Harmony: A Bromance Page 2

  “Damn, man.” I felt bad for him. We’d both worked in advertising forever. But ever since we’d started doing the Instagram thing, Anthony was really clear about the fact that he was using it to jump start his dream music career. He posted some covers, him with his guitar. They got likes but he was no closer to having a music career than he’d been when he first started, it seemed. I knew it got to him but I didn’t realize it was this bad.

  “Dude, don’t worry,” I told him. There will be other auditions.”

  “I know,” he said. But, it didn’t sound like he believed it.

  “Well, finish your plate,” I said, getting up and putting mine in the sink. I let the water wash over it and then I began to wash it. Seconds later, he was up behind me, adding his plate to the sink.

  For some reason, maybe I was feeling really grateful for the food but I was acutely aware of how close his body was to mine. I felt my dick start to twitch again.

  Fuck…

  To lighten the mood, I said, “Oh, I guess I do dishes?”

  “Well, I did cook….and you ate my food…”

  I laughed. “Okay. That’s fair. Even though you stood me up last night.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t going to bring that up!” he said, heading out of the kitchen.

  “Oh, I changed my mind. See, how it feels?” I called after him. I could hear him laughing on the other side of the wall before the TV clicked on.

  Later, when I joined him in the living room, I told him, “Close your eyes,” before I went and got the bag from before and brought it to him.

  “What’s this?”

  I gestured at him to open it. He did and his eyes widened.

  “Dessert.”

  “Brooo,” he said, pulling the tub from the plastic bag before changing his mind and leaving it in the bag. “I don’t want it to melt all over everything.”

  “I’ll grab spoons,” I said.

  From the kitchen, I heard him ask, “What do you want to watch?”

  “Something funny,” I yelled back.

  A few minutes later we were sitting on the sofa watching Family Guy while passing the tub of ice cream back and forth. I wasn’t even really that into cookie dough but it tasted really good that night. I’d eaten a ton of it before I even realized it. After a while, I retired my spoon but Anthony was still going.

  “You’re going to get a stomachache.”

  “Never,” he said. He stuffed another spoonful in his mouth and leaned back against my arm while he chomped it down.

  I took the opportunity to wrap him in a half hug. “For real, I want you to listen to me. I don’t want you worrying about that stupid audition. They probably didn’t even deserve you.”

  He looked up and smiled at me. For a moment, our faces were so close that it should have been uncomfortable. I could feel his exhalations on my lips. I was looking down at him. He was looking at me.

  ‘What?” I said, feeling my face got hot. I didn’t know why I was suddenly felt embarrassed.

  “I’m just super lucky to have you in my life,” Anthony said, before he sat up. “That’s all.”

  A warm feeling washed over me that was unlike anything else I had ever experienced. We were sitting in his place together and it seemed like the rest of the world had faded away. Maybe it was this feeling, this sensation of floating that made me do it. I leaned in and pressed my lips against his.

  It was new. Not as soft as a girl’s mouth, but still just as pleasurable.

  I knew right away that I wanted to do it again.

  So, I did.

  I felt his hand come up to the front of my shirt as he pulled me in tighter and began to kiss me back with a hunger that was almost a little scary.

  “Fuck…” he murmured. He sat the ice cream down on the table and climbed on top of me.

  Whoa.

  I wasn’t expecting that but fuck if I didn’t want it.

  I grabbed his strong hips and shifted him closer to me. He had my face between his hands as he kissed me even more deeply.

  I was kissing my friend. My bro. I didn’t even care. It felt right.

  The longer we kissed, the more it stoked my fire. Suddenly, he was ripping my shirt up and I was driving my hands down the back of his pants to caress his muscular buttocks.

  He let his fingers trail down my chest. Then, he looked at me. His eyes were low like we were surrounded by smoke that matched the heat that was burning between us.

  I didn’t stop him when his hand went beyond my waist band. Nor, when he gripped his fingers around my cock.

  Something seemed to sober him up for a second. “What are we doing?” he asked me, breathless with awe, his deep voice gone even huskier.

  “Exactly what we want to do,” I told him and pulled him in for another kiss. I knew that we were two guys. Two bros. But, I wanted him right now and I was going to have him.

  He gripped my cock and began to stroke it. I let my hands find his member inside of his sweatpants while we stayed connected at the mouth. We didn’t let each other go as we kissed. Our hands, exploring, stroking, swiping, caressing. It was amazing. New, but dammit it, it was good.

  What was even better than amazing was the feeling that started to build deep within me.

  “I’m gonna explode, bro,” I heard myself saying.

  “Do that shit,” Anthony said, his mouth mere millimetres from mine. My eyes were closed tight but I heard him spit and suddenly his hand was a lot slicker on my dick. He stroked me faster and I felt like I was going to blast off to heaven.

  All of a sudden, I felt something warm and wet hitting my stomach. My eyes fluttered open to find Anthony with his eyes squeezed tight. Strands of white milk shot out of him and painted my belly. I had never seen another guy come before in my life except in a porno.

  For some reason, it was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen before.

