Robert's POV

I woke up alone and wishing I wasn't.

After shutting off my alarm and brushing my teeth, I had the strongest urge to contact Jerry. But, like yesterday, I resisted the urge.

Jerry had been abundantly clear about where we stood: we were fuck buddies. Fuck buddies didn't text each other good morning, even if they did happen to have the kind of ground-breaking sex that should only happen in movies.

God, we really had the best sex.

I made myself breakfast, went to the gym for a few hours, and met a very grouchy Aidan for lunch.

"You should know," I said the moment he sat down. "You're my entire social circle. Is that pathetic?"

Aidan glared at me. "Are you roasting me?"

"Roasting?" I asked, shaking my head at the man. "You need to stop hanging out with college students."

Aidan crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat. "Mhmm. Says the guy who's fucking one."

There was a cute younger couple in a booth across from us who looked scandalized.

I tried to avoid their judgmental stares and lowered my voice. "I'm doing him a favor...sexually," I corrected. "I'm teaching him about kink and buying him nipple rings. In return for, you know, cool kid tips on how to make a kink club boujee."

Aidan rubbed his temples. "My brain is melting right now with your stupidity."

A young server popped up and asked us for our drink order. I got a water and Aidan ordered a glass of wine.

At my expression, he raised his hands in a defensive gesture. "Okay, okay, if it's wine it basically does not fucking count, okay? ...Don't tell Finn."

"How is it your brain that's melting?" I grumbled. Just as I was about to go into even more detail about why Aidan was more stupid than I was, I spotted a horrific sight. "Holy— ew, that is gross."

Aidan turned to look in the direction I was staring at. "What? Wait, is that Adam and Jim? Seriously, why are they like attached at the hip? Do you think they're fucking?"

The two men were being led to their table by the server, so I dropped my eyes and turned my head. Aidan buried his nose into the menu. Once they were sat, I was able to position my head out of their view.

"What are they doing?" Aidan whispered. His gray eyes were fillies with a mixture of curiosity and disgust. "Are they eating faces?"

I looked over with spy-like stealth. "No...no, they're arguing over the menu I think."

Aidan squinted. "I'm suspicious."

"Maybe they're stalking us," it suddenly dawned on me. "I'll go rough them up. This Lincoln guy needs to be put in his fucking place."

Aidan grabbed my wrist and kept me seated. "Dumbass, you can't just rough people up in a restaurant! Oh, hi."

The server awkwardly cleared his throat. "Yeah, please no roughing up, haha. What can I get you today?"

Cringe.

I awkwardly cleared my throat and ordered with Aidan. The server took our order and glanced behind his shoulder at me briefly as he walked away. Oops.

Aidan's expression was extremely judgmental. "This is why Jerry calls you psychotic. And he's right. We're going to ignore their existence and hope they don't notice ours."

The majority of my mind was dead set on going over and intimidating weasel Lincoln. But I'd wait until lunch was over and Aidan was heading out.

"Anyway," I said, making Aidan relax completely. "You know that I'm redesigning my club. I feel like what this state is really lacking is a club that isn't some seedy sex place. I want my club to be up-scaled, in a way, where you have to have a certain amount of class to get in."

Aidan tipped his head back and sighed. "Thank fuck. I won't have to see those annoying teeny-boppers gyrating on the dance floor."

"You mean Finn and Jerry?"

He looked scandalized and sipped his wine. "Don't joke about them being teenagers. That's disgusting."

"Aidan. Jerry is twenty," I reminded. "And Finn is...how old is Finn again?"

Aidan tossed his hands in the air. "Fuck if I know. College-aged. He's old enough to have a refractory period the length of a quick shower and a drink of water."

Young men were terrifying. I shivered. "How many orgasms can he have in a day?" I asked, honestly scared to know the answer.

The couple next to us were looking over, absolutely disgusted. I didn't think we were being that loud.

"Robert," Aidan whispered, leaning forward. "He orgasms, takes a piss, and comes back with another full fucking boner. And a cute little smile. And then he goes, 'Oh, you tired?' in a tone that's definitely calling me old."

I sat back, completely horrified by this information. "Maybe I'm not cut out to be fucking a twenty year old," I realized.

Aidan shook his head and sipped his wine. "My advice to you: never say that you're tired. I said I was tired one time, you know what I got back? 'Aw, honey, I think you left your dentures in the bathroom.' And my favorite, 'Aidan, I saw the best deal on walkers the other day, it made me think of you.'"

I patted his shoulder. "There, there. I'll just make sure I discipline Jerry, so he doesn't talk to me like I'm his bitch."

Aidan shook his head. "That's what you say now."

"I'm confident," I said, thinking about how sweet and obedient Jerry was in the bedroom. I wouldn't have any problems. "Anyway, I need your help with finding reputable Doms and subs to teach some classes."

"What kind of classes?"

I pulled out my phone and showed him my list. "Here, I came up with a list of ideas. The problem is finding the people to teach them. Jerry is convinced that, with his marketing abilities, the classes will be completely full."

Aidan nodded and inspected the list. "What are you thinking for pay?"

