The Broken Triangle (9 page)

“Make that two things,”
Shane had added reflectively.

Patrick sat still, frozen, his expression hard to read.

“I’m sorry,” Vin repeated.

“I thought you liked me.” Patrick picked at the toe of his green-striped sock.

“I do. You know I do—you’re my best friend.” There’d been times he’d wondered if something more might come of it, but Patrick wanted the kind of guy he was always chasing after, not someone like Vin. Even though Vin had been trying to reassure Patrick, he couldn’t help adding, “I
don’t
like how obsessed you are with sex.”

“I can’t help it. We aren’t all as lucky as you—waiting years for Prince Charming; then he turns up, and he’s not just tall and handsome and miraculously gay, he’s rich and nice to you.” Patrick gave a wistful sigh, then glanced at Vin. “He is, right? Nice to you?”

“Yeah. He is.” Nice enough that after a month he was still patiently waiting for Vin to decide he was ready to bottom. Riley had offered to let Vin fuck him, which had been the experience of a lifetime. Pushing inside Riley’s hot, tight body had been a revelation in sensual bliss. Vin had come almost immediately, but Riley had encouraged him to keep thrusting slowly, and he’d discovered he could stay hard and go a second time. Riley had loved it, hands clutching Vin’s ass as he climaxed. There had even been a quiet
“Love—”
that could have meant anything and hadn’t been repeated.

“I’m glad. You deserve him.” Patrick made it sound like condolences were in order.

Vin’s irritation fled. He grabbed on to Patrick’s sleeve and pulled him closer, then slung an arm around his shoulders. Riley sometimes stiffened when Vin did that to him, just for a moment, but Patrick snuggled in without hesitation, yielding, pliant. A tingle of pleasure warmed Vin, followed by a pang of guilt that he shook off along with the tingle. It didn’t mean anything, the way it would with another guy. He was making something out of nothing. It was Patrick. He snuggled up to everyone, like an affection-starved puppy, and he was Vin’s best friend. Nothing wrong with hugging your BFF. “Hey, come on. I’m sure your dream guy is waiting right around the corner.”

“Is that your way of implying I hang out on street corners?” Patrick tossed his head. “I’m more of a toy boy than a rent boy. An expensive toy boy.”

“I’m not even going to answer that.” Vin put both arms around Patrick and hugged him tight, the soft, wispy strands of angora making his nose itch. Patrick smelled like candy canes. Vin hoped it was from peppermint body lotion, not the flavored red-and-white-striped condoms Patrick had shown him earlier. He’d offered Vin one, but Vin had shaken his head. Riley would’ve thought they were tacky, not funny.

He drew back, fighting a sneeze.

“Or maybe I’m a boy toy,” Patrick mused, tapping his lip with his finger and miraculously not smudging the gloss that had survived three wine coolers and a bucket of popcorn. “What’s the difference?”

“Beats me. But you’re neither. You’re a guy who wants to have fun, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

It wasn’t how Vin wanted his life to be, but that didn’t make it a bad choice for Patrick. Just not the best choice.

“Now I’ve got Cyndi stuck in my head,” Patrick complained.

“Don’t try to pretend that’s a bad thing. And don’t change the subject.”

Patrick blew a raspberry. “I don’t remember what the subject was anymore. That’s the whole point of conversation. I talk, you talk, we take a nice little journey together. Come on, you’re distracting me from the wonder that is Will Ferrell.” Patrick turned his attention back to the TV, and Vin guessed they were done talking about their sex lives. Not forever, since in ten minutes they’d start again, but for now that ship had sailed.

Probably for the best.

They watched the movie for a while in comfortable silence. Then Patrick asked, “You working tomorrow?”

“Yeah. I wouldn’t be, but I swapped shifts with Joss. You?”

“Hmm.”

“Does that mean yes or no?”

Patrick’s contacts were lettuce green tonight. Staring at them as he suffered through a long, pitying look made Vin think of salads, which made him think of restaurants, which took him back to his first date with Riley.

All roads led to Riley these days. That should’ve been proof that Vin was going the right way, but now and then he found himself wondering what would’ve happened if he’d gotten together with Riley in high school. Would they be here, together, or would— No. They were meant for each other. He loved Riley, always had, always would. There were no bends in the road, no corners he couldn’t see around. He was running toward a happy ever after, just the way he’d imagined it.

“It means yes, I’ll be there to hold your hand in case we get a customer who wants a cocktail.”

