Moving On

"Too bad," Damien shrugged as he plopped down in one of the empty chairs. "I thought we could get in a game of strip poker."

I frowned. "Damien..."

"Ain't gonna happen, buddy," Lew said.

"Come on, Dame. Let's go to the living room and watch some TV. Let these guys talk."

"Okay," he said. "Ooh, did you record 'Project Runway'?"

"Yeah, come on."

I grabbed him and pulled him out of the chair.

As I walked by, Dale grabbed me and pulled me down and kissed me. His hand moved to the back of my neck and he held me as he kissed me slowly and sensually.

"Missed you," he said as he pulled away and licked his lips.

I wiped my mouth and frowned. "You taste like cigars and scotch."

The guys all laughed.

"Where's my kiss?" Damien asked as he leaned down towards Alex.

Alex covered Damien's face with his hand and gave it a hard shove.

"Ow!" Damien cried as he stumbled backwards.

Everyone laughed at Damian and I dragged him out of the room. We went to the living and settled down on the sofa to watch this week's 'Project Runway'. I could still hear Dale and his friends laughing loudly in the sunroom and it made me smile.

After the show was over, I looked over at Damien and he had tears trickling down his face.

"Okay, Dame. Girl wasn't that good. He deserved to go home for that hot mess."

Damien wiped his face and giggled. "No... I was thinking about Joseph. I miss him."

"Call him and tell him."

"I've tried. He won't talk to me. He won't forgive me this time. I know I fucked up, Mase. But I did love him."

"I know you did."

"I don't try to fuck things up... It's just like... Like the universe is out to get me. It's like I can never be happy."

I was a little irritated that Damien just admitted to me that he had cheated more than once on Joseph. Joseph didn't forgive him 'this time'.

Damien had a tough life growing up. It was just him and his mom growing up, just like me. But his mom was emotionally and mentally abusive towards him. He spent a lot of time at my house. My mom always made Damien feel welcome. When Damien's mom disowned him for being gay after we graduated from college, my mom even took him in until he got on his feet.

I always thought that was why he seemed so desperate to be loved.

"I know you've had a tough life, Damien. But you've got a great job. You're healthy. You're still young and insanely good looking. One day you'll find the right guy and settle down. And you won't even want to look at other guys."

"You think so?"

"Of course I do."

"It's easy for you to say. You've got Dale. He's so good to you. You're so lucky."

"That's what I'm saying, Dame. One day you'll meet a great guy like Dale. And you'll live happily ever after."

Damien sighed. "I guess."

***

Over the next two weeks, Damien and Dale got along okay. I only had to break up one fight between them. But Dale and I were both starting to get a little annoyed with his antics. Damien was looking for an apartment, but nothing was ever good enough. There was always some nit to pick.

Dale was also getting very frustrated in bed. I didn't want to make love with Damien in the house. It weirded me out. So we'd do it in the shower, or I'd give him a blowjob. We did make love properly in our bed a couple of times when I got Damien to go to the gym.

After four weeks in our home, I decided that I needed to tell Damien it was time to go.

It was a Saturday and I had to go in to work. I decided that I'd only work a half day. I wanted go home and make a nice dinner and let him down easy. I quickly finished what I needed to get done, then I stopped by the grocery store.

When I walked in the door, I froze in my tracks.

Damien and Dale were on the couch. Damien was completely naked. His head was thrown back as he rode up and down on Dale's cock. Dale's shirt was unbuttoned and his pants were still around his ankles. He was gripping Damien's waist and was thrusting his hips up into him. Both of them were so caught up in each other that they didn't notice me standing there.

The grocery bags came crashing down to the floor. Damien looked up and gasped in horror.

Dale shoved Damien off him. He pulled the condom off his cock and bent down and scrambled to pull up his pants. "Babe... Babe, I'm sorry. It's not--"

"Mase, I'm so sorry," Damien cried as he pulled on his clothes.

I grabbed onto the wall as I was overcome. My body was wracked with sobs.

"How could you?!" I screamed. I wasn't even sure which one I was talking to.

Dale started to explain. "It just happened, babe--"

"Don't 'babe' me, you bastard!" I screamed.

I looked at Damien's crying face. I saw it in his eyes. This wasn't the first time.

"And you!" I screamed as tears poured down my cheeks. "You were my best friend. How could you, Dame? With my husband? I forgave you for Ted, but not Dale. I will never forgive you for this! Never!"

Damien fell to his knees and sobbed.

