The Broken Triangle (4 page)

“You’re weird, Vin,”
Patrick had told him one night at a party, blinking owlishly at him.
“You’re the only sober one here, and it’s like you’re not here. Tell me you’re an alien. Please? It’d make me soooo happy.”

“Why?”

Patrick had caught his lower lip between his teeth, flirting shamelessly with eyelashes frosted silver at the tips.
“Because eventually it’ll be probing time? My ass takes extra large, honey, and don’t forget Earth boys need lube. Lots of it.”

“I’m not an alien. Did I even need to say that? Did you really think— How much have you had to drink?”

“Enough to see that you’re a lust time bomb waiting to go boom.”

“No, I’m someone waiting for the right time. The right man.”
Easier to say that than to admit he’d found him years ago and could never have him.

Patrick had shaken his head.
“Boring. So, so boring. Stick with the alien angle.”
A guy who’d lost his shirt had wandered by, both nipples pierced, tall enough that Patrick’s head would be level with them. Vin had counted down silently. By the time he’d reached four, Patrick had introduced himself and was playing with one of the nipple rings, giggling when he made the guy yelp and getting his ass smacked when he tugged again, harder.

By the time Vin had gotten to ten, the two of them had disappeared, most likely heading for any room with a door that locked.

Vin parted his lips and let Riley’s tongue slide into his mouth, bringing more of a taste that made his cock harden, his balls go tight. He’d read about guys coming in their pants, but he had more control than that, didn’t he? If he got stressed, he took long, slow, deep breaths, reciting a mantra in his head, but he couldn’t do that when Riley was making soft, eager sounds between kisses, each one driving Vin’s arousal higher.

Any second now, Vin would pull back. If only Riley didn’t taste so amazing, if only his lips didn’t cling so perfectly to Vin’s. If only their mouths didn’t move together like they were made for each other. Vin wanted more. Like the bare skin of Riley’s back against his palms, or Riley’s cock warm and hard in his hand. That last thought felt like a slap, and he did pull away, shocked more at himself than anything they’d done.

“Okay?” Riley asked gently. God, he was as good-looking close-up as he’d been in his yearbook pictures.

For such a simple question, the potential answers were ridiculously complicated. “I think so,” Vin said, voice trembling. He tried to steady it. It’d been some kissing; that was all. He couldn’t fall apart over it. “But we need to talk. I’m in so over my head here.”

“Are you kidding?” Riley stroked a hand down along Vin’s arm. “I’m the one in over my head. You have no idea how much I want you.”

That was what Vin was afraid of. “It’s a line straight from one of my daydreams, but…”

“But?”

“It’s complicated.”

“You’d have told me by now if you had a boyfriend,” Riley said with flattering certainty.

“I would have, and I don’t,” Vin agreed. “Whatever you’re imagining, trust me, the reality is a lot less interesting.”

“Let me make it uncomplicated,” Riley said. “Because from where I am, it’s simple as hell. I like you, always have. You left and I missed you, and yeah, I’m not gonna blow smoke up your ass and say you were on my mind every day, but when I got it together and stopped trying to make everyone else happy and put myself first, I wished I’d had the guts to be like you were in school. Open. Out. Not giving a shit. If I had, we could’ve dated.”

“Maybe.” Hearing Riley lay it out so casually, as if the two of them dating in high school would’ve been no big deal, left Vin breathless. He knew it was easy to say now, knew it wouldn’t have been that simple for more than one reason, but for a moment he could picture it, the two of them at dances together, locked together, turning slowly under the flickering lights, with something romantic playing in the background.

Yeah. They wouldn’t have made it past the first few notes before someone threw a glass of punch over them and claimed it was an accident, or jostled them repeatedly, driving them off the floor.

“When I came out, when I went in those bars, I was looking for you without realizing it. Going for the dark-haired guys, hanging out in places I thought you’d like. You know. Edgy. Gay-friendly.”

Vin groaned. “Tell me you didn’t go to Dregs thinking it’s where the real action is. Please. That place is a dive.”

Riley shrugged. “Oops? Yeah. That’s where I met my first— Never mind. He wasn’t anything special.”

So why did you sleep with him?

