Looking At Forever (The Rock Gods Book 4) (11 page)

“Football, baseball, and hockey,” Rooster said. He removed the utensils from his pocket and handed some to Wheland before he sat down beside him. “I like just about any sport, except for golf. I’m sorry, but that’s about as exciting to me as watching paint dry.”

Wheland laughed and shoveled a forkful of omelet into his mouth. A moan soon followed and Rooster’s attention snapped toward him.

“Jesus, don’t make sounds like that,” Rooster said. “Makes me a little crazy and I need to replenish some of the calories you worked off me from earlier.”

Wheland swallowed the mouthful of eggs he had and drank his beer. “You good for another round upstairs?”

“Not typically after something that intense, but with you I’m pretty sure I could work up another load,” Rooster said.

Wheland had to adjust the erection beginning to tent the front of his shorts. He needed to switch the direction of their conversation or he’d be throwing Rooster onto his back on the couch and their omelets would be forgotten.

“Does your family know you’re gay?” Wheland asked.

“For the most part they all know,” Rooster said.

“Did you tell them or did they figure it out on their own?”

“My ex-wife took care of that for me,” Rooster said with more than a hint of sarcasm.

“Wow, that sucks,” Wheland said. “How’d they react?”

“My parents say they’re confused by me being gay because they only knew me to be with women. My sister is cool about it,” Rooster said. “It doesn’t matter either way to me what anyone thinks. It’s not their life... it’s mine, and I’ll live it the way that makes me happy.”

Wheland drained his beer. He saw Rooster open his mouth to say more and stop. It was probably an attempt to ask him about his family and Wheland wasn’t ready to go there. Not yet. He stood up from the couch and walked into the kitchen and grabbed two more beers. He was about to walk back into the living room when his phone on the counter buzzed again announcing another message from Cooper. Wheland hit the speed dial for Cooper before he had time to think about it.

“What the fuck do you want?” Wheland asked.

“Jesus, what is your problem, man?” Cooper asked. “I’ve text messaged you half a dozen times and you’re finally getting around to calling me back and you do it with an attitude like this?”

“Did it occur to you I might be busy and maybe that’s why I wasn’t calling you back?” Wheland asked.

“Busy doing what?” Cooper asked. “Besides, nothing keeps you distracted this long. I haven’t heard shit from you since Alex’s wedding. What the hell is going on with you?”

“First off, I didn’t think I needed to check in with you,” Wheland said. “Secondly, what has me distracted is none of your business.”

“Does your bad attitude have something to do with me being with Jayson?” Cooper asked.

“Get over yourself, asshole! We’ve moved past that,” Wheland said. “I don’t give a flying fuck you’re with Jay and I was pretty sure we cleared all up at the wedding.”

There was a pause in the conversation and Wheland wondered if Cooper had ended the call.

“Well, I’m glad you’re over it, because I have some news,” Cooper said.

“Is Jayson having your bastard love child?” Wheland asked.

“You’re such a comedian,” Cooper chuckled. “We’re getting married.”

Wheland couldn’t stop the roar of laughter that erupted from his throat. The silence that greeted him from the other end of the call told him Cooper wasn’t joking.

“You’re fucking serious?” Wheland asked.

“Yep. Sometime next year,” Cooper said.

“Wow, that’s great,” Wheland said flatly.

“You don’t sound very happy,” Cooper said.

“I’m thrilled, but if I were to be totally honest, I’m also a little shocked to hear it,” Wheland said. “I mean, I know you’re really happy with him so I guess this is a good thing, right?”

“It’s a
very
good thing,” Cooper said.

“Then, I truly am happy for you,” Wheland said, and he genuinely meant it. “Give my best to the groom-to-be.”

“I will,” Cooper said.

“Listen, I gotta go,” Wheland said. “I’ll talk to you later.”