Dale tried to put his arms around me. "Come on, Mason. Calm down. Let's talk--"

I shoved Dale back as hard as I could. "Don't you fucking touch me! With Damien, of all people. You-- I--"

I was crying so hard that I couldn't continue. I pulled my wedding ring off my finger and dropped it onto the floor. I grabbed my keys and slammed the door behind me. I got into my car and sped out of the garage. I pulled over to the side of the road and parked. I cried until I had no tears.

I only had one place to go. I drove to Mom's house. She still lived in our little house in the suburbs. I sat in the driveway for the longest time. I saw Mom step out onto the porch. She came around opened the car door and pulled me out and hugged me. I grabbed on to her and I lost it. I bawled on her shoulder as she helped me into the house. She laid me down on the sofa and wrapped me in a knitted afghan. She sat next to me and softly stroked my hair.

"Damien and Dale have been calling for you," she said quietly.

"They can both go to hell," I spat.

"What happened, honey?"

"I walked in on them... Having sex."

Mom gasped. "Oh, no."

"And it wasn't the first time. How could they, Mom? How?"

I squeezed my eyes shut and sobbed.

"Shh... It'll be okay," she said as she hugged me tight.

"How, Mom? How will it be okay? I just lost both my best friend and my husband."

"You don't mean that. Maybe--"

"Yes, I do. I don't ever want to see either one of them ever again!"

I wiped my face with my hands and ran my forearm across my nose.

"I'm gonna go take a nap," I said.

"Your room's all made up."

Mom sniffled and wiped the tears from her cheeks and I gave her a tight hug.

I got up and went to my old bedroom and laid down and cried myself to sleep.

***

Dale and Damien called me incessantly over the next day. I finally answered Dale's call Sunday evening.

"Stop calling me," I said.

"Mason! Please, don't hang up. Baby, I am so sorry. Please, just talk to me."

I could tell he was crying and it broke my heart. Dale was so strong. He never cried.

"Mason," he cried. "Babe... Please come home. We can work things out. I love you."

"I can't, Dale. I can't get the image of you making love to Damien out of my head."

"We weren't making love. It was just a f--. He seduced me. Look, it doesn't matter. We can go to a therapist, whatever it takes."

"It matters to me, Dale! You had lube and condoms. You were obviously prepared to cheat. It wasn't the first time, was it?"

The silence on the phone was deafening.

Dale finally spoke so quietly I could barely hear him. "No."

"How many times?"

"Babe, don't."

"How many?!" I screamed.

"I don't know."

"How long have the two of you been...?"

More silence. My stomach flipped. I hung up the phone and ran to the bathroom and fell onto the floor. I barely made it as my lunch heaved into the porcelain bowl.

After I cleaned myself up, I returned to my room. I picked up my ringing cell phone and turned it off.

***

Monday morning I called in to work and took the day off. While Dale and Damien were at work, I went and packed up as much of my things as I could fit into my car. I drove back to Mom's house and threw everything into a pile in my bedroom.

Over the next week, Dale kept calling and leaving me messages at least twice a day. Sometimes I'd listen to them, sometimes I'd just go ahead delete them. Damien's calls finally tapered off.

Lew even called me once. He had called me at work, and it caught me off guard. He told me that Dale was miserable. He had thrown Damien out of the house and he wanted me to come home. I told Lew to tell Dale to go to hell.

I looked into filing for divorce and it was going to be a nightmare. Since our marriage wasn't recognized by Michigan, we'd have to go through the Massachusetts family court.

I wasn't sleeping well. Every night I would lay in bed pouring over the details of our life. Wondering what I did wrong that he would want to fuck Damien instead of me. Wondering how long they had been fucking behind my back.

By the next week, I was finally starting to snap out of my funk. At least I stopped crying. Dale's calls tapered off as well.

I'd go to work every day, then drive back to my mom's house. We'd have dinner and watch TV until it was time to go to bed.

I'd sometimes catch her looking at me with sympathy. Sometimes, she'd come up to me and hug me for no reason.

I had been living with Mom for three weeks when she knocked on my bedroom door one Saturday morning. I groaned and turned over and looked at the clock. It was 12:43 in the afternoon.

"Come in," I croaked. I cleared my throat and sat up.

"You going to sleep all day?" she asked.

I sighed. "Yeah. No. I guess I should get up."

"You have a visitor."

"What? I don't want to see anyone. Tell whoever it is to fuc-- To go away."

Alex's big frame leaned against the door jamb. "I'm already here, Mason."

"I'll let you two talk," Mom said as she excused herself.

