Suite Mates (bxb)

Chapter 16

James' POV

Ryan was gross crying. And I felt like a total dick.

Worse still, he was in Noah's lap. An instead of looking pissed about it, Noah actually seemed miffed at me.

"See, look what you did," Noah snapped, rubbing Ryan's back right over his boney shoulder bones. "I told you to stay away from that Derek guy. Fuck."

My head hurt.

As much as I felt bad about actually allowing myself to look at Derek in a romantic light, I couldn't feel completely awful about it. Derek was right. It had been made clear to Ryan from the beginning that Derek didn't like him. The kid shouldn't have gone all psycho and tried to manipulate him.

Although my mind kept going back to what Noah had said about Ryan liking me.

What was Ryan crying about? The fact that Derek was unavailable, or me?

"They kissed right in front of me!" Ryan wailed. "Noah!"

"People are allowed to kiss, pipsqueak," Noah said, but his voice was soothing. It seemed the guy was having a heart as far as Ryan was concerned.

"I'm sorry Ryan," I groaned. "But I don't really see the problem. I didn't do anything wrong."

Ryan uncurled himself from Noah's wide chest and glared. "Excuse me?! How didn't you? You were supposed to be Derek's friend!"

"Well, yeah, but...you know," I coughed. "You gave me exceptions, right?"

"...What?"

Suddenly what Derek had said about miscommunications returned to my brain. Oh no.

"Well. You gave me permission too...you know." I wasn't being clear enough. "To have sex with Derek, right?"

Ryan seemed to press against Noah even more. His eyes got all watery again. "When? Why do you think I said that?"

Did this guy have amnesia? "You know! You said that you knew what happened when I first met Derek...and that you couldn't keep Derek locked away like a princess!"

Actually, had he ever directly given me permission to have sex with Derek?

...Oh shit.

This was very bad.

"I don't even know what you're saying!" Ryan wailed. He rubbed at his eyes until they were red. "I said that meaning that I couldn't stop you from being friends with him. I thought you just really hit it off when you first met!"

"...Oh, no. I was jerking off and he held me down and choked me."

"Excuse me?!"

"...I thought you knew."

Ryan burst into even more tears and I had the decency to at least feel a little embarrassed. I guess I'd just really jumped to some conclusions there. Oops.

I walked over and patted Ryan's shoulder. "Sorry, dude. Miscommunication. Won't happen again."

"That is SOME fucking MISCOMMUNICATION!" Ryan screamed, shoving an accusing finger in my face. "You had sex with Derek! Like a bunch of times probably!"

"Yeah, a bunch."

"And he's the love of my life!"

I bit back the words that sounds like a you problem.

I probably should try to be a bit more sensitive to the situation. "I'm sorry. If it makes you feel better, the sex wasn't...well, actually, that would be a lie. Never mind."

Ryan kept crying.

That was definitely not more sensitive to the situation.

Noah pet Ryan's head and gave him a little head kiss. "It's gonna be okay, pipsqueak. It was just an accident. James didn't mean to."

"He didn't mean to have a ton of hot sex with the love of my life?!"

Noah gave him another little forehead kiss. "Sorry, pipsqueak." He leveled his angry glare at me. "How could you do this to him? He's obviously fragile."

Well, if Noah was actually siding with Ryan, clearly I'd fucked up.

"To be fair," I began, desperately wishing that Derek were here, "Ryan was told to back off by Derek. And I never made romantic moves on Derek, it was purely carnal. Until tonight. Sorry about that by the way. Um."

"I'm never going to find anybody," Ryan cried. "I'm going to die alone and miserable. And James and Derek are going to die 69ing."

Well that was disgusting.

"That's not true!" Noah protested. He was looking awfully emotionally involved considering it was Ryan we were dealing with. "Hey...remember when you were having sex with Derek?"

"Yeah. Those were the days."

Wait. Had Ryan just said yes? Derek had told me it was fake.

I held my tongue because Noah seemed to be admitting something important.

"Well, I felt something," Noah explained. His cheeks got a little dark. "When I heard you guys...I was angry. I was really angry that Derek got to have you like that."

Ryan perked up a little and wiped at his eyes. "What are you saying, loser?"

"I'm saying..." Noah blushed. "Well, you don't have to die alone and miserable. You've been so busy chasing after Derek and mooning over James, but, you know, I've been here the whole time."

Ryan's eyes were wide.

"Literally," Noah continued, a little awkwardly. "I haven't moved at all. All I do is play Fortnite in this chair."

Noah was gay? For pips--I mean, for Ryan? Wow. I had honestly thought the only thing that could give Noah a hard-on was the thought of getting like seven kills or something.

"So are you asking me out?" Ryan asked, eyes wide. "You're saying that you like me and you want to date?"

"Well, I'd be willing to go on a date," Noah said sternly. "But it can only be like an hour or else we run the risk of you annoying me to death."

I didn't know if Ryan was easy or desperate or what, but a smile split his face wider than I'd ever seen. In fact, he looked so happy that I kind of wondered if the rest of his smiles were even real.

I could hardly tell that he'd literally just been crying over another man. Damn, pipsqueak moved on really fast.

"Yes, I'd love to go on a date with you!" Ryan squealed, punching the air in victory. "Finally! Literally finally!" And then he was gleefully hugging Noah and blushing all over. I'd never seen Ryan look this...human...ever.

"...Finally?" I mumbled.

Ryan's eyes were bright and his cheeks were pink and his whole body was tense with excitement. "Yes, finally! I've been waiting for this forever, my plan finally worked!"

"...Your plan?"

Noah facepalmed. "Oh my God, pipsqueak, what did you do?"

Ryan grinned, eyes dancing with mischief. "Well, loser, I've always had a crush on you. But you never even turned your head to look at me. So I devised a plan to make you like me, starting with admitting to Derek that I've been in love with him forever."

"I'm confused," I sighed, dropping to my bed to sit.

Noah was looking dubious. "I have a feeling I'm not going to like this story."

Ryan was wickedly grinning. "Well, boys, here's how it goes..."

I had a bad feeling about this.