Messy Love (Stumbling into Love 3)

I’d already gotten dressed in a pair of old sweats, a T-shirt, and had stuffed my hair up under a backward baseball cap. I was sitting at the counter, with the new sketchbook I’d bought in front of me, working on a hand wrapped around a baseball. It was shit. All I saw were the errors in it. I’d been doing a lot of drawing over the past…week? Had it really only been a little over a week since I’d moved in with Danny? It felt longer, as if this was something we’d been doing for weeks or months instead of days. I wasn’t sure I’d ever slipped into something as easily as I had this friendship with him.

And now his mom wanted to meet me, and she’d sent food home to me, which I got was really food for Danny, but it was nice. It felt like I was suddenly in some alternate universe, or I was an alternate Jonathan who lived a totally different life.

But I was, wasn’t I? I was living another life. I was out and had moved to Atlanta. I had a gay roommate. I was drawing, and I had a new job, and I was getting ready to head out to my first practice on a queer baseball team.

I liked this new Jonathan, this new life, a lot.

The door burst open, and Danny came in quickly. “Honey, I’m home! Gimme a minute to get ready, and we can head out.”

I turned my sketchbook over, unsure why I was uncomfortable with him, or hell, anyone else knowing I drew. Danny cocked a brow—the fucker didn’t miss anything—but he didn’t call me on it. He just whisked past me toward the hallway.

“Honey, huh?” I teased, surprising myself.

“Isn’t that what they do on TV? Is that ever done in real life? I don’t think so. Even when my dad was around, he didn’t say that shit, but I think I like it.”

He smirked and disappeared into his room, leaving the door open. Danny had zero problems with nudity or partial nudity. He got up in nothing but his underwear every morning, and I had a feeling that if he didn’t think it would make me feel awkward, he’d go without those. He was so free, so comfortable in his own skin in ways I never had been…but he made me want to be.

“Are you ready?” he called from his bedroom.

“Yeah,” I replied, standing up.

“I’m excited to see who shows up and how it all goes down.” He said something else after that, but his words were muffled.

“Huh?” I began walking down the hallway but stopped right before his door.

“I said I was wondering if anyone I know will be there, and that I’m hoping we have enough people for a team and all that. You can come in if you want. I see your shadow. I’m in my underwear and about to brush my teeth.”

The sound of the faucet came on. I didn’t let myself get weird about it—I used to. I was always afraid I’d look at a guy in the locker room or something and he’d know my secret. But it wasn’t a secret anymore, and Danny was my friend, so I went into his room and sat on his messy bed. I could see him in the bathroom, wearing tight boxer briefs, with an electric toothbrush sticking out of his mouth.

“They might not have enough people? And I wondered about that…a gay local league.”

He spit, rinsed, and put his toothbrush back. “It’s not a gay league—it’s a gay team. We’re gonna show the straights how it’s done.” He winked playfully.

Danny walked back into his room, and my gaze snagged on his impressive bulge. Holy fuck, that was nice. What did he look like, I wondered? Smell like? Taste like?

I shifted, willing my dick to cooperate. For a split second I started second-guessing myself, telling myself to look away, but then I just…didn’t. I was tired of overthinking and stressing about everything. I took in Danny’s expanse of smooth, rust-colored skin, the muscles in his abs, his arms, and his thick thighs.

“You keep looking at me like that, and I’m gonna think you want a taste.”

Oh fuck. My gaze darted away.

“It’s okay to look, J. I don’t mind if you look. I like being looked at. Hopefully, you’ll give me a glimpse one day too.”

My heart throbbed in my ears, and I turned back to him, let myself take in the view. There was nothing wrong with that. He’d said so himself. He liked it. We could look; it would just be really fucking dumb to ever touch.

“Methinks you like.” He tilted his head toward my crotch. I was hard as stone now and knew he could see it.

“Can you blame me?” I let myself answer honestly. It was one of my favorite things about us, the way we were so candid with each other.