"What are you doing here?" I asked. "I'm not going back to Dale, so you can save your breath."

"I'm not here because Dale asked me to. I'm here to check on you. Everyone is so concerned about Dale. I wanted to know how you were holding up."

I opened my mouth a couple of times to respond, but I couldn't think of anything to say. Alex came and sat down on the end of the bed.

"So, how are you?" he asked.

"Oh, I'm just great," I said sarcastically. "My best friend and my husband are having an affair. Couldn't be better."

"I reamed Dale a new one a couple weeks ago. I just couldn't believe he would do that to you. He can be a real asshole sometimes."

I opened my mouth to defend him on instinct, but then caught myself. He's right. Dale is an asshole.

"Did you know that Damien is back with his boyfriend?" Alex said. "He somehow convinced him to take him back. Some people never learn, I guess."

I sighed. "Yeah. How long has it been going on, do you know?"

Alex shrugged. "Don't know. You really think it happened more than the one time?"

"Dale admitted it. When I asked how long it had been going on, he didn't answer."

Alex shook his head and mumbled, "That motherfucker. He doesn't deserve a guy like you."

I scoffed. "Yeah. Right. 'Cause I'm such a catch."

Alex opened his mouth to respond, but changed his mind. We sat quietly for a moment.

"So, what are you going to do?" he finally asked.

I shifted my position so that I was sitting up in the bed.

"I don't know. File for divorce. Find a place to live. All I know is that I'm not going back to him."

"I can get you the name of my divorce lawyer if you want. I mean, Susie and I had a mutual and friendly split, so it wasn't messy. I doubt things will get ugly between you and Dale."

"Yeah, okay. I'd like to talk to him."

Alex pulled out his phone and flipped through the contacts, then messaged the contact to my phone.

"Thanks," I said.

"So, how's that project you're working on?"

"A nightmare. I got way behind, but I put in a lot of extra hours this week and got caught up."

"Is that why you're still in bed at 1:00 in the afternoon on Saturday?"

I shrugged. "What else do I have to do?"

"It's a nice day. Go play a round of golf."

"Dale is the golfer, not me."

"Well, that was just a suggestion, Mase."

I saw Alex's eyes travel down my body. I was wearing a tank top and a sweat shorts and his eyes rested on my chest and stomach before moving back up to mine. I noticed for the first time that Alex had gray eyes. I also noticed for the first time how incredibly handsome his face was.

He cleared his throat nervously. "You wanna go grab some lunch?" he asked.

"No, that's okay. I'm not really up for it."

"Aw, come on. You been hiding for, what, three weeks now? It's just lunch. Come on. Get up."

Alex stood up and grabbed my wrists and pulled me out of bed. My leg caught under me as I got out of bed and I tripped and smacked into his body. "Oof!"

My hands touched his soft pecs and his arms moved around me to catch me.

"Okay. I'm okay," I said quickly as I pushed away from him. "Let me get cleaned up and get dressed."

"I'll wait for you downstairs."

I scurried to my closet while Alex turned to leave. I saw him cut his eyes at me as he went through the door.

"This is a bad idea," I muttered to myself as I reached down to my crotch to adjust my rock hard dick.

I quickly got showered and dressed, then headed downstairs. Mom and Alex were sitting on the sofa drinking iced tea and chatting.

When Alex saw me, he stood up.

"Thank you for the tea, Mrs. Weston," he said. "It was very good. As was the company."

"You're quite welcome, 'Alexander'. It's nice to have a friend of Mason's over. You're welcome anytime."

"Why, thank you, ma'am," he smiled.

"And so polite," my mom said as she blushed a little and pinched his arm.

"Oh my god," I muttered.

"Ready?" Alex asked me.

I nodded. "I'll be back in a little while, Mom."

I gave her a quick hug and followed Alex out the door. I got into the passenger seat of his red Ford Expedition SUV and buckled up.

"Where to?" he asked.

"I don't care. Anywhere."

"Mexican?"

"Sure. Sounds good."

Alex backed out of the driveway and headed into town.

"I can't believe you were flirting with my mom," I said.

"I wasn't flirting with your mom," he laughed. "I was being friendly."

"Yeah, well, I'm not calling you 'Daddy', so you can just forget about that."

Alex laughed loudly and I joined in. That was the first time I had laughed in weeks. I looked over at him and smiled.

We had lunch at Dos Amigos Mexican restaurant, which served authentic Mexican style food. The food there is always good. We both had a margarita with our lunch and it helped me to relax a little bit. I was very grateful that Alex did not talk about Dale or Damien.