"I haven't worked out a price yet, but I was thinking that it would vary based on how many times the class meets," I said, watching his expression.

"Okay, I like the list," he said giving me my phone back. "I'd teach the bondage one if you'd like, although it might be even better if you could get Logan. Patricia would do impact play for sure. I know Becky has a thing for sounding, and maybe we can get Jase in here for the lecture on edge play."

I took down some of the names and was fully ready to answer Aidan, except, "--Holy fuck, they're making out."

Aidan's face screwed up in completely confusion. "What?"

I leaned over and stared at Adam and Jim. They were embraced in a disgustingly sloppy lip-lock. "That is disgusting."

Aidan turned over and fake-vomited when he saw what I was looking at. "Oh my good holy fuck," he sputtered, covering his mouth with one hand and looking back at me. "That is horrific...what are you doing?"

I zoomed my camera in and got a nice and nasty pic of their make out session. "I'm sending this to Jerry," I decided. "To show him how fatal the bullet he dodged was."

Aidan's look was deadpan. "No shit it's fatal. I'm drinking wine at 12:35 PM on a Sunday. That kinda shit doesn't happen without some serious emotional damage."

"...At least you can admit it."

Just as I sent the picture, I realized I was supposed to be keeping a distance from Jerry. At the horrified look I sent my phone, Aidan groaned. "What is it now? Did he sent you some freaky nudes or something?"

"No, I'm trying to avoid him so he doesn't think I'm a psychopath stalker," I explained. "Maybe texting him a picture of the guy he knows I want to murder in cold blood wasn't the best idea."

Aidan perked up. "You're going to murder Adam in cold blood? Can I help? I'll help dig the hole. Oh, or maybe we can feed him to tigers. There's a zoo nearby."

Unfortunately, the weasel himself seemed to have super hearing. To our equal dismay, his nasally voice piped up with the words, "Aidan? Is that you?"

Aidan downed the rest of his wine.

Adam poked over and crossed his arms, a sneer on his face. "Are you stalking me? Because honestly, that's fucking weird."

Thankfully, a brief pause occurred when the server brought back our food. Adam awkwardly shuffled to the side and watched as the cute little server gave us our food and avoided our gazes.

"Psst," I said, catching the server's attention. I gestured to Adam. "I'm like two seconds away from roughing him up."

The server's face paled. He turned to me and Adam. "Please, be civil. Um— I'll be back with your ketchup."

"Thanks, doll," I called after him.

"Calling other people's employees 'doll' is equally creepy," Aidan grumbled. We both looked up at Adam. "What do you want?"

Adam sneered. "Oh, just to introduce you to my new hook up. John, you should come on over."

Aidan's eyes widened. "John? Since when was his name... actually, I don't even care."

"He's probably changing his name for attention," I muttered under my breath. Aidan snorted in agreement.

John popped over and winked at Aidan. "Hi, handsome. Unfortunately for you, I've found myself a new great lay." He attached himself to Adam, who looked equally smug.

Ugh.

I was so second-hand embarrassed for them.

The server scurried back with my ketchup and Aidan caught his eye. "More wine, please. A whole bottle."

"You can't pretend like you aren't stalking me," Adam said to me, further proving that he was a delusional human being. "I know that you hate me."

The server came back with an entire bottle of wine and Aidan sighed. "Oh, thank you so much. You're a life saver. Thank God."

He popped the cork and tipped the bottle back.

Adam stared at him. I met his eyes and glared. "The fuck are you looking at?" I asked. "It's wine. That doesn't count."

"Well, whatever," Adam spat, shaking his head a little. "Good luck to your child of a boyfriend when he tries to manage your rampant alcoholism."

Aidan stared at him, eyes blank, and started drink faster. Then he burped. "You may not have noticed. But there is a direct correlation between how much I drink and how frequent you appear in my life. The graph has Aidan's alcoholism on the y axis and Adam's presence in Aidan's life on the x axis. The equation is y = x."

We all stared at him.

He burped again. "Oh wait, you wouldn't get that. Because you're a fucking English teacher."

"Writing professor, actually, and—"

I met Jim's eyes and, for just one moment, we understood each other.

We both held our hands between them.

"Okay, calm down," I told Aidan.

"It's not worth your time," Jim comforted Adam.

Adam's nostrils flared and he turned to face me. "Whatever. I came over to tell you to quit your psychotic bullying act. I'm with John now, so Jerry disinterests me."

My head hurt. "So what you're saying is that I'll never have to see you again?"

Adam nodded. "Yes. Goodbye and good riddance. And fuck you." He turned and stalked towards the exit.

Jim whined. "We just ordered tho—"

"Come on."

I watched them, fascinated, as they left the building. "Well, that was bizarre," I hummed.

I turned back to see Aidan finish off the bottle of wine. He sighed and patted his belly. "So bizarre."

My jaw dropped. "What the— how the fuck? Did you just expand your throat and dump it down?"

Aidan smirked and winked at me. "That's what she said."

"...No, that's definitely not the way that joke's supposed to go."

He burped.

Well, there was no point in talking business anymore. But one thing good came out of this: no more Adam Lincoln.