Tempting Him by Isabel Lucero
35
“What is wrong with you?”Renzo asks as I sit on Trev and Dom’s couch while everyone around me is either drinking or dancing.
“Nothing.”
He drops down next to me, nudging my side. “I know you’re full of shit. We just graduated, dude! Everyone’s having a good time except you.”
“I was drinking. I am drinking,” I amend, holding up my beer.
Renzo takes it from me. “First of all, this is full and warm.”
“I don’t know, man. Just got some shit goin’ on. I’m fine.”
“Talk to me,” he says with another nudge. “I may have overheard something about a secret boyfriend. Is it that?”
I snort. “Who was it? Dom or Trevor?”
He pretends to lock his lips shut, but it doesn’t matter because soon Dom marches over and plops down on the other side of me.
“Why are you all depressed over here? Mr. Missionary?”
I shoot him a look before Renzo pipes in. “Who?”
With a drawn out, dramatic sigh, I figure I may as well open up. I gave Renzo a little shit for not letting me know what was going on with him and Ronan, and then Trev kept the fact that he was gay and sleeping with the new running back a secret. Now I can understand why you want to keep things to yourself, but there isn’t a point anymore.
“I met a guy. Mr. Missionary as Dom likes to call him, at a party I was invited to at Three Sheets. He was a bit older and Dom thought he’d be this boring-in-the-sack type of guy, but I’ll have you both know, he’s far from boring.”
They exchange a look and laugh, but I keep going.
“Anyway, surprise surprise, he turns out to be my boss.”
“At the marketing company?” Renzo asks, eyes wide.
“Yep. Runs the company, in fact.”
“Holy shit,” Dom says.
“Anyway, long story short, we kept sleeping together, deciding it was a sex only type thing. I found out later he was due to leave shortly after graduation, but over time, I guess we got close. There’s a lot of other details you don’t know, as far as issues he has due to past trauma, but right at the end, he was opening up and our sex only situation was turning into something else.” I wave my hand through the air. “Anyway, oh, I forgot to mention—he’s friends with my dad, and my dad showed up to his room while I was there last weekend and everything went to hell.”
“No!” Renzo gasps.
“It was a whole mess and Alek left early. I haven’t talked to him since then. He’s in Chicago now and my Dad’s still pissed, and I don’t know. I’m just feeling annoyed and stressed.”
“I feel like I’m in a soap opera,” Dom says, making Renzo snort. “Oh, shut up. My mom watched them a lot.”
“So, you ended up really liking this guy,” Renzo says.
“I guess,” I answer with a shrug.
“How old is he?” Dom asks.
“Forty-one.”
Renzo lets out a low whistle. “Forty-one?”
Dom peeks around me and looks at Zo. “He’s hot though. Not gonna lie.”
“I don’t know what to say, man,” Renzo says. “I mean, he doesn’t live here. Have you thought about moving back home? Maybe it’ll work then.”
I shake my head. “So we can have double date dinner nights with my parents?” I joke. “Nah, I don’t want to live in Chicago. I like it here. I have a job here now. The beginnings of a career. Plus, I don’t know how he feels about us. He hasn’t reached out. He said goodbye, so it felt pretty final.”
“Have you texted him?” Dom asks.
“No, but only because I’m afraid he won’t reply or he’ll tell me not to text him again.”
“You won’t know till you know,” Renzo says with a shrug.
“Come on, man. Get up, get drunk, let’s celebrate, and you can figure out your shit with Mr. Missionary another time. Right now, it’s your time.”
I playfully punch Dom in the arm. “Okay, okay. No more sulking. Who wants to play shot roulette?” I yell loud enough for everyone to hear.
A few groans mixed with a few cheers echo back to me, and our group of friends celebrate the ending of our college lives.
After having a couple more conversations with my friends about my love life situation, I start to feel a little better. Nobody’s judging me for Alek being older or my boss. Surprised, maybe, but nobody has anything negative to say. Which I feel should be the case for everybody’s relationships. As long as it’s a legal, consenting relationship, it shouldn’t matter the gender, race, or age of the people involved as long as they’re happy. I don’t know why everyone gets so caught up in what or who other people are doing, loving, or fucking.
However, I am at the beginning of my adult life. I’m turning twenty-three next month and I have a job lined up and ready to start in two weeks. I’m going to live with Trev and Dom until I can find an apartment. There’s nothing close to my job, and I’m not wanting to commute over forty minutes back and forth to work every day. Plus, they’re building some new complexes a couple miles from MGD and should be ready to move into in the next month or so. Everything is looking good for my future. Maybe it just wasn’t my time to settle down. Perhaps I need to settle into my life a little more first.
“Hey, you good?” Dex asks me from across the dining room table we’re playing beer pong on.
I snap myself out of my thoughts and smile. “I am. Let’s go. I’m whoopin’ everybody’s ass.”
The group laughs and we get absolutely wasted and end up having a sleepover with nearly a dozen people sprawled between two beds, a couch, and a makeshift fort in the living room.
