Guys on Top (6 page)

“What?” Doug asked. “It’s okay if you changed your mind. Do you want me to take you back to your place?”

A breath leaked out of Stewart. “Doug. This
is
my place.”

The car was silent for a beat, then Doug said, “
What?
”

Stewart chuckled, but it was a nervous sound. “I live here.”

Doug shook his head. “
I
live here.”

“Are you fucking with me?”

“No! I live on the first floor.”

Stewart’s eyes sharpened, then his mouth dropped open. He pointed at Doug and snickered. “Holy shit.
You’re
Pussy McTattletale?”

“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me, Stewart.” Doug’s shoulders dropped and he turned and faced the house. Lights shone through the upstairs windows. He dropped his head on the steering wheel. “You have got to be kidding me.” He lifted his head and looked at Stewart. “You live upstairs?”

He nodded. “Me and Corey.” He grinned, then shrugged. “Shit.”

Doug faced forward, hands on the wheel. He took a deep breath, then put the car in drive and commenced parking, pulling into his space in the garage. As he shut the engine off, he glanced over at the van beside him, and the blue sports car parked behind it. Then he looked at Stewart, who gazed back at him. “So,” Stewart said. “We’re neighbors.”

“Apparently.”

“Yeah.”

“Guess some of that weirdness just crept back in.”

“Yeah. A bit.”

The car ticked as it cooled, both of them silent. Finally, Doug shrugged. “Well. Do you still want to come in?”

“Yeah,” Stewart said, though he glanced up at the second floor with a frown.

“Okay.” Doug opened the door and got out. After a moment, Stewart followed.

He unlocked the door to his apartment and led Stewart inside. They moved down the hallway and into the living room, and Doug flicked the light on. Stewart glanced around. “Holy shit, you really do live here,” he said, his open grin finally returning. “You’re Pussy McTattletale!”

“I am not Puss—” Doug took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I didn’t call the landlord. My brother did. But come on, the noise was out of control.”

Stewart moved around the living room, checking things out. “Wow. Looks a lot different than when the lesbians lived here.”

Music filtered down through the top floor, but the volume was far lower than it had been all week. Stewart glanced at the ceiling, then at Doug. “Come on, was the noise that bad? People should be able to throw a party now and then in their own home, don’t you think?”

“Now and then, yeah,” Doug said. “Five nights in a row, not so much.”

“Five nights...” Stewart scowled. “Oh.” He sat down on Doug’s sofa. “I was out of town most of the week, visiting my uncle in Nebraska. I just got back last night.” He chuckled. “Corey had a party to welcome me back, he said.”

“Yeah, well, he was welcoming you back all week then, because it was every night.”

Stewart winced. “Sorry, I didn’t realize. Corey’s pretty popular, kind of a social butterfly.”

Doug raised his hands. “Let’s just...forget about that. It doesn’t matter now. Do you want a drink?”

“Hell, yes.”

“Me too.”

Doug went into the kitchen and got two beers out of the fridge, unaware that Stewart had followed him until he turned around. He handed him a beer. Stewart took it, then leaned against the counter, grinning. “I didn’t write that note, by the way. Corey did.”

Doug chuckled. “Well, that’s something, I guess. Your roommate has quite the way with words.”

Stewart walked over and opened the freezer. “Huh. No heads. Or asses.” He closed it and faced Doug. “Guess you’re not a serial killer.”

“Nope. Just your neighbor.”

“I kind of wish now that you were a serial killer,” Stewart said.

Doug popped his beer open then shrugged. “Why?”

Stewart looked back at him, his expression confusing. Doug couldn’t tell if he was upset or angry or what. Finally he grinned, but it was only slight, and didn’t make his eyes sparkle or dimple his cheeks as it had before. “Do you think we could go sit down and talk? I don’t want to do this in the kitchen.”

Do this? What the hell are we going to do?
“Sure,” Doug said.

They returned to the living room and sat on the couch. Stewart shuffled a bit closer and turned so he faced Doug, one arm resting on the couch back. Doug was gripped with the overwhelming need to kiss him again now that he was so close, weirdness be damned. He was into this guy. He wanted him, badly. The taste of his kiss still lingered, that stirring in his gut reawakening as he looked into Stewart’s amazing blue eyes.

