Back to You (3 page)

“Hey, it’s really nice to meet you, Riley,” I told him as I reached out to shake his hand.

He looked wary as he returned the sentiment. “It’s nice to meet you too, Tyler.”

It was a bit of an awkward silence for us all before Andrew spoke up. “Well, our movie starts in like twenty minutes so we need to be going.”

Robyn looked at Riley and seemed a bit undecided as to whether or not she should leave him there with me. She put her arm around him and asked him quietly, “Are you going be okay?” He nodded slowly and she hugged him tight before letting go uncertainly. She then turned to hug me and whispered, “Take care of him, Ty. He’s pretty shy.”

“I will.” I nodded and gave her a little squeeze to assure her that Riley was in good hands before they turned to leave. Riley was staring at the floor and I was suddenly hyperaware that the whole situation felt suspiciously like a set up. Those bastards.

“Do you want something to drink before we go or would you rather just head out to dinner?”

He looked up and smiled timidly. “Dinner, please.”

It only took us about fifteen minutes before we pulled into a stall in a parking garage downtown. I made sure to point out different restaurants that were good along with a few clubs that were pretty gay-friendly on our way to Lazzari's
, the Italian restaurant I'd chosen for us.

When we were finally seated at our table inside the restaurant and had given our drink orders to the waitress, I tried to break the ice a bit. “Robyn tells me you just moved to Lincoln; where are you from originally?”

He cleared his throat before he answered. “A small town in Kansas where being gay and open was not an option if you wanted to make it out in one piece.”

Our drinks arrived at that moment, a beer for me and Coke for him, so Riley took a drink before continuing. “It’s so different here not having to hide who I am that I forget a lot of the time. That’s why I need to know where to go to have some fun and meet people with similar interests. I'm tired of sitting in my apartment being lame.”

I smiled. “I'm sure you're not lame; it can't be easy to leave everything behind and start over in a new place.”
Unless, of course, your name is Alex and it's me you're leaving behind to start over.

I decided the snide comments in my head probably wouldn't help the situation so I put them aside.

Riley looked around the restaurant like he was still nervous to be there with a man on what would appear to be a date to some people.

“Hey,” I said quietly, trying not to startle him. His head snapped back to mine and his cheeks
pinked up a little. “It's okay,” I told him. “There are always going to be assholes but I've never run into a problem here. Someone will always disagree with our lifestyle but you need to live for you.”

“I know,” he sighed, looking a little embarrassed. “It’s a bad habit, I guess.”

“It's never a bad thing to be aware of your surroundings or the potential for a date to go bad, but I'd really like to see you relax. No matter what happens tonight, I'm not going to let anyone ruin your first real night out in a new town.”

The smile that crept across his face was almost breathtaking. I hadn't seen a full-on genuine smile from him up until that point and, man, did it look good on him. I was pretty sure that we were going to have a great night and most of the guys in the club were going to be super jealous of me.

“So, is this a date then?” he asked with almost a teasing quality in his voice, one eyebrow raised. “Because Andrew advised me not to get my hopes up or anything.”

I had just taken a drink of my beer and nearly choked on it as his question caught me off guard.
Was it a date? I wasn't ready to date again, was I?

“I'm not sure how to answer that without getting into a long, complicated back story...”

Riley's musical laugh cut off my explanation and it was a beautiful sound. Apparently, he was either starting to get comfortable with me or the atmosphere was helping him to relax a bit and I decided that I was really starting to like him.

“I'm just messing with you, Tyler. Andrew gave me a short run down of what happened, and I don't know how I'd be feeling in your situation so let's just hang out, have some fun.”

The food arrived just then and we sat back talking about anything and everything and when Riley really let his guard down he was funny, quick-witted, and just an overall nice person to talk to.

Yeah, I could definitely see us becoming friends.

Alex

“Hey, Alex! Wait!”

I turned to find my best friend Donny hurrying down the crowded street, weaving in and out of people, trying to get to me. I stepped out of the early morning stream and into the doorway of Sweet Things, a bakery and one of my favorite places to get donuts and coffee on Saturday mornings.

He finally reached me, a little out of breath. “Dude, you left your wallet on my nightstand.” He handed me the black leather wallet with mine and Tyler’s name stamped into the side that Tyler had gotten me for my birthday shortly before I'd left Lincoln.

“Thanks, Donny. You know how much this means to me.” My fingers trailed along the smooth edges of the worn leather where Tyler's name was stamped. It was one of the few material things I had to remind me of the man I'd loved enough to let go.
And I'd just left it on the nightstand of the man I'd slept with the night before. Good going, asshole.

“Yeah, I know...” His face scrunched up as he wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “Want to grab a coffee while we're here?”

“Sure.”

We walked into the bakery and Tanya greeted us. She was my favorite employee at the bakery, always so upbeat and cheerful. “Hey, boys, what'll it be today?” she asked with a wink and a grin.

“The usual coffees and two blueberry muffins.” I grabbed my card out of my wallet to pay and Donny took the coffees to an empty table in the corner.

“That'll be seven fifty-three, sweetie.” I handed her my card and thanked her before turning to join Donny.

“Thanks for the coffee, Alex. You didn't have to pay for mine.”

I handed him one of the muffins and sat down across from him. “No problem, just a little thank you for bringing my wallet to me. I would hate to think I lost it.”

“Like you said earlier, I know how important it is.” He took a bite of his muffin and looked down at the table.

