Crash: M/M Straight to Gay First Time Romance by Jerry Cole Read Free Book Online

like finally appears.
    I sit dumbfounded in front of that ominous glowing screen. It’s a love scene. They are not my favorites. I hope they get one hell of an actress to play my leading lady, because this love scene is sexy, bordering on porn actually, but not romantic. I want to fix that, but I don’t have time to get caught up in the details right now. I have a deadline to meet. Even if it’s shit, I need to meet that deadline.
                  “Hey, I gotta call it a night soon. How about I help you get ready for bed?” he says.
    Where the hell did he come from?
    I look at the time on the bottom of my screen and realize I have been at this for nearly 8 hours straight. When I am working, I have a habit of losing track of time. I can go days without leaving the house, subsisting on energy drinks and chips. It looks like Reid isn’t having any of that. The casserole earlier had been too enticing to resist. After a few weeks of hospital food, dog chow would seem appealing. So it got eaten. And now he was offering to bathe me. I might even sleep in a bed instead of collapsed on my desk. Winning!
    “I know you need some help, so before I go to bed...I can help you if you just tell me what to do,” says Reid.
    Standing there he looks so much like his old self I find it hard not to tease him. He looks uncomfortable yet resigned to his fate. How many times have I seen him wear that expression? Maybe that was why I started paying attention to him all those years ago. Like me, he was just trying to play the hand he’d been dealt. Although his hand seemed a whole lot better than mine, things are rarely the way they seem. Like right now, I seem like a willing victim, asking a burly man in blue jeans and a plaid shirt to undress him. It seems like the opening scene of a stag film. In reality, it's just me asking my assumed husband to help me take a bath. Nothing is what it seems here folks. It’s all very innocent. Isn’t it?
    It takes a moment before he realizes I’m yanking his chain, but he does as he’s asked. It takes several minutes before we find the tape and plastic to cover the cast on my wrist. I’ll be glad when this thing is gone. With a little teamwork, I manage to arrive naked in the shower.
    I don’t know what I was expecting. The nurses in the hospital who had assisted me with bathing were cold. Their touch was clinical, efficient and strong. Reid was different. He acted as if I had the words “handle with care” etched into my skin. It was a nice change. Was it almost...just barely….erotic?
    “If you are going to help me with bathing every day, are you going to help me flog my log as well?” I hold up my right hand. “It’s sort of out of commission right now, and the left hand just doesn’t do it for me like it used to.”
    I am yanking his chain again, trying to make an already uncomfortable situation unbearable. I don’t mean anything by it, but Reid doesn’t seem to see it that way. For a whole minute, a full sixty seconds, he stands there looking at me while he tries to decide if he should be offended or flattered. I don’t mean to brag, but I am a pretty well-formed piece of clay. I work out regularly...more or less...when I am not falling off of mountains. And I’m not hideous to look at...more or less...according to my agent.
    “I thought you weren’t gay?”
    “I thought I paid you to assist me personally?” Now I'm just acting like a dick. I don’t need to pay for a hand job, and if I did, I wouldn’t pay this guy.
    “So is this a personal request or a contractual obligation?”
    “You are the one who keeps telling people we are married. What do you think marriage is? A personal relationship or a contractual one?” What the fuck am I saying? What am I doing? This is not what I had in mind. I am almost sure this is not what I wanted. What do I do if he calls my bluff? What do I do if I like that idea?
    “So this is about me?”
    “Yup, I’m gay for you, Reid.