Before Cooper had a chance to reply, Wheland ended the call. Wheland took a seat in a chair at the kitchen table and held his head. He couldn’t believe Cooper was following Alex into the uncharted waters of matrimony. In a relatively short span of time, his band mates were all starting to settle down. Even Tony and Jared seemed to be slowing down with the constant flow of new women in and out of their beds and spending more and more time with each other. Everything he knew to be his life was changing before his eyes and now Cooper was getting married. The way things were going, he’d be the only one left alone, and didn’t that feel like a knee to the balls.

The soft strumming sound of a guitar flowed through Wheland’s brain and brought him out of his trance. Apparently, Rooster had found the Gibson six-string acoustic guitar he kept in the living room propped up in its stand. The rich sound of the instrument, and knowing who was playing it, had Wheland smiling.

He stood up and walked to the entrance of the living room and stopped there for a moment and watched Rooster playing. The warmth wrapping around him was like a caress from Rooster; each note delivered like it was another stroke of his fingers on Wheland’s bare skin and Wheland felt it all the way to his toes. He walked back to the couch and sat down beside Rooster. As soon as Rooster saw him, he stopped playing, and set the guitar at his feet, leaning it against the couch.

“Everything okay?” Rooster asked.

Wheland nodded. He saw the concern etched on Rooster’s face and knew it was real. The guy actually seemed to give a shit about him. Wheland’s chest clenched again and that weird bottom-falling-out of his stomach feeling returned.

“Cooper is getting married,” Wheland blurted.

“Married to the guy?” Rooster asked.

“His name is Jayson Keller,” Wheland said.

“Are you happy about that?”

Wheland made eye contact with Rooster and swallowed. He had the sudden urge to talk about his secrets and he wasn’t sure why. There were certain things he just didn’t talk about, ever. He also wasn’t convinced it was the right thing to do, either. “I like Jay and I think he’s good for Cooper.”

“But?” Rooster asked.

“But, what?” Wheland asked.

“It sounds like there’s more to that statement,” Rooster said. He had a strange feeling there was something going on between Wheland and Cooper. If that were the case, Rooster would be gone. There was no way he had the stomach to share Wheland and if there were unresolved
feelings
between them, Rooster needed to know now before he got in over his head and leaving became messy and complicated.

Their gazes held for a long moment and Wheland felt resolve washing over him.
“This is the right thing to do,”
he thought. Rooster deserved to know about him and Cooper, and his gut was telling him his secrets would be safe with Rooster, too.

Wow, had a lover ever made me feel safe?

“There
is
more to that story,” Wheland finally said. “A
lot
more.”

A moment of foreboding ripped through Rooster and he had to fight the urge to get up and walk away. Wheland was the first good thing to happen to him; what was developing between them felt real, but if someone already had Wheland’s heart, Rooster wasn’t about to stand in the way.

Wheland leaned back into the soft leather cushions of the couch and tried to get comfortable. He sighed loudly, dropped his head backward, and closed his eyes. He did his best to arrange the words in his head, knowing that Rooster should hear the whole truth, but he was nervous the words wouldn’t come out right or Rooster might not like what he had to say. What then? Would he walk out? If that were the case, wasn’t it better Wheland knew that now rather than later, maybe after Wheland had developed serious feelings for the man?

“Me and Cooper sort of had a thing,” Wheland said. He kept his eyes closed and waited for a response from Rooster, then felt the cushions shift and feared Rooster was getting up to leave. Sensing that was probably the case, Wheland chose to keep his eyes closed. The last thing he wanted to see was Rooster’s retreating form.

“Sort of had a thing... or still do?” Rooster asked.

“
Completely
in the past,” Wheland said.

A second later, Wheland opened his eyes and felt Rooster’s hand on his shoulder, almost as if he were urging him to keep talking. He saw warmth in Rooster’s eyes reflecting back at him, not the anger he had suspected, and then Rooster nodded for him to keep talking.

