The Deep End ✔️

26 - simp-ly orange

Dallas kissed my forehead when he woke up for his morning run.

I stirred awake, meeting his surprised expression when I sat up. "Are you seriously going on a run right now?" I asked, glancing at his alarm clock. It was 6:08AM. Instantly, I flopped back down onto the pillows. "Come back to bed."

"Mm, I would if I didn't need to stay on my schedule. The holidays set me back a lot," he said, glancing at his watch on his wrist. "I'll be back in an hour tops."

He leaned forward on the bed and kissed me on the lips, hand tracing my jaw. I tried to tug him down in the bed, on top of me, in the warmth, and anywhere but running but he just laughed and pecked my nose. I pouted when he finished pulling his shoes on with the promise of being right back.

I must have dozed back to sleep because I was woken up two hours later by a loud metal something falling onto the floor in the kitchen, then some hushed whispers. My body fought with me to stay in bed, but I didn't want to sleep the entire weekend away, as nice as that sounded. I wanted to spent time with Dallas.

My body ached with pain in various places. I bit my lip when I stood up. Thank God I didn't have work today because I'd be so miserable. I opened Dallas's drawers until I found a halfway decent outfit—one of his T-shirts and a too-big pair of sweats—so I wouldn't walk out and greet Dallas's best friend in just my underwear. I stopped at the mirror to examine the damage. I had a hickey on the side of my neck, to no one's surprise. Dallas couldn't keep his mouth to himself worse than me when I was a freshman.

I wandered out of the room and into the living area, seeing Dallas and a stranger's backs through the little kitchen pass-through. My senses were attacked by the smell of something cooking. It smelled good. The day Dallas spent with me, he showed his cooking skills with the little he managed to buy from the store and what I had in my cabinets. From where I was standing, he was much more in his element here; moving about the kitchen effortlessly, doing three things at once while, who I assumed to be, Garrett tried to stay out of his way.

"You think your boy is too good for a bowl of cereal or something?"

"No, you idiot. I just felt like making a nice breakfast for you and him. Is that a problem?"

"Oh, it has nothing to do with your boyfriend literally sleeping in the other room?"

"Psh, what do you take me for? Some kind of simp?"

"Yes. That's exactly what I take you for."

I muffled my laugh into my hand as I rounded the corner to the kitchen. Dallas saw me in the corner of my eye and his back straightened, turning his attention away from the food for just a second to beam at me. "Good morning," he chirped, a spatula in his hand.

"Good morning," I said, looking behind him at Garrett. He was staring at me and I knew what he was thinking: this is the guy that turned my best friend bisexual? "You must be Garrett. I've heard a lot about you."

Garrett's smile lit up his entire face. He was a bit shorter than Dallas, with fine black hair and a well-kept mustache and beard. If I had to guess, he was hispanic of some sort. He had perfect, white teeth and a thick, black eyebrows that overlooked a warm pair of brown eyes.

"This is Thomas," Dallas said, but I quickly intercepted.

"You can call me Meek," I said.

I didn't know why, but I liked that Dallas was the only one to call me by my real name. It felt like a territorial thing and I was more than willing to oblige to that fact. Dallas raised an eyebrow at me before turning back to the hash browns he was frying on a skillet.

Garrett held out a hand. I shook it gingerly behind Dallas's back. "It's great to meet you. I don't know what you did to my buddy here, but he is pussywhipped— er, dickwhipped for real. I'm sure you're a great guy, but if I have to hear him talk about you for six hours at a time ever again, I think I'll cut off my ears."

I looked at Dallas. His back was to us and he was deliberately ignoring us, but I could see the pink twinge at the tips of his ears. I smiled and leaned against the counter next to the stove, trying to get a glimpse of my man's face.

"I would too," I said with a snort. Subconsciously my hand raised to ghost over his back, feeling the curves of his muscles, under my fingertips. "I'll keep him in line, don't worry."

Garrett nodded curtly. "Great! I'm gonna go call my dad about that thing before I forget, Dal," he said, clapping Dallas on the shoulder on his way out of the kitchen. With him gone, there was a new silence between us while the hash browns sizzled on the stove.

"You didn't come back to bed," I pouted and leaned into him with my chin on his shoulder. He turned his head and kissed me once.

"I thought you'd like breakfast in bed," he said, taking the skillet off the heat and pushing it to the back of the stovetop. With his hands unoccupied, he side-stepped and caged me against the counter. "We can lay in bed all day and do nothing, if you want."

I liked the sound of that. He stared down at me with a half-lidded gaze, looking a bit sleepy and drunk. My fingers found his chest. I fumbled with the material of his workout shirt, tugging him closer to me until he finally kissed me softly, one hand reaching up to sink into my hair. A quiet morning with Dallas was just what I wanted. Sweet kisses, soft-spoken words. He was just everything I needed and more. I slid my hands up his chest until they were behind his neck and stood straighter with one final peck to his lips.

"Finish cooking so maybe after breakfast we can do a little more than nothing," I said, slipping out of his grasp with a small laugh under my breath. "If you catch my drift—"

"Mm, I got it, Thomas," he said and finally went back to cooking. I stole one more kiss on his cheek before going out to the living room to wait.

The TV was on playing a rerun of a show my mom used to watch. I let it capture my attention for a moment, finding comfort in the show of choice simply because of the familiarity. Now that I thought about it, everything about Dallas's house felt like that. It was warm and comfortable and seemed like the type of place that you could raise a family in. My cheeks flushed at the thought because it came out of literally nowhere. I glanced into the pass-through again and Dallas was already looking at me while he washed his hands, a wide smile on his face when our eyes met.

Garrett returned from the room I'd seen last night on the same wall as the kitchen. "Sounds great, Dad. I'll let you know," he was saying into his phone before he hung up and took a seat beside me.

I could feel his eyes on me, but I wasn't sure how to approach it. Sure, if I was a straight man with a straight best friend, I'd probably wonder what was so special about me to make such a mess of my bro, too. It was something of a mystery in the end that neither I nor Dallas could pretend to know. It was chemical.

"I don't know if this is out of line, but . . ." Garrett started and I looked over at him. He was already looking at me. "He's never like this. Like, even when that girl he was dating before you came over. This is . . . new. And weird. But I think he's fucking crazy about you, so . . . you're cool with me."

I felt a sense of pride wash over me knowing that my man didn't make breakfast for every girl he was with. "You're cool with me, too," I said with a small smile.

Dallas came out into the living room with two plates of steaming hot breakfast food. He handed me a plate first, then one to Garrett. We both thanked him before digging into our food. It was then that I realized Dallas Barnes was so much of a fucking corny sap, he arranged my food in the shape of a heart. I let out an incredulous laugh that came out far louder than I meant to.

Garrett looked over in curiosity. He smirked, using his fork to point at my plate. "Point proven right there," he said with a shake of his head. He then raised his voice and yelled, loud enough for Dallas to hear it, "Fuckin' simp!"

And Dallas came back out with a plate of his own looking unashamed and smug, kissing my forehead before sinking down on the couch beside me.

"Damn straight."