Tipping the Balance by Christopher Koehler Read Free Book Online

at least he had a spacious room to call his own, including an attached bath. If it had had a kitchen beyond the small dorm-style fridge he stored beer in, it’d have been like living on his own. His dad was an asshole, but he was still a home-builder and developer, and the Sundstrom house showed it through details, finishes, and touches large and small.
     
    Part of him wondered if it was his dad’s way of keeping his sons dependent, but mostly he just liked hiding back in his room, kicking back in a battered recliner and cracking open a beer or four. But if this job Randall had dumped on him ever started paying, he was off like a prom dress, out of there, and into his own place.
     
    He didn’t figure the shit job was his dad’s way of keeping him down, as his brother Philip made bank with his job at Sundstrom Homes. Why Philsie didn’t leave was anyone’s guess, but he was the oldest and clear favorite. Brad had a shit job because he was Brad.
     
    He sighed and opened a beer.
     
    Brad was pissed but unsure why beyond the catch-22 his dad had put him in, although that was enough. It angered him that he was playing by a set of rules he didn’t know and, for all he did know, changed on him at his dad’s whim. Brad felt like he’d had a good idea and taken positive steps to do his job, a job he didn’t want, and then got crapped on.
     
    No, he brooded as the booze worked its liquid magic, there was something else going on. He and his emotions and motivations weren’t really on a first-name basis. He’d always been content to go with the flow, riding the wave of whatever he felt without bothering with the whys and the how-comes. Life was simpler that way, and Brad liked simple.
     
    But lately, his emotions were turning on him. Starting this summer, he’d been buffeted by an unaccustomed melancholy. He’d looked the word up once, and it seemed to describe his mood. He missed his old life, plain and simple. The parties. The gym.
     
    Crew.
     
    He missed that most of all. He’d proven himself there. Even if Morgan had finally beaten him on the ergs, proving once and for all that he was faster, Brad had enjoyed the process.
     
    But the thought of crew led him directly to Drew. Crew and Drew. On his third beer, the rhyme made him snicker. But the direction his mind—liberated by alcohol and an empty stomach—headed when he thought of Drew, that scared him.
     
    He thought about how hard he’d been during lunch. That scared him too. He’d sported a monster boner for another man.
     
    Brad leveraged himself out of the chair and headed for the bathroom to tap a kidney. He finished up and glanced at his underwear as he was putting his cock back in. The gray of the boxer-briefs was damp with darker spots of pre-cum.
     
    Standing before the toilet, junk still out, Brad could only stare at the physical evidence of his attraction for another man.
     
    That is it , that is just it. I’m not gay, I’m not attracted to Drew. He helped me out with a work problem, but that is it. Over and done with .
     
    Whatever this… thing of his where Drew was concerned, was a thing of the past. It was over and done with.
     

     

     
    Drew left the restaurant thoroughly charmed by Brad. He didn’t know what Nick’s problem with the guy was, because lunch just confirmed Drew’s hunch that Brad was worth getting to know. A few hours of face time across a table from him, and Drew knew he couldn’t get enough of that double handful of big lug. He was just so appealingly gauche, but once he warmed up and started smiling… that was even better. Drew wanted some more of that.
     
    Drew wanted all kinds of things from Brad, starting with a little help for his hard-on. But he also knew the chances of that were slim. As he puttered back to his office to prepare for taking his clients to that freak-show of a house in a few hours, he realized he also wanted to be Brad’s friend.
     
    Based on what he’d seen of the crew and Brad’s