Drilled by K.M. Neuhold

Prologue

15 Years Earlier

RIDGE

I don’t remember the sidewalk being quite this unsteady on our walk to the bar a few hours ago…okay, more like six hours ago. Damn, were we really out that long?

Fuck it, it’s my bachelor party, I’m entitled to let loose a bit. I burp, and the taste of beer and bile fills my mouth. Fine, more than a little bit then.

Apollo bumps into me, obviously having the same issue with the sidewalk that I am. A giggle bubbles from his lips, the sound so unlike him that it startles a laugh out of me too. Both of us sway and stumble our way toward home. Maybe we should’ve gotten a cab, but there was some rock-solid logic about the walk sobering us up? I can’t really remember now.

The late August air is sticky against my skin, and the sounds of cicadas and crickets combined with far-off traffic and the scrape of our shoes on the pavement all keep the night from being too quiet.

“Dude, I can’t believe you’re getting married tomorrow.” There’s a slight slur to his words and maybe an undercurrent of…sadness? Or we’re both just drunk, and I’m imagining things.

After all, why would Apollo be sad about the wedding? He knows how much I always wished I could be part of his family. Since the first Sunday dinner his mom invited me to, I thought the Day’s were the perfect family. I mean, Sunday dinners, for real? At my house, I had to eat in the kitchen alone while my parents ate together in front of the TV.

And now I’m marrying his sister, Anna. It’s perfect.

So what’s with the squirmy feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach that I’ve been doing my damnedest to extinguish with alcohol all night long?

“Are you excited?” he asks as we round the corner toward our apartment building.

My shoe catches a crack in the concrete, and I nearly go down, but Apollo catches me, his large, strong hand wrapping around my bicep and yanking me back upright. But since he’s as wasted as I am, he overcorrects, so instead of falling on my face, I tumble back into him, taking us both down.

We land with an oomph half on the sidewalk, half on the patch of dry grass that separates it from the road, with Apollo directly underneath me. In an attempt to brace for the fall, I twisted around, putting us chest to chest, face to face, crotch to…um…

The streetlight directly above us casts a spotlight over my best friend, illuminating the subtle streams of red in his beard and the few freckles that dot his nose. His lips are full and damp, his forest-green eyes piercing mine as he looks up at me, our chests moving against each other with every breath we take.

A feeling stirs inside me, a rightness I’ve never felt before and can’t quite place. My brain is too foggy to untangle the mess of thoughts weaving themselves into a jumble inside my head. The only thing I’m capable of is staring at Apollo and wondering how the hell I never noticed how…sexy he is.

Something hard presses against my crotch. I shift against it, trying to figure out what it is. It’s too big to be his cell phone. His eyes flutter closed and his lips part, a gust of breath whooshing out in what can only be described as a near-silent moan.

Oh. Oh.

Shit.

I awkwardly scramble off of him, my cock giving a confusing twitch.

“Sorry,” he grunts, reaching down to adjust himself before getting to his feet.

Without my permission, my eyes dart to the bulge in the front of his jeans. He’s my best friend. I’ve seen his dick plenty of times in the locker room and several times when he was drunk enough to decide to be a nudist for a few hours. Once, I even walked in on him getting sucked off in the living room.

A hot feeling washes over me at that memory. For weeks after it happened, it kept randomly popping into my head and making me so horny I’d have to stop whatever I was doing and jerk off furiously, remembering his face twisted with pleasure and the deep, breathless moans he was making.

It was easy enough to reason away my reaction at the time. My body was responding to the fact that I saw someone about to come, and it made my dick think about how good that probably felt. Simple.

But right now, it doesn’t feel that simple. Right now, my mind is conjuring images of me dropping to my knees right here on the sidewalk and pressing my face against that denim-clad bulge.

My throat tightens and my cock swells.

“It’s not personal. Drunk brain, dude on top of me, that’s it,” he tries to reassure me, clearly misinterpreting my reaction for panic.

I am kind of panicking, but not for the reason he thinks.

I’m panicking because, in twelve hours, I’m supposed to be marrying his sister, and I’ve never had this guttural, desperate, so-horny-I-almost-can’t-breathe reaction to her.

“Ridge,” he says roughly, sending a tingle down my spine.

I manage to drag my eyes away from his erection and up to his face. All traces of drunk, giggling Apollo are gone, replaced with his usual scowl. It’s oddly settling. My world just turned on its axis, but my scowly, gruff best friend is still who he’s always been.

“It’s cool, Pol,” I manage to say around my dry throat.

He grunts again and nods, making a move like he’s going to put an arm around me before he stops himself and tucks his hands into his pockets.

“Come on, I need to get you to bed. Anna’s going to have my ass tomorrow if you show up to the wedding visibly hungover.” He nudges me with his elbow to get me moving.

“Yeah,” I mutter, shuffling up the walkway to our building, my mind reeling as I go through the motions of fishing my keys out of my pocket and trudging up the stairs.

I’m on autopilot as I find my bed and fall into it fully clothed, my heart in my throat and my thoughts spinning.

I think I might be gay.