“I did, a fuckton of times. I was just so lost in my own bullshit. In the parties, in the lack of responsibilities. My dad bankrolled everything, and it gave me zero drive. When I dropped out of law school, that was it, game over. I went full steam ahead with being a closeted playboy. I lost myself. When Mav would come home to visit, I’d always come up with an excuse. I didn’t want to see my family. I was scared of seeing you. I was so stupid, looking back now…”
I scratched the top of Tammy’s head, her eyes drifting shut. She seemed so peaceful between us, completely unaware of the overpacked baggage we were currently unloading around her.
“I was so angry with that text, I didn’t even think about it for a while. I even stopped talking to Mav for a couple of months. I was scared he’d bring you up. I think he eventually got an idea something happened, though, because he started to avoid the topic. He’d get asked about you sometimes, and he’d just shrug and say you were doing fine, but I noticed the looks he’d shoot my way. He knew.”
“Really? I don’t know about that. I think he would have said something to me. We’re open about everything.”
“Clearly not everything,” I said, motioning between us. “What do you think he’d say?” I asked. Maverick was five years older than us and had been adopted as a baby, so he was in the family long before we arrived, but from the second Dusty and I became a part of the Golds, he had effortlessly taken on the older-brother role, teaching us how to ride bikes, how to throw footballs, how to build a computer. How to be respectful and kind and how to powerfully stand up for what you believe is right. He had all kinds of interests, and he chased them all with an impressive amount of success. It showed in his pocketbook, seeing as he was probably one of the most successful out of all of us.
Mav also tended to have a bit of an unpredictable streak in him.
“About us hooking up? I think he’d be fine with it. He’s protective, but he’s also level-headed. As long as we’re happy, I think that’s all that matters with him.”
Rex had moved his hand at some point, leaving mine resting on his thigh. I didn’t even realize I was rubbing him in slow circles; it felt like such a natural motion. I stopped, looking over at him. Our eyes locked and my breath hitched, catching somewhere between my constricting throat and hammering heart.
Hooking up… like the other night… I could still taste him… Feel him…
Fuck, I want him. So fucking bad.
Rex moved closer to me, but I was the one who pushed into the kiss, crushing my lips against his, unable to stop myself, never wanting to stop myself. Not with Rex, not again.
I leaned into him, making sure not to crush Tammy. I kissed him like I’d been lost at sea, coming home to my crying partner waiting for me at the shoreline. I kissed him and breathed him in and memorized his tantalizing taste on my tongue, the way his beard tickled my face and how his big hands came up to cup my head, encompassing my entire fucking face with how big they were.
A firework show of emotions blasted through me. It was a rush. An overwhelming, overheating, overstimulating kind of rush. My eyes were shut as we kissed, but I could feel tears welling up, ready to break the dam. It wasn’t a sadness exactly—there’s no way you could ever be sad with such a sexy hunk of man parting your lips with his tongue… No, it wasn’t sadness that was starting to make me cry. It was a mix of pent-up and coiled-together emotions that had been stuffed down somewhere beneath the surface. Under the constant numbness that had been haunting me for so long.
I opened my eyes, breaking from the kiss, looking into Rex’s steel-blue gaze. It felt like coming home, like being wrapped in a blue blanket pulled right from my favorite childhood moment. It was near unexplainable, considering I spent the last six years of my life convincing myself that Rex Madison was not the one who got away.
Not this time. I wasn’t going to waste any more time. I felt like I was riding a high, straight up into the stratosphere, so I had to capitalize on it. I had to make a leap into the unknown. This was the first time in a very, very long time that I wanted to even make a leap at all.
So I asked my next question, leaping headfirst into the dark waters of wild impulses:
“Rex, this is nuts, but… fuck it. Would you be my boyfriend?”
And I was quickly torn in half by the great white shark of disappointment and instant regret.
12
Rex Madison
The question caught me off guard. If we were standing, I probably would have been blown over.
I never did well with surprises.
“I, uhm, I, Benj, that’s, uhm….”
I stuttered, looking for an answer. The simple one would have been Fuck yeah. Let’s be boyfriends. Let’s make up for lost time and give this undeniable connection between us a real shot.
Instead, I stuttered. And that might as well have been the equivalent of spitting in Benji’s face. I watched him shut down in real time, his head dropping, his eyes shutting, back caving in.
“It’s not that I don’t want to be with you,” I said, trying to control as much of the damage as possible as I watched our rekindling relationship drive itself off a steep ravine. “I just… it’s—” Fuck, just say yes. That’s all.
Except, how could I say yes when I was still dealing with the fallout of being deep in the closet? How could I say yes, knowing that there was a sex tape ready to drop at any second? He’d be dragged into the discourse; one way or another, he’d be affected by it.
And it would have been my fault.
Benji was already dealing with enough as it is. Could I risk adding any more on his plate?
“There’s still a lot I’m dealing with, Benji. I don’t think it would be fair to you. Not right now.”
He nodded slowly, and his eyes turned away from mine. I stepped in it, for fucking sure. I fucked up.
“Listen, it’s got nothing to do with you,” I said, still trying to save something from the burning wreckage.
“No, I get it.” He looked up to the darkening sky, the moon shining full and bright even though a few dying rays of sunlight still clung to the horizon. “I get it. I got carried away by it all. I should have kept my mouth shut. It was stupid.”
“It wasn’t stupid, Benj.”
“It was. I made a mistake. It’s the only thing I can really even do—make mistakes.” He stood. I could see this wasn’t going anywhere good, so I reached for his hand, grabbing his wrist. He looked down at me before sitting back on the blanket. Tammy must have sensed something was up. She stood, stretched with a small yawn, and went off to lie underneath a tree.
“Don’t say that about yourself, Benji. You’re a Gold. You’re meant to do big things in your life, I got zero doubt about that.”
“Meanwhile, I’m blurting out crazy questions and ruining my shot at actually being happy.” He started to stand again. This time, he pulled his hand from my grip. I could tell he was beginning to spiral. His face seemed to be cast in shadow even though I could still make out every little line, every tiny twitch. “I’m not mad at you,” he said. “I’m more mad at myself… Just forget it, Rex. Forget all of it. This was all a big mistake.”