“That’s interesting.”
“It really is. With the IoT now, we have so many more options open to us. I kind of ended up with a whole new line of work before I realized it. The meetings in Miami are with a couple of other software vendors. What do you do? Don’t you work for Charlotte County or something?”
Kent was a great guy, but his memory for details he didn’t feel he needed to retain sucked balls. “Close. I was a planner for Sarasota County when we first met. I’m now head of their planning department and report directly to the head of Planning and Zoning.” He smiled. “But you make me feel like a slacker.”
“Can’t talk you into staying later today, huh?”
It was nearly two. “I need to go home and get some things done before next week if you want me here next weekend. Plus I’m going to a munch tonight.”
“Understood. Thanks for helping out this morning.”
“Hey, the pleasure was all mine.”
Kent sipped his coffee as he seemed to absently rub at his chest with his other hand.
“You all right?”
“Yeah, just angina. So tell me about green eyes? Or tell me to go fuck myself, if it’s none of my business. Won’t hurt my feelings.”
Boyd didn’t often talk about it, but with this small group of people he knew his privacy was safe.
“First guy I was ever with. Guy in Germany. My dad was stationed over there. Older guy, a local. I’d just turned eighteen and I thought he was in love with me. I was damn sure stupid in love with him. I was ready to live in Germany permanently to be with him.” He stared into his coffee. “Annnd…I was a naive idiot. So when I graduated from high school, I had a full scholarship to USF in Tampa, because I’d wanted to go to school where it was fucking warm. Parents bought me a plane ticket, and I’ve lived in Florida ever since.”
Kent sucked in a breath. “Sorry, man.”
“Yowch,” Paul said. “That sucks.”
Boyd shrugged. “I was a gay kid in the closet who’d mostly grown up in Minnesota, and I didn’t know any fricking better at the time. It was a valuable, if not painful lesson.”
“Never been with a woman, huh?” Kent asked.
“One time, literally. Girl in high school, just one night. She moved right before we did, and it confirmed what I’d been thinking.”
“Eh, I’d give you honorary gold-star status.” Kent grinned. “Except I don’t even have it.”
“You seriously got a woman to let you fuck her with that?”
He cackled. “Buddy, I had a cottage business on the side in college with rich cougars dying to ride the beast. I could have had as much pussy as I wanted.”
“So you’re bi?”
“Oh, hell no. That was just for fun. And fringe bennies.” He grinned. “I used to tutor jocks in math and biz-ad classes. Guaranteed they wouldn’t get benched for academics if they worked my plan.” He winked. “Guess how I took my payment and kept their interest?”
Boyd snorted. “I’m sure I know.”
After a delicious brunch, Boyd stayed just long enough to watch the start of Kent’s round two with Tim. And yes, he had the man mount him on the couch in front of the TV, while Paul was on his knees on the floor between Kent’s legs and mouthing his balls.
On the drive home, Boyd remembered to stop for groceries. Next weekend, at least, would be interesting.
Might be lonely before then, but at least it gave him something to look forward to.
* * * *
Boyd enjoyed the Suncoast Society munches. Tonight, because he arrived a little later than he’d planned and seats had started filling, he ended up at the table next to Kyle and Tristan’s, seated directly across from them and able to watch them.
He tried not to feel…jealous wasn’t the right word, exactly.
Envious hit closer to the mark, especially on top of his fun at Kent’s. Yeah, he enjoyed blowing off some steam…but it would be nice to have someone at home to blow off steam with.
Someone to call his own.
Tristan and Kyle had looked happy Friday night at the rope group, and they looked even happier now. Both of them seemed to radiate calm serenity with more than a little sexy, gonna-fuck-later vibe thrown in.
Lucky bastards.
Boyd had halfway hoped that, one day, he might have a chance with Kyle. There never seemed to be a right time to approach him when he wasn’t with Tristan or involved in play.
Not anymore. The door had closed on that opportunity. The men owned each other’s hearts, and Boyd couldn’t blame either of them. Tristan was a good-looking guy, but something about Kyle had always drawn him in, even though Kyle was also a Dom.
Obviously it was working for Tris and Kyle. Who said it couldn’t work for him, too?
Is it too much to ask to want an honest, kinky guy who isn’t a player, who doesn’t mind bottoming at least half of the time?
That’s all he wanted.
Which led him to think about Larry. He had to work tonight, too, or Boyd would have tried to talk him into coming to the munch.
Except Larry wasn’t sure he was kinky. Curious, definitely, but he couldn’t give Boyd any assurances beyond that. And Larry didn’t seem eager to join in on group events, either.
Boyd hadn’t been paying attention to the empty chair to his right. He’d been talking with Rusty and Eliza on his other side.
“Hi, is this seat open?”
Boyd looked up at the guy. He thought maybe he’d seen him at another munch, but he wasn’t sure. “Yeah, go ahead.”
“Thanks.” He looked young. “Jackson.”
They shook. “Boyd. Nice to meet you.” The guy wasn’t bad-looking, either. Maybe a little younger than himself.