Vin forced the question back. The answer wouldn’t make him happy, no matter what it was. “Dregs hasn’t been open long. A year, eighteen months. When did you come out anyway?”

“A little over a year ago,” Riley said. Good to get confirmation that Vin wasn’t completely crazy, at least. “Took a page from your book and told everyone I could within the space of a few hours. The first phone call was a killer, but after that it got easier. Now when I tell people, it’s like giving out my phone number.”

The quirk of his mouth, his self-awareness that life was funny even when it was fucked-up, was as appealing as his good looks. Vin wasn’t sure he bought the last part, though. No matter how many times he’d told people he was gay, he always braced for rejection or hostility, a physical flinch punctuating the words.

“That first call… Parents?” Vin guessed.

“Yeah. Thank God my mom was the one who answered the phone, or I might have chickened out.” Riley reached for his mug of tea. “I don’t think I could have said it out loud to my dad.”

Vin, who had decided to go the opposite route and tell his dad first, nodded. “How’d they take it?”

Riley shrugged. “Okay, I guess. They’re fine with it now, which is what matters. They claim they never suspected, but my mom must have read some PFLAG pamphlets at some point, because the stuff she said was like listening to a parrot:
‘I’m glad you felt comfortable enough to tell us. You know we love you no matter what.’
But I needed to hear it.”

“Yeah. It’s more how they are afterward that counts. When they see you kissing a date for the first time, or the way they tell other people when it comes up. You can see if they’re okay or faking it, but even faking it’s better than freaking out. I’ve got one friend, Patrick, and he’d barely gotten the words out and boom, his mom was packing a bag for him.”

“That has to suck.” Riley set his tea down after one sip, steam curling up from it, fragrant with mint. “So we were both lucky.”

“Sounds that way.”

Vin’s parents had gotten married against the objections of his mother’s family. Maria had been engaged to an older man when she met the American student who’d walked into her while taking a photograph, sending her stumbling to her knees. Serenely confident in their love’s ability to smooth their path through life, they’d withstood every argument raised against their plans to marry when Jon had finished his degree. Time had proved them right, and the arrival of Anna, followed by Celine and Suzie, had chipped away at the wall between Maria and her parents that Vin’s birth had finally brought down.

Gabriel and Celia Perez idolized Vin. They only got to see him once a year when the family took the long trip south to their coastal town, but they made the most of him when he was there, smothering him with affection. His sisters tolerated Vin getting spoiled because it didn’t happen at home, where all four children were treated equally. It didn’t stop them from teasing him, but at eight, with the biggest piece of cake on his plate, not theirs, Vin had considered it a fair trade.

Finding out their only grandson was gay had made the next visit tense, with many long silences in place of a stream of questions. With his mother’s expression silently daring her parents to criticize her son, Gabriel and Celia, as they’d done once before, set their misgivings aside.

“So what happened? Did you have a bad breakup or something?” Riley interrupted his thoughts with a question Vin had known would be asked, but it still took a moment to get his mental feet under him.

“No,” he said slowly. “It’s not that.”

“What, then?” Riley pressed.

“I’ve never gone there, okay? I know it probably sounds weird, but it’s not. I wasn’t ready. I figured, I don’t know, that I wasn’t built for it.” It wasn’t easy to explain; even though Vin understood it on a deeper level, putting it into words was another story.

“Wait,” Riley said. “What, exactly, are we talking about here?”

Vin took a deep breath and looked Riley right in the eyes. “All of it. Everything. I’m not just single; I always have been. Celibate too. And I work in a bar but don’t drink. Funny, right?”

He could hear his voice, and he didn’t sound amused. He sounded depressed. Now was the part where Riley felt sorry for him, which was the last fucking thing Vin wanted.

“So you’ve never had sex,” Riley said, rallying after a pause that managed to be awkward and stunned. “Big deal. You’re what, twenty-three? Yeah, you must be, because you told me once we shared a birthday. Remember? That nutty girl was going around the class wanting to know everyone’s star signs to prove some theory about why we were sitting where we were.”

“Liv. And she wasn’t nutty. Just different.”

“Dude, we were sitting in alphabetical order!”

“You can tell me I’m nuts too.” Vin smiled. It was an effort to make his lips take the shape, but he did it. “You won’t be the first, and there’ve been times I would’ve agreed with you.”

