"No," he said firmly. "Don't do that, Chris. You feel what you feel." Or don't feel, rather. "No apologies. Leave it for now."
Thank God, Chris's phone began to ring, and it was Sam. Chris's ringtone for her was "Just the Way You Are" by Bruno Mars, which had made her smile from ear to ear when he'd played it for her. He used the Darth Vader theme for Geoff. Smartass.
Scooping the phone off the floor where he'd knocked it when his head had hit the crate, Geoff tossed it onto Chris's bed. "Tell her to call me after she talks to you," he said casually. "If she wants to talk to both of us. I'm headed to my room. See you in the morning."
*
Chris stared after him as Geoff left him standing naked and slack-jawed in the middle of the room. Damn it all to hell and back. The guy thought he was playing it all casual and relaxed, but Chris had seen more relaxed-looking telephone poles. His stiff back and set shoulders were the last Chris saw of him before he disappeared into his room.
"See you in the morning, my ass," he muttered. Chris snatched up his shorts. As Bruno's song continued to play, he thought about not answering, about going after Geoff and making it right, but charging into that without thinking it through was a great way to disturb a nest of snakes.
Dissatisfied regardless, he put the phone to his ear and tried to clear his head. The climax had been over-the-top, but still somehow lacking. He'd fucked it up, yeah. No doubt on that. All of the feelings had swamped him, threatening to cut him adrift. When Geoff demanded he admit he'd always wanted this, Chris hadn't been ready to completely let go of the shore. Yet Geoff had pulled back when he couldn't have everything he wanted all at once. So some of that blame had to be on him.
"Chris? Are you there?"
"Yeah, I'm here. Sorry about that."
"No, I'm sorry. I did try Geoff's first, because I know he's more of the night owl, but he didn't answer. Since that meant the universe is ending or he's dead, I thought I'd better wake you up and see which one is happening."
"I wasn't asleep, promise. And you know he'd answer even if the universe were ending. But no, he's not dead."
"Good." She paused. "Okay, what's going on?"
Um . . . let's see. Geoff fucked me and took off. It wasn't like Chris had wanted pillow talk or cuddling, right? Actually, that would have been kind of nice. At least share a postcoital beer. But that wasn't the problem.
"You and Geoff haven't been fighting, have you? Were any bones broken? Blood spilled?"
"Not much." He assumed Geoff didn't have a life-threatening skull fracture, though his head had hit the corner of the crate pretty hard. "He bumped his head just now and I have a busted lip from earlier today. He also face-planted in the yard. All of that was his fault."
"I'm sure. What am I going to do with the two of you?" She sounded tenderly amused, but she was too smart, and knew too much about them, to believe he was merely teasing her. "Are you okay, Chris? Has he hurt you?"
"No . . . I think I hurt him." But fuck it, it wasn't as easy as it was with Sam. The things Geoff wanted, how those unspoken things made Chris feel, were things he couldn't voice. Only by not saying things did he manage sometimes to say what he really needed to say. Which sounded fucked up, even in his own head.
"Well, say you're sorry." She drew in a breath, letting it out in a rush of words. "So-has-anyone-had-sex-in-the-house-with-anyone-else-while-I've-been-gone?"
She stuck an iron pipe in the spokes of his state of mind. He couldn't help it, he laughed. "You are such a fucking brat."
"That was not a no. Oh my God, you did, didn't you? Or he . . . or you both . . ."
"We invited the UNC-Charlotte women's basketball team over and did three of them at a time. Twice."
"Yeah, right." She snorted, but then quieted. "Chris."
He ran a hand over his face. Unbidden, he remembered that moment Geoff had demanded a yes-or-no answer from him. Some strange feeling had spiked in his belly, and he'd spoken the one word. "Yes. We did. But it's in a weird place right now, Sam. We're trying to figure this out, and you acting part cheerleader and part like the coach telling us the whole game is riding on us, it's too much pressure."
"Oh. Yeah, I can see that. I'm sorry." She sounded genuinely chagrined, but hurt was under that. He cursed himself.
"Hey, you're okay." He gentled his tone. "It's just . . . it just happened, and it ended on a kind of crappy note. I'm being kind of an asshole because it's bugging me. You didn't deserve that, and you're not acting that way."
"Maybe I was, a little bit. Sometimes the truth has to hurt, I guess. You can't pretend it doesn't, just to make the other person feel better. Otherwise nothing else will really be true." Letting that settle between them, her tone changed and became more teasing. "Maybe you should go tell Geoff that if you gave it up for him, you expect cuddling. And pillow talk."
"Maybe you should mind your busy little nose before someone cuts it off."
"Men are so dumb." There was a smile back in her voice, which made him feel better. He'd rather not alienate both of his best friends tonight. "So . . ." She cleared her throat. "Are you lying on your bed naked and sweaty? You're still a bit breathless. I can hear that part."
"You really are a brat. How's your thing going?"
"Boring, as always, but Flo and I went out to a dance club tonight with some of the girls. It was fun."