“We never told anyone,” Wheland continued. “It was our dirty little secret. I mean, I’m pretty sure Alex sensed we were up to something, but he never busted our balls about it, even though us getting together went against band rules.”

Rooster squeezed Wheland’s shoulder and it seemed to fuel Wheland.

“It was... fucked up,” Wheland said. “I didn’t see it for what it was at the time, but the truth of it was I was using Cooper to figure out my sexuality. I disguised it by bringing him in to play ‘third’ when I was with girls, and shrugged off the few times we were alone to it happening because we were bored. I didn’t understand what it was that I wanted, but Cooper did. Somehow he knew exactly what I wanted and he also knew he couldn’t give it to me. So, he kept me at arm’s length until he met Jayson, then he gave me a good firm shove away from him and told me to go figure it out for myself.”

“Is Cooper the only guy you’ve been with?” Rooster asked, his voice pitched higher with surprise.

“He was the first guy where there was fucking involved. I mean, I got a couple of blowjobs years ago backstage from roadies on our crew, but it never went further and I never reciprocated. But, with Cooper it was different. He allowed me to explore and he never wanted to define what we were doing. It just... was, and that was it.”

“I hate to ask this because it makes me sound like a chick, but were there feelings involved with Cooper?” Rooster asked.

Wheland looked at his lap and shook his head. “I love Cooper like a brother and that will never change. But, there were never any kind of romantic feelings between us, if that’s what you mean. I wasn’t stupid enough to believe that.”

“Did you want there to be something more to it?”

“No. It was just sex,” Wheland said. “Part of me feels a little guilty about using him for my own personal experiments, but I’m grateful he allowed me to do it. I didn’t exactly make it easy on him.”

“What do you mean by that?” Rooster asked.

“Are you sure you want to hear about this?” Wheland asked with a raised brow. “I mean, I don’t want to piss you off over something I consider to be old news.”

“I’m relieved to hear this is in the past, Mick, and I’m fine listening,” Rooster said. “I’m sensing you need to talk about it, so spill.”

“This is... weird,” Wheland said. “It isn’t cool to be talking about an ex-lover with a new one.”

Rooster gave Wheland one of his lop-sided grins. “It doesn’t feel weird to me. All I’m saying is I’m willing to listen if you want to talk about it.”

Wheland nodded and went back to staring blankly at a spot on the wall across the room. “I put a lot of pressure on Cooper to be with me after he got together with Jayson. It was sort of a challenge to see if I could get him to cheat on Jayson, and I was a total dick about it, too.”

“Did you apologize, or is this still a bone of contention between the two of you?”

“We talked about it at Alex’s wedding,” Wheland said. “Cleared the air, I guess you could say, and I said I was sorry, too.”

“Are you jealous he’s with Jayson?” Rooster asked.

“Not at all,” Wheland said, and his voice trailed off. He thought for a full minute before speaking again and he was grateful Rooster was giving him the time to sort it out in his head first. “It all boiled down to me being afraid of losing him,” Wheland finally said. “But, then I realized he was never mine to lose and I had never wanted him that way to begin with.” Wheland laughed, but the emotion never made it into the sound that slipped from his mouth. “I told you it was fucked up,” Wheland said. “I thought being with Cooper was the only way I could be with a man and I was still in denial about why I wanted a connection to a man at all. At Alex’s wedding, Cooper nudged me in the direction of a waiter that was flirting with me the whole night. I decided to go for it and see how I felt afterward.”

“And?”

Wheland looked at Rooster and gave him a shy grin. “The guy let me top him and I loved it.”

“You never topped Cooper?” Rooster asked.

“Cooper hasn’t bottomed for anyone except Jayson, in a very long time,” Wheland said. “I suggested it several times and even attempted it once, but he was not interested in crossing that line with me. I enjoyed what we did, but I think I’m more comfortable being a top.”

“So, I’m only your second bottom?” Rooster asked, with one eyebrow lifted.

“Yep, can you tell I’m still honing my skills?”