Accidentally in Love (4 page)

Tom finished folding his clean laundry, tucked the small pile of Tshirts into their drawer, and glanced at the clock again. Cal’s flight was supposed to have landed almost two hours before, so he should be home anytime now.

It was the second work trip Cal had taken since he’d moved into Tom’s house a month ago. They’d been getting along well enough that Tom, much as he liked his privacy, had actually been looking forward to Cal getting back. He’d always been grateful for the quiet when Sally was gone for a long weekend, but somehow the past few days the house had seemed lonely.

He was working on a grocery list at the small table in the kitchen when he heard the closing of car doors in the driveway, followed by the sound of a car pulling away. Cal usually got a cab from the airport, claiming it was cheaper than leaving his car in the long-stay parking lot. Tom suspected that Cal just didn’t want to stick to coffee on a long, dull flight. A minute later, there were voices—more than one—and the scrape of a key in the lock of the front door.

“What time is it, anyway?” he heard Calvin asking whoever he was with. “Come on, let’s get upstairs to my room before—mm, yeah, do that again.”

Calvin and some other guy with blond hair—Cal did seem to have a type—stumbled around the corner, kissing and groping each other. It took a few seconds for them to notice Tom and stop what they were doing.

“Oh, hey,” Cal said, and Tom knew immediately that Cal was drunk. “This is… Sorry, what’s your name again?”

“Barney,” the guy said, apparently not offended by the fact that Cal had forgotten his name.

“Right, right. Like Neil Patrick Harris’s character on that show!” Cal snapped his fingers. “I can’t remember that either.”

“
S’okay
,” Barney said. “I forgot your name too.”

They laughed like that was hilarious and went back to kissing with a lot of tongue, their hands exploring each other’s bodies with a complete lack of inhibition. Tom, watching, frozen with embarrassment, thought with a detached part of his mind that it was like a documentary on the sex life of the octopus. When Cal deftly unzipped Barney’s jeans—complete with a designer label to underscore that they weren’t just any jeans—and shoved his hand down the front of them, Tom snapped out of it.

“Could you take it upstairs?” he said, pitching his voice loud enough to get over the sound of the slurping.

Barney turned his head, the sunglasses he’d shoved up to rest on top of it miraculously still in place. “That depends, honey. Is the bed big enough for three?”

“What?” Tom was still holding on to the pencil he’d been writing with. He felt it against his palm—smooth, cylindrical—and became aware that he was gripping it tightly enough to hurt. He addressed Cal, not Barney. “I don’t know. Why, did you pick up two men on the flight?”

“Why would he want to when he was sitting next to the hottest guy on it?” Barney said.

Tom shook his head. Never argue with someone who was drunk. That was something he’d learned the hard way at college. “Whatever. The stairs are that way, and I’m sure Cal remembers where his room is.”

“Yeah,” Cal said. “I think I can find it.” A look crossed his face that Tom couldn’t have translated; then Cal led his new friend up the stairs. One of them stumbled and cursed—Tom was uncharitable enough to be annoyed that neither of them seemed to be hurt—then, thankfully, there was the bang of Cal’s bedroom door closing.

Unfortunately, it turned out the closed door wasn’t thick enough to contain the moans that followed nor the distinct, rhythmic squeak of Cal’s bed frame once things got a little more heated. Embarrassed, Tom fled to his own room, hoping that the change of location might help muffle things more effectively.

It didn’t.

“Yeah, like that, baby!” It wasn’t Cal’s voice, so it had to be Barney’s.
Baby
? Seriously? If that was how the typical gay man talked while having sex, Tom was grateful he wasn’t the typical gay man. “God, yeah. Fuck me!”

He could feel his cheeks heating and reached over to flip the button on his clock radio that would turn on his favorite local station. There, finally. He adjusted the volume up and lay back, looking down at his toes instead of at the ceiling. The worst song in the world would have been preferable right then.

The faint squeaking of the bed continued for another ten minutes or so. There was a shout, and everything went quiet. Thank fuck for that.

