“Good man,” the dark haired Dom says, “and you can always talk to us.”
“I know. Now, next question, before this starts to feel like an intervention.” He nudges Gil in the leg with his elbow. “What would you do if you hadn’t taken over your parent’s establishment?”
“Oh, good one,” I say, genuinely curious as to what the answer will be. “I need all of you to answer that question.”
Gil takes a moment before answering it. “I think I’d want to be something like a therapist, I guess. I’m a good listener. And I think I’d like to help.”
“Yeah, but you’re also good at bossing people around. That’d work out epically,” Dean says with a wide grin. “I’d totally be a singer if I wasn’t a chef. I’d be singing and winning everyone’s hearts.”
He says it with such confidence that I’m pretty sure he’d make it too. “I think I’d be a historian, just like I planned. I’d like to research old texts.”
“That sounds extremely boring,” Dean says, and I poke him between his ribs. It apparently doesn’t hurt since he just smirks. “How ‘bout you, O?”
He chews the inside of his cheek before answering. “I think I’d wanna work with troubled youths. Help them a little. Find their place in life, something like that.”
There’s a certain frailty to the words he’s saying and they remind me of when he told me his parents were going to foster. Perhaps it’s something he’d like to do in their spirits. Would it be something he’s really considering? Maybe I should talk about it with him some time.
“Dirtiest fantasy?” Dean asks no-one in particular.
“I’m kind of living it, buddy,” I blurt before I give myself time to close up.
“Yeah, but there’s got to be something you’re curious about, right?”
I’m curious about a lot of things. Like what makes people walk around with socks in their sandals? What’s their thought process? Or what really happened to Kurt Cobain?
I kind of want to know what it’s like to be in someone else’s brain. And I’m extremely curious about people who get up before dawn to do a workout and then go about their day. How does that work?
But yeah, I’m kind of a rookie in the bedroom. There’s some things I’m curious about, but I don’t know if I’ve come far enough to just talk about it while being sober.
Three sets of eyes are laser focused on me and I feel my temperature rise.
“Well,” I scrape my throat, “I, eh, would maybe like to see how it’d be to all be together.” There’s a little dust on my shirt that’s suddenly very interesting, and I try to scrape it off with my nail. It’s not that bad really, but I’m a big fan of not looking anyone in the eye right now.
“I’m sure that we’ll be able to manage that some time,” Gil answers with a knowing smile.
“Well, yeah, we’ll check calendars or something,” I say while the thought about that really happening is enough to make me squeeze my thighs together. “Do you even have dirty fantasies? Or have you acted them all out already?”
He scoffs. “I’d like to tie you up so you have nowhere to go and show you how many fantasies I still have. That I may have done something similar before doesn’t mean I don’t want to do all kinds of wicked things to you.” His eyes flit to Dean. “Don’t worry about me getting bored.”
I swallow hard. Well, okay then. The mental image that pops up is all kinds of thrilling. I scrape my throat, nudging O with my shoulder. “You?”
“I’m finishing what we started in the pool.”
“Public sex?” Dean asks. “Like, getting watched or doing it sneakily so nobody knows what’s happening?”
“Yeah,” O answers.
“That wasn’t a yes or no question,” I laugh. The heat of his body radiates through my clothes and it suddenly feels like he’s all over me, while in reality nothing has changed.
“Answer is still yes,” he says as he gives me a wink. Well, okay. I’m totally not feeling my insides clench after hearing that.
“Dean?” Gil asks. The two boys stare at each other, and then I think I’m going to get some sort of ridiculous answer, but instead he chickens out.
“I’m taking a dare on this one.”
I raise my eyebrow. Why? What the hell? It’s got to be something weird right? “Really?”
“Really,” he says, looking at his feet.