Time Out (Dear Lonely Guy Book 2) Read online

  Time Out

  Alison Hendricks

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Keith

  2. Brendan

  3. Brendan

  4. Keith

  5. Keith

  6. Brendan

  7. Keith

  8. Keith

  9. Brendan

  10. Brendan

  11. Keith

  12. Brendan

  13. Keith

  14. Keith

  15. Brendan

  16. Keith

  17. Brendan

  18. Keith

  19. Brendan

  20. Keith

  21. Brendan

  22. Keith

  23. Keith

  24. Brendan

  25. Keith

  26. Brendan

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Alison Hendricks

  Time Out © Alison Hendricks 2020.

  Amazon Kindle Edition.

  All rights reserved. No part of this story may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the copyright holder, except in the case of brief quotations embodied within critical reviews and articles.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  The author has asserted his/her rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book.

  This book contains sexually explicit content which is suitable only for mature readers.

  Created with Vellum

  Prologue

  Keith

  Today was the day. I was finally going to tell my best friend I was head over heels in love with him.

  It'd been a long time coming. Brendan and I had been close since the second grade, when he stuck gum in the hair of some little jackass who was bullying me for the stutter I had back then. I'd followed him around like a little lost puppy after that and, to my surprise, Brendan didn't find me obnoxious the way most people did. He liked hanging out with me, and we'd been inseparable ever since.

  Things were about to change though. It was finals week, and that meant there was only one summer left before Brendan and I started separate lives. He was on track to be some crazy successful doctor, and I was just... drifting. As aimless as ever, with no clue what I wanted to do with my life.

  Even though we were going to be in the same city -- Brendan was going to the University of Florida and I was enrolled for fall semester at Santa Fe Community College -- we were going to be in completely separate worlds. He'd live in the dorms while I kept living with my parents. I'd probably get a part time job and eventually move out, while Brendan would buckle down and study his ass off.

  He'd make new friends. More mature friends. People who were actually doing things with their lives. He'd probably meet a nice girl, too. Somebody kind and quiet who his father approved of. Maybe somebody Brendan actually wanted.

  I'd never been able to confirm if he was into guys or not. We'd never done anything together; I just got the feeling sometimes that he was checking me out, and that his feelings for me weren't the usual bro vibes.

  I could've been projecting. Just desperately hoping he wanted me the way I wanted him. Tonight was the night to find out, though.

  We were laying in the bed of his rusted-out pickup truck. He'd bought the thing from this shady guy who had a good fifty cars on his property, all just sitting around and collecting dust. He'd only paid $1,000 for it, and it definitely showed. The pedals stuck when it was hot, the gear shift needed a forceful shove back and forth to get it moving, the AC didn't work for shit, and the whole interior smelled like feet, despite Brendan having cleaned it out top to bottom.

  But it was his, and it'd become ours. We went out like this a lot, just to talk and think. Sometimes to share a couple beers where nobody could see us. Once to roll some joints and decide neither of us were cut out to be potheads, since it'd made us both paranoid as fuck.

  Most of the time we just... laid out in the bed and stared up at the sky, talking through everything we couldn't say to anyone else. It was how I'd first come out, a couple years back. I'd talked through it with Brendan, giving voice to all of my fears. We'd figured it out together, just like we always did.

  "Still can't believe it's over," I heard him say, and I turned my head to look at him.

  He'd always been handsome, but over the last four years of our high school career, he'd started to bulk up, losing his baby fat and gaining muscle. He also had patchy little tufts of hair on his chin now that he hated, but I thought were adorable. Every time I saw them, I wanted to run my fingers over them; press my lips to his jaw and feel the tickle of them under my nose.

  "I can. I don't know what school you went to, but this last year has dragged ass," I grumbled. "So much pointless bullshit."

  "Yeah. I don't know. To me, it just feels like August was a month ago. To think about being somewhere else in a few months now, taking college classes... it's a lot."

  "Yeah," I answered, my hand resting on my stomach as I turned my head again to look up at the stars.

  I didn't think it would be a lot for me. The classes I'd signed up for were the same things I'd been learning in high school. Sure, it was college, and if I fucked up an exam or decided not to show up for a lecture, nobody was going to try and save my ass like they had here. Maybe because there weren't stakes to my classes like there were to Brendan's. I had no idea what I was working toward, after all.

  "I don't know what you're worried about," I said. "You're gonna destroy that shit, just like you always do. I've never seen you get anything below a B in my life, dude."

  He laughed, but I could tell his heart wasn't in it. When I looked over at him again, I saw the corner of his lips ease back into a neutral line, then a frown. There were wrinkles etched into his forehead that definitely shouldn't be there.

  That was the face Brendan made when he wanted to get something off his chest. I didn't push him, no matter how much I wanted to know. I just quietly looked at him, waiting for him to say what he needed to say.

  "I don't think I want to be a doctor, Keith."

