uring dinner, I tried not to look at him but it was difficult not to with Brad sitting right there in front of me looking absolutely scrumptious. It was really hard not to appreciate a great looking man at my table even if he was the man who had practically spat at me four years ago. Not to mention almost breaking my nose. Although he was an asshole, no one could deny that he was major male eyecandy. If it was possible, the years had improved him. Years of professional sports had given him the added bulk and muscle that he hadn't had when he was younger, his shoulders were wider, his sculpted biceps strained deliciously at the sleeves.
And the man still did somehing absolutely wonderful with a pack of noodles.
I knew him almost as well as I knew myself - or as well as he knew me. At the moment, he was dead nervous that I might just reach over and bite his head off. Gesturing to the heaping plate of noodles in between us, he tried his best to break the ice. Although he had gotten over the idea that I wouldn't just kick him out, his tone still held an undertone of nerves. "How is it, Dermot?"
"It's fine." In reality it was wonderful especially since I'd been subsisting on take-out for weeks but I certainly wasn't going to let him know that. After all these years, I wasn't about to tell him that I would enjoy feasting on his noodles - and anything else he would like to offer me. The fact that I was still attracted to the gorgeous hunk of meat, this perfect distillation of testosterone and genes irritated me, given the fact that he had literally tossed our friendship into the garbage not too long ago. It certainly wasn't the all-encompassing blinding hate that I envisioned years ago.
The perfection of his smile, the charming dimple bracketing the smile only caused me to glare at him. I didn't even want to risk thinking about the rest of him.
"Uhh.. Dermot. What's wrong?"
"Nothing." Asshole. My sullen response was daunting and he searched valiantly for a topic even as I continued eating.
Silence reigned for the next few moments as he struggled for something to say. "You never read my letters, did you?"
Silently, without looking up from my plate, I pointed idly at the pile sitting on the table. As if on cue, the pile teetered and slid on the living room table. Wonderful. He messed up my life once - and now he was messing up my table.
"It's here?" His smile was almost wistful when he saw the pile of letters on the table. Standing, he crossed over to the table and rifled through the first stack of letters. Picking a random letter out, he flicked it open and turned to look at me. "You kept my letters?"
The spark of hope in his eyes annoyed me and I kept my answer curt. "My mom kept it. I couldn't stop her."
A quick glance at the rest of the letters confirmed his suspicions. "You never read any of them did you?"
"No. It would have been an insult to my intelligence."
Almost reverently, he shifted the pile back into several neat rows. That was a change from his usual messy behaviour and I wondered blithely how much he had changed in the past few years. That great butt of his certainly hadn't. "But you didn't throw it away," he pointed out with a soft smile.
It was the smile that got to me again. That quick flash of masculine charm, so damnably sexy. All it did to me was make me irrationally nasty. "The world's forests are disappearing. I was planning on recycling it."
"Ouch."
As Brad remained silent rifling through the letters after that exchange, I kept my face trained on the plate instead of his cute ass. What was it about that ass of his? It had been my first real inkling that my sexual proclivities leaned that way - seeing Brad McKinley's tight sixteen-year-old bubble butt wrapped in skintight denims. That amazing ass had not only remained a fucking work of art, it had gotten better. The result of almost a decade of high school and college athletics, it was so hard, muscular that I imagined quarters could certainly bounce off those taut cheeks. So much for the wear and tear of age.
Shaking himself from his private reverie, he looked up to catch me staring - at least three feet down from his face at his butt. My face flushed.
His blue eyes flashed, he grinned. "Like what you see?"
"Shut it. Aren't you gonna eat?"
"Yeah, I will." Pleased with my reaction, he returned to the dining table, all affable again after managing to yank my chain yet again. "So what have you been doing all this while?"
"Apart from dancing around shiny poles and seducing innocent yet virile college boys?" I replied smoothly.
He gave me a cool glance. "Dermot."
It was easy getting a rise from him. One up for the home team. Taking a quick bite of the noodles, I mumbled resentfully through my food. "Don't tell me you don't already know. Didn't my mom send you regular follow-ups? The Dermot Lee Kincaid Newsletter?"
His ears turned red. "You know about that."
"Yes." It certainly amazed me that he thought I was such an idiot. My mother was the staunchest supporter of the Brad McKinley Fan Club and she had regular support rallies for him each time I called home. It had become almost a tagline for my mom - rather than a simple hello, it was 'Call Brad'. It had become a pain in the neck - especially since my return and I knew that he must somehow be behind this wicked scheme.