I'd met Donny at Michelangelo's, the restaurant where I was currently employed as the head chef. He'd been a waiter when I’d first started there as a sous chef just under two years prior. He’d been really friendly, offering to let me stay with him for a few weeks until I could find a place to live, claiming that staying at a hotel was just going to drain the money I needed to be saving. Ultimately, he was the one who’d secured a place for me to live in the apartment complex that we both lived in now.

Since I’d been new to town, he’d shown me around his favorite places and introduced me to some of his friends, which was really nice because without Tyler, my life had become pretty sad. The group he hung around with was great and tried to include me whenever they went out but I’d pretty much been a downer back then.

Donny and I became close really fast, and he was the first person I was able to tell all of the details about my breakup with Tyler. He saw firsthand how devastated I’d been and how quickly I’d been spiraling into a severe depression. He was the one who suggested I meet with his friend Daniel who was a therapist.

The therapy had helped me tremendously and I still went to see Daniel when things were starting to pile up on me or if I suddenly had an overwhelming surge of anger, because even though it had been two years, not a day went by that I didn't think about Tyler and how much I still loved him.

Daniel made me realize that just because I'd left Tyler didn't mean I had to stop loving him, and in all actuality, leaving symbolized how much more I valued him than myself. I hadn't wanted to see him hurting anymore and our being together wasn't making him happy, no matter how much we loved each other.

“Alex?” Donny waved his hand in front of my face and snapped my attention back to reality. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, sorry. I sort of went a million miles away for a second.”
Or more like six hundred and fifty.

“Thinking about him again?”

“At least once or twice a day still,” I answered honestly, looking him in the eye.

I saw a flash of something in his face but I was a little uncertain as to what it was. Sadness? Maybe jealousy? It wasn't a good thing to see, I thought.

Donny and I had some serious physical chemistry but I'd made it clear before we'd proceeded with any of it that my heart was off limits and that anything that happened between us would be strictly physical. He was stunning to look at and felt even better underneath me but I wasn't sure my heart would ever be on the same page. I was starting to get the feeling that he was interested in more than just the physical, which meant that we were probably going to have to cool it down. To be honest, that made me a little sad.

I didn't really have it in me to go to the clubs and search for someone when I had that itch that needed to be scratched, because I wasn't the type to sleep with random strangers, but I didn't want to end up taking advantage of my best friend either. I supposed we needed to have a talk about things soon.

“So, are you still coming by tonight after work?” he asked. “The guys are going to be there for a while.”

Jonathan, Tanner, and Adam were the guys he was referring to, and I hadn't seen them in a couple weeks because I'd been filling in for my assistant chef on my days off while she had some personal things going on. “Yeah, I'll stop by for a while but I'm not sure I can stay long.”

You'd think I’d just told him I’d run over his puppy with the way his face fell at my statement.
Yeah, definitely going to need to have a talk about that.

“Okay, well, I'm gonna get going.” He stood and threw his cup in the garbage can that was a few steps away from the table. “I'll see you after work then.” Donny no longer worked for Michelangelo's because after we started sleeping together, both of us could have gotten fired and he’d insisted that he could find a waiting job at any restaurant and that I should keep the chef’s job.

“Yeah, I'll be there.” I got up and pulled him into a hug, hating the sad look I'd put on his face, and I felt him relax against me momentarily before he pulled away.

“See ya later, Alex.” And with that, he turned and walked away.

God, you're good at screwing things up, aren't you, Alex?

I stood there for a few moments wondering how to fix things with Donny and came up with nothing so I left, saying good-bye to Tanya on my way out.

It was my first day off in two weeks so I decided to hit the gym before heading back to my apartment. Usually, lifting weights was a good way to clear my head but it didn't do anything to help me that time. It basically ended up making me more frustrated than I'd started off, which was never a good thing. Frustration tended to start the ball rolling on a bad day, which typically ended up with me getting either too drunk to function or incredibly angry at the world, and I still needed to have a conversation with Donny later.

As I walked into my apartment, I stripped out of my sweat-soaked shirt and made a beeline for the shower. I felt really dirty with all of my emotions and thoughts piling up on me, not to mention that I'd skipped the shower at the gym because I needed to be alone and there were too many people in the locker room.

I stood under the pulsating stream of scalding hot water for what felt like forever, trying to clear my head. I didn't want to lose my friendship with Donny. He was the only person since Tyler that I'd trusted enough to really let loose with. How was I going to preserve that friendship and not break his heart in the process?

It was times like those that I
really
missed Tyler. He could melt the stress out of me with one touch, one strategically placed kiss on my neck, one sexy little smile that silently promised all the dirty things he would do to me later that night. I pictured his gorgeous face looking at me like he wanted to eat me right up and my body began to respond accordingly.

I was achingly hard in seconds, like pretty much every time I thought of him. I grabbed the shower gel and poured some into my palm before grabbing my cock and stroking it. I could clearly envision Tyler on his knees in front of me, ready to suck down every inch of me. He wasn't built as big as I was but his muscles were well defined on his average height, lean and gorgeous body. I imagined he took me into his mouth and I could feel the warm, wet heat surround me as my fingers slid up and down my shaft, twisting around the head exactly like I liked it.

He sucked harder, taking me down even farther into his throat and I felt everything as if he was really there. I was flying high, the buzz of adrenaline racing through my veins, ready to shoot my load down his throat as my grip tightened and the coil of pleasure exploded.

I felt the warm wetness hit my hand and I was immediately thrust back into the here and now. Standing in my shower as the water began to cool down, I hurried to wash up, the disappointment of reality settling down upon me like a black cloud as it did every time I realized that it was nothing but a fantasy.