  He’d stopped stroking me but it didn’t matter. I felt myself erupt as my seed careened out of me and coated his belly, dripping down into the hair that crowned his member. He caught me behind the neck with a hand and brought my mouth up to his. He kissed me deeply as I chased the rest of my orgasm.

  Then, he climbed off of me and fell back onto the sofa next to me. I looked over at him, his sticky, coated abs shifting as he breathed hard.

  What the fuck had just happened?

  We were both trying to calm down our breathing. I didn’t know what was going on but I got the sense that things had changed now and that they would never ever go back to being the way they were before.

  Anthony

  It was only a day off but it felt like I had been a year when I returned to work the next morning. Plus, with what had gone down, I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to return to work. I felt like I needed some time off to process so much happening in my life all at once.

  I had just settled down at my desk when my phone buzzed awake.

  Are you back at work or are you still playing hooky?

  It was Devon. I went to answer but before I could, I sat the phone down. He had left last night after we showered and repeated what we did on the sofa under the thunderous flow of water in my shower. I had left him at the door with a kiss that felt normal and good and went to sleep alone in my bed.

  Well, tried to sleep. I hadn’t been able to get the events of the day out of my head. What was I doing? And moreso, what was Devon doing?

  Now, this had been the first time in the years since I’d known him that there had been anything even remotely related to attraction between the two of us. In retrospect, it must have been there. He’s always been someone I could rely on and he’s always been kind of a big brother with me. A little bossy at times but I’ve never hated it. I liked letting him get his way because I know that he has my best interest at heart.

  But, what had happened last night had been completely out of left field. Even if I had anticipated it, I never could have anticipated loving it so much.

  Or loving him. In this way.


  It was madness.

  That was the main reason I swiped his message to the side and left it unanswered. I knew Devon. Hell, I knew me. We were two guys who had decided in the moment to have a little fun that was out of the ordinary. Sure, I felt like it was the kind of thing I would want to repeat. I wanted more. As I’d laid in bed last night, ideas had blossomed in my head. Us, going on dates. Hiking and grabbing burgers at Steve’s Burgers. (We were both obsessed with the charcoal grill burger joint.) I dreamt of us having a pack of Labradors. I’d grown up with a Black Lab, Sadie, and she had passed right after I went to high school. I’d always wanted another dog since then.

  It seemed like the future was laid out for us, if only we could grab it.

  Dogs. Maybe kids. Nice condos in a couple of places around the world. Good careers.

  Yeah. None of that was going to happen.

  I knew Devon. He was way too into women. In fact, I wasn’t quite sure what had made him do what he did with me. That was the part I was trying to figure out. I had wanted to do it when the moment came. But, as far as him, it was probably just sex. Something new that he wanted to try. I wasn’t so upset about being a notch in his bedpost, as I probably should have been. I mean, that made him one in mine, right? He was a good looking guy, so I couldn’t really hate on him for taking the chance when it was there.

  A knock at the door to my office wrested me from my thoughts. “Anthony?”

  “Oh, hey, Delores,” I said, as my department manager came into the room. Delores was a tall brunette who looked like she’d played volleyball in college. You never would have guessed she was a creative type as she was so buttoned down but she was sharp. Had won our agency a ton of contracts and delivered on them so well that she had risen to a leadership position in just three years.

  “So, I need you to do something for me,” she said, taking a seat before I could invite her to.

  “Okay,” I said. For some reason, Delores really liked me and we had worked closely on a number of projects even from the beginning of my time here. Things that a much senior employee should have been tasked with.

  “So, I have a conference I need to go to. Rebecca was supposed to go with me but something came up for her at the last minute. I thought that maybe you could join me?”

  “The ASP Conference?” The Society of Advertising Professionals conference was one of the biggest in the industry and it was the only thing coming up that I knew about. It was one of the most fun events we had going as professionals. I’d always wanted to go but there was never a way for me to get the company to send me. I had thought about paying for myself to go one year but I hadn’t ever done it.

  “So, what do you say?” Delores said, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “I would love to get you into some of the keynotes and see what you think about stuff. You have such a good mind. And…” she paused here before going on. “A little birdie told me that there might be a promotion around here soon. So…if a certain person were to apply, it would be good for them to have some of the knowledge from this conference under their belt.”

  Was she hinting that I might possibly get promoted? Thoughts flashed through my mind. On one hand, I had wanted to go to this conference for a while. On the other hand, I didn’t even know if I wanted to continue in advertising. I really wished things had gone differently at my audition but they hadn’t. And they weren’t going to. I needed to face reality.``

  My phone buzzed again. I glanced down at the screen. It was another message from Devon.

  Dinner tonight? 7?

  He probably wanted more sex. Fucking horndog. I wanted more, too. But, I really needed to be smart about this Devon thing. We were so close as bros that I ran the risk of getting attached if I started having sex with him regularly. It would be an easy transition into deeper feelings. Deeper feelings I knew that he didn’t share. Could never share.

