If you are reading this, hopefully you are already up to speed with the events of my first story, "Let's Make a Deal," in which I chronicled the mostly true story of the hottest sexual experience of my life. If you haven't, please go back and read about the camping trip turned sex-fest with my hunk of a best friend who I had secretly lusted after for years, before going any further.
For those of you who have already read about all that, I'm assuming you are here for some closure from the little cliffhanger I left you with. Hopefully this satisfies.
***
So when I left off, Tyler and I had come home from our camping week and gone back to work and the real world. Me, a manager at a shitty retail chain, dangerously close to hitting the 30 mark. And Tyler, an employee at same said shitty retail chain, still comfortably in the middle of his twenties. For a few weeks things had seemed awkward between us. We weren't avoiding each other or anything at work, but we also weren't really connecting and hanging out outside of work like we used to.
Until our schedules seemed to finally align, and we agreed to one of our usual hang out sessions on a night when we were both off work the following day. As you may recall from where I'd left off, I vowed to confront Tyler about our sex-fueled bro-trip that we had previously agreed to never talk about again. Mainly, I was going to call Tyler out on a certain kiss that we had shared on that trip. A kiss that was initiated by him, in a moment that seemed somehow different from the testosterone filled fucking of the rest of that trip.
Well, to make a long story short, Tyler came over that night, we hung out in my parent's basement watching weird Youtube videos and drinking, and then I called Tyler out on that kiss. He broke down and admitted that it had meant something to him as well, and we fucked like animals on the basement couch. The end.
Okay, so it actually didn't go anything like that, because, unfortunately, that's not how life works. Or usually not my life anyway.
In actuality, he came over, we hung out in my parent's basement and watched weird Youtube videos and drank, and I was too much of a pussy to bring up anything about that kiss or that camping trip. We sat on the same couch, and I kept hoping Tyler would get drunk enough to initiate some asinine deal, like the one he'd originally proposed at my family's cabin that had led to all the sex and shenanigans. But drink after drink, the topic never came up.
In fact, very late into the night, Tyler hit me with a bombshell of a different kind. Suddenly, out of the blue, he just casually dropped the "G" word on me. Yeah, out of nowhere, Tyler started talking about a girlfriend. Apparently, he'd been texting with a pretty little new girl at work for some time, and right after we got back from our guy's trip, they'd gone out and were now dating.
Inside, I immediately felt crushed with a mix of confusion and jealousy. Outside, I think I responded to the news by saying "cool cool cool cool cool" way too many times in a row. We drank a little more, I got a little sloppy and I think started whining that we'd probably never hang out anymore now that he had a girl. He assured me that we would always be best bros. I think the cliched "Bros before hoes" phrase was even thrown around.
And for the most part, Tyler didn't lie. In the weeks and months to come after, we did remain best friends. Sure we didn't hang out as frequently. There were days when I'd get my heart set on doing something with my best friend, only to hear he already had plans with Rachel. I'd get disproportionately depressed on these occasions, but Tyler would always make up for it and hang out with me another day.
But things never stay the same forever. Eventually, I was called upon to transfer and manage a different location. So Tyler and I no longer worked at the same store.
We still hung out, but it became harder and harder to coordinate the time to do it in. Meanwhile, I was getting lonely. I'd tell myself I just needed to find a girl of my own, but then I'd talk myself out of it, convincing myself that no respectable girl would want to be involved with a recently turned 30 year old who still lived with his parents.
So I took the obvious next step from that, and turned to craigslist hookups. I'd still tell myself I needed to find a girlfriend, but there was no fooling myself about who I was looking to replace with these hookups.
I created a new secret email identity, and only agreed to meet guys at their places and other locations. I obviously couldn't be inviting strange men back to my parents house.
Yeah, you heard me right. I was looking for hookups with other guys. I was trying to chase those feelings I'd gotten with Tyler. It didn't make complete sense to me, but I'd find myself doing it anyway. To some very interesting results.
The first couple of times I chickened out and bailed. A few times, I could see the guy I was supposed to meet from a distance, see that he was nothing like he'd described or how he looked in his pictures, and I'd turn around and go home. Other times I was convinced the guy would have that same reaction upon seeing me. I mean, I tried to provide pictures that accurately represented myself, but of course I picked ones where I was a few years younger.
One of the first guys I actually followed through with seemed promising at first. We agreed to meet up at the food court in the mall, and I was actually really nervous that he was expecting for us to go off and hook up in one of the bathrooms or something. Instead, we sat there and had some casual, if a little awkward, conversation. We seemed to have some things in common as far as music and movies and things were concerned. We were about the same age, and you could say he was kind of cute, in a dorky kind of way, not unlike myself. His name was Jason, and he came off as maybe being as nervous as I was. That was okay, but i definitely needed him to make the first move here or we'd be sitting in the food court talking about Game of Thrones all night, if it were up to me to take charge.
"Sooo... Did you want to go back to my place or yours?" He finally asked, not exactly making direct eye contact.
"Your place!" I blurted out, probably a bit too quickly. He looked a little surprised at my outburst. "Sorry," I continued, "It's just, I'm kind of living with my parents at the moment."
I felt my cheeks get hot at the admission. Idiot! Why would I tell him that? Then again, why not? I wasn't looking for a long-term relationship or anything here. The goal here was a hookup. A quick fuck to get my mind off of the last sex of any kind I'd had, some six months ago by now, with Tyler.
"Oh, that's cool. My place it is then." Jason responded. I was silently grateful that he didn't have a comment about my current living arrangements.
