“I’m dead.” Matt flopped onto my bed dramatically, his limbs spread out like a starfish.
“Shove over.” I slapped his thigh.
“Can’t. I’m dead.”
“You big baby.” I sat next to him and shoved my hands under his hip to roll him over.
“Asshole,” he grumbled as he landed on his stomach.
I lay next to him and folded my hands on my chest. Matt flipped over and settled next to me.
We’d just finished practice and come back to my room, which was closer to the field than his house. Coach had been in a mood, and we’d spent the entire four-hour practice running drills. I was exhausted too.
“I’m not moving. I live here now.” Matt sighed heavily.
I snickered. “What about dinner?”
“Door Dash something from my phone.” He wiggled his hips, his way of telling me to get his phone out of his pocket. “Something with lots of carbs and cheese.”
“Pizza?”
“Yeah. Add in some cheesy garlic bread, wings, and extra dipping sauce.”
“Vegetarian okay, to offset all the extras?” I slipped my hand into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
He shot me a scandalized look. “Fuck no. It’s a cheat day, and we’re going all out. Sausage, pepperoni, bacon, ham, and that fancy sausage that starts with a c.”
I used my fingerprint to unlock his phone. We’d both added each other’s biometrics to our security because of how often we used each other’s phones.
“Chorizo?”
“Yup. I want all the meat tonight.”
I chuckled at his dreamy tone. “Pineapple and hot peppers too?”
“Fine. But no mushrooms.”
When the order was paid for and processing, I exited out of the app and put his phone on his stomach.
A week had passed since Matt and I had gotten off together.
We’d woken up the next day and gone to the morning workout like nothing had happened, and had gone out with the team like always.
We hadn’t talked about what we’d done, but that was probably for the best. Matt had his answers, and I’d helped my bro out. No biggie.
“I told my parents I’m not coming home for Christmas break.”
I turned to him. “What?”
He shrugged, his eyes closed and his face relaxed. “You’re not going home. I figured I’d stay here and keep you company. Besides, it’s not like going home is any fun.”
My parents made okay money, but we weren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination. My father was in the air force and planned to retire in a few years. My mother had followed my father around as he’d been posted to various bases and worked whatever jobs she could to help make ends meet.
Traveling between the United States and Canada was expensive, especially with the exchange rate and with me having limited time during holidays thanks to my baseball schedule. Things had been easier when they’d lived in BC and I could take the ferry to visit them, but my dad had been transferred to the East Coast my sophomore year, so I only got to see them during the summer, and it fucking sucked. We were a tight-knit family, and I missed them.
“What did they say?”
“Not much.” He cracked one eye open. “I told them Coach had scheduled some extra practices this year, and it didn’t make sense to drive down and have to drive back after only a few days. Especially since they won’t be around. Mom’s going… somewhere. I can’t remember. And Dad just told me to make sure I didn’t lose my starting spot. And watch what I ate so I didn’t get fat.”
I didn’t understand Matt’s family. His parents were together in the sense that they shared a house and were married, but they lived their own lives. His mom was a trust fund baby and was always jetting off to some vacation spot or another. She also sat on a bunch of committees that did charity work for various things, so she was never around when she was home.
His dad had inherited a fleet of car dealerships from his father. From what I gathered, he had other people run the business and spent most of his time networking and schmoozing with other rich guys.
The only time his dad seemed interested in his life was when he pestered Matt about baseball or the frat. His mother seemed to forget he existed at all.
Matt played it off, but I knew it bothered him. And the little comments his dad would drop, like telling him to watch what he ate so he didn’t gain weight, boiled my blood. Parents weren’t supposed to talk to their kids like that. It was no wonder Matt was so hard on himself and had a constant loop of self-criticism running through his head when that was all he’d heard growing up.
I had no clue what his parents’ stance on the LGBT community was, but Matt had always been a loud and proud ally. Or was he one of us?
Had our little experiment satisfied his curiosity? Was my straight-as-a-bat buddy actually straight, or was he bi-curious? Or maybe bi?
He’d initiated everything, and he’d been the one to up the ante in his bed. He’d wanted it, and he’d gotten off.
Matt was a fascinating mix of casual and intense. He was laid back and went with the flow, but he felt things deeply, was a chronic overthinker, and was empathetic to a fault. He was also a people pleaser, which meant he went along with things rather than rock the boat.
During our first year on the team, a few of the seniors had ragged on Matt for how close we were and made jokes about how him being gay for me. He’d laughed it off and told them to stop being homophobic assholes, which was ballsy as fuck for a freshman.
He’d told me more than once he didn’t care if people thought we were fucking or couldn’t get past their own hang-ups and assumed that a gay and straight guy couldn’t be close.
Only one other guy had ever stood up for me like that. Damon, my best friend in high school, had been the same way. He’d played ball too, center field, and had been the one to encourage me to be open about my sexuality when we’d met after Dad had been transferred to Victoria the summer before freshman year.
I’d taken the leap and come out the next year. Most people hadn’t cared, a few had been surprised, and a couple hadn’t been all that happy to have a gay on the team.
Damon had stuck by me through the innuendos and teasing and told everyone who would listen that he would throw hands if anyone fucked with me for liking dick. He’d brushed off the comments about him being gay or being my bottom or whatever. To him, being gay wasn’t an insult or a bad thing, so he didn’t give a flying fuck if people thought he was.