“I’m afraid this kind of changes things,” Stewart said.

A stab of disappointment pierced Doug’s gut, but he pushed it down and kept his face blank. “All right. But does it have to? We’re both grownups. It doesn’t have to be weird if we don’t want it to.”

“I know,” he said. “But it’s not just about us being neighbors. It’s about Corey. He’s not just my roommate.” He paused, looking down. “He’s my boyfriend.”

Doug scowled. “Your...boyfriend.”

Stewart glanced back at him. “Yeah.”

“Corey. Corey who’s upstairs right now getting ready to screw Jairo.”

“Yeah. We have an open relationship.”

Doug set his beer down on the coffee table. “Oh. Well, that’s ah...oh.”

“I’m sorry,” Stewart said. “It’s just that we have rules. Corey wouldn’t have minded me spending the night with you under normal circumstances, but now that I know you live right downstairs, it’s probably something I should discuss with him. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, sure,” Doug said. Then he shook his head. “Actually, no. No, that makes no sense to me.” He laughed. “But, you know. Not my place to judge, so. Yeah. I understand.”

“Ooh, don’t say that.” Stewart winced. “When someone says ‘not my place to judge’ that means they’re already judging.”

“No!” Doug laughed. “I’m not judging. If that’s your thing, it’s cool.”

“It’s not my
thing
.” Stewart grinned, giving Doug a playful nudge with his knee. “I don’t receive a monthly newsletter or anything. It’s just what works for us. We’re totally honest with each other, no secrets. We just don’t...limit ourselves in that way.”

Doug’s body was as confused as his mind, especially after Stewart’s knee nudge. And the heat he still saw in the other man’s eyes when he looked at him. “So if I hadn’t been your neighbor...then you wouldn’t have bothered to tell me about Corey?”

Stewart shook his head. “I’m not sure. Probably not, I guess.”

Doug raised his eyebrows. “Wow. So that total honesty is reserved for you and Corey. Not the guys you pick up.”

“Oh man.” Stewart rubbed his forehead. “It sounds so bad when you put it that way. But it’s just easier. One of our rules is we don’t sleep with the same person more than once. Or
try
not to. Corey’s broken that rule more than a few times. But regardless, we try to avoid emotional attachments with someone else. It’s about sex outside the relationship. Just sex.”

“So if you slept with me, it would only be once. But then you might possibly be bumping into me all the time, because I live downstairs.”

“Right.”

“And that would be weird for you.”

Stewart held his eyes for a long moment. “Wouldn’t it be weird for
you
?”

“It probably would,” Doug said. He hesitated, then decided fuck it, if Stewart was all about honesty and openness, then that’s what he would get. “But to tell you the truth, after that kiss in the car, I kind of think it would be worth it.”

Stewart’s fair skin blushed and he laughed, shaking his head. “Oh man.” He dropped his head in his hands for a moment, then looked up. “Shit. This is hard.”

“Yeah,” Doug said. “Tell me about it.”

“Doug, I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t had the same thought. My body’s telling me to dive on you right now. But if we slept together and then I had to see you all the time in the future...I don’t think you’re the kind of guy I could be with just once. Not if I was running into you all the time. And that would break the trust I have with Corey.” He chuckled. “I guess you can take that as a compliment.”

This made Doug think of what had happened between him and Harry, which helped to sober his arousal a bit. He nodded. “I would never want to be the cause of that. I’d never come in between someone else’s relationship,
weird
as I think yours is.”

Stewart studied him for a moment. “You mean that, don’t you?”

Doug nodded.

“A lot of guys wouldn’t give a shit.”

“Oh I know that, believe me. A break of trust ruined my last relationship.” He huffed. “And ruined my life for a while.”

“What happened?” Stewart asked. “I understand if you don’t want to talk about it. But shit, I’m curious.” Stewart laughed. “Nosy is probably a better word.

Doug was already beginning to love Stewart’s laugh. It was full and honest and seemed to come from his toes, the sound of it breaking the tension of even this strange conversation.

Doug had discussed his Harry woes with few people. There was his brother and Beth, his lawyer of course...and the anger management counselor he’d been to see at the suggestion of his boss. His entire life now revolved around forgetting about it, putting it behind him. He refused to be that guy, the guy with emotional baggage, moping and whining about the bad hand life had dealt him. Talking to Stewart about it—someone he’d just met—seemed ludicrous. But he found he wanted to suddenly. He felt strangely comfortable with this guy.

