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  “I think I’d like to hear more about some of the other aspects of potentially being gay,” Owen said, his voice almost a whisper. “Do you think we could have that talk, after all?”

  “Sure.” Spending more time with Owen was going to be almost torturous. But he was the big brother here, and he could take the responsibility to help the guy out.

  “Awesome,” Owen said. “When is good for you? Tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow sounds good. You can come over to my place before work. We’ll head back here together.”

  “Great. Shoot me a text, and we’ll work out the details.”

  “Sounds good, bro.”

  Cooper watched Owen leave. What exactly had he had just agreed to?

  Thirteen

  Frisbee jumped up Owen’s leg as soon as Cooper opened the door. The golden retriever panted rapidly, and his liquid brown eyes showed his happiness. Owen scratched the dog’s ears, which only made Frisbee more excited.

  “He’s really taken to you,” Cooper commented.

  “He remembers me from yesterday.”

  The puppy was practically jumping up and down for Owen’s attention. Owen bent lower to scratch him, still in the door of Cooper’s apartment. The little paws resting on his thigh were about the cutest thing he had ever seen.

  “How old is he?” he asked.

  As Frisbee jumped off him and ran through to the kitchen, Cooper answered. “Almost two. My ex and I got him a few months before we broke up.”

  “I see.”

  An irrational jealousy came over Owen as he glanced around. The apartment was fairly large and nicely decorated. There appeared to be two bedrooms, as well as the combined living room and kitchen ahead of him. The apartment looked just as mature as Cooper himself.

  Owen wondered briefly about Cooper’s comment about his sex drive. Had he fucked his ex on every surface of this place? Or would it have been the other way around? A few days ago, he would have been repulsed by picturing such sexual acts. Now that he had stopped forcing the repulsion, he was possessed with an insatiable curiosity.

  “You want some coffee? Tea?”

  “No, maybe just water.”

  After leading him into the kitchen, Cooper poured him a glass out of the filtered jug in the fridge. They sat down at the counter. The chairs were high enough that Owen’s feet barely touched the floor. It was much bigger than his studio apartment, although he kept his place impeccable. Cooper’s showed more signs of being lived in.

  Owen took a sip of his water, trying to come up with something to say. He hadn’t planned anything. Somewhere in the past day or two, he had thought about his lack of attraction to women. Maybe it meant something that he had never been crazy about sex with his exes. The past couple days of masturbating to men had been better than full-on penetration with his girlfriends.

  He had considered Cooper’s offer to set him up with someone else. But his curiosity was receding in face of his fear. What would it mean if he was actually gay? It seemed more likely the more he thought about it. What would it mean to his life if he came out? It wouldn’t be a problem at work, although he might never live down the teasing from the other guys. He could just imagine how they would laugh and talk about him.

  But what about his family? He honestly had no idea how they would take the news. He had no gay relatives. He couldn’t remember his proper, possibly uptight, parents even discussing homosexuality. He hadn’t even told them about this strange coincidence where all his coworkers were gay. Had it not come up? Or had he been avoiding the subject??

  “What did you do today?” Cooper asked.

  Owen ran his finger around the rim of the glass. “Not too much. I just studied this morning, and then I went to the gym.”

  “Right. Your MBA, is it?”

  “Yeah. I’m halfway through.”

  “Nice, bro.”

  Chatting with Cooper set Owen somewhat at ease. Cooper was still the same buddy he’d always known, even if he was now looking at him in a completely different way. Cooper wasn’t the one who had changed.

  They chatted a little more, but Owen was fidgety. They were beating around the bush. He had come here to talk about his sexuality. He knew Cooper was just trying to put him at ease, but he didn’t have the balls to broach the subject himself.

  When he finished his water, Cooper got up to pour him a new glass. He set it down in front of Owen. He ran his finger along the condensation, watching it drip down afterward.

  “So, let’s talk,” Cooper said.

