“It does. Did you know that there are fifty-seven places you can touch a man to make him have toe-curling orgasms?”
He rolled his eyes. “Really. Name three that don’t involve my dick.”
“Uhh,” I said, mouth suddenly dry because Darren’s dick.
“Jesus. Christ,” Charlie said.
We both looked over at him, startled.
He was glaring. And not the normal, old-man get off my lawn glare. No, this was the old leather Dom someone’s about to get fisted glare.
“Eep,” I squeaked.
“Sorry, sir,” Darren said nervously.
“Please don’t fist us,” I begged.
“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Darren said.
I gaped at him. “You want to get fisted?”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t rule it out, per se—”
“Quiet,” Charlie snapped.
I don’t think we’d ever shut up so quickly in our lives.
Charlie glanced behind us toward the kitchen. Apparently satisfied, he returned the glare to us. “Now you listen here,” he growled quietly. “I don’t care if you’re still faking this… whatever this is. I don’t care if you haven’t pulled your heads out of your asses. I don’t care if you finally realized that you two are perfect for each other if only you’d stop being such ridiculous bitches. I am trying to watch a football game and drink a beer. Maybe two beers, if I can get away with it. Tomorrow, I will go back to caring because, Sandy, I love you dearly, and Darren, you’re growing on me for the most part. But right now, if you’re staying here, you will shut up and let me have this moment.”
“I am so weirdly turned on right now,” I said.
“You should be,” Charlie retorted. “Anybody else I’ve ever used that voice on usually ended up on their knees licking my boots while I shoved a plug up their ass.”
Darren grimaced. “Please don’t do that to me.”
“Are you weirdly turned on right now?”
Darren looked over at me, then at the dog in his lap, then back at Charlie. “I don’t know,” he admitted.
“Then shut up and think about it. I expect an answer by halftime.” Charlie turned back to the TV.
“Is he serious?” Darren whispered.
I stared at him in horror. “Stop talking or you’re going to get us both in trouble, not just you!” I whispered furiously.
Darren scowled at me. But he didn’t move his hand away from my shoulder.
And maybe I laid my head back against his arm.
And maybe we stayed like that for a while, neither of us saying anything.
Just maybe.
And maybe, at halftime, Charlie glared at Darren until Darren sputtered and said yes, maybe he was just a little turned on.
DINNER WAS as loud as I thought it’d be. Thankfully, Nana had covered Johnny Depp’s cage with a blanket, quieting him down so he would stop screaming homophobic slurs at Paul, all the while begging Vince to come back into the room to be his pretty. Thankfully, Johnny Depp was slightly stupid and automatically assumed it was dark out and went to sleep.
Last year, it’d just been Paul, his parents, Vince, Nana, and myself. A good group, but nowhere near as loud as we were now. It wasn’t necessarily that the new additions were any louder than th