  “I kind of need an answer right now,” Delores said, a slight edge moving into her voice. “I need to have my assistant change the tickets and you would,” she glanced at her watch, “You’d have to go grab your things.”

  “It’s today?” But even as I said it, I realized that it was today when we needed to leave because the conference ran the whole weekend. What the hell did I lose by going?

  “Yes, I’ll go,” I said. “Just need to move some things in my schedule.”

  “Good,” she said, standing up. “You’re going to get a lot out of this.”

  When she left me alone again, I pulled up the website of the conference on my phone. It was taking place in Dublin this year. Good. I would be far from home. I figure that I could try out this new appetite for cock I’d suddenly developed without anyone around that knew the real me. I wasn’t really sure that it would work if it wasn’t attached to Devon but why not give it a shot? At least I would know for sure if I was bi or not. Hell, it might even help explain why things broke down with Jaclyn.

  Devon

  He was ignoring my texts. I told myself not to call. I didn’t want to be annoying but it was hard not to. I picked my phone up again and opened my messaging app, let my finger run over the screen as I re-read the request for dinner that I had sent him.

  Maybe I was coming on too strong. It occurred to me that neither of us had any experience with this. I’d never even looked at a guy with other than bro-hood on my mind. And, I didn’t think that Anthony had ever done anything like what we did with anyone else.

  Fuck. Just the idea of another dude touching him made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I felt my blood tick up a few pressure points.

  I looked at my phone one last time before I decided to just go over there. I didn’t care that it was over the top. Maybe I’d even be able to steal a couple of kisses off of him. That sent blood rushing down to my cock and I had to adjust it so that no one could see my hard on as I walked out of our building and down toward the restaurants.

  I got to our favorite sandwich shop with a plan to grab a couple of our favorites. It wasn’t the healthiest of lunches but it wasn’t a usual thing. Besides, what was the purpose of working out and supplements if you had to eat perfectly all of the time?

  The counter attendant was a young woman named Lily. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had stored information about her that I had gleaned from our regular encounters. She was in school studying to be a primary school teacher. She’d had a boyfriend from abroad. I remembered thinking that it would never last when she told me that. She was too hot to be tied down to some dude who wasn’t even physically here.

  She’d flirted with me countless times. And when her boss, a gay dude with painted nails and really good-looking hair, had heard I was an Instagram Influencer, he’d started giving me deep discounts on the sandwiches I got there. Perks were to be had by all.

  “Hey Lily,” I said as I came to the front of the line. “The usual, please?”

  She smiled. “A Pastrami on the rye bun? And a chicken salad on ciabatta?”

  “You’re good,” I said, giving her a smile. “How are things?”

  “Oh, fine,” she said. “Glad the weather is a little nicer today. I might go out and enjoy it with my dog.”

  She’d told me before that she had a little poodle. I’d brought up that I sometimes watch my friend Peter’s bulldog.

  “I know you dogsit,” she said, as if reading my mind. “If you would ever want to go find some good dog stops together, you’ve got a willing partner-in-crime.”

  She sat the sandwiches down in front of me and gave me a shy smile. Her hand went almost involuntarily up to her neck. She’d always worn a necklace with a little cross on it. She played with it when she talked about her boyfriend and now, it was conspicuously missing.

  She was asking me out.

  I was a little stunned because all I could do was say thanks and that I might take her up on the offer one day. Then, I walked out of the restaurant trying to process what had just hit me about the experience. I had absolutely no interest in taking her up on t
he offer. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. I did have some interest. She was, after all, a very fit girl. But, the first thing that came into my mind after her offer was that I would check in with Anthony and see if he wanted to come with me if I took her up on her offer.

  It became clear to me what I wanted with Anthony. I wasn’t going to give up girls forever but he had to be mine. And it made sense. We had just enough overlap in the things we liked in a girl that it could work. Maybe some special kind of girl. What I did know was there was no way I was going to go at it alone again. Anthony was it for me.

  * * *

  I was still thinking about how Anthony and I could work when I arrived at the building where he worked. As I rode the elevator up, one thing became glaringly obvious to me: I was totally and absolutely in love with my best friend. Also, I was completely okay with it. Sure, it would take some getting used to and who knew if he was into me like that. I was going to find a way to convince him and we were going to work it out.

  I was feeling so good about it that I nearly ran into Deborah or Delia. I didn’t remember what her name was.

  “Devon!” she said when she saw me. She grabbed me into a half hug. “How are you?”

  “I’m well,” I told her. Darcy? Dominique? What was her name?

  “Good to see you,” she said, looking me up and down. I felt like a piece of meat. It was kind of funny. “I’d love to chat but you’re probably here for Anthony.”

  Was it that obvious? That I was here to tell him him the truth? To propose that we did something that none of our other boys were doing? That we join up for a relationship where we were committed to one another? Yeah, I hoped it was.

  The smile on my face shattered as soon as she told me. “Too bad you just missed him.”

  “Where is he?” I demanded.

  The friendly demeanor drained from Denise’s, Debbie’s, whatever the heck her name was’ face. She took a step back from me as her hands went up to her hips.