His professional pride smarting, Vin retorted, “I can mix drinks as well as you!”

“Yeah, but you blush when they ask you for a Slow Comfortable Screw. I swear they do it to see you go red, because no one in their right mind wants to mix sloe gin with anything.”

“I’ve seen you drink weirder.”

Patrick flapped his hand. “Meh, I was drunk,” he said, as if it were a valid excuse instead of a frosting of nonsense on a crazy cupcake. “Speaking of which, now that you’re off the celibacy train heading for hairy palms and blindness, except we all know that’s not true, what about easing back on the not-drinking, body-a-temple thing? Christmas is coming. Nog your egg.”

“Gross.” Vin was talking about the phrasing, not the idea, though Patrick wouldn’t realize that. “You’re dying to get me drunk so you can laugh at me.”

“I wouldn’t laugh,” Patrick protested. “Well, maybe a little, but no. I want you to loosen up, have a good time. You’re as entitled as the rest of us. More.”

“I’m not more entitled than anyone else.” Where this argument had come from, Vin didn’t know, but Patrick wasn’t getting away with saying stuff like that. “And even if I was, what does entitlement have to do with drinking?”

“It’s not about the drinking. It’s about what denying yourself the drinking is a symbol of. Like you don’t think you deserve to have a good time.”

“Do you hear the things that are coming out of your mouth? That’s crazy! You genuinely think people who have self-worth feel entitled to drink?” Vin was on the verge of laughing over how ridiculous this conversation was.

“No. I mean… Gah, I don’t know what I mean.” Patrick dropped his face into his hands. “It made sense until I started trying to explain it.”

“Maybe that’s where you went wrong.”

Patrick gave him an uncertain smile. “I do that a lot, but you never seem to mind me screwing up the way other people do.”

“Who are we talking about here?” The kicked-kitten expression was exaggerated—Patrick used it too often for it to be effective—but genuine hurt lay behind the facade. That made Vin’s protective instincts kick in big-time. “If someone’s hassling you, tell me.”

Patrick’s head drooped. “Just people in general, no one in particular. You were talking about shifts, and I was thinking how many of them I do these days now that I’m not working at the clubs.” He sighed. “Miss that.”

Vin winced. As a DJ at raves, Patrick had been phenomenal, his choice in music unerring, his rapport with the crowd bringing the energy of the room up until not dancing was close to impossible. Unfortunately, his equipment had been repossessed after he’d failed to keep up the payments, and he was too much of a diva to work at places with their own sound systems where he was handed a set list and warned not to deviate from it.

“According to my mom, I
am
a deviant. I wasn’t a good boy for her, so I don’t see me walking the straight and narrow line for you,”
he’d reportedly told the owner of one of the biggest clubs in the area before stalking out, blacklisted.

Of course, it’d been Patrick telling the story, flushed with nervous exhilaration that’d faded to bleak depression. He’d covered it with his usual froth of smiles and flirting, but Vin had guessed the loss of something he loved doing had left Patrick in a slump. And that his exit had been less triumphant than he claimed.

“You know if people are giving you a hard time at the bar, all you have to do is say the word, and Shane will ban them. Heck,
Ben
will ban them.”

That was saying something. While there was a hint of cold steel in Ben’s eyes at times that gave Vin the chills when he saw it, Shane was the one who ruled the Square Peg, the one they could count on to throw out anyone who got too drunk or had too much attitude.

“Only if I was someone else. Anyone else. Shane cuts everybody slack but me.”

Vin refrained from pointing out Patrick wasn’t the hardest worker at the bar. “Are you on crack? Shane doesn’t cut anyone slack.”

“That rhymes.” Patrick looked impressed.

“Whatever. It’s not about that, and you know it. If something’s going on, you have to tell them.”

“Nothing’s going on.” Patrick picked up his nearly empty wine cooler, then set it back down without drinking from it. “We’re supposed to be watching the movie, not having you play amateur psychologist.”

“Not doing that. Just trying to be a friend.” Vin grinned. “We’re gay. We’re allowed to talk about our emotions. Hell, it’s a requirement.”

“Way to enforce stereotypes.” Patrick threw back his head. “Gah. I feel so
unnecessary
. They could replace me at the bar in a heartbeat, and when I dropped that bottle of vodka the other day, I could almost see Shane thinking I’d given him a great reason to fire me.”

“If he did, for something as nothing as that, I’d walk too.”