A wave of nostalgia washed over me. I hadn’t spoken to Damon in a few weeks because I’d been stressed about finals. He’d torn his ACL our senior year and had to give up playing competitively. He was studying chemical engineering at the University of Toronto. It wasn’t the life he’d dreamed of, but he was happy.
“What are you thinking about?”
I startled at Matt’s voice. “Just making a mental note to message Damon this weekend.”
“Have you heard from him lately?”
“A few weeks ago. He was stressed about finals and shit too.”
Matt made a soft sound I couldn’t interpret.
“Do you want to go to Red’s tonight?” I asked.
He sighed. “We probably should. Cooper’s in one of his team-building moods, and we’re already on his shit list for bailing last week.”
I chuckled softly. Our team captain was a great guy, and he took his role seriously. When he invited you to go out with the team, it wasn’t a request.
At least tonight was just supposed to be us. I didn’t mind when the girlfriends were invited along, but sitting in a crowd of couples was a not-so-fun reminder I wasn’t allowed to have that. It also meant that things would break up early, and no one would be getting sloppy drunk because of our team workout in the morning.
“How long until the food gets here?” he asked.
“Check your phone.”
“That’s work. You do it.”
“It’s on top of you.” I hit my knee against his. “How is it less work for me?”
“Didn’t say it was.” He shot me a grin. “Just that it was too much work for me.”
“You’re ridiculous.” I grabbed the phone and unlocked it. “How are you going to eat if you’re too tired to look at your phone?”
“You’re going to feed me, obvs.”
I snorted. “Unless you want me to shove boneless wings down your gullet, that’s not gonna happen.”
He swiped his phone out of my hand. “You did not get boneless wings.”
I laughed as he checked our order. Matt had an irrational hatred for boneless wings. I’d ordered them once as a joke, and he’d complained about it for weeks.
“I hate you,” he grumbled and put his phone back on his chest.
“No, you don’t.”
Silence stretched.
“Did you and Damon ever have a thing?”
“What?” I turned to him. “I already told you he’s straight.”
“Yeah, but so was I until a few weeks ago.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but the words died in my throat. Was Matt… not straight?
“Nothing ever happened between us,” I said slowly.
“Did you have a thing for him?”
“He was my best friend.”
“Yeah, but I’ve seen his pics. He’s hot.”
“He is. But I didn’t think about him like that. We’re friends.”
“So are we, but you’ve had my dick in your mouth.”
“Because you asked me to put it there.”
“I’m just pointing out that being friends doesn’t mean you didn’t have a thing for him.”
“I didn’t,” I said honestly. Where the fuck was this coming from? Matt had never shown any sort of jealousy when I’d talked about Damon before. Was this his anxiety talking? “He’s attractive, but I’m not attracted to him. He’s my friend, and he’ll always be my friend. But that’s as far as it goes between us.”
He hummed. “Would you have messed around with him if he’d asked?”
“I… I don’t know how to answer that. Maybe?”
“What about now? What if he called and said, ‘hey, I think I like dick. Can I play with yours?’”
I snickered. “He’d never say that.”
“Fine, replace that with whatever he would say.” His tone was dark and tinged with anger.
“If he did say something like that to me, I’d tell him no. For one, he lives in Ontario. That’s fucking far, dude. And two, I wouldn’t risk our friendship.”
“But you’d risk ours?”
I blinked at him, quelling my irritation. “I thought I made it very clear that I didn’t want to risk our friendship. That I thought it was a bad idea.” A chill passed through me. “Do you regret it? Is this what all this is about?”
“No.” He huffed. “I’m being stupid.”
I was tempted to agree with him, but I kept my mouth shut so he could either tell me what the hell had gotten into him or drop it.
“I just… I don’t know. I’m fucking jealous, okay?” He covered his eyes with his hands and let out a low groan. “I never gave a shit when you hooked up with randoms or guys you didn’t care about, but it bothers me that you might still want him.”
“Matt,” I said softly. “I never wanted him. Not like that. I think of him as a brother, always have.”
He sighed and sat up, catching his phone as it slid off his chest. “I’m going to go wait for our food.”
I lay there in stunned silence as he strode out of my room.
Fuck. I should never have given in. The difference between Matt and Damon was that I did want Matt. Always had. The best orgasms of my life weren’t worth messing up his life.
I sat up and stared at the closed door. We needed to talk about this to get it all out in the open so we could work through it. Whatever this thing between us was needed to end now, and we both had to be on the same page.
Matt was the person who mattered most to me. He wasn’t just my best friend; he was the best friend I’d ever had. Anxiety squeezed my chest. I couldn’t lose him.
Sex between bros might not be a big deal, but sex between best friends was. Maybe Matt was bi, maybe not. I’d be there for him as a friend, but I wasn’t the one who could help him with this.
The thought of another man touching him, getting to see his face when it was slack with pleasure, or hearing those little moans I loved drove me fucking crazy, but it was what it was.
I could still be his safe bestie and help him figure out who he was and what he liked, but I couldn’t be the one to give it to him. It would kill me, but I honestly didn’t know if I’d recover from losing him. Matt was… everything. The person who not only mattered the most but who also made my life brighter. As soon as I’d met him, I’d known we’d be in each other’s lives forever. I refused to fuck that up because I couldn’t keep it in my pants.