Boyd was going to start chatting to the man when a young woman he recognized as a recent addition to the rope group regulars plopped down at their table, taking the last seat. “Hey, Boyd!”
“Hi, Ella.” She was blonde and blue-eyed, early twenties, and had sought him out at the last couple of rope nights, and at play nights at Venture, as well as asking him questions via FetLife and on Facebook about rope.
At least she hadn’t been asking him to play, and wasn’t hitting on him, which was a relief.
“You weren’t at Venture last night,” she said. “I wanted to talk more about what you showed me on Friday night. I had some questions.”
“Yeah, sorry. I had something…come up.”
Me. I came…up.
And came.
But he couldn’t say that. What he did at Kent’s was totally apart from what he did with his kinky friends. Well, his BDSM-kinky friends. In fact, some of them might not understand the sex parties.
Many of them would likely be shocked that “nice guy Boyd” attended those kinds of parties in the first place.
He knew the image he projected. It usually worked to his advantage, except when it came to some women not wanting to take the hint that he wouldn’t be interested in them as anything other than play partners or as his rope bottoms.
Before Ross called the munch to order, Jackson’s attention was drawn to someone else and he actually moved tables to talk to them, leaving Ella to slide into the seat he’d left vacant to talk to Boyd.
Oh…goodie.
Although he wouldn’t be rude to her. It wasn’t that he didn’t like her, but she radiated an intensity toward him he wasn’t sure how to process, yet he didn’t want to come off like a standoffish dick toward her. He did like to help teach rope, and he didn’t want to alienate someone new to the community.
But…there was something.
Then again, maybe it was nothing more than him being gun-shy after all the women he’d had to deal with and reject over the years.
By the time he was ready to leave that evening, Ella had asked if they could get together alone to talk during the week. Since he already knew he was meeting Larry for dinner on Wednesday, he agreed to meet her at the same restaurant, an hour before he’d see Larry, so he’d have a set time
limit for her to move on ahead of his date. They exchanged cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses in case either of them had a change of plans. She’d already friended him on Facebook.
He made the time constraint plain to her, and she readily agreed.
As Boyd drove home later, he felt a little guilty that he couldn’t even talk to Larry about his night—and morning—at Kent’s. He had no one to share it with outside of Kent, Tim, and Paul.
But he and Larry weren’t at that point yet. They still weren’t even sure if they were going to sleep together, much less take the relationship to a deeper level.
He was…alone.
Unless he didn’t show up for work one day, there really wasn’t anyone to miss him immediately. His closest friends would, he hoped, think something was amiss after a week or two.
No siblings, his parents were gone.
No kids.
Then again, kids hadn’t really ever been on his radar, even before he finally understood he was gay and what that meant. Sometimes, he watched his friends with kids and wondered “what if,” but that ship had sailed. Sure, he could have adopted or had a surrogate, but having a kid without having a life partner just didn’t make sense to him. Especially when he didn’t have a deep biological urge to have one.
Usually he had no complaints about his life, or his job, and few regrets. He had a lot of friends, of the vanilla and kinky persuasion, some of them even ticking both boxes. Not much to complain about, really.
Until he dove too deep into his navel-gazing and started looking around and it really sank in how alone he was.
Even then, that wasn’t a complaint so much as it was a realization he tried to shove away so he didn’t let it eat too deeply at him.
Chapter Five
Monday morning, Boyd sent Tim a text to check on him and Paul. That led to a quick, friendly phone call to confirm that everything was okay. Boyd liked to follow up with people he played with, in case they had subdrop, or if there were things they wanted to talk about regarding the scene.
“Paul can’t wait to play with you again,” Tim told him. “He had a blast.”
“Did you?”
“I had a lot of fun.”
“But are you okay with how I played with Paul?”
“Oh, yeah. Don’t mind me and my little freak-outs over marks. That’s my issue, not yours. He was a happy camper. Even had me take pictures of his ass for him to remember it by.”
“I’m glad I could help. Any time you want to schedule more play, just let me know.”
Wednesday, Boyd was scheduled to meet with Ella an hour before he was to meet Larry at the restaurant. That’d work out fine, because he didn’t want to mix the two streams quite yet, so to speak.
Especially since Boyd didn’t really know Ella outside of the rope group at Venture and the munch, and Larry was skittish in some ways when it came to his private life. The man wouldn’t be comfortable with a stranger sitting there while they chatted.
Frankly, after his weekend at Kent’s, Boyd was hoping maybe something more could develop between him and Larry.
The love Tim and Paul obviously had for each other couldn’t be missed. Despite the hot sex he’d had with both men, it only drove home how lonely Boyd felt outside those types of encounters.
Then there was the subtle torture of watching Kyle and Tristan together.
Boyd arrived a few minutes early to get the rear corner booth he wanted, ensuring privacy. Ella arrived right on time. When Boyd saw her walk in, he held up a hand in greeting and she quickly joined him.
“Thanks for meeting with me,” she said. “I appreciate it.” She acted a little…subdued tonight, as opposed to the other times he’d encountered her.
