Mason let out a choked laugh then.
“You don’t get it, do you?” he rasped, shaking his head again. “You really don’t get it.”
I stared at him.
“What?” I asked. “What?”
Mason wouldn’t look at me again, merely staring at the ground.
“The thing is,” he began slowly, “that you’ve always been with me Derek. Through the good and bad.”
“Exactly,” I grunted impatiently. “That’s what buddies are for. Always. You’re the CEO and I’m the president. Your problems are mine, my problems are yours, we’ll get through things together. What, you don’t want that? We’re a team, bro, a team.”
The dark man stared at the floor even harder this time before looking up at me with a soul-searching gaze.
“No, I want that,” he said in a hoarse whisper, so quiet I could barely hear. “I want it maybe too much.”
I cocked my head.
“You got it!” I retorted. “When have I ever let you down? I took the fall for cheating in English years ago, I covered up that mistake in accounting years ago. So what’s the problem? Seriously, be a little more grateful.”
It was clear where this is going, but I wanted to hear the words from my friend, wanted to hear him spell out his needs. And this time, Mason fixed me with a hard look before taking a deep breath.
“That’s the thing Derek,” he said again in a whisper, the words raspy in his chest. “I need you too much.”
“What,” I demanded, still on a roll. “You want to bring someone else in on our hedonistic plans? On that mad shit we do? Is that it? You want a third musketeer?”
He shook his head, this time growling with repressed frustration and rage.
“Naw, it’s not that,” he ground out. “It’s that I want there to be more, Derek. I want there to be more. More of this,” he said, grasping my hand again, clutching my fist so tight that my knuckles cracked. “More of us, more together, more … physical.”
That made me sit back. Oh yeah, this was for real. I mean, I’ve entertained thoughts of a relationship with my best buddy, for sure. We’re forty-five year old men who’ve never married, and my closest, most important connection is with him, and has been for decades. So yeah, I’ve thought about being with Mason. But I always pushed it out of my mind because both he and I kept up reputations as womanizing assholes, as guys who use pussy and then discard it, leaving a trail of destruction in our wake. So it was eye-opening to hear this now, although, in my heart of hearts, not altogether unexpected.
“So let me get this right,” I growled, voice low, staring at our hands. “You want something more than being asshole jerks? Something more than acting like douches all day. Are you sure?”
Mason looked away, tortured, unable to meet my eye.
“I’ve been thinking about it for years,” he admitted, the words barely escaping his throat. “It’s been going on for years.”
I laughed hoarsely.
“All while you were dating Priscilla the slut?” I asked. “I thought you almost put a ring on her finger.”
Priscilla was a gold-digger of the worst kind, a redheaded siren who was clearly only after money. For a while there, I’d been really freaked out, afraid my buddy was going to throw away his life on a bloodsucking vamp. But at the last minute, Mason broke it off, giving her the boot for good. The woman wasn’t happy, clearly, but a parting gift of fifty thou in cash cash had helped her leave quietly.
“All through Priscilla,” he admitted hoarsely, still looking down at our hands. “All through Priscilla, I couldn’t close the deal because of you.”
I stared at him long and hard.
“And what about in college?” I asked. “What about those years where we shared a room, bringing girls home to fuck?”
The dark man nodded slowly.
“During that time too,” he admitted. “All that while too. I dunno Derek, you’ve always been there. You’ve always been there for me, we’ve always been a team. I’m not sure when these feelings started,” he choked, “but suddenly I realized something was fucked up. Because I wanted more than just business, more than just a good time. I wanted there to be something … I dunno,” he ground out again.
But I wasn’t letting him off so easy.
“You wanted there to be something real,” I said with finality. “You want a relationship, for us to be a couple.”
The words were shocking leaving my lips, but it didn’t sound so wrong either. In fact, it kinda made sense. Mason and I know each other better than any two people, I know his shit and he knows mine, for better or worse, the ups and downs have come again and again through the years. And maybe that was it. For better or worse, we’ve had each other’s backs, seeing one another through good times and bad. I hadn’t thought of it exactly in terms in terms of a lovey dovey relationship, but the more I thought of it, the more it was right. So taking this next step wasn’t so crazy, it wasn’t like we were two strangers meeting in the night.