  Owen let his fingers fall from the glass. “I guess I want to know more about being gay.”

  “I’ll tell you anything I can. I don’t know exactly what you want to know. Like I told you, I came out when I was twenty. It was pretty easy once I figured it out. My family didn’t have any major problems with it. Well, my little brothers were fine.”

  “You have little brothers?”

  “Yeah, two of them. Why are you surprised?”

  “I guess I figured the big brother thing was just a thing,” Owen said with a shrug.

  “No, I learned that from real life. I take care of my little brothers even more than I take care of you guys.”

  “It’s nice of you.”

  “I got my first facial hair when I was twelve,” Cooper said, rubbing his chin absent-mindedly. “By the time I was fifteen, I had a full beard and people were calling me ‘sir.’ I grew up a little faster than most people. Only felt right for me to take care of everyone.”

  Owen couldn’t help but smile. Cooper did more than enough for the guys at the club. He remembered him spending night after night helping Jesse perfect his act, not to mention how he had helped Lucas get hired. He’d nearly punched out a customer when one had gotten too handsy with Lev. That was just what Cooper was like.

  Owen had never needed his big-brother services before. Now that he was, he was pleased to see that Cooper had even more experience than he thought. Cooper was an all-around good guy.

  “So, your little brothers were fine with your sexuality, but your parents weren’t?” Owen asked.

  “No, my parents were okay after, oh… a couple weeks. My grandparents took a little longer to come around.”

  Owen nodded. He hadn’t thought about his one remaining grandmother yet. She was even more conservative than his parents, although he only saw her a couple times a year. Would she really need to find out about what got him off late at night? Couldn’t he just keep it to himself?

  “You don’t have to look so worried,” Cooper said. “Your family will be okay with it, if you decide to come out to them. Well… I shouldn’t be so optimistic, it doesn’t happen like that for everybody. But even if they’re not, you’ll be all right. You’re strong, you’re independent. I know you’d get through it.”

  Owen bit his lip. This conversation had gotten a little darker than he had expected. He didn’t want to think about losing contact with his family and having to rely on himself. They would have to be okay with him being gay, if he did turn out to be gay. And that was still a big “if.”

  He took another sip of water before speaking again. “Have you been in a lot of relationships?”

  “Only one, to be honest. We were together for just about a year. I dated a few guys for a few months here and there, but it didn’t get too serious.”

  “It was serious with your ex?”

  “Well, yeah. He was living with me at the end. I thought we were going to be together forever.”

  Cooper drummed his fingers on the table, and Owen realized he’d hit a sore spot. Again, that strange twinge of jealousy came over him. He didn’t really like the idea of Cooper dating other guys, either.

  “You told me a little about him, right? He was your coworker.” Cooper nodded, and Owen remembered the part that had confused him before. “You told me it all blew up in your face. What happened?”

  “We broke up, and it went bad.”

  Maybe it was time for Owen to stop pressing. Not yet. “Why�
��d you break up?”

  To his relief, Cooper gave him a straight answer. “We split because he had issues with his sexuality. Everyone at work knew we were together, but he wouldn’t hold my hand in public. Said he felt like we were getting stared at. We had to pretend that we were just friends. He wanted me to come meet his family as a ‘friend,’ and I wasn’t down for that.”

  Owen bit his lip, starting to understand why Cooper had reservations about getting involved with a closeted guy. “How’d things go bad?” he asked in a low voice.

  “He didn’t take it well,” Cooper said, looking away. “First he begged me to change my mind. He said he’d do anything I wanted if I would stay with him… anything but tell his family the truth. When I said no, he told our manager a bunch of lies about me. Said I was stealing from the business. He had no proof, of course, but word got around and people started to look at me funny.”

  “And you didn’t tell his family to get back at him?” Owen asked, wide-eyed. “He would have completely deserved that.”

  “No. I’m not that kind of guy. Our mutual friends started avoiding me. I quit the job soon after that. “

  “You couldn’t have just told them it wasn’t true?”

