Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 70630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 283(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 283(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
“Right. He got those abs by just lying around.”
“Damn it, David.” I wanted to throttle him.
“What I meant about this being like high school is that after you gave up on the girl thing, you started crushing on all the wrong boys.”
I thought about Tony. David was right about how poor my choice of romantic obsessions had been back then. “I was an idiot back then. It was high school.”
“You really want my help?”
I scowled at him. “I’m not sure now.”
“You know I’ll help no matter what I think of your plans, but I thought you hated all that military shit.”
“I don’t hate the military. I hate government decisions that send our military into places where we are going to do more harm than—”
“Blah, blah, blah. I’ll help you, okay? And I’ll be here to get drunk and eat chicken with you if this goes all to shit.”
“Thanks.” I could always count on David, even when he was being an ass.
“You’re not going to protest? No declaration that this relationship will last forever?”
“No. We’re really not in high school anymore. Maybe I just want a hot fling.”
“If you were into casual fucks, you wouldn’t sit home writing love poems all weekend,” David insisted. "You’d be out there getting blown in the bathroom like a proper gay guy.”
“Seriously, where do you get this stuff from?”
“Movies?”
“What sort of movies are you watching?” Most of the films I had watched with gay men were depressing as hell and too artsy to involve bathroom-stall fucks.
David ignored me. “Have you got a plan?”
“I thought I’d return Connor’s supplies, since I don’t know if he’ll come back for them or send someone else. I don’t know where he lives, but I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to find that out.”
“Then he’ll see you on his doorstep, realize how much he wants you, drag you inside, and fuck your brains out?”
“Umm… something like that.” Wow. This was a stupid move.
David gave me a once-over. “You’re going to need a different outfit.”
“I wasn’t planning on going over there tonight.”
“He might send someone to pick up his bag early tomorrow, and then you wouldn’t have a plan at all. It’s tonight or never.”
Was David trying to get me to chicken out? “Fine, but I would’ve thought you’d want me to put this off.”
David grinned. “Hell, no. I gave you my opinion and you ignored it. So now I’m going to tell you how to do this right.”
Oh dear God, what had I gotten myself into?
“This outfit is ridiculous. I look like—”
“A sexy poet,” David said.
I looked in the mirror again and shook my head in disgust. “No one dresses like this. Not poets, not anybody.”
“I beg to differ. Haven’t you looked around at all those readings and lectures you’ve dragged—I mean, taken me to?”
I tried to protest, but David talked over me. “What about that little waif at that atrocious student thing I went to last month?”
“That kid was fifteen or so, and I don’t think he’d eaten in weeks. I do not want to look like a starving teenager.”
David squinted and studied me. “You look artistic, not starved.”
“I look like an idiot.”
“These are your clothes,” David pointed out.
“This shirt is from a pirate costume. Costume as in Halloween party, not intended for casually dropping by a friend’s apartment.”
“Pirates are hot though, right?”
“In movies.” The shirt was billowy and ridiculous. Instead of buttons, it had a leather tie at the neckline. David insisted on pairing it with black jeans and a red belt that must have been stuck into my wardrobe by a vicious enemy, or else it had belonged to Silas the Asshole.
David had also pulled out black boots I had purchased on a dare in college and worn only once in recent years—with the pirate costume to a Halloween party. I supposed I should be glad David hadn’t found the scarf and fake earrings.
I looked in the mirror and shuddered. “I look like an aging rent boy going to a costume party.”
David ignored me as he rooted through my bathroom drawers. “Don’t you have any eyeliner in here?”
“Have you ever seen me wear eyeliner?”
David dismissed me with a wave. “Don’t bitch. I was just hopeful.”
“I’m not wearing eyeliner or this get-up.”
“Fine. Take off the shirt and just wear something tight.” He pulled out another relic from my closet, a t-shirt that said “What, with my tongue in your tail?” from when I was in a production of Taming of the Shrew in college. Connor would love it.
“Okay, I’ll wear that,” I said as I bent down to pull off the boots.
“No, the boots stay.”
I glanced in the mirror. “I don’t even look like myself.”
“You look hot.”
I sighed. Did I? I wasn’t sure anymore. Hot or ridiculous? Where was the line? “Fine. You win.”
“Damn right.” David eyed my hair critically.