“And lose this place along with your job?” Patrick’s eyebrows, plucked so they slanted up at the edges, adding to the elfin look, rose skeptically. “We’re friends, but I don’t expect you to go that far for me.”

Half regretting his words but knowing Shane would never be that unfair, Vin said, “Well, I would. But they won’t, ever, so I get to sound loyal and heroic without taking any risks.”

Patrick stuck out a tongue the cooler had turned a deeper pink. “I’m rubbing off on you. That almost sounded cynical.”

“And
I
need you for lots of stuff,” Vin continued, trying hard to come up with an example. Inspiration struck. “Tell me how to swallow.”

“Excuse me?” Patrick looked in need of a lesson in that himself, sputtering his drink and leaving his sweater dotted with bright red drops of raspberry-and-lime cooler. “Swallow? We’re talking blowjobs?”

Vin smiled. It wasn’t often he saw Patrick disconcerted and never when the topic was sex. Why something as basic as a BJ had flustered him, Vin didn’t know. “Sure. Tips, hints, anything you’ve got. Riley hasn’t complained, but—”

“He’d better not complain!” Patrick sat upright, color flushing his cheeks. “Mooning over him cost you the best years of your life, and if he doesn’t appreciate that, he’s an asshole.”

“None of that was his fault. Except the part where he was the hottest guy I’d ever seen who was nice to me.” Vin hoped getting Patrick to talk about blowjobs would overshadow all the other stuff they’d been talking about. “Anyway, I swallowed once, but it was kind of gross.” He felt bad saying it, but it was true.

“What did you do the other times?” Patrick leaned back on the couch.

“Once I, um, spat it out.” Now he was the one blushing. “And the other times I moved at the last second. I’m getting good at that.”

“Some guys don’t taste nice,” Patrick said, pulling a reminiscent face. “There’s stuff you can try to make it taste better. Pineapple juice is supposed to help, and I think cutting out meat and dairy, but that’s crazy talk. What about mouthwash?”

Vin winced. “On his dick? Wouldn’t that be painful?”

“Probably.” Patrick snickered and shoved Vin with his foot. “Not on his dick, in your mouth. Before or after. Or both.”

“Umm. Maybe. It just seems premeditated. Sex shouldn’t be planned and organized. Right? More…” He sketched out a wave. “Unstructured?”

“I would never knock a wham-bam fuck against a wall, but sometimes it’s fun to set the scene, get in a few props, make sure you know where the handcuff keys are, that kind of thing.”

Visions of dungeons swam through Vin’s head. He couldn’t add Patrick to the picture without wanting to laugh. Possibly because in his mind, Patrick was decked out in pink leather straps and holding a feather duster. “Handcuffs? Tell me you’re joking.”

“I don’t go in for the whips-and-chains scene in a big way, but I know someone—someones who does. Do. Whatever.” Patrick gave Vin a meaningful nod and a wink.

Curiosity warred with a genuine dislike of gossip. People’s personal lives deserved to stay that way. “I don’t want to know.”

Patrick eyed him tolerantly. “You so do. You just know you’ll hate yourself afterward. Never mind. Back to the BJs. It’s an acquired taste. So acquire it. Practice on yourself.”

“Excuse me?”

“Jerk off, catch some, and take a lick,” Patrick said. “Don’t wait too long. It’s truly disgusting cold. It goes kind of jellified.”

Okay, that was the last time he asked Patrick’s advice about sex. “Oh my God. Stop. Please.”

“Poor honey.” Patrick patted his knee. “You’re still kind of a virgin.”

“Not just ‘kind of,’” Vin muttered without thinking about how that would sound. Patrick’s eyes went wide. “Okay, okay, don’t freak. We’ve had sex; I just haven’t bottomed. Doesn’t that make me still a virgin?”

“If it did, most straight guys would be virgins forever, no matter how many women they banged,” Patrick pointed out. “You’re not a virgin, and I’ve met plenty of men who never bottomed. Do you want to bottom?”

“Sure.” Vin shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t think about it all that much. Should I?”

“Should you think about it? Yes. Should you bottom? That’s up to you, but you know what they say: how will you know if you like it if you’ve never even tried it?”

The movie had ended, and the credits were playing. Patrick shut off the TV and tossed the remote aside. “Has he ever been someone’s first time? Because trust me, you want someone who knows what they’re doing, or it’s not going to be a good experience.”