  My eyes widened, and I rolled onto my side, propping myself up to look at him more fully. There was no sign of humor in his face. He wasn't just fucking with me. He looked... miserable.

  "Holy shit," I breathed, immediately thinking of how pissed his dad was going to be. "Are you sure? Maybe it's just cold feet or something."

  "Yeah. I'm sure." His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed thickly. Finally he looked over at me, fear in his bright blue eyes. "I don't want to be a doctor. I don't... think I ever did."

  It'd always been a given that Brendan would be either a doctor or a lawyer. That was the path his dad set out for him. The path he'd practically bought by moving the family to a better school district. He wanted so badly to see Brendan succeed in a big way, but there'd never been talk of anything else.

  "Well if you're not going to be a doctor... what do you want to do?"

  "I think I want to do something with football."

  I shot him a skeptical look. Brendan was technically a member of the varsity team, but he was... trash. He was trash at football. Despite his size, he just never had the ability to solidly hit anyone, and he hadn't been able to hack it in any position that involved catching or running the ball.

  "Not to play," he said with a smirk. "Ass. I can tell what you're thinking."

  "That you'd make
a good professional bench-warmer?"

  He laughed, leaning over to sock me me playfully in the shoulder. "You're such a dick."

  "But I'm right."

  A smile curved his lips. My heart gave an extra little thump, just for him.

  "Can't argue with that." His gaze turned back to the star-filled sky, and I tried to control my racing heart. "I think maybe... sports medicine. Helping athletes recover from injuries. That sort of thing."

  "That's not too far off from being a doctor, right? Shit, man. You were acting like you wanted to drop everything and go to clown college or something."

  "Less schooling, less money. And my dad doesn't get the prestige of saying his kid is an MD," Brendan answered.

  "Fuck your dad. This isn't about him, Bren. This is about you. What do you want?"

  I looked over at him again and he met my eyes. There was conflict there, but it slowly firmed into confidence and determination. I knew that look well. I'd seen it so often throughout our lives, and it was one of the looks I loved most.

  "I want to go into sports medicine. Fuck my dad and anybody else who says I shouldn't."

  "Hell yeah, man. Fuck 'em all."

  He laughed, a free, full sound. My heart fluttered in my chest. When his blue eyes met mine again, I could feel a rush of warmth spreading across my cheeks.

  And down to my dick. God dammit.

  "What about you? Any clue what you want to do yet?"

  I scoffed. "You serious? Keith Howard is the aimless fuckup, destined to change his major twenty times before just dropping out and working as the manager of a gas station or some shit."

  Brendan turned toward me, his gaze narrowed. "Don't say that. Just because you don't have things figured out now doesn't mean you never will."

  "Yeah..." I looked away from him, unable to keep from squirming under the intensity of his gaze. "Maybe. I just feel like I don't click with anything. Like there's nothing I can imagine doing for the rest of my life."

  "You'll get there," he said, reaching out to squeeze my shoulder. "College'll be good for that, right? You can try out different things, see what you like."

  I gave him a half-hearted smile. My heart suddenly felt heavy, and not in a good way. "Be better if you were there."

  I knew I leaned on Brendan way too much. I needed to find my own way and stop relying on him all the time. It was just always nice to know he would be there to pick me back up if I fell, just like he had a hundred times before.

  "Hey, I'm not going anywhere. Just because we're at different schools doesn't mean we have to stop hanging out."

  "It won't be the same, though. And... things are going to change, Brendan. That's just the way it is."

  I sat up, scooting to the edge of the tailgate, my legs hanging off the side. My hands came up to rub at my arms, despite the fact that it was a warm, muggy summer night.

  "Change how?" he asked, sitting up right beside me.

  I couldn't escape him now. This wasn't the conversation I wanted to have, but maybe these were things that needed to be said.

  "You'll make new friends, man. And since you're all at the same school, it'll just be easier to hang out with them. And... shit, you'll probably finish your degree before I even figure out what I want to do with mine."

  I didn't want to feel this way. I knew it made me look like some hopeless kid who couldn't stand on his own two feet without his best friend there to prop him up. But I was... afraid. Afraid Brendan would outgrow me. Afraid that if I told him how I felt about him, if I told him I loved him and couldn't bear losing him, it would just speed up that process and ruin things forever.

  "Hey." He put both of his hands on my shoulders, turning me to face him. He was so close to me, thigh touching mine, our faces less than a foot apart. "Listen to me, okay?"

  I swallowed hard, but nodded.

  "Things are going to change. You're right. We'll both meet new people and start doing new things. But I'm never going to stop being your friend, Keith. You're never not going to be the most important person in my life."

  My breath caught in my throat as I looked into his eyes. I could tell he truly believed what he was saying, and the strength of that made me want to believe it, too. It also made me want to believe that when he said I was important, he might just mean something a little deeper.

  "You're important to me, too," I said, barely above a whisper, my voice trembling.

