Page 68 of Rent: Paid in Full
“Har. A. Voy!” answers Dean.
It’s not funny. It’s stupid.
Miller, on the other hand, seems to think it’s the highest form of humor there is. He’s laughing his ass off and looking at Trip and Dean as if they’re the owners of master intellects.
We do the now-familiar lap of the place, greeting people and letting them hand us free drinks.
Just my luck. It turns out the entire hockey team is out tonight, and they’re in high spirits. Testosterone is being sloshed around by the bucket. Miller gets dragged into a series of back slaps and chest bumps that rival the worst I’ve seen.
Anthropologically speaking, this display is definitely of interest. A thesis could be written about it, that’s for sure. It’s all here, and this time, it’s organized: the pecking order, the rank, the roles. It’s so sad that I hardly know where to look. Every guy on the team is massive and rough and was born ready to do battle for their captain. All of them except one.
He’s different. He’s in the inner circle, but he’s out of it too. He’s surrounded by the dark shadow of a formidable mood. His hair is dark too, eyes black and most of his face covered by a thick mat of stubble. There’s a scar on his top lip, slightly off-center. A deep gash that healed badly. It slices into his facial hair and lends an unexpected fragility to his face. It’s the only thing about him that’s fragile. Believe me, it is. The rest of him is a rock. A pillar. A solid slab of ice that freezes out everything around it.
I hang back from the group out of self-preservation, but Miller pulls me in, looking at me exactly as stupidly as he would if he were showing off a favorite toy at show-and-tell. The restof the team puts on a fairly decent performance of pretending they give a shit who I am and that they’re going to remember my name by the time tomorrow rolls in. The solid slab of ice is the notable exception.
“What crawled up his ass?” I ask when I’m a hundred and fifty percent sure we’re out of earshot.
“Decker? Nah, he’s fine. He’s not as bad as he looks.” I raise my eyebrows as high as I can and widen my eyes in silent but strong disagreement. “He’s not. He’s all right.” He lowers his voice substantially. “He plays for our team.” When it’s obvious I’m struggling to piece it together, he adds, “He’s like us, Ry. He likes dick.”
“How do you know that?” I ask a lot more sharply than I consider ideal.
“Why?” Miller smiles like a man experiencing the rapture. “You jealous?”
“Absolutely not.” That’s a ridiculous accusation. I shouldn’t have brought it up, and I think it needs clarification. “I need work on my gaydar, that’s what I’m saying. I didn’t get a flicker. Not even a blip.”
“No, you don’t, Ryan,” Miller replies, his rhapsodic smile erased like steam wiped off a mirror. “You’re already having the only gay sex you’ll ever have, so why would you need a gaydar?”
I sigh loudly and swipe the back of my hand hard against my forehead, fighting a sudden and unexpected urge to double over laughing. I manage not to. Instead, I switch to deliberating about whether it’s worth my time to argue with Miller. The academic year is over. I’m leaving tomorrow, and he’s moving out of the dorm into his overpriced apartment next year, so I think not. I’ve already wasted so much of my time on all manner of ill-advised pursuits when it comes to him. None of which have done a damn thing to improve him. It seems a waste to pour good energy afterbad. So, instead, I trail behind him to find a spot to sit with his friends.
“Oh, Ryan. Lori left yesterday. She’ll beguttedshe missed you,” purrs Sienna.
Miller bares his teeth in a slightly rabid manner. If I’m not mistaken, Sienna’s eyes sparkle with something that looks suspiciously like satisfaction.
I didn’t think I liked Sienna when I met her. I thought she was stuck up and full of herself, but I might have been wrong about her. She’s growing on me, let’s put it like that.
After a while, Miller heads to the bar to buy a round, and I tag along for the simple reason his arm seems to be surgically attached to my neck, and as a nonmedical professional, I know of no safe way to remove it.
As usual, the wait to get served is long, exacerbated by the fact the guy tending the bar has the unmistakable appearance of one who’s adopted aone-for-them, one-for-meapproach toward pouring drinks.
The wait is making me antsy.
It’s rude.
Making paying customers wait like this is rude. Especially when one of those customers is draped in a freshly showered Miller fucking MacAvoy. Especially when that same Miller MacAvoy keeps leaning in and talking so close to my ear that I can feel his breath all the way down to my toes.
It’s dark and loud in The Pardon, but still, I’m able to make out every syllable that leaves Miller’s mouth. The word is so familiar now that my cock jumps to attention the second I see his lips purse to form the first letter.
“Restroom?”
My eyes dart left and right to ensure no one else heard him. “Fuck no!” I hiss.
God, yes,says my dick.
Miller releases me and turns toward me fully, chest open, arms at his sides. Face open too. He looks into my eyes and accesses a portal to an entirely different part of my brain. The thalamus, if my sudden spike in arousal is anything to go by. “I’ll kneel for you, Ry. Gladly. I’ll swallow everything you give me. I won’t waste a drop.”
It takes some effort to remember the mechanics of the action, but I manage a tiny shake of my head.
“No?” He smiles, undeterred. “How about this then. You suck my dick, and when I come down your throat, you”—he raises a warning finger at me but dilutes the effect with a smile straight from hell—“this part’s important, Ry, so pay attention.” To my mortification, I find myself nodding dumbly. “When I come down your throat, you swallow my load and look up at me and say, ‘Thank you, baby.’”