Always Forward! Never Straight by Charley Descoteaux

Author:Charley Descoteaux
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Gay Romance
Publisher: CeeTwo Publishing
Published: 2019-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

It took a few songs and a beer, but Bryan relaxed and loosened up. We danced in a crowd of men outside one of the trendiest gay bars in Portland. The sun had almost set and stars twinkled above us while paper lanterns and rainbow flags rippled gently in the breeze coming off the river, but all I could see was Bryan—his face flushed, smiling, his eyes always on me. I got my wish to rub against him to the music. After he was good and loose, I leaned in to whisper in his ear.

“I knew you were a good dancer.”

He blushed and laughed.

“Did you drive?”

He shook his head, and his smile turned naughty.

I couldn’t help myself, I pulled him close and spun around. And that’s when I got the first real surprise of the weekend, when I saw him.

“Shit.” If I could have, I would’ve grabbed that word back. As soon as I said it—or shouted it, I might have shouted it—Bryan tensed.

“Sorry. Did I step on your foot?” Bryan’s smile was history, and he seemed smaller somehow.

Just my imagination.

“No. You didn’t do anything.” The music quieted so my words sounded loud. But, as soon as I went on the next song started, so I had to repeat myself. Poor me, I had to press my lips to Bry’s ear to be sure he heard. “My boss. I think I saw my boss.”

Bryan leaned back—as much as he could in the sea of dancing bodies—and our eyes met. His were wide.

“Are you not out at work? Oh, will this be bad for you?” He froze.

He looked genuinely concerned. No. he looked afraid. I tried to shrug it off.

Normally that’s the kind of thing I can do, especially on a crowded dance floor with a hot partner whose bones I wanted to jump. That time, it wasn’t so easy. His reaction seemed out of proportion to what had happened. I embraced him and swayed to the beat while I spoke against his ear. “I’m not out at work, but neither is he. I doubt it’ll be a problem, so don’t worry about it. Okay?”

Bryan actually took a couple of slow, deep breaths before he said “okay” back. I found myself tensing with the desire to make whoever had made Bryan afraid tremble in his boots, because it came to me that his flinching and the tone he used while talking about his ex could be related.

But being wound up wasn’t the way to help Bryan relax—I’d learned that from Mac when she was a baby—so I took my own cleansing breath and then stepped back. I hadn’t expected to see my boss—Will Holden, the owner of Holden the Tech, the cheesiest-named startup in the Silicon Forest and quite possibly in the world, and creator of a line of cheap household drones that reminded me of flying Roombas. To be honest, it made me shudder to think of actually owning the things I was helping him sell to people. I mean,

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