Tom exhaled, long and slow. So. Sex took as long as the time between commercial breaks. Good to know.

He closed his eyes. He wasn’t hard, not from listening to that frankly pathetic display of rut. He felt like jerking off anyway, just to beat that time. Ten minutes? He could spin it out for an hour sometimes, just letting the feelings build, then taking his hand away, teasing himself mercilessly, the scenes behind his eyes unspooling in detailed, familiar fantasies that left him shaking, his cock rigid and slick between his fingers.

Sex with someone wouldn’t be as good as that, couldn’t be. He could climax with his body left weak and trembling from the force of it, pleasure so intense it made the world go away, just for a moment.

He didn’t want to swap that for what Calvin so obviously enjoyed: a quick, graceless fumble and jerk with a stranger.

Of course, there could be something else, a connection formed, love in the equation, but at twenty-four, Tom had given up on that. For other people, sure, just not for him. He’d never met anyone he’d had more than a passing crush on, and he’d certainly never had anyone come on to him. Why would they? He wasn’t ugly, no; even worse, he was dull, the diametric opposite to cool, and being gay didn’t help. Gay men had standards too.

He remembered one girl who’d asked him out, desperate to be with someone,
anyone
, at a high school dance. He’d told her he was gay, and she’d refused to believe him. With her face a humiliated, blotchy red, she’d told him that he couldn’t be gay, because gay men knew how to dress and be charming, and he was a joke.

Of course he remembered her. He’d always remember her, from the pain in her eyes to the cruel tone of her voice. Her words had rung in his ears for weeks, and an echo of them persisted still, taunting him with the reality that he wasn’t the kind of guy who would ever find a boyfriend, that any sexual encounter he managed would be a fluke.

It was such a depressing thought that it made him want to pull the covers over his head and never get up again. He was profoundly aware of how alone he was. It sucked.

* * *

The next morning, Tom woke late after a restless night with every creaking floorboard jolting him awake. He wasn’t sure he could handle another round if Cal and his friend were in the mood for dessert.

Even after getting up later than usual, he was still downstairs before the other two. He started a pot of coffee and watched it fill, staring at the rising level without really seeing it. He couldn’t do this. He’d known that Cal would bring people back; that was a given. He just hadn’t thought it would be shoved in his face like this. Cal had hooked up with at least one other man in the month he’d been living at Tom’s. That time, he’d gone back to the guy’s place, rolling in the next morning looking sleepy, sated, and with a hickey on his neck.

By the time the coffeemaker beeped to signal that it’d finished brewing, he’d made up his mind. He’d give Cal time to find another place, but he was ending their agreement.

He heard footsteps on the stairs and tensed, his hands curled around the mug he was holding, the heat seeping into his cold hands. Silly for them to be chilled when the temperature was rising into the red outside.

There was a murmur of voices, and he stood, leaving the mug on the table, and walked out into the hall. His hall. His house. He wasn’t going to hide in the kitchen, too scared to venture out.

In daylight, Barney’s glamour had diminished considerably. His hair was sticking up in places, and his face had a pallor even a tan couldn’t hide. Tom noted the bags under his eyes with a grim satisfaction that he knew was petty.

“I hear the cab,” Barney said as Tom walked through the archway leading into the hall. “See you around, Tiger.”

Okay, that was worse than baby.

Cal yawned widely and scratched at his ass through a navy blue silk robe that hit him
mid thigh
. Somehow, he pulled it off, if only barely. “Sure thing,” he said, his voice clogged with sleep.

Barney glanced at Tom and frowned in what seemed to be genuine bewilderment.
Great
. He’d clearly forgotten Tom existed. A car horn sounded, and Barney shrugged and raised his hand in a casual wave. “Bye.”

The door slammed behind him, and Cal winced. “Too loud,” he murmured to the door.

“No kiss good-bye?” Tom inquired acidly.

The look Cal gave him was just as bewildered as the one Barney had, like he had no idea for the reasons behind Tom’s tone. “No.”

