Beginners luck, p.19
Beginner's Luck, page 19
“Do these things tip over?” Mark asked.
Aaron nodded gravely. “Absolutely.”
“Do you think this is dangerous?”
“Without a doubt.”
“Are we going to drown?”
“Definitely.”
Mark sighed. “I guess it’s good for me to expand my horizons.”
“Are you coming?” Rachel yelled at them, knee-deep in water as she held on to her kayak.
“At least there are no waves.” Aaron infused as much cheer as possible into the words and forced himself to move.
Kayaking was better than expected—the warm sun on his skin, the rhythmic splash of oars in the calm water, the slight burn in his muscles. He got the hang of rowing right away, slowly racing Mark back and forth along the shoreline, while Rachel made laps around them. The glare on the water made it hard to look ahead, and he spent a lot of time looking at the bottom of the lake through the surprisingly clear water.
Eventually, he came to a stop, letting his kayak bob in place. The smell of algae hung in the air, occasionally replaced with the unmistakable aroma of french fries drifting from one of the restaurants on the shore.
This was nice. If Aaron looked away from the distant buildings and let his gaze blur in the blinding white of the sun’s reflection, he could almost relax. As much as he’d dreaded taking the time off work, he was glad for the opportunity to be in nature. He’d missed it. Between the long hours at work and joining Chain Reaction, the past few months had been intense. Too intense. He’d forgotten to take better care of himself.
Aaron’s kayak jostled, and he glared at Mark, who didn’t seem the least bit guilty about ramming into him.
“This is not that bad,” Mark said. “Birds chirping and everything.”
Before Aaron could agree, Rachel slid up beside them, stopping with ease. “Are you planning on going further out?”
“Pass.” Aaron shook his head. “I like being able to see the bottom.”
Rachel laughed. “Pretty sure you can touch the bottom. This is four feet of water, at most.”
“And I like that. Besides, my arms are tired. I’m just gonna hang out here.”
“Me too,” Mark added. “I don’t live life dangerously.”
Rachel tutted before gracefully gliding away toward the center of the lake.
“Be careful!” Mark shouted after her, and she raised an arm in acknowledgment.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching Rachel’s journey and enjoying the peaceful atmosphere around them.
“She’s good for you,” Aaron told Mark. “She breaks you out of your shell a lot more than I ever could.”
“Yeah…I got lucky. Twice.” Mark turned to Aaron and smirked. “Now you need to find your Rachel.”
“What, someone young who’s going to drag me out to axe throwing and pottery lessons?” Aaron quipped, referring to Mark’s last few dates with Rachel.
“How about someone who’s gonna make your heart sing?”
“Well...” Aaron had told Mark about Jay briefly, but hadn’t let on the extent of his feelings. “I think I might have found him.”
“The guy you hooked up with?”
Aaron closed his eyes and nodded. “Yeah.”
A sudden yelp startled him. When he looked over, Mark was gripping both sides of his rocking kayak, his eyes wide with surprise.
“What are you doing?” Aaron asked incredulously.
“I was trying to dramatically get your attention by reaching and almost flipped over.”
“Okay…you have my attention now.”
Mark glared at Aaron. “I could have died!”
Aaron rolled his eyes. “As Rachel pointed out, it’s four feet of water.”
“Fine. If you like this guy, what’s the problem?”
“I don’t know. I like him too much? He’s young, gorgeous, experienced, fun…and what am I? Old and divorced, completely new to the whole lifestyle, and getting attached despite our arrangement being just sex.”
“Has he said any of that to you?”
“No. But he also hasn’t asked me out or hinted at anything.”
Mark let out an exasperated sigh. “And have you?”
Aaron thought back on the time they’d spent together, but analyzing their interactions through an objective lens was tough, his own emotions clouding every moment. They flirted, yes, but playful flirting wasn’t evidence of anything. When people had sex, some flirting was bound to happen along the way.
