He fucking loved it all.
A part of him wanted to call Essie like an overexcited teenager and give her an update. But the stronger emotions were too private. Too new, and full of a possessive need to hold on to what he’d found here that rocked him to his foundations.
He wasn’t confused or hesitant anymore. This was what he wanted. All of it. From the friendly banter and teasing they’d always known to the naked living-room orgy and everything in between.
His lips were swollen. His skin was tingling from the remembered sensation of mouths and tongues, bruised from masculine fingers and salty with dried sweat, yet he’d never felt more comfortable in it.
This was who he was. And oddly, Rig had known it for a hell of a lot longer than he or Rory. His admission about that first Spring Break—knowing their true feelings all the way back then—was making him think about his first year of friendship with Rory.
Senior year as a transfer student could have been awkward. He had longer hair than anyone else, he was a runner and javelin thrower in a school that was all football, all the time. The girls seemed to like him, which ticked the guys who’d staked their claims as freshman off even more. Everyone expected him to play his part as the interesting and mysterious new kid when frankly, he was just trying to graduate because high school anywhere was a big pain in the ass and he was ready to grow up.
He’d seen the overachieving Rory around the halls, but the day they’d really become friends he’d found him fighting in the locker room with a linebacker three times his width and twice his size.
At the time, David didn’t know about his five older brothers whose roughhousing insured he knew what he was doing. He didn’t know about the gymnastics and self-defense classes Rory took after school that made him practically untouchable. All he knew was that for such a skinny guy, Rory didn’t seem to understand that he should be afraid.
From the conversation that drifted toward him between insults and punches, it became clear that the football player had just gotten a blowjob he’d initiated, and was trying to pay Rory back by beating him senseless.
That pissed David off, so he stood there in his sweat-soaked shirt and running shorts and made his presence known. With a witness to his crime, the jock got the point fast enough, disappearing with a weak warning while Rory punched his locker and kicked his mascot costume into submission.
Then everything was different. Like changing a channel, Rory took a deep breath and smiled as though nothing was wrong. David was stunned by the humor and intelligence in his eyes and the broad grin that made the bloody lip practically disappear. When he introduced himself as the school’s famous gay mascot and asked if David needed any help getting around, he found himself inviting him to get a cup of coffee and talk.
That quickly their friendship was born.
By the time the linebacker came back for seconds weeks later, David was ready for him. “Sorry, meathead,” he’d said casually, draping his arm over his best friend’s shoulders before the blond could reply. “Rory’s mine now. And I’m not stupid enough to hide him or let him get away.”
The exaggeration rolled off his tongue easily and with no regrets. David was proud to be Rory’s friend, and at the time he was more interested in college admissions than dating. Plus, he knew if his sister had ever had an asshole like that in her life, he’d want someone to stand up for her.
David could still remember how shocked Rory had been, as if no one had ever defended him before.
Something he’d decided had to be his overactive imagination when he’d met Noah and Wyatt Finn.
He’d never seen siblings that close who weren’t twins. They were strong, the same “pretty” handsome as Rory and just as outspoken, both of them more than capable of looking after their youngest brother. And the stories they told about their other three siblings—particularly the giant redhead—solidified his belief. Rory didn’t need outside help. He had an Irish army behind him.
Still, after that incident, a bond that ran too deep to deny was forged between them and it had lasted through years of enforced collegiate separation and more than one jealous girlfriend.
If, through all their years of friendship, a few things about Rory’s relationship with his family didn’t add up? David brushed it off as unimportant. If it had been a big deal, Rory would have told him about it years ago.
That was what he’d believed until Owen and Jeremy’s reception. Until he’d heard the things Sol Finn said to his own son.
Looking back, Rory had brought up his father more than once. But Sol, or Sol the Elder as he called him, was always an offhand comment or a bad father joke more than an actual person.