Page 11 of A Match Made In Evan
I can hear the teasing in his words, which is the only reason my guilt at making him continue this charade doesn’t come bubbling back to the surface. Honestly, I don’t think I could have handled the demands of this school without him. Having a partner to handle all the parenting stuff has not only been a novel experience, but it has taken a huge weight from my shoulders. A weight I didn’t even know was that bad until I got the opportunity to share it.
“I really do appreciate this,” I still tell him, even though I know he was being playful.
Suddenly, it hits me how lonely I’ve been these past sixteen years. Ev’s always been there for me if I asked, but I’ve never really tried to share any of my responsibilities as a dad. Now? I can’t imagine not having him by my side through any of this.
Gah.I’m getting maudlin.
I’m overtired.
After leaning over to switch off the lamp on the bedside table, plunging the room into darkness, I hear him chuckle.
“Does this remind you of sleepovers when we were kids?” he asks softly.
It’s not hard to reminisce, to remember years of sleeping in the same bed, or in sleeping bags on the hard ground inside a tent in his backyard. It does make me a little sad that I can’t remember the last time we had a sleepover — only that one day we never had any again. I can’t help but think that if we had known our last one was going to be the last, we would have made it memorable somehow.
Unsure why I’m so intent on upsetting myself with such silly thoughts, I force a laugh, “We don’t have a metric tonne of lollies or chips right now.”
“Pity. I could go some M&Ms.”
“Mmm. Maltesers.”
“Great. Now I want chocolate. This is also your fault.”
Stuck somewhere between a laugh and a huff of irritation, I roll onto my side, facing away from him. “Go to sleep, you child.”
***
It’s beenyearssince I last woke up wrapped in someone else’s arms. That’s not an exaggeration, either. I’ve had flings and hookups over the years, but I haven’t been in a serious enough relationship that I’ve slept overnight in a woman’s bed.
So it is a little jarring to wake up being smothered by a lean, masculine octopus.
Sometime in the middle of the night, I must have rolled back over and directly into my best friend’s embrace. He’s got me tucked right up under his chin, his bearded jaw resting on top of my head while his arms are tightly wrapped around my torso. Our legs are intertwined, with one of his hooked over my hip.
And his morning wood is pressing into the side of my stomach, while mine —which isfartoo happy to have any kind of human contact outside of my own hand— is nestled into the crease of his thigh. It should not feel as good as it does. It shouldn’t.
Not only is Evan a man, he’s my best friend.
My dick is only acting this way because he’s sick of being neglected for so long.
I’m still considering the best way to extricate myself from this situation when Ev makes a cute, almost feline chirping sound and stretches, simultaneously tightening his hold on my upper body while arching his back and grinding his swelling cock into my soft abdomen.
I can feel the moment his brain engages —right around the same time I’m afraid I’m going to lose the last hold I have on my sanity and start rutting into him— because he tenses and then laughs.
“Well,” he says, letting go of me and flopping backwards, not at all embarrassed by the tenting in his boxers, “thisreminds me of grade nine, for sure.”
My cheeks flame, and I grab my pillow and plonk it over my erection. “We made a pact not to talk about that.”
Ev turns his head lazily to face me, his expression one of pure amusement. I’ve always been a little jealous of how easily he seems to take everything in stride, like nothing ever fazes him. “It’s been over twenty years, Jay. We were fourteen. Wet dreams happen a lot during puberty.”
I squirm and squeeze my eyes shut. I can’t admit, not even now, that whilehemight have had a wet dream when we were sharing a bed as teenagers, I had been fully conscious of the fact that I was about to come from him grinding against me in my sleep. Then I had come, and he had woken up, and I had been so embarrassed and distraught that he’d agreed that we wouldneverspeak about it.
“Okay, okay,” he laughs and backs off, literally climbing out of his side of the bed, which I only know because the mattress bounces with his movement, “I’ll stick to the pact.” I crack an eye open to watch him pulling fresh clothes out of his overnight bag. “I’m gonna shower.” He glances down at my pillow and smirks. “Unless you need to deal with that first?”
“Shut up and fuck off,” I respond without any heat. “Worry about your own…situation.”
“That’s what the shower’s for,” he acknowledges easily, then ducks into the ensuite.
My heart hammers as I hear the water run, and for some strange reason I can’t stop thinking about the fact that he’s probably jerking off in there. He’s left the door open to let the steam circulate —because he hates trying to dry off in a humid bathroom, something I learned during out first ever sleepover when we were kids— and my stomach does a funny flip to think that I could just lean around the corner and…what the actual fuck am I thinking?
