“Hey Katie?”

“What’s up?”

I swallowed hard. “Um… don’t leave?”

She hummed, squeezing my leg. “You’re gonna be okay,” she told me.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do once you’re not here anymore,” I said.

“I just told you. You’re going to be okay,” she repeated.

I bit the inside of my cheek. Katie had more confidence in me than I did.

I was taking her to the airport tomorrow morning, and for the first time, I was going to be on my own here in Amberfield, Kansas.

“And hey, if Red’s still being tough, just use your usual methods on him,” Katie said.

I snorted. “I guarantee you, my usual methods will have no effect on Red.”

“Nobody can resist the world’s sexiest gay porn star when he points his big ol’ flirting gun at them.”

“Ew. Don’t describe it like that. It sounds like you’re talking about a big dick.”

“Hey, if it’s your dick that lures them in, sure,” she said.

I scratched the back of my neck. “I’m pretty sure I ‘d need to do complex math to figure out how to flirt with Red. He was like a wall of stone.”

“Please. I’ve seen you flirt with all kinds of dudes. Even a couple girls. You could make anybody melt.”

“I’m not trying to flirt with Red, anyway,” I said. “I’m trying to... rekindle a friendship.”

“Didn’t you say your whole friendship with him was based on sex?”

Based on love, I thought silently. A slow heat filled me inside.

The type of love that burned so white-hot, it imploded.

“Pretty sure it was mostly just sex for him,” I said, knowing it was a lie.

“I see,” Katie said. I could tell she knew I was holding back, and I finally relented a little.

“He wasn’t like… anyone else. I felt connected on a level that I haven’t even felt with most ‘real’ boyfriends.”

She furrowed her brow. “But he wasn’t your boyfriend, right?”

I shook my head. “We never talked about labels. Sounds weird when I say it now. But… Red changed my entire fucking life. I didn’t know guys like him even existed, when I met him. I was still so deeply ashamed to be gay when I met him. He was this older guy, slinging whiskey from behind a bar, and he was so confident. He was so unafraid of being gay, out and proud. He showed me that I didn’t have to be afraid of it, either.”

Katie shook her head. “I can’t imagine you as anything but out and proud.”

I nodded. “I was so scared back then. He made me confident enough to become a gay porn star, for God’s sake. Thousands of eyes on my bare ass.”

“And now you don’t give a fuck who sees your ass,” she said with a small grin.

“My ass, my cum, my tongue, my dick. Hell, one porn video I made was specifically for people with a fetish for taint licking.”

“Oh, God,” she said with a groan.

I grinned. “An hour long video of different guys licking and coming all over my taint. Can you imagine?”

“Jesus, no,” Katie said, bursting out in laughter. “And I hope I never find out. Ugh, Liam, TMI.”

“No such thing,” I said. “Want to hear about the video I made for people with balloon-popping fetishes? You’d be surprised how balloons interact with penises.”

“I get the point, I get the point,” she said, still laughing. “You became confident in your own skin, very quickly.”

“Sure did,” I said. “Thanks to Red.”

She reached over and squeezed my arm. “You ever think maybe you had the confidence inside yourself all along?”

I pulled in a long breath. “Well, Red helped me realize it. He was like some gay cowboy angel and I thought he was just sent down for me.”

“So why did Red leave? Why’s he been here in the middle of Kansas for ten years?”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “I was… myself. I fucked up. Repeatedly. Got sucked into the porn community and social life in LA, and it made me feel alive. Finally having people want to be around me.”

She nodded. “You’ve told me some of that before.”

“Right. Everything except the part about Red,” I said.

“Why?”

“I was embarrassed,” I said. “And still guilty, honestly. I hurt him, even though I wasn’t trying to. Every night was a party in LA, and it was all I wanted. I’d forget responsibilities. Forget things Red told me. The more it happened, the more I felt like a burden to him. I saw him pulling away, and it made me pull away.”

“A vicious cycle.”

“A really fucked up, unhealthy cycle,” I said.

“Right.”

“So,” I said, swallowing over a lump that was forming in my throat. “One night I ended up in the hospital, stomach full of pills and liquor. Was the third time it had happened. It had seemed like any other night, but it turned out so much worse. Something ruptured in my stomach. I needed emergency surgery. And... Red ended up paying all of the bills, in full.”

Tags: Raleigh Ruebins Red's Tavern Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net