Just What the Truth Is by Cardeno C. Page B

it.”
    “Bottomed” wasn’t a term I had previously heard, but I understood it in context. I was glad Noah was on the same page. Maybe he could help me. “Yes, that’s what happened.”
    “Look, Ben, if you go twelve rounds with a punching bag, the punching bag always wins.” Great, a kickboxing analogy. Do you have any idea what he meant? I sure didn’t. He rolled his eyes and dumbed it down for me. “You’re always going to be unhappy if you insist on finding every reason possible to hate yourself. It’s normal to be a little freaked out about sex at first. I mean, I wasn’t, but there are some guys who have a lot of macho bullshit going on about being on the receiving end.”
    He shrugged, and I bit my tongue to keep myself from saying something snarky about him never having freaked out about sex. Of course he hadn’t. It was all so simple for Noah, yet the morning after anxiety was well on its way to putting me in an early grave. It seemed like everything made sense in my brother’s mind. I wanted that kind of peace. I let my head fall onto the back of the couch and covered my eyes with my forearm.
    “So you don’t think it makes me less of a man if I liked it when he… when he….” I stammered but couldn’t complete the sentence.
    “No,” he said simply. I sat up straight and blinked my eyes open, wanting very much to hear his opinion. My brother’s expression was softer than usual. “I say, if it’s good, keep doing it, you know? But if you’re not into it, then don’t. Some guys are strict tops, some guys don’t get into ass play at all. Different strokes and all that. The point is being real, being you, and not hiding anymore. You should do whatever gets you hot, Ben, and if that means being a bottom or being versatile, well, that’s what it means.” He shrugged. “What we do in bed doesn’t define our masculinity.”
    Could it be that easy? I had enjoyed being with Micah the previous night, really enjoyed it. Was that a sufficient justification to keep doing it? “I really like him, Noah. I mean, I really like him.”
    “I can tell. Does he feel the same way about you?”
    I thought about how Micah looked at me when we were together. Wherever we were—in a restaurant, in the office, at his house—he seemed completely focused on me, and his gaze was always so tender. He made me feel as if I was the center of his world.
    I nodded. “Yeah, I think he does. I have no idea why, but I think he’s just as into me.”
    Noah smirked. “That’s good, ’cause based on the wrinkled clothes, dreadful bedhead, the ungodly hour of this visit, I’m guessing you had sex with him, freaked out, and then snuck out of the house in the middle of the night.”
    I felt the blood drain from my face. “Oh, shit.”

Chapter Eleven

     
    A LL right, so I had already blown it with Micah once when I had acted like an ass during that whole botched coffee run thing. And now I had slinked out of his house while he was still asleep after we’d had sex for the first time. How many strikes did I get in this game before I was out of his life?
    Walking out on someone in bed without a word or at least a note was a shitty thing to do. So shitty, in fact, that I had never done it no matter how much I hadn’t wanted to see a woman again. Leave it to me to start with the one person whom I actually wanted to see first thing in the morning. And every moment after that.
    It was still early, so I hoped that maybe Micah was still asleep and I could crawl back into bed without him ever knowing I had left. Just the thought of his warm, naked body pressed against mine had my pulse racing. I was about to turn down his street when I realized that the door locked behind me and I didn’t have a key.
    Since breaking and entering wasn’t an option, I threw plan A out the window and drove to the first bagel place I could find. Plan B would be bagels and coffee. Strike that, bagels and tea. I could be considerate