“No problem. I only have about a half hour, though,” he fudged, but reminding her of his time limit. Just in case they ran a little long, it built in a cushion. “I’m meeting someone else, and nothing personal, but I’m just getting to know them and they’re pretty private.”
“That’s fine. This won’t take long.”
“Just didn’t want you to think I’m giving you the bum’s rush or something, eh?”
“No, I get it. It’s fine.”
“So. What’d you want to talk about?”
“I couldn’t help but notice your accent,” Ella said. He thought it was an odd segue. “Sounds like you were raised in Minnesota.” The blue-eyed, blonde woman once again struck him as vaguely familiar, for some reason.
“Yah, mostly, aye?” he said with a smile, emphasizing the accent. Then he dropped it. “Until we had to move. My dad was in the military. My mom’s family was from Minneapolis. Dad was stationed at Minot, but Mom and I mostly stayed in Grand Forks with Mom’s cousins, because of my school and her job. Left when I was seventeen, when Dad was transferred to Germany.”
Her gaze fell to her hands. “Does the name Helen Stinton ring a bell?”
Boyd stared at her. “I’m…” He hadn’t really thought about Helen in years. “I knew a girl by that name. Back in high school.” A flood of memories washed in and, this time, they didn’t involve green eyes or a guy who took a chunk of Boyd’s heart with him when he left his bed.
For the first time since his early twenties, he really…thought about her, instead of generically remembering he’d only slept with one woman.
Back then, she hadn’t been a woman, and he definitely hadn’t been a man.
An unseasonably cool late summer night and an old blanket in the back of a pickup truck. A clear, starry sky, and two kids fumbling and not knowing what the hell they were doing.
Especially him.
Doubly especially since he’d already suspected he was gay, but when she’d asked him to be with her that night, he couldn’t bring himself to tell her no.
Mostly because he wanted the question answered once and for all in his own mind, and partly because he knew he’d never see her again. She and her parents were moving to California for her father’s next post, leaving the next day.
What Boyd hadn’t told Helen was so were he and his parents. Not the next day, but moving less than a week later. Heading to another country for his last year of high school, he wouldn’t have to deal with any rumors of whether or not he liked boys better than girls.
Mainly because he’d be somewhere new, where no one knew him. When his dad had offered Boyd the option of staying behind with cousins to finish school there, he’d eagerly jumped at the chance to leave.
“‘Knew’ her?” Ella asked, barging into his memories.
A cold feeling started congealing in the pit of his stomach. “We…sort of dated. For a while.”
“‘Sort of dated’?”
“Are you going to question every answer I give you? And why are you asking me this, anyway?” Except…as he started doing the math in his head…he knew.
Ella’s behavior, especially tonight.
The familiar blue eyes, because they stared back at him from the mirror every morning. The blonde hair the same shade as his.
“You slept with her one time, before she moved? Only once?”
He numbly nodded. “Yes. She asked me to. She was in love with me.”
“Congratulations, asshole. You’re my father.”
Oh…fuck.
He’d used a condom that night, passed to him by one of his friends when he’d asked if he had one.
Except he’d been a stupid, clueless kid, and it’d been the first time he’d ever used one. Hell, who even knew if the damn thing had been expired, or had a hole in it? How long it’d been in his buddy’s wallet?
He struggled for words and finally, lamely, settled on, “H-how is she, then?”
“Dead.”
“What?”
“Five years ago. Logging truck jackknifed, lost its load, and took out her and three other cars. I was sixteen.”
It felt like a punch in his gut. “I…I’m sorry.”
“Not nearly as sorry as I was, I’m sure.” She sat back. “Try figuring out how t
o file for emancipated minor status so you can settle your mother’s estate while taking AP high school classes so you can land a damn academic scholarship to college. Mainly, because same single mother couldn’t afford to send you to college.
“Fortunately, the logging company had insurance and was eager to make a fast payout to keep me from going to the media about it. They were trying to get more logging land opened to them, and I could have made them look reeeeally bad. At least they paid for her funeral for me. I had twenty dollars to my fucking name when she died, because I couldn’t access her bank accounts until probate went through.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him. He suspected if looks could kill he’d be nothing but a smoking pile of ash and bone fragments.
He didn’t know what to say. Nothing he said would be right.
She continued. “How many Boyd Nybergs could there possibly be in the world, I asked myself.” She leaned forward. “Turns out there’s a lot more of you fuckers than I thought. It was only because I located a couple of your cousins in Grand Forks and tracked their Facebook feeds that I was finally able to find you. Saw you’d marked yourself as going to events at Venture, and that led me to digging around. Hell, I thought surely you’d have a wife, kids.” She studied her fingernails for a moment. “Kind of family I never got to have.”
“I don’t have any other kids,” he softly said. “Your mother was the only woman I ever slept with. I’m gay.”
“Duh. I figured that out when I started going to events at Venture and asked about you. Got to meet you.”
It felt like he couldn’t even think, much less form coherent sentences. “What about your grandparents? Why didn’t they help you? Why didn’t they ask the military for help locating us when she found out she was pregnant?” At war within him, shock, and more than a little indignation that no one tried to tell him back then.