"And all that time, you didn't say anything." He gave me a searching look, those baby blues trying their best to decipher me. "I am amazed at your restraint."
"My attorney told me that gagging my mom wasn't in my best interests."
He laughed. "There's that nasty sarcasm that we love."
"Look, chow mein aside, what are you up to?" Letting out a sigh, I stared at him. "Why are you here?"
"I told you," Brad said carefully.
Much too carefully for my tastes. The way his eyes wandered got my antenna rearing up. It started making me suspicious. No matter how much he had changed, I doubted that he had managed to change this habit. He could never tell a lie worth a damn while looking at me. "That's not the reason. Don't give me that crap."
"It's not crap." Almost instantaneously, his voice lashed out even as his jaw hardened in response. "That day you walked out, I was an utter idiot. A fool. And you didn't give me a chance."
"A chance?" A flash of the past came to me and I could feel my hackles rising in response. It was his face I saw again, the face he wore four years ago, the anger, the fury, the utter disgust in those familiar blue eyes. The fist that he raised against me, the sudden flex of that muscular arm. And I could easily remember then, the feelings of betrayal and humiliation that had filled me - so very soon after I thought I'd achieved almost a dream. "A chance for what? To beat me up again? To call me a dickslut? I am sorry but although I am obviously a depraved sex maniac, I'm not much into sado-masochism - at least not that kind anyway."
"Dammit! You never gave me a chance to explain!" In a second, he rose from the table and slammed his hands on the table. The sound stunned me and I looked up into his bright blue eyes. This time, there wasn't the shame, the disgust - only remorse and a whole load of guilt. "That was a mistake. I was stupid that day, Dermot. A fucked up asshole. I didn't know what I was losing then."
My growing irritation surfaced. "A faggot buddy? Somebody to give absolutely fabulous window treatments?"
"Stop that." Brad caught my hands and though I tried to pull away, he used all his simian strength to hold on. "You're my best fr-"
"No," I replied flatly.
"My best friend. Almost a brother." He repeated forcefully. "The truest friend I've ever had and I lost you over something so trivial. Don't make me pay like that again."
"Having a wild fuck all night wasn't trivial for me." It was anything but trivial. Although it had been marred by the events after, I could still remember that one night. The heat. The skin. The flesh. My hands eagerly unwrapping the perfect gift, tearing the Oxford shirt open, ripping into his cotton pants, letting my hands run over his hard, naked body.
"Trivial?" Seeing the expression on my face, Brad released me and returned to his seat. He looked up at me, his dark, handsome face an unfathomable mask. "No, it certainly wasn't. Look, I know you hate me."
For the past few weeks, I had been wondering the same thing. But I realized that the years had changed me somewhat and I could look back on things differently based on my experiences after the incident. It would be so easy to remain convinced that my love for him had turned inexorably to hate. "I don't. No, I don't hate you, Brad. You hurt me terribly, a right bastard, but I can't find it in myself to hate you. I cannot hate someone who was so much a part of my life before."
My answer pleased him and he nodded in some relief. "I still want to make it up to you."
I sighed. "Look, you don't have to do that. We might not be able to go back to where we were but I don't hate you. Believe me, I don't spend my time figuring out ways to humiliate you."
"Never?" He smiled ruefully, the edges of his blue eyes crinkling up.
"Well, in the beginning, I did have this nicely set up scenario of your big dick being roasted over an open fire. But I stopped having that pleasant dream years ago." Of course in my X-rated dreams I was busy feasting on his hot dick even as he writhed in ecstasy but he certainly didn't have to know that. No doubt he would be stunned at the amount of whipped cream and lashes I'd used in my dreams.
He winced. "Nasty."
His expression had me smiling for once. "That's me. And you'd do well to remember that."
"I never forgot you," Brad replied softly, his gaze intent on mine. For some unfathomable reason, I felt uneasy and looked down at my plate, my face flushing.
"You know, I tried to track you down but your mom stopped me," he said conversationally.
This amazed me as my mom seemed to be pushing us together at every chance she could get. "She did?"
He shrugged. "She said you weren't ready and frankly I was terrified."
"Terrified?"
"That you'd slam the door on my face."
"And break that pretty nose," I sneered in reply.
His hands lifted to briefly touch his nose. Like everything else about him, it was perfect. "Don't touch the nose. It got me through college."
I smiled. Perhaps later I would tell him that I had managed to keep track of his movements through my mother's calls. "Perhaps several months ago, I would have slammed and locked the door. You caught me in a mellow moment today."
"Yeah."
"And I was too damned hungry today."
He smiled. "That too."