Page 30 of Teach Me To Sin
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“I think it’s time to go to your place.”
I’ve been trying to avoid staring at Benji’s unknotted tie and open shirt buttons the whole time we’ve been here, but he leans forward until I have no choice but to give him my attention.
I shake my head firmly. “We’re not going to my place.”
“You want to leave him here?” We both look over at Alek. He’s lounging in his chair with his head back, swinging his fingers around like he’s conducting some concerto only he can hear–definitely not the Michael Jackson drifting from the overhead speakers. I’ve spent the last hour distracted by memories of when Gray and I used to go to bars together. I would happily get drunk while I watched him destroy everyone at trivia night with his encyclopedic knowledge of the world.Coming here reminds me how long it’s been since I just had fun and existed with someone else.
I was too lost in my head to notice that Alek had been sneaking shot glasses of god knows what in between his pints of beer. His face and neck, which he scrubbed clean in the bathroom, are flushed red, and his eyes are glassy. I’m pissed off at myself for letting this happen.
“He’s not coming to my house,” I emphasize. “We’ll take him home.”
Nibbling on a fingernail, Benji purses his lips at me. “Fine.” He raises his voice. “Hey Alek, where do you live?”
Resting his head on the table, Alek rolls it sideways until he can blink at us. “I live in a place with absolutely no gay people,” he slurs. Oh, boy. He’s not just tipsy, he’s blackout.
“Sure, buddy. And where might that be?” Benji props his feet in my lap with a cute little smirk, and I shove them off.
Alek takes a deep breath. “I have a girlfriend–I mean… I have a superb cock. I keep it up all the time. Very big, no Viagra.” His sentences blur together into one never-ending word that’s almost impossible to understand. Then he leans over the side of the table and retches into the trash bin some staff member must have placed next to him when I wasn’t paying attention.
Benji raises his eyebrows at me. “Good luck finding his place.”
“What about his driver’s license?”
“Are you going to trust that it’s out of date and throw him on the sidewalk in some random place?”
I finish my second rum and coke and shove it away. “Take him to your place, then.”
He shakes his head instantly. “No go. I have really mean roommates. Please? You probably live alone in a swanky-ass house.”
I’m losing control of the situation, but I try to hold on. “He can use my couch, but you’re going home. This isn’t a sleepover.”
Alek groans, wiping his face on a napkin, then flops over with his head in Benji’s lap. The boy traces a finger lightly along his ear, then pets his hair soothingly. “You’re alright, I’ve got you.” When I don’t relent, he picks up one of Alek’s limp arms and holds it out toward me. “Take him then. Hope he doesn’t puke in your two-hundred-thousand-dollar car with no one to hold the sick bag.”
As if emphasizing his point, he lets go of the arm and it drops like a stone to dangle loosely between us. Alek gives a protesting moan, but doesn’t move. Benji gives me a look likeso?
“Has anyone ever told younoin your life?” I gripe, digging in my wallet to tip the bartender.
Benji keeps his face neutral, but I can see the corners of his mouth tighten. Looking away, he rubs his hand up and down the back of Alek’s creased dress shirt. The two of them look strangely vulnerable like this.
Pushing my chair back, I stand up. “It’s going to be a tight fit. You’re on vomit bag duty.”
With a shit-eating grin, he works on getting Alek upright while I pay the tab. The dark-haired man’s eyes are only half open as he sways along, propped against Benji’s smaller body. When we reach my car, he stares at it like he’s never seen a motor vehicle in his life. “Alright?” I ask rhetorically, digging out my keys.
He licks his dry lips and mumbles out garbled syllables. “You said they would go after me. I’m sorry I didn’t listen. I’m really really sorry. I’m really really really–”
“I get the idea.” I wave for Benji to get in the middle, since he’s the most compact. Protecting the back of Alek’s head with my hand, I lower him in to snuggle up against his little guardian angel, who is clutching a wad of plastic bags the bartender gave us. “What’s done is done, so get your feet in the car and live to fight another day.”
“Gray’s a lot nicer than you,” he grumbles sulkily.
“I have no doubt about that.” He didn’t listen, so I scoop his leg up with the toe of my shoe and push it inside before slamming the door.
Tomorrow I’m going to sit down and recount every single moment of today in a lovely little journal. And any time that one of these two men asks me to do something, I’m going to get the journal out and re-read my entry and remind myself why I’m never ending up in this situation again.
Benji
Colson can’t comenear my family’s level of rich, but he’s obviously loaded. I expect to pull up to some kind of mansion as we weave through a gated neighborhood lined with LED street lamps and huge, faceless homes. Cole cuts his engine in front of a cottage-sized building of concrete and glass, which I assume is a studio or guest house, until I realize there aren’t any other buildings on the sprawling property. “This is yours?”