“I was with this guy Harry for three years. We bought a condo together. Lived in the suburbs. Perfect couple and all that. But after a few months of living together, I got the feeling he was cheating on me. You know, the usual signs. Late night phone calls. Lots of overnight trips he suddenly had to take. He was irritable with me, not interested in sex.”

“So was he?” Stewart asked. “Cheating on you?”

Doug sighed. “I came home early from work one day...shit, same story you always hear. And I caught him.”

Stewart cocked his head. “Caught him, or you know...” He made a humping gesture with his hips. “
Caught
him.”

 Dough snickered. “
Caught
him. I walked through the door and my boyfriend was bent over our brand new sofa, ass in the air, with some pretty-boy drilling him from behind.”

Stewart winced. “Oh,
man
.”

“It gets worse.”

Stewart raised his eyebrows. “Go on.” He slid down a bit on the sofa, head propped on his palm. He looked sincerely interested, and that warmed Doug, that he was willing to listen.

“The thing is, at that point I wasn’t really pissed about finding him with another guy. It was what he’d chosen to put me through for the three months prior. You see I asked him repeatedly if he was cheating. I told him that whatever was going on, he could tell me about it. That I’d be disappointed, but if things weren’t right with us, I’d understand. I just wanted the truth. But he denied it. And he didn’t just deny it. He told me I was paranoid, that I was losing it. He made me believe I was this crazy, jealous lunatic, too possessive to see past my delusions. And that’s what really pissed me off. That’s what made me snap.”

“Snap?” Stewart frowned. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“No. Not good at all. You ever have one of those moments, a split second in time that if you could take back, it would change everything?”

“I think we’ve all had those.”

“Well, mine cost me, dearly. I’m standing there, screaming at Harry, who’s completely bare-assed still. I’m in his face, he’s in mine, we’re yelling at each other...but I didn’t touch him. I would never do that. But all of a sudden, this little
shitbag
he was fucking, who for some reason it still there, comes up and grabs my arm. And he’s all ‘Leave Harry alone, you need to get the fuck out of here.’ He says this to me. In
my
house! Where he was just fucking my boyfriend!”

Stewart’s jaw dropped. “What a wanker. Holy shit.”

“This must all seem pretty silly to you,” Doug said. “What with your...situation.”

Stewart shook his head. “No way. Relationships are about honesty. You get in a relationship, you’re making a contract. Harry broke that contract. It’s no different than my
situation
. There are rules, and if you want the relationship, you have to stick to them. The worst thing about cheating isn’t the betrayal. It’s the selfishness. He was getting his on the side, but he still wanted you tucked away at home, being faithful to only him. That’s not fair.”

Doug nodded. He was reluctant to go on suddenly, the memories of the incident making his pulse tap rapidly in his neck. He’d definitely have to meditate after his run tomorrow. Maybe twice...

“So what happened?” Stewart asked. “You said it ruined your life for a while. How?”

Doug looked at him, but hesitated.

Stewart touched his knee, melting him, and heating things low in his body. He continued, if only to distract himself from the other man’s touch. “I shoved the guy off me. That’s it. Just...shoved him away. Well, he stumbled, and fell face down on the floor, splitting open his lip. And then he sued me.”

“He fucking sued you? How bad was his lip?”

“Dude,” Doug said. “He ended up with this
little
bitty tiny scar, right here at the corner of his lip. You could barely see it. But his lawyer made it out like I’d turned him into the fucking Elephant Man. The guy was a model, you see. So they played it like I had cost him his livelihood, ruined his pretty face.”

Stewart shook his head. “Fuck me. So he won?”

“He won.” Doug took a breath and let it out through his nose. “He won. Cleaned me out. I had to sell the condo, but I still owed him money. He got all my savings. Then I still owed him money. So for almost a year, I had to hand over half my paycheck to this bastard. I finally made the last payment a month ago. I’d moved in with my brother so I could live rent free and pay it off quicker, and that was a blessing.” He looked at Stewart and smiled. “And then I found this place. There was no way I was buying another house. Never again will I invest in something that can be taken away from me. So here I am. And here you are. And that’s the whole ball of wax.”