“I don’t think so. Should I?”
“If you’re already falling for him, you don’t have much choice.”
Aaron hummed in reluctant agreement. Mark was right—his feelings for Jay would only keep growing. If Jay didn’t want him romantically, it was better to find out now, even if the idea of Jay rejecting him filled him with trepidation. “Maybe I’ll call him tonight and ask him on a date.”
“Good.” Mark gave him a cheesy grin, then squinted at the lake. “I think Rach is coming back.”
“Oh, I wanted to take a picture of her being a badass so far out in the water.” Aaron set the oar across his lap and hiked up the life vest to reach into the pocket, wiggling in his seat. After a few moments of awkward struggling, his fingers finally closed around the phone.
The kayak wobbled.
“Shit.” He lunged forward, grabbing the oar with both hands before it rolled out of reach. His triumph was short-lived, a sharp plunk sparking him with cold panic.
Aaron peered over the side. There it was. On the sand at the bottom of the lake. His phone.
“Well, fuck.” Mark followed his gaze. “Please tell me you’ve started backing up your contacts to the cloud.”
Chapter 24
JAY
Aaron hadn’t answered his text messages in two days. A wave of disappointment rolled through Jay every time he picked up his phone to check, which was becoming more and more frequent. He’d gone over and analyzed every single message from the past week, reading between the lines, trying to puzzle out where things went wrong.
Aaron sent a picture on Friday—a handsome man with a beard and a striking redhead pressed into him and beaming at the camera. Mark and Rachel. They didn’t look like the nebulous villains Jay had secretly imagined. Their smiles were open and earnest, their affection for Aaron evident even through the screen.
There was a steady stream of texts over the next few days. Aaron ranted about museum crowds, and Jay suggested a few less popular tourist spots. They swapped selfies—Aaron wearing a corny baseball cap, Jay squeezed in between Cyrus and Darius before soccer practice.
On Monday, Jay told Aaron he’d finally taken his boss’s offer of the promotion and got multiple celebratory texts back. Mostly exclamation marks and party popper emojis, but also a few heartfelt encouragements.
They exchanged a few messages on Tuesday as well. Aaron was pulled away from his vacation to come into work, and Jay tried to lighten the mood with some jokes. At the time, Aaron seemed to appreciate the levity, but that was their last conversation before the radio silence.
Like a clingy boyfriend, Jay kept messaging. He asked Aaron about his touristy adventures, talked about his day, then shared a few memes.
No response.
It was worrying. Sure, Aaron was busy with his guests, but he’d always responded to Jay’s texts within a few hours, even if just with a smiley face.
What did this sudden silence mean? Was Aaron tired of Jay and his constant need for attention?
Finally cracking, he looked Aaron up on social media. It didn’t take long to find Aaron’s accounts. Every platform was mostly bare, but among his friends, he found Mark, whose feed was full of him and Aaron with their arms around each other. The last selfie had been posted less than an hour ago.
“Are you okay?” Shaniah leaned against the corner of his desk and looked at him with concern. “You’re staring at your phone like it owes you money.”
“Nah, I’m just…” Keeping his life private was fine, but he was suddenly desperate to talk to someone about Aaron. “Do you want to grab some lunch?”
“Only if it’s tacos. Otherwise, I have a perfectly fine Cup O’ Noodles at my desk.”
“I’ll buy you some tacos.” Jay launched himself out of his seat, still holding his phone, then changed his mind and set it on the desk. “I need life advice.”
Shaniah walked them three blocks to a tiny taqueria, where she waved at the woman behind the counter, who greeted them in Spanish.
“That’s the owner, Lucia,” Shaniah told him before switching over to stilted Spanish. “Hola, Lucia!”
Jay’s gaze was drawn to the vibrant, colorful paintings of dancing figures hanging along the walls, a stark contrast to the wobbly plastic chairs and chipped tables underneath. The air was thick with the smell of spiced meat and fried onions. Behind him, the conversation carried on, Shaniah’s slow, deliberate words followed by Lucia’s melodic flow.