  My mouth was open, I knew the words I wanted to say, but I was just too afraid to voice them. Even if this wasn't my last chance, it was the perfect opportunity, before the rest of the world interfered.

  I could have easily just pulled away, hiding my blush and my racing heart from him. Instead, I reached up and touched his jaw, my fingers stroking tenderly over those patchy tufts. I searched his eyes, finding a flicker of confusion, but not disgust.

  I was so close I could feel his breath warm on my lips. Looking into his eyes again, searching for any sign of resistance, I closed the distance and pressed my lips to his, committing myself to what could be the biggest mistake of my life. Or, just maybe, the start of a new life. With Brendan.

  It was just a warm brush. The slightest taste of what I'd wanted for years, ever since I realized my feelings for Brendan weren't just as a friend. I was trembling the whole time, shaking like a leaf, and when I pulled back, I was so afraid of what I would see in his eyes.

  The confusion was still there, churning in that sea of blue. It was like I was bearing witness to him puzzling it out in real time, trying to decide what this meant and how he felt about it. I wanted to say something, to break the tension like I always did, but I couldn't manage to get the words past my very dry throat.

  Then I saw something rearrange in his expression, settling and solidifying. I didn't know what it meant until his hands moved up to my face and he pulled me to him for another kiss. This one wasn't a tentative, exploratory offering like mine was. It was a desperate clash of lips, teeth, and tongues; an explosion of passion that stole the breath from my lungs.

  My heart soared as he kissed me like I'd always wanted to be kissed. Like I was the only thing that mattered in that moment. My arms came around him, clutching at him. At some point, we fell back into the truck bed, on the scratchy blanket we'd set out. He moved over top of me, and the weight of his body on mine felt so right.

  And so incredibly hot.

  I knew there was no hope of hiding the massive boner I'd been fighting all night. I'd always had to be as inconspicuous as possible around Brendan, since he was usually the source of my erections. With him on top of me, there was no way for me to play it down, but I didn't want to. I wanted him to know what he did to me.

  He felt it quickly, his thigh pressing against it. It startled him enough that he stopped kissing me, his palms pressed against the truck bed as he held himself above me, but he didn't pull away. I saw him swallow thickly, his eyes leaving mine to look down my body at the obvious bulge in my jeans.

  Then he did something I knew I was never going to forget, as long as I lived: He moved his thigh over my groin, deliberately rubbing against my erection.

  I couldn't help the moan that tore out of me, or the instant blush that reddened my entire face.

  "Sorry," I whispered self-consciously.

  He wasn't having it. He claimed my lips in another kiss. Clumsy, but full of desire. Then he shifted atop me until I could feel his dick through his own jeans, the hard shaft dragging against my thigh. A gasp caught in my throat. Was he really…?

  He started to grind against me, just a slow roll of hips at first as he lined himself up. After some trial and error, his bulge rubbed against mine, and it was the single most amazing feeling I'd ever experience. Way better than jacking it at home.

  I panted against his mouth, so caught up in the pleasure of it that I couldn't maintain the kiss. Neither could he. My legs wrapped around him, holding him to me as I joined his motion until we were practically dry humping.

  "Keith... fuck, I..." He
was out of breath, grinding against me, his face drawn into the most beautiful expression of pleasure.

  I knew he was close, and I desperately wanted to be the one to make him come. I also wanted to hear what followed those words. Was it just a confession of desire, or something more...?

  I never got the chance to find out.

  Headlights swept across us, joined by the sound of tires rolling across the grass of the open field. We separated instantly, Brendan springing off of me. I saw him reach down to adjust himself, his erection more than obvious, but it was already too late.

  The worst person possible had seen us.

  "Get in the car," came the steady, cold voice of Brendan's dad. "Now."

  I had no idea what he was doing there, but it didn't matter. I could tell from the shaking hatred in his voice just what he thought of this development.

  "I can't just leave the truck--"

  "Now!" he roared, his voice carrying across the field.

  I reached for Brendan as he started to get out of the truck, desperation in my own voice. "You're eighteen, Bren. If you want to stay, stay. Fuck what your dad thinks."

  I didn't care if he heard me. I knew if Brendan left with him, I was going to lose him for good.

  He looked between me and his father. My best friend. The man I loved with all my heart. The man I'd known I wanted to share my life with since I was thirteen years old.

  And then he pulled away, apology written in his blue eyes. "I can't," he mouthed.

  I stared at him, wide-eyed, as he got out of the truck and headed toward his dad's car. I was still staring as he dropped himself into the passenger's seat, his gaze downcast.

  Mr. Newell's voice was the only thing to snap me out of it. "Call your father. Tell him to come pick you up. Then stay the hell away from my son."

  I wanted to yell back at him, to scream through tears all the hateful things I'd ever thought about this man who'd decided long ago I wasn't good enough for his son. But, all I could do was stare at Brendan, his eyes refusing to meet mine.