  “I didn’t want to make him look bad,” Cooper said. He cleared his throat. “What about you? Have you really been sleeping with the customers, the way the guys tease you about?”

  Owen shook his head. “Those guys make things up out of thin air,” he said. “I mean, I flirt with them, but that’s part of the job description. I haven’t actually done anything with any of them.”

  Cooper didn’t ask why not. “But you don’t have a girlfriend?”

  Although Owen didn’t particularly want to answer, didn’t want to pursue this line of questioning, he figured he owed it to Cooper after asking him so many personal questions. “No. You guys would know if I did. I haven’t had one in a while.”

  “Had a lot of serious relationships?”

  “No, just a few months here and there. Like you, I guess. The last one ended probably a year ago, too. I haven’t been looking, though. Haven’t even been thinking about it.”

  Frisbee ran up, yapping loudly. Cooper got up to pet the puppy, but Owen was faster. He scratched the little guy’s head. His fur was yellow and soft, and his canine grin never left his face.

  “Think fast,” Cooper said, tossing Owen a bag of treats. Owen caught it and gave one to Frisbee. Astonishingly, the kibble made him even more excited.

  Owen was still smiling when the dog ran off. “He’s amazing,” he said as he sat down.

  “Yes, he is.”

  “So… you don’t hook up with guys?” Owen asked, adjusting himself on his chair.

  He couldn’t quite look Cooper in the eye as he spoke. He didn’t want him to think he was making a move on him again, even though he wished Cooper would change his mind. Of all the guys in the world, Cooper was the one who had made him start questioning his sexuality.

  “Well… not really.”

  Owen glanced at him, the memory of his cock fresh in his mind. “What does that mean?”

  “Well, no, I don’t.”

  “You said not really. That’s not a no.” Owen was too curious to let this go. “Do you meet guys at bars?”

  “You think I have time to be going out to bars? I work nights Wednesday through Sunday, just like you.”

  “So you need to get more creative about meeting dudes,” Owen said, raising his pierced eyebrow. “Or do you have that app? What’s it called again?”

  It was strange, but it was almost like Cooper was blushing. “I told you, I don’t hook up with guys.”

  “But you have that app, don’t you? You didn’t say that you didn’t, so you must.”

  “I’m not going to confirm or deny that,” Cooper said.

  Owen grinned. This was juicier than he imagined. Who would have guessed he’d be so excited to hear more about Cooper’s sex life? Thinking about gay guys getting it on had never interested him in the slightest. Now he was dying to hear more about how Cooper hooked up.

  “Show me the app,” he said. “What’s the name of it?”

  “It’s called Grindr.” Cooper made no move to take out his phone.

  Owen leaned in, unable to suppress his grin. Cooper was still pink in the face, and the new color suited him. The guy was always so calm and collected. Owen liked having him thrown off a little.

  “Let me see. You just told me you had it. You can’t tell me you don’t.”

  “Fine.” Cooper still looked embarrassed, but he was being a good sport about it. He pulled out his phone and set it down on the table. There were a few new message notifications, which he ignored. He opened up the app and passed the phone to Owen.

  “So, how’s this work?” Owen looked at the app, unfamiliar with the interface. This had to be a list of guys who were using the app right now. The pictures were arranged with three in each row. Most of them were shirtless torsos, although there were a few dicks scattered here and there. Owen felt a tightness in his groin.

  Cooper had his hand on his forehead. “Those are some of the users. You can click them to see their profiles.”

  Owen clicked one at random. There was a brief introduction, along with some stats and a few body pictures.

  “He looks okay. Would you message him?”

  “No. I told you, I don’t hook up with anybody. I just have it to kill time. Just seeing what’s out there.”

  “Sure, bro, sure. Where can I see your conversations?”

  “I don’t know if I want you looking at that…”

  “Oh, so you do have conversations!” Owen fiddled around before finding the right place to click. There were several chats, although the first one he clicked only had messages from the other guy. Cooper had never responded.