“No salsa or anything with tomatoes,” Jay reminded her. He tried to catch any familiar words as she talked, but his two college semesters of a foreign language were a hazy memory by now.
“You speak great Spanish,” he pointed out once they sat down.
“My vocabulary is vast when it comes to ordering delicious food.” She grinned at him. “So what’s going on with you?”
Despite the smile on her face, concern lingered in her eyes. She was a good friend. They met when she joined ZonTech only a few years after Jay, and they’d weathered the company’s ups and downs side by side. Guilt prickled at him as he imagined her reaction to his promotion. It wouldn’t be announced until next week, and Erica had asked him to keep it under wraps, but Shaniah deserved to know. Hell, she deserved the job more than he did.
“Erica offered me the senior developer role,” he blurted out.
“I know. She told me. Actually, she asked for help in convincing you to take it.”
“I did take it.” He paused. “She should have offered it to you. You’d do a much better job.”
Shaniah barked out a laugh. “I don’t think so. It’s sweet of you to say, but I’m nowhere near ready to be a manager.”
“Neither am I. I have no idea why she asked me instead of just hiring someone who’s qualified.”
She gave him a long look. “Do you remember when I first joined the team? I came to you with questions all the time, and you always helped me out.”
“Of course I did. We all did. It’s part of being a team.”
“Uhh, no. I mean, I went to Dev and Rob and the other guys too, and they were…nice enough about it, but they always made me feel bad for not getting it right away. You didn’t. You were patient, and you kept explaining the same things to me over and over until I understood, without ever complaining or making me feel stupid.”
“I’m sure they didn’t mean to make you feel that way.”
“They didn’t.” Her eyes gleamed with warmth. “But they also didn’t hide their impatience, so I stopped going to them. I came to you, and you trained me until I was good enough to work on my own.”
Jay leaned away from the table, suddenly uncomfortable with the praise. “I’m glad I helped, but I’m not sure how any of this is relevant.”
“Oh boy, you’re an idiot.” Shaniah sighed and shook her head. “That’s basically what being a manager is. Being the person people can go to when they need help, without worrying about being judged or losing their jobs. You know, helping your team succeed?”
Jay considered what she was saying. In his mind, managers were assertive, confident people who made hard decisions, but was that actually the case? Erica was a great manager, and she was down-to-earth and approachable. Their CEO was busy most of the time, but he always made an effort to let them know his door was open if they needed anything.
Maybe he could be a good manager after all. He had the knowledge and patience to get the job done. And if he needed support, there was an entire team of people behind him who wouldn’t hesitate to have his back.
“I think you might be right,” he said, startled by Shaniah immediately clapping her hands.
“Of course I’m right!” She danced in her seat, earning a bewildered look from the server who’d approached their table to drop off two big plates of tacos. They smelled heavenly, the aromas of melting cheese and tart cilantro mixing together to make Jay’s mouth water. He attacked his meal, and Shaniah wasn’t far behind, both of them concentrating on their plates until there was nothing left.
Jay pulled out his wallet and set a few bills on the table, enough to cover their meals and the tip.
“Ready to go?”
“Nice try.” Shaniah wiped her lips with a napkin and leaned back in her chair. “You distracted me with the whole promotion thing, but I still want to know why you’ve been glaring at your phone all day.”
Right. The original reason he wanted to talk to her—he’d wanted someone to listen to him while he whined about Aaron’s silence.
He quickly filled her in on the basics of their relationship, skipping the parts about the club. It was easier to pretend they were just two normal, vanilla people who’d met at a bar and hooked up.
When he finished speaking, Shaniah’s gaze softened with pity, her expression a mixture of sympathy and indignation. “So he ghosted you to get back with his ex-husband?”
