”
“How am I supposed to know?”
Tripp snorts behind me.
I turn my head to grin at him, but his face is still firmly buried. “Feel free to contribute to this conversation.”
Nothing. Fine. Back to Austin, then.
Austin is staring at the window. “Look, talking emotions isn’t something I thought I’d be doing the day after a hookup, so I’m a bit rusty on advice, but if you have to change for someone, it’s probably not worth it.”
“I think she wants to get married.”
“Is that something you want?” he asks.
“Umm … yes? Well, no, not really, but I could want it. If it made her stop acting like a …” I cut my words off. My momma taught me to only speak nicely of women, and if I can’t say nothing nice, I shouldn’t talk at all.
Tripp starts to chuckle behind me and finally reappears. “There is no way you’re marrying her when you can’t even give a straight answer.”
“You’re alive!” I cheer.
He gives me a dry look, and I glance back at Austin.
“He loves me. I swear he does.”
“I’d love you more if you didn’t wake me at the butt crack of dawn to talk about … her.”
“You two need to start getting along if you’re going to be my best man, Trippy,” I say.
“I guess I won’t be your best man, then.”
I gasp. “You’d let me go through that alone?”
“If you’re desperate enough to force yourself to get married when you’ve never wanted that, then yeah. You can go through it alone.”
“You’re breaking my heart here.”
Tripp lets out a disbelieving noise. “Go home and let us sleep, Dex.”
I yawn. “That’s a good idea. I’m beat. Let’s all sleep and talk about this when we wake up.”
Austin doesn’t look ready to sleep. “Actually, as fun as this is, I’m going to head out.”
“You don’t have to,” Tripp hurries to say.
“Sure,” I say, trying not to be offended. “He can stay, but you’re ready to kick me out. I’m feeling very unloved this morning.”
Tripp’s jaw tightens. “Well, I’d like my dick sucked, so if you’re planning to do that, by all means, stay.”
My eyebrows shoot up.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
“You two are cute,” Austin says, which dissolves my shock as I glow under the praise.
We are cute.
Everyone says so.
Tripp and Dex.
Dex and Tripp.
The Mitchell Brothers.
Not that we’re brothers. We’re closer than that.
“Thanks for last night,” Austin says, his voice taking on a husky quality.
“I think I should be thanking you.”
I look from one to the other. I’m no stranger to Tripp’s hookups, but the way they’re looking at each other, like they’ve got a shared secret—that I guess involves the other’s dick—makes me squirm.
Then Austin leans over me and gives Tripp a soft, way-too-slow-to-be-comfortable-for-me kiss, and my eyes narrow.
“Bye.” He climbs out of bed, dresses, and leaves.
I’m still staring after him when I say, “He was hot. At least, objectively. Though, he’s prettier than a lot of the guys you’ve been with. Going to call him again?”
When Tripp doesn’t answer, I turn my attention to him and find him wearing the odd look he gives me sometimes that I can never figure out.
“You’re unbelievable,” he says.
“Thank you.”
Tripp sighs and gets comfortable again. “You okay?”
“I dunno.”
“Go to sleep.” His eyes drift closed. “We’ll talk later.”
“Tripp?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you hold me?” I wriggle closer to him.
“Fuck’s sake, I’m naked under here.”
“And? It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. Besides, the blanket is between us, so it’s not like it’s gay.”
“Right. Because being gay would be terrible.”
“You know that’s not what I mean. It’s just platonic snuggles.”
Finally, the tension starts to leave him. “Yeah, I know.”
When he finally pulls me to him, his arms are warm and comfortable. More dudes really should do this. People joke about us having a bromance all the time, but it’s the best way to describe us. I love him. More than Jessica.
Tripp’s my ride or die.
No one can come between a friendship like ours.
“Hey, Tripp?”
He acknowledges me with a sleepy grunt.
“It smells like sex in here.”
Two
TRIPP
Waking up wrapped around my best friend isn’t a new experience, but for a while now, it’s been a painful one. Because as much as I like having Dex around and appreciate that he’s not one of those straight guys who automatically think affection from a gay man means they’re in love with them, in this case, it’s actually true.
Oops.
I don’t know when I fell in love with Dex Mitchale, only that I have. And I’m a fucking dumbass for it.
Because while he’s talking about marriage to someone who doesn’t appreciate him, I’m trying my best to hide my feelings for him. I’ve been trying for a long time. So long, in fact, that I think I have pretty much accepted the inevitable.
I will be in love with my best friend until the day I die.
My friends tell me I need to get over it, and even though they’re right, I’ve decided to take a new approach: pretend my feelings don’t exist.
I’ve never seen a therapist in my life, but I’m sure they’d tell me I’m making a wise and healthy decision.
I’ve been trying to put space between us, to try to get over him that way, but I haven’t come right out and said I need it. Dex is a sensitive soul. It’s one of the first things that ever drew me to him as a friend, but as time has gone on, that need to protect him has only grown. I want to protect his heart, even if it’s at the detriment of my own.
If I told Dex I needed time apart, he would think he did something wrong and then spend the next month doing sweet things to make up for it, which would only make me fall for him more.
Telling him I’m in love with him is out of the question, because then he really will give me space, but not the kind I need. He’d apologize profusely about unknowingly hurting me, and then the space and the guilt over asking for it would eat at me. We’d both grow resentful, and it would ruin everything we have.
Wah, wah, wah, tragic gay boy stereotype in love with his straight best friend. I don’t want to live without him, but seeing him every day makes it harder and harder to keep my shit under control.
Which is how I’ve ended up here. Again. Instead of having phenomenal sex with one of our servers at the Stanley Cup celebrations—or commiserations in our case—I’m in bed with Dex.