Page 71 of Besties
I’m going to admit, I’m not the brightest bulb in the pack. It took me a few moments of him staring at me, his eyebrow arched, to realize what he was saying. Then it clicked. Me? He’d wanted to go on vacation with me? Dude….
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
His cheeks flared. “I’m going to be honest with you. Part of the reason I stayed away so much was that it was becoming increasingly difficult to hide how I felt. I wanted to fly back to Milwaukee and pull you away from whatever… person—”
“You can say jerks. I admit I had really bad taste.”
“Fine. From whateverassholeyou were with and let you know there were other options. That you deserved someone who cared about you and would walk alongside you, not expect you to trail behind them like a fucking dog!” He squeezed his eyes shut, balled his hands into fists, and his face went scarlet. His anger on my behalf was something to behold.
“Hey, stop.” I put a hand on his chest, kneading the muscles gently. “Richie, listen to me.”
He took a few deep breaths, then opened his eyes and gave me a soft smile. “Sorry.”
“No, don’t be. I can’t tell you how hot that was.” I stood on my toes and kissed his chin. Damn giants. “Okay, how about this, then. You and me, we’ll take two weeks every year and go somewhere. We can throw a dart at a map, and wherever it lands, we’ll head there and decompress.” Except, I wasn’t sure when I’d get a vacation. “At least as soon as I’ve been here long enough to take one.”
He chuckled. “Everyone gets two weeks’ vacation when they start. You can go anytime you want.”
Man, this was a kick-ass place to work. “Then how about it? Will you go with me?”
He gave a heart-melting smile as he reached for my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Any and everywhere.”
He was about to say something else when his phone rang. He frowned. “It’s Josh.” He swiped his thumb over the screen. “Good afternoon, Josh.”
His scowl eased and morphed into a smile.
“Really? You didn’t have it for long. … Oh, you checked the additions to the original. Smart. And it looks good?” A chuckle. “Okay, it looks great. … Yes, I’ll let Max know. Thank you for calling.”
They exchanged a few more words, and then Richie put his phone back into his pocket. “That was Josh.”
“Nooooo, really? Gee. I’m so glad you told me. I would never have guessed.”
“Smartass.”
He was quiet a few moments, but I wasn’t patient enough to wait. “Are you going to tell me what he said?”
Richie shrugged. “I’m not sure you deserve to know.”
Oh, he could be such a bastard. “Richie….”
“Oh, it’s Richie when you want something, but you called me Richard when you wanted to yell at me.”
I did? Fuck, I had. Richie hated being called Richard by anyone, but especially by me. He told me that it was a name he only wanted to hear from his mother when she was pissed, and not something from a friend’s mouth.
Only….
“It’s not because I’m your friend, is it?”
He paused for a second, then shook his head. “I love hearing my name from you. When we were younger, it was one of the things I liked best. Please don’t call me anything else.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Please forgive me.”
He leaned down and brushed our lips together. “If you suck my dick tonight, that’ll make up for it.”
I widened my eyes. “You dirty man. How dare you think that I would do something so crass.”
He stuck out his bottom lip, giving me an adorable pout. “So no blow job?”
I reached down and slid a hand over his pants, not at all surprised to find him getting hard. “Fuck, I’ll do it now, if you want.” I could tell he was torn, so I took the temptation away. “What did Josh say?”