Jay had asked himself the same question after seeing the selfies on Mark’s profile. All signs pointed that way. Except now that Shaniah had given voice to his worries, a strong impulse to defend Aaron slammed into him. “No. He wouldn’t do something like that. Not without talking to me first, at least.”
She scrunched her face, giving him a disbelieving look. “Why? You said you’re just having fun, not dating.”
He couldn’t explain it, couldn’t put it into words without betraying the depths of his own feelings, but he knew Aaron wouldn’t just hop into someone else’s bed. Despite the unconventional start and casual arrangement, their relationship had blossomed into something deeper and more meaningful. Jay was sure Aaron felt it too.
Shaniah sensed the shift in his mood, changing the subject back to his promotion as they walked back to the office, running through the list of projects he could assign to his employees as soon as they were hired. He didn’t point out that most of the projects she mentioned were hers.
“Jay! You had a phone call!” Hailey, their enthusiastic part-time receptionist, shot up from her chair and waved him over when they stepped off the elevator. He groaned in frustration. Ever since the school project had moved into the testing phase, his clients had been calling on a daily basis for status updates. It wasn’t enough that he provided detailed timelines and promised to email with any developments—they demanded to hear every tiny detail straight from his mouth.
“Did they seriously call reception because I went to lunch?” he grumbled and approached the front desk, where Hailey was practically vibrating with excitement. “Did they leave a message?”
“Yes! Someone named Aaron asked for your phone number, but you know, our policy is to not give out any personal information, and he was really nice about it. He said he totally understood and asked me to tell you that he lost his phone and the replacement was delayed, but he would message you as soon as he could. He had such a dreamy voice. I totally should have sent him to your voicemail, but I didn’t think about it until after he hung up.”
Jay’s breath caught in his throat at the sound of Aaron’s name, a pleasant warmth spreading through him as he listened to Hailey’s enthusiastic chattering. Dizzy with relief, he thanked her and followed Shaniah back to their corner on autopilot.
“I’m sorry I doubted your man,” she said, patting his shoulder before settling at her desk. Within seconds, her fingers were flying over the keyboard, her attention already on something else, while Jay stood rooted in place.
Aaron called him at work to let him know what was going on. A few days of silence didn’t require a check-in, yet Aaron must have felt the separation as keenly as Jay did to reach out.
Jay wasn’t alone in his feelings.
Kink Talk
DomOliver: So, I’ve read my share of romance novels and watched plenty of porn, but now I’m wondering… how much of it is real? What’s the biggest difference between fantasy and reality?
SubMarine: I always thought submission was just about following orders. But reading everyone’s posts here made me realize it’s not just about obedience—it’s emotional, and I have no clue how to handle that.
SubAir: For me, it’s the communications behind the scenes. In books and porn, everything just happens in the moment, but in reality there is a lot of planning and negotiating. You can’t have trust without that piece.
DomicronPersei8: Same. I used to think I’d be some suave Dom, but honestly, half the time, I’m anxiously making sure my partner is comfortable.
DomAndDommer: Yeah, like in movies, the Doms always seem to know exactly what to do. Meanwhile, I’m over here googling different rope types and the pros and cons of each.
SubZero: Spoiler alert: reality includes a lot of fumbling.
SubLily: I don’t see why that’s surprising. Of course it takes effort and practice to do things properly.
SubScribble: I mean, yeah, but we’re allowed to be surprised by how different it feels, Lily. Like, I thought impact play would be super intense and dramatic, but my first scene just felt… cozy?
DommyBoy: Cozy impact play? That’s a first. I was more shocked by how goofy things can get. In my head, it was all smoldering looks, but watching the couples at the kink club, there’s a lot of awkward giggling.
DomOliver: Okay, I’m definitely guilty of imagining it all as super intense and serious. Does fantasy ever match reality?
SubAir: Oh yeah. Subspace is better than you can imagine. The emotional release, the aftercare—with the right person, the reality is so much more than any fantasy.
