“Wait,” Mike said. “What is this?” He pointed between the two of us.
“What’s what?” I asked, hooking my chin on Darren’s shoulder.
“This,” Mike said. “You two. I thought this was faked. Paul was furious with me.”
“Oh,” I said. “Yes, well. Things change. It turns out that Darren’s been lusting after me for years and has been drowning himself in twinks to try and get the bittersweet taste of Helena out of his mouth.”
“That’s really not what happened,” Darren said. “Okay, it sort of is. But to be fair, Sandy has been pining for me probably for just as long.”
“That’s not even what happened at all,” I said through gritted teeth. “Okay, it pretty much is, but what the fuck! Bae, if you recall, we decided upstairs that you were the one that came crawling after me because you needed to correct your horrible wrongs.”
“That’s not what we agreed to,” Darren said affably. “And if you’ll recall, you’re the one that dressed all our friends like a cracked-out Village People and followed me on a date I didn’t even want to be on, all because you were jealous.”
“And you were the one that ate my ass next to a dumpster because you couldn’t resist finally getting your hands on my jelly!”
“Are you quoting Destiny’s Child right now? Seriously?”
“Oh my god, you’re such a homo. Do you love Destiny’s Child? Do you have their poster hanging above your bed? Do you light a candle and say a prayer every night to Queen B?”
“Both of you need to shut the fuck up!” Mike shouted.
And that got us to stop.
Good thing too, because I was getting hard again. Who knew that bickering with Darren was one of my turn-ons?
Well, I suppose I should have known that. We’d been doing it for years, after all.
“Let me get this straight,” Mike said. “You two are together now. Like seriously, no bullshit together.”
“Yeah,” I said, and the smile that Darren gave was blinding.
“Holy fucking shit,” he said, sounding shocked. “It worked. I am amazing.”
“Yes, well,” I said. “It was about time Darren pulled his head out of his—what do you mean you’re amazing? What worked?” I didn’t like the sound of that.
Mike sat back down in his chair, rubbing his hands over his face, chuckling to himself. I really didn’t like the sound of that.
“Mike,” I said ominously. “What did you do?”
“We raised almost a hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” he said.
I blinked. “Are you serious?”
He sat back in his chair, eyeing us gleefully. “Completely. And all the money will go to the charities, as much as it pains me.”
“You need to think of the crack babies,” I scolded him.
“Every night before I go to sleep,” he said dryly. “I’m sure they’ll have a noncrack Christmas this year.”
“Do you think it’ll be enough to beat your father?” I asked Darren.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It depends on how much support he can get. It’s usually a big turnout every year.”
“We need to hit up the Super Gays again,” I said to Mike. “We can’t take the chance that he could pull ahead at the last minute.”
“Yeah,” Mike said. “About that. I don’t think you have to be worried about that.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Explain.”