Except now, with Riley sitting beside him, wanting him, Vin knew he’d made the right choice.

“Tell me why. Then I’ll decide if you’ve earned it.” Riley shifted position, bringing him closer to Vin without trying to make it seem accidental. His knee nudged Vin’s thigh, his arm, slung along the back of the couch, dropping to rest around Vin’s shoulders. “Religious reasons? You’re a Catholic, or at least you were.”

“My mom is, and my dad isn’t anything, so he let her bring me up as one, but it didn’t take. I asked too many questions. It’s nothing to do with my faith.”

“You gonna make me play Twenty Questions? I can think of better games.” Riley drew his fingers up the side of Vin’s neck, a light, casual caress leaving Vin’s touched skin tingling.

It was hard to concentrate with Riley so close. Vin had never been drunk, but he’d felt this way once before, riding his bike down a steep hill, his speed building to the point where braking would’ve been as disastrous as hitting a stone. He’d clung to the handlebars, wind rushing past him, whipping his hair back and flicking away the tears from his watering eyes. It’d been terrifying and exhilarating, and when the hill had become a long, straight piece of road, stealing the bike’s momentum, he’d felt as much regret as relief.

With that same sense of inevitability, he surrendered to the pleading look in Riley’s eyes. Riley deserved to know if anyone did. It might screw things up, but if Riley had come looking for a one-night stand, Vin wasn’t interested. His cock was, but his heart was less easily seduced. And if Riley wanted this to be the start of something, it had to begin with truth between them, not evasions.

“I fell in love with someone. No one else was good enough. I didn’t stand a chance, I knew that, but knowing he was out there, I couldn’t settle for second best.”

“Someone.” Riley drew Vin into kissing distance and played with the edge of Vin’s T-shirt sleeve. It was crazy how much something so simple turned Vin on. “This someone got a name?”

Vin made an inarticulate sound, a groan, deep and hoarse. “God, you know it’s you. It’s always been you.”

Riley leaned back, his gaze searching Vin’s face. Was that surprise or shock in his eyes? Whichever it was, as Vin watched, it became a warm smile. “Wow. So you were waiting for me all this time? That’s pretty romantic.”

“That’s—” Vin swallowed and took a calming breath. “That’s exactly why I need a little time. I can’t jump into this because it’s like some kind of Disney fairy tale.”

Riley chuckled. “I don’t think Disney’s added gay princes to its repertoire.”

“Don’t distract me from the point of this conversation.”

The humor left Riley’s face, wiped off it cleanly. “You just told me you’ve kept it in your pants for five fucking years because you loved me when we didn’t do much beyond smile at each other in the hallway or share notes on a class we’d missed. I’m trying to work out what I did to deserve that. I’m trying to decide if I should feel flattered or guilty as hell.”

“We had more than that!” Vin protested, the solid foundation of his love for Riley suffering a blow from within. “You know we did. You were there for me, stood up for me. And this is how
I
feel. It’s on me. You have nothing to feel guilty about.”

“I’ve been out for long enough to know men who look like us can get laid every night of the week,” Riley said. “I’ve been careful and I’m picky, so I haven’t taken advantage of that as much as I could’ve, but I know it’s out there if I want it, and God, I do! How the hell have you said no to sex all this time?”

“It hasn’t been that hard. Maybe because I didn’t know what I was missing?” Vin studied Riley’s face; somewhere during their conversation, his expression had become wary, and Vin wasn’t sure when or why. “Anyway, that doesn’t matter. What matters is why you’re here. Why’d you come looking for me?”

“Because I liked you, okay? I always did. I thought we’d be good together.” Riley bit his lip, gnawing at it nervously before realizing what he was doing and stopping.

They were sitting so close—ridiculously close for men who hadn’t seen each other in years and had only been casual friends, but not close enough for lovers. Caught between the reality of how little he and Riley had to base any form of relationship on and the undeniable fact that Riley had come looking for him, Vin wasn’t sure if he should edge closer or back off.

“Do you still think that?”

“Well, you don’t seem to have turned into a raving asshole, if that’s what you mean.” Riley reached out and touched the metal stud under Vin’s lip. “Some of this is new.”