Page 13 of Gross Misconduct

“Sorry,” I mutter. “I, uh…I appreciate it, but…”

“You appreciate it?” He spits out, his cocky smile from before flipped to a menacing sneer. He hops to his feet in one swift move. “Go fuck yourself.”

“Wait,” I start. I reach out for him, but he’s already storming down the fire escape.

5

JACK

The next morning, I wake up with a really bad hangover. Truly horrendous. Like someone is bashing a sack of potatoes against my skull.

I can handle regular hangovers. I’m used to those. Nothing that two Advil and some Pedialyte can’t fix.

This is different. This is copious amounts of alcohol mixed with frustration, confusion, and shame.

What the fuck happened last night?

I can’t stop thinking about it. Griffin, ever so tenderly, pushed my head back,away from his crotch. It was supposed to be the other way around. Hot dick was supposed to be filling my mouth, but instead, cold air hit my face.

When a guy is on his knees blowing you, it’s hot. When a guy is on his knees and there’s no dick in his mouth, it’s not hot. He looks like a beggar. A beggar is not hot. Does he know how many guys would be begging me for sex? Being a professional hockey player turned my dick into a magnet.

That wasn’t even the weirdest part about last night.

Talking to Griffin gave me this uncomfortable flutter in my stomach like the sinking sensation when I drive over a hill just a little too fast. It was a good sinking, if that’s even possible.

It’s not like I wanted a connection with him, but it kind of seemed like we had one. And it scared me shitless. The faster we could get to hooking up, the faster all that connection and fluttering and sinking could go away. Until he pushed my head back. The record scratch to end all record scratches.

Is this the first time in recorded history a man has refused a blow job?

Last night felt like a heart-to-heart when it should’ve been a dick-to-ass.

Oh, and the shameful part of my epic hangover? That was when I got home and cranked it to Griffin to help me fall asleep. Masturbating to a guy who rejected me is a new low.

A knock at the door jolts me from my Griffin postmortem.

I sit up on my pullout couch, and my head is clocked with a fresh sack of potatoes. The big, dense ones from Idaho. I shove my hand in the gap between the bed and the couch searching for my phone.

“Yo!” Fuentes yells from the other side of the door. “I gotta take a leak.”

“Shit,” I mutter. I reach my arm down farther, fingers crawling the dirty floor until they come upon the sleek frame of my phone. “Shit,” I mutter again when I see the time displayed on the home screen.

“You need a ride to work or not?” Fuentes bangs again.

“Coming!” I yell.

I roll myself off the couch, holding onto the window to keep from falling. Standing is a new sensation that activates a new level of hangover pain in my head. I blink a few times to ease the agony. Fortunately, it's only a few steps from the edge of the pullout to the door. One of the few benefits of living in a studio apartment.

“Hey,” I say when I open the door, but Fuentes is already speeding past me into the bathroom.

“Gotta take a leak,” he says.

I stumble into my kitchen area, a nook too small to be considered a room, which is fine since I don’t cook. I rinse out my mouth with water then down two tablets of Advil from the bottle in the side drawer. Just knowing they’re in my system helps to calm the pounding in my head. Though the sinking sensation in my stomach has not abated.

What’s Griffin’s morning routine with his daughters? Probably something cute where they all singFrozensongs as they get dressed. He probably lets the girls push down the toaster button, too.

Fuck. Griffin, get out of my head. This is why I stick to fucking my contemporaries. Nothing a twentysomething guy does could be considered cute.

“Aahhhh.” Fuentes leans against the bathroom doorway, the blissful feeling of an empty bladder lighting his face. “That was great.”

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