Page 51 of The Fly-Half

“Is this about you being possessive as fuck?” Mason asked, leaning against the counter and looking at me. His words were direct but not unkind.

“Yeah, a bit.” I thought for a second then put my drink on the nearby counter so I could put both arms around Devon and kiss the top of his head, breathing in the smell of his shampoo. He hadn’t said anything, but he put one hand on top of minewhere I’d interlaced them around his middle. It was such a small thing, but it soothed the surging storm of emotions that had been threatening to overwhelm me again. “There’s a lot going on in my head at the moment and I don’t know how to deal with it.”

“Is it because of what we’re doing?” Devon asked, and although his voice was level, I could picture the worried look in his dark eyes as he spoke.

“Yeah, but it’s not your fault,” I said. I kissed the top of his head again as I tried to find the words. Maybe this should have been a conversation we’d had by ourselves, but it was too late now. “I’m feeling a lot of new things all at once, and it’s not all good. Like, I love what we’re doing and I’ve never felt this way about anyone. But it’s so fucking overwhelming and I don’t know how to deal with any of it. I hate the idea of anyone touching you… That’s probably the worst of it.”

“I’m sorry,” Devon said as he twisted his head and leant in to kiss me softly.

“Don’t be, please.”

“I’ve encouraged you, though. I like it.”

“Me too,” I said quietly, kissing him again. “I just don’t know how to get it out of my head when we’re not…”

“If I may,” Mason said, looking between the two of us with a strange fondness, like he was both amused and frustrated by my antics. It felt like I was missing something again. “You can totally be possessive as fuck in private—go wild, do whatever the hell you want as long as you’re both consenting and safe—but you’ve got to figure outwhyyou’re possessive outside of it and then you’ve gotta fucking deal with it.”

“I know, but it’s the why I’m struggling with.”

“All right.” Mason put his beer down, glanced at the potatoes, walked across the kitchen, and pulled Devon out of my arms. I stood there, shocked, as Mason led him away. “Jealous now?”

“No,” I said. “Why would I be?”

Mason hummed and pulled Devon into a hug, squeezing him tightly. “What about now?”

“No, I don’t think so.” It was a bit strange seeing them together, but I didn’t have any weird feelings about it.

Mason hummed again, like he was ticking things off on some mental list I couldn’t see. “What if I was someone else?”

“How do you mean?”

“Oh, I think I know,” Devon said with a knowing smile. Only I had no fucking clue what he knew. “What about if Mason was West?”

I thought for a second and tried to picture it. “No, nothing. Why would it? Mason and West have got boyfriends.”

“There you go,” Mason said, kissing Devon loudly on the cheek and walking back to his beer. “First reason solved.”

“I don’t…” I looked between them as Devon took a long sip of his wine, the dark colour slightly staining his lips. It made me desperately want to kiss him. “Wait, is it because…” I trailed off, the reason I’d hoped would come to mind failing to materialise.

“Come on, think about this,” Mason said. “You’re not jealous of me and West because…”

“You have boyfriends?”

“And? Come on, man. It’s not that hard!”

“Because you love them? Oh! And I know you’re not going to try anything.”

“There we go! Halle-fucking-lujah!” Mason threw his hands up in the air and grinned. “It’s a miracle.”

“But I trust Devon,” I said with a frown. “I know he wouldn’t do anything.”

“You don’t trust anyone else, though,” Devon said softly as he walked back over to me and leant up to kiss me. It made me very aware of the height difference between us and heat blossomed in my gut as all sorts of filthy ideas appeared in my mind. “You’re not worried about me; you’re worried about them.”

“Yeah, well, the bar for men in general isn’t exactly very high,” I said with a disdainful grunt. “It’s on the fucking floor and a lot of us still manage to go under it.”

“True, but you have to figure out how to deal with that,” Mason said. “Because you can’t go around punching people for daring to talk to your boyfriend. And I’m not bailing you out of jail if you try.”

I opened my mouth and then snapped it shut. Another idea had floated to the top of the pile, but I wasn’t sharing with the class. It could wait until Devon and I were alone with a closed door between Mason and us.

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