this is sooo late and sooo random
idk where this chap came from
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
hope u like
(the [m] is up for debate)
(very slight [m])

—

When I was sixteen, I got drunk for the first time.

I remember it clearly. Back then, I was too afraid to push my boundaries so I had more self control than I did now. Chris had paid his older brother to buy us a bottle of Malibu and we snuck it into my house. Erick couldn't make it that night, so it was just Carlos, Chris, and me. It was a core memory instilled in my mind forever.

The first thing I remembered, after a hilarious bout of gagging from Carlos when we had our first round of shots, was the feeling of my lips going numb.

It was addictive, in a sense, and after that, I craved more. I wanted to feel like that throughout my entire body. We drank a few shots each, chasing it with Mt. Dew. Looking back, that was probably the worst mix in the history of ever, but it was all I could find in my kitchen without raising my mom's suspicion. Chris was the first to point out that he was drunk and Carlos and I soon agreed, the feeling foreign but welcome.

That was the feeling I had been chasing forever. It was that numbing feeling that I only achieved from alcohol, the one that magnetized my ass to a seat at the bar every night. I loved the way I could forget everything after four-and-a-half vodka sodas. It was down to a science now.

Going to the bathroom and having to hold myself up with a flat palm to the wall to piss, then staring at myself in the mirror for far too long to appreciate my red cheeks and unrecognizable glazed look in my eyes. It was all so familiar and I loved it, I did. I loved it and I never wanted to stop pursuing that high.

Maybe it would catch up to me one day. I didn't give a shit. That one day was simply that: a day in the future. Fuck did I look like trying to be a fortune teller?

I plopped back down at the bar and returned to watching the muted episode of Law & Order: SVU. Straight-hunky-bartender Adam brought me a refill and leaned against the bar while he collected the random dude sitting next to me's signed bill. That guy was long gone, all that was left of him was the ring of condensation that dropped off of his beer onto the bartop.

"Two dollar tip," Adam scoffed. "Real nice."

"You know I treat you right, Adam," I slurred, shooting him a flirtatious wink that never worked but I'd never stop doing. He laughed and shook his head, tucking the receipt into his little black book. SVU returned to commercial break even though it felt like it was only thirty seconds of playtime. "Got any plans for New Years?"

Adam shrugged. "I'll probably be here. You?"

"Same," I grinned, but a sadness ached in my heart, deep down. I swallowed it down with another sip of my drink. "Guess I'll have to be your New Years kiss, huh?"

"In your dreams, Meek," Adam laughed, turning toward the girls trying to get his attention for shots in the corner.

I sighed. Less of a frustrated sigh, just a content one. This bar was practically my second home, at this point. Every day after work, I knew my seat would be waiting for me. Adam and Britt, the other bartender, knew I'd show up somewhere around eleven and I'd have a vodka soda waiting for me before I even took off my jacket. It was a mundane, repetitive routine, but it was mine.

The group chat was trying to convince me to go back home for New Years to celebrate, but I didn't want to. Honestly, why did Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years have to be so close together? There wasn't enough time in between to wind down from the previous. So I'd be staying home, likely having to work late since the restaurant I work at usually threw a New Year's party and, after the kitchen closed, back-of-house could drink for free.

I didn't notice my phone was ringing until the screen lit up to show a missed call. My heart sank into my chest, the saturated pink in my cheeks heating even more.

Dallas.

Why was he calling me? It'd been a week since our fight, if that's what you'd call it. I thought I'd finally fucked that up for good. According to Erