Decadent (8 page)

Lachlan couldn't figure out what the hell was wrong with Konnor. He had never cared what he was in terms of orientation before, but now that he was with Cormag and it was his first attraction to a guy he could admit that he didn't care. He didn't care if he fell in love with a girl or a guy or what that made him. He was who he was and he loved who he loved, gender issues aside.

“Something happened when we met. It was like we clicked…we're the same but di
fferent. He sees something in me that no-one else ever has and I like that.” He tried explaining what he felt in terms that Konnor might understand. Unfortunately, it looked like he wasn't doing a good job of it. “I know that when I'm with Cormag I feel different. I like myself more when I'm around him,” Lachlan admitted. Cormag made him a better person. He didn't know how or why he knew it happened. Like he had said himself, he made him the best and worst version of his ideal self.

“You want to know what happened last night? We left the bar and took a walk. I kissed him and he didn't kiss me back. I had to ask him to let it happen because I
needed
it. I needed to know that he felt that way about me. He'd been flirting with me all afternoon and as we were about to kiss I fell off my stool so he didn't try to do it again. I had to know that he hadn't been drunk,” he explained what he had been thinking in the only way he could; by admitting everything.

It was something Konnor had once said he hated about him, that he always went on and on about things in too much detail, but that was who he was. He was a details guy. “Konnor, the kiss lasted barely a minute and it was electric. I felt…needed. I don't know if you can understand this, but I've only ever been wanted before. For popularity or my looks or my brain. Girls have only ever wanted to be with me for as long as it suited them.”

Lachlan guessed that Konnor didn't know how that felt. Girls wanted and needed him equally over the years. He was the one with the issues, who never wanted a girl to get too close, not them.

“With Cormag I feel like he needs me so badly that even if he didn't want to need me he wouldn't be able to stop it.” Lachlan looked away when he saw how he was taking it. Konnor buried his hands in his pockets as if he were burying his feelings deep down inside. But it was no good; he couldn't hide it.

“God, you're so dramatic,” he complained with a sigh.

“It's how I feel
Konnor, not some romance novel,” Lachlan bit the words out in frustration. He hated when Konnor was like this. “I like who I am when I'm with him.
I
asked him to take me back to his house last night. We lay on the floor in his library and talked for hours. And when we ended up kissing again,
I
started it.” He had no trouble admitting that it was all his doing.

Cormag had been a total gentleman, not rushing anything, not even making his feelings too obvious. He had kept his hands to himself until Lachlan begged him not to. But he couldn't put it that way to Konnor. The thought of two guys together, even kissing, seemed to make him uncomfortable. Well, he didn't care. He didn't feel that way.

“So, what are we talking here?” he wondered, gritting his teeth.

Lachlan could tell he was trying to curb his reactions so that he didn't lose their friendship completely. He already felt that, with this whole Cormag thing, they were drifting apart. He wanted to stop that before there was so much between them they could never recover from it.

“We've decided to give it a go. To see how we work together.” He couldn't help but smile with the words, hoping that Konnor could accept the truth even if he didn't like it. He needed him more than ever, with everything up in the air. Without him, the only person he'd have to confide in would be Cormag. He didn't want to load too much on him so early on in the game; it wouldn't be fair.

“We were planning on hanging out this afternoon, but we've not made plans yet. I'm working from four to ten and I'm going home to see my mum. If you
want to get to know him, say so.” He asked Konnor to be honest about whether he was willing to give Cormag a chance or not.

“If he didn't push you into anything, why did you shout at me this morning about being the only one to think sex isn't important? Cormag said something about how I'd disappointed you,” he said, taking him completely by surprise.

“Oh.” Lachlan bit his lower lip and turned back to look at Cormag. He was leading the group on, but he gave him a nod, as if he understood how important the conversation was and didn't want him worrying about keeping up with the group. He didn't know how he did that, but he seemed to know exactly what he was thinking most of the time.

“Well, yeah. I mean, I'm still pissed that Orion was sleeping around behind my back. It seems like that's the only thing she was ever interested in. It sticks in my throat to think of all those times she tried to get me to sleep with her in the last six weeks. I wonder if she went off and seduced Ed because I said no.” He shrugged to show that he still couldn't quite make sense of the situation.

“You said no?”

“Yes, Konnor. This is what I'm talking about. Why does everyone think I'm the weird one, because I was never interested in sex before? Cormag is the only one who has made sex seem even remotely interesting, but that doesn't mean it's all I think about.” Lachlan was so frustrated that he wanted to take the conversation outside. He needed to scream and shout and maybe knock some sense into Konnor. But he couldn't and he wouldn't. He was better than that. Even if no-one thought much of him, Cormag did and he wouldn't embarrass him at work.

“It's not that. I thought…well, you said you loved her. I figured you wouldn't say no to someone you love,” Konnor admitted his presumption.

He was even more frustrated with that. All the ways they had been so different to each other their whole lives, without it making any difference to their friendship, were suddenly rearing their ugly head and he didn't know how to stop it.

“Just because I loved her…or whatever it was…doesn't mean that getting her into bed is my first priority. It's not an obvious conclusion because I loved her. Sex is…” He struggled to find a way of expressing how he felt without coming across as 'dramatic' again. He was beginning to realise that maybe he and Konnor were too different to ever have this conversation without it putting their friendship at risk.

“It's personal. It's two souls connecting. I don't want to make a mistake with something like that. And to be quite honest I've never seen the appeal. Maybe now I know why. Maybe I was never meant to have sex with girls. Maybe I was always meant to be with Cormag.” He was perfectly honest about how he felt.

Lachlan truly believed that there must have been a reason that he'd never been able to think of sex or intimate relationships with anyone else as something he wanted. But he wanted to share that with Cormag one day. Even if it didn't make any sense.

Konnor's eyes practically popped
out of his head. “Seriously?” he asked, unable to keep quiet.

“Yes. For the first time I'm actually in a relationship with someone who understands me. I understand him and yes, we have things in common, but we think differently too which is actually exciting. Last night we were talking about this artist down by,” He trailed off when he saw the completely uninterested, furious look Konnor was giving him. He didn't want to know, so he wouldn't tell him.

But how could he tell him that was the whole problem? That he wasn't interested in talking to him on the level that Cormag did. Without that intellectual stimulation in his life, Cormag was exciting, intoxicating and invigorating. He woke him up on a physical, intellectual and emotional level in a way no-one else ever had. Most of all he cared. He wanted to talk to him, to get to know him, to argue with him and laugh with him. No-one else did.

“Never mind.” Lachlan sighed and raked a hand through his hair. He was at his wits end trying to talk to Konnor. Every time he opened up and tried to let him see what was going on in his head he made some wise crack about it or lost all interest in listening to him. It hurt.

“Cormag makes me interested in sex. That's it in a nutshell. Something about how he talks to me and how he looks at me makes me want to explore those things with him. Eventually; not any time soon. I know he'd wait forever if he thought I wanted to, but he understands that for some reason, with him, I want real intimacy,” he confessed with a shrug, hating that the whole 'sex' side of things was the only part Konnor was interested in.

His anti-gay registered brain wanted to check if he'd been 'corrupted' by another guy. If he wasn't such a private person he would have told him, in detail, what he and Cormag had been doing all night. Which was nothing.

“Lachlan, you really are a girl.” Konnor smirked at him, as if it was funny. But Lachlan was fed up of his words and his feelings being considered some hilarious joke for everyone to make fun of.

“Will you shut it? I'm trying to tell you how I feel and all you're doing is being a pigheaded jerk.”

Lachlan could finally see what Cormag had been putting up with his whole life. He'd come out to his friends and family when he was twelve, when he developed his first serious crush on a guy at school. And although everyone supported him, the kids at school had been real shits to him about it. Even his crush. Lachlan thought he'd understood before, when he'd first told him, but there was nothing like experiencing a little of it for himself.

“Cormag and I click on so many levels that I barely think about other people when I'm with him. I
want
to be with him and I want to see where it takes us. If you can't accept that, you can't accept me. This is how I feel now.” He made himself clear once and for all. It didn't matter what had happened before or what might happen in the future. Right at that moment he wanted to be with Cormag and see what happened. All he was asking was for Konnor to let him do that.

“
And Orion?” he wondered.

“Orion cheated on me. I don't give a shit what she thinks.” He didn't know why it mattered what Orion thought. He was pissed to think that Konnor was asking because he was trying to hurt him. That or he thought Orion would suddenly be jealous he was moving on and want him back. Either way he didn't care. She had given up the right to have an opinion on his life any more.

“And the boys?”

“The same goes for them. If they can't accept how I feel
, then they're not real friends and I can live without them.” Lachlan didn't think he would have any trouble with his friends. But then again until Konnor showed up at the bar he hadn't thought he'd have any trouble getting him to understand how he felt either.

“So you'd give up your whole life for him? Some guy you met in a bar, who seduced you when you were drunk?” Konnor asked the question as if it was an accusation.

He didn't need that kind of pressure or insult. He'd been feeling fantastic about things until Konnor showed up at Cormag's house. He wished he could go back in time, let Cormag answer the damned phone and ensure his supposed best friend left him alone for the day. He had never wanted an easy life, but right then he wanted more than anything to get out of that room and get away from Konnor.

“I'm not giving anything up. If my friends can't understand what's going on with me then they're either not trying hard enough or they're not my real friends. I don't want to go through life with a bunch of fake people trailing behind me, pretending they care. If you're not my friend and you can't support me then fuck off.” Lachlan decided he'd had enough. He wasn't going to stand there in the place where Cormag worked, and have an argument with him. They were both trying to keep their voices down to keep the conversation private, but that would only last so long until someone's temper got the better of them.

“Cormag is not some guy I met in a bar, who seduced me when I was drunk. He was a decent guy, who put aside everything he was feeling to take care of me when I most needed it. He listened, which is a damned sight more than you've been doing lately.”

Lachlan hated how this was ending. They'd had fights and arguments before, sometimes going weeks without speaking to each other, but in the end they were always friends. Until now. Now Konnor wasn't even trying. He kept ignoring every word he said, hearing only what he wanted to hear and thinking his opinion was the only one that mattered. Well, he wasn't the one dating Cormag.

“He still took advantage of you when you were weak.” He tried to talk his way out of it.

“No he didn't. If anything I seduced him. He was lonely and as depressed as I was and I showed him it didn't have to stay that way. If anyone to
ok advantage, it was me,” Lachlan said the words without thinking.

He wanted Konnor to know that he might have been drunk, but he'd known what he was doing. He had openly flirted, in response to the way Cormag flirted with him. It had been fun. But it was the talking, the listening, the connection and the things they had in common that had convinced him to leave that bar with him. Konnor hadn't stopped him then, he wasn't going to stop him now.

Lachlan took off, refusing to hang around and hear any more crap from him. He rejoined the tour group and watched a little frown appear on Cormag's brow as he spotted him, continuing his talk about POW's in the war. His look suited the discussion, but Lachlan still offered him a faint smile and shook his head to say that it was nothing he need worry about.