Tom took a few steps forward, anger flaring at Cal’s obliviousness. He’d been wondering if Cal would be contrite, maybe offer apologies. It seemed unlikely now. “Okay, how about his name? Or have you forgotten it again?”

“Why does it matter? Not like I’ll ever see him again.” Cal adjusted the belt on his robe and rubbed a hand across his mouth. “Hey, is there coffee?”

“Is there coffee?” Tom repeated, incredulity making his normally deep voice rise higher. “Yeah, there is, you fucking asshole, and I’d pour it down the sink before I’d give you a cup.”

Cal seemed to really wake up for the first time. He gaped at Tom, clearly shocked. “Wait, what? What…huh?”

“I’m sorry. Does flying drunk give you jet lag even when you don’t cross a time zone?” Tom asked, striding up to Cal, close enough that he could smell him, sweat and musk and stale alcohol. It wasn’t exactly appealing, but for all that, something was making his body react in a way that he didn’t like. Cal had just crawled out of bed, and Tom couldn’t help wondering what he’d done there, or look away from the generous amounts of skin Cal’s skimpy robe was exposing. Annoyance made him even more sarcastic. “Or did you hit your head too many times against the headboard last night and get amnesia?”

“I don’t have amnesia,” Cal said slowly. “Why are you so pissed off? What, you’re mad that I didn’t know that guy?”

Tom snorted. “As if I care! I saw your seduction technique at that party, remember? I knew you’d screw anything that moved. I just didn’t think you liked an audience for it. I’d say next time you bring someone back here, wait to get behind a closed door to start taking off your clothes, but there won’t
be
a next time. I want you to get the hell out of here as soon as you can find somewhere else. And find somewhere fast.”

“Huh? Are you serious? What, are you jealous or something? Because you never said anything before about me not bringing anyone back here, and if you had, I never would have agreed to this whole thing in the first place!” Cal was waking up and apparently getting more annoyed as he did so. “Are you telling me that your female roommates never had a boyfriend spend the night?”

“
Barney
was hardly a boyfriend,” Tom sneered.

“Look, I don’t think that’s the point. Let’s talk about this,” Cal said reasonably.

“Let’s talk about me being treated like a joke in my own house,” Tom said, his voice cold. “Let’s talk about you and your friend rutting a few yards away from me and your boyfriend inviting me to join you. Not that he meant it; I know that. I still can’t say I appreciated it. And no, being drunk doesn’t buy you a pass. You both acted like inconsiderate assholes. I don’t care about him. Knowing the way you work, you’ll never see him again. You, though—I have to see you all the time, and right now, looking at you makes me want to throw up.”

“I’m sorry.” Cal looked it. God, he was beautiful, standing there in nothing more than a robe, and Tom hated himself for thinking it. “Tom, seriously. You’re right, and I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how it would seem from your point of view—which means I suck, because it was totally thoughtless of me not to consider your feelings. I really, really didn’t mean for you to feel like a joke, and if you’ll give me another chance, I promise it won’t happen again.”

Tom opened his mouth to say something dismissive. Cal held up a hand to stop him.

“No, please. Whatever you’re thinking, you’re right. I don’t disagree with you. And it’s not that I don’t want to have to move. I mean, I don’t, obviously. I
like
you, Tom, and I hate that this happened. I’d take it back if I could, I swear. I’m sorry.” Cal’s hazel eyes were soulful, and if Tom had ever heard a more genuine, thorough apology, he couldn’t remember when.

He bit his lip, some of his outrage draining away, leaving a sick disappointment behind directed at both of them. Cal had behaved badly; that was definite. Cal’s unstudied response was telling Tom he had overreacted, though, something that had happened in the past.

“You know, there’re times I feel like an alien,” Tom said bitterly. “You’re being nice now, but you’re thinking…what…that I’m just too innocent to live or prudish as hell, right?”

“Not at all,” Cal said. “I’m thinking that I was a jerk and that I owe you more than an apology to make up for it. Let me take you out to dinner tonight, anywhere you want.”