"You know, I can tell you've lost weight," I said. "You still working out?"

"Yeah. I try to go five days a week. I've lost fifty pounds so far."

"Wow. Well, good for you. You can tell."

"Thanks," he smiled proudly.

We talked about his job as an IT manager and my job as a project manager. In fact, we talked and laughed for nearly two hours.

After lunch, he wanted to go out and do something, but I declined and he dropped me off at home.

I was a little surprised when he shut off the SUV and walked me to the front door.

"Thanks for dragging me out, Alex."

He shrugged. "Eh. Anytime, Mase."

He looked like he was going to hug me, so I held out my hand and he shook it instead. His hand was big and warm as he gently gripped my hand. He held onto my hand a little too long and his thumb slowly stroked the back of my hand. He stared into my eyes. God, his eyes were beautiful.

"Thanks, Alex," I said again.

"You're welcome, Mason."

"Bye."

I pulled my hand out of his and went inside and sat down in the chair in the living room. Mom looked up from the TV.

"Back already?" Mom asked.

"I've been gone almost three hours," I frowned as I looked at my watch.

"Oh. Well, I thought maybe you'd go out or something."

"Uh, no."

"Okay, fine. Suit yourself."

***

I got in touch with Alex's divorce lawyer on Monday morning. I explained that the house was Dale's before we got married. I only wanted my belongings and my share of our savings. Because we don't have same sex marriages in Michigan, the only way we could get divorced was to be a resident of a state that allowed same sex marriage. What a nightmare. He seemed like a nice guy and he seemed to be sympathetic that he couldn't help me.

When Alex showed up at the house again on Saturday, I was very surprised.

"Alex. What are you doing here?" I asked as I opened the door.

"You wanna go out to lunch?"

"Uh, maybe you've heard of phones?"

"If I called you first, you would have just said no."

I shrugged. He was right. I would have said no.

"Okay, so get your shoes on," he said.

He pushed into the house past me, leaving me standing there with my jaw on the floor. Man, he was presumptuous.

"Alex, nice to see you again," Mom said as she came down the stairs.

"Mrs. Weston. Don't you look lovely today?"

"Oh, stop," Mom giggled.

She swatted his arm and he gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"Thank you for dragging Mason out of the house," she said. "All he does is work and sleep."

"Oh, it's no problem. I don't mind getting him out of the house for you. I know he must cramp your style."

"Oh, you!" she giggled.

"You don't fool me. I know a cute little thing like you must have them lining up down the block."

I opened my mouth to speak, but I was speechless. I just shook my head and sighed and got my shoes.

Alex took me to a deli and I got a salad and soup combo, while he got a salad and half sandwich.

"Okay," I started. "What's up with my mom? I thought you two were going to start making out."

Alex laughed. "Your mom is a sweetie. She reminds me of my mom."

I nodded. Alex's mom passed away a couple of years ago.

"Your dad is Puerto Rican, right?"

"Actually, my granddad was Puerto Rican but my grandmother was white, so I'm a quarter latino."

"So do you speak Spanish?"

"A little bit. My dad taught me some, but English was his first language."

"I never knew my dad... He left when I was a baby."

"Well, your mom is still with you, so spend all the time you can with her. When your parents are both gone, you'll look back and wished that you did."

Alex looked so vulnerable right now. I wanted to give the big guy a hug. Instead, I nodded and smiled at him.

"You know, I think my mom likes you more than she likes Dale. She never laughs and jokes with him."

Alex shrugged, but I saw the corners of his mouth turn up in a little smile.

"Oh, I called your lawyer," I told him.

I told him what the lawyer told me and he shook his head. After that things got quiet and a little uncomfortable.

"All right. Let's get out of here," he said. "We need to do something fun. This is too depressing."

I nodded and stood up. We got rid of our dishes and I followed him to his truck. He pulled out and drove to the other side of town and pulled into a mini golf/go kart park.

I frowned. "I don't think--"

"If you're not gonna play real golf with me, then you have to do this instead."

"Shit. Okay," I sighed and relented.

"It'll be fun. I promise."

Alex was right. It was fun. It was ridiculously fun. I had such a good time. We were both laughing non-stop the entire time. He won by a landslide, not surprisingly, but I didn't care. I liked that he just wanted to have fun and not get all competitive like Dale. I really liked that he fudged my scores so that I didn't appear to lose too badly.

"You wanna do the go karts?" he asked after we finished our game.

"Aren't we too big and too old for that?"