  He clicked the guy’s profile. No face pictures, which seemed to be standard, but he had a great body. “He looks good. Why didn’t you respond to him?”

  “I didn’t want to hook up.”

  “These poor guys, messaging you and never getting a response.” He went back to the list of conversations and picked another one. “Wait, you did respond to this one. You were planning to meet him!”

  Cooper grabbed the phone back, looking even more embarrassed now. He looked at the old conversation as if refreshing his memory. “Oh, yeah. That didn’t happen.”

  “Mr. Doesn’t Hook Up was trying to hook up, huh?”

  “I guess I was hornier than usual that night, or something. Does it matter?”

  Owen shrugged. It didn’t, except for the jealousy that was washing over him yet again. He wondered if Cooper would have replied to him if he’d messaged him on Grindr. If they weren’t coworkers. He supposed that nothing would have happened. It seemed like Cooper was telling the truth about not meeting up with guys. That surprised Owen. Cooper was such a good-looking dude, and he could doubtless get whatever guy he desired.

  “Let me see your profile,” he said.

  With a heavy sigh, Cooper passed the phone back over to him. “I don’t even remember what’s on there.”

  “Sure, you don’t.” He navigated to Cooper’s profile, having quickly figured out how to use the app. Maybe he would download this for himself. He could meet a guy… although that guy wouldn’t compare to Cooper.

  He clicked on the pictures first. “Wow, you look great.” His friend really did. The pictures were just like the other guys’ pictures, a shirtless torso photographed from various angles. Cooper’s muscles looked even more defined than they did in real life.

  As Owen skimmed through the pictures, his heart nearly stopped. There was Cooper’s dick, and not like it was at the club. It was fully engorged, his hand resting casually on the side of it. Owen’s mouth watered. He couldn’t quite lift his eyes to meet Cooper’s.

  “Sorry, you shouldn’t have seen that. I forgot that was on there.” Cooper took the phone back, quickly closing the app. “I should just delete that whole thing. I don
’t use it.”

  “That’s okay.”

  Owen would never be able to look at Cooper the same way again… but it was okay.

  Fourteen

  Cooper shoved his phone in his pocket. He wanted to kick himself for forgetting what kind of pictures he had on Grindr. But how could he have guessed that Owen would go through his phone like that? That shit was private. No one ever looked that closely at his messages.

  He honestly hadn’t used that app in months. He’d been on there when the sexual frustration was too much to take, but he had lost interest before meeting anybody. It might have felt good to stick his dick into some guy’s hole, or to get fucked by a stranger whose last name he would never know. But he knew it would leave him feeling empty afterwards.

  “Hey, if this wasn’t awkward enough…” Owen almost looked shy. “I saw it said that you’re a switch. What does that mean?”

  Cooper’s eyes widened. He definitely regretted inviting Owen over now. Was the guy even serious? Wasn’t it pretty obvious? If Owen knew enough about gay men to know about Grindr, he should have known what a switch was.

  “You can’t tell me you didn’t pick up a thing or two from the change room,” he said. “You seriously need me to explain this to you?”

  “I kind of tend to tune out when you guys talked about gay stuff,” Owen admitted.

  “Well, a switch is a guy who can be a top or a bottom.”

  “Okay, don’t tell me. A top…”

  Cooper grimaced. “A top does the fucking. A bottom is the one who gets fucked.”

  “For… anal?”

  “Yes, Owen.” He dropped his head into his hands, his voice muffled through his fingers. “For anal sex, a.k.a. when one guy puts his dick inside another guy’s ass and wiggles it around in there. That’s what these terms are about.”

  “Okay, I see.”

  Cooper was glad that he got the gist, because he didn’t think he could handle talking about this much more. This line of questioning was way too intimate to have with a coworker. For a brief second, he wondered if Owen might also be a switch. The things that he could do with him…