do I do with him for the bachelor party?”
“Club soda and an exciting night of mini-golf?”
“Not helping.”
“Yeah, I'm really not even trying here.”
* * *
Everyone and their uncle and five of their closest friends were driving out to the island for this last hurrah of a long summer. Matt didn't feel like rushing so he escaped the populated roads and did side and back excursions, enjoying the sun and the breeze as they got farther out. The trees got shorter, the vista flattened, the smell of sea air hinted, and suddenly they were seeing signs for Montauk.
“Almost there,” Matt said quietly as he flicked on his turn signal and gave Evan a poke in the ribs. He'd conked out at least two hours ago, snoring and everything.
“Whuh?” Evan sat up and glanced at his watch. “Shit, I was out for a while. You should have woken me up—I could have helped with the driving.
“I did fine. Took the scenic route.” He gestured toward the exit on the expressway. “Ten minutes at the most and you'll be unpacking the van…”
“Oh yeah? By myself?”
“I did do all the driving.”
* * *
The house wasn't anything special, nothing that would ever appear in any magazine that wasn't titled At Least It's By The Water. Matt guessed it was a sixties do-it-yourself kit that happened to be plopped yards from a clean expanse of Long Island shoreline.
He surveyed the kitchen, more sniffing for mold than actually kicking the tires on the oven. It wasn't like they were going to use it.
“It's not the Hilton,” Evan said from the doorway, doing his own slightly frowning version of a survey. Wood-paneled walls and red plaid furniture scattered over clean but yellowing linoleum floors was clearly not reflected in the price tag if Matt could judge anything by Evan's face.
And he always could.
“Nope, it's not, which means we can sleep naked and not worry about the maids coming in to empty the wastebaskets.”
Matt slapped the faux marble of the small island that separated the living room from the kitchen and tipped his head toward the narrow hallway beyond them. “C'mon—if there's a bed and a toilet, we're gold.”
Evan dropped their suitcases near the couch and followed cautiously, like maybe he should have brought his gun just in case some hippies jumped out and tried to make them try pot brownies.
“I didn't bring anything to clean this place with,” Evan began, but Matt sighed, grabbed his hand, and headed for the two flimsy doors in front of them.
“We live with teenagers and two nine-year-olds. There hasn't been a germ invented we haven't seen yet.”
“Just saying…”
“Blah, blah, blah.” Matt elbowed the doors open and discovered a grayish white tiled bathroom, with the wished-for toilet, a sink, and stall shower. A little on the small side, Matt thought, bemused and ever-so-slightly disappointed. He couldn't deny the correlation between his boyfriend's lack of inhibitions and water running.
“Smells like bleach,” Evan said, sniffing as Matt yanked him into the second room. A pleasant surprise awaited them; the simple blue-painted walls and starched white curtains on the windows framed a queen-size four-poster bed covered with a green blanket. One dresser, two electronic sconces, and an alarm clock on the windowsill, and that was the entire room. It looked like heaven.
And it didn't smell.
“Hey, this is nice,” Evan said begrudgingly, circling past Matt to walk into the room. “Best room in the house.”
“As it should be.” Matt slid his hands onto Evan's shoulders and squeezed. It was half horny beast talking and half boyfriend who just wanted to relax, dammit. Both of those halves were incredibly pleased with how interested Evan seemed in the bed.
Finding himself attracted to a man was a (mind-altering) hiccup, but it certainly didn't stop the freight train that was Matt's libido. Having sex with one person for this long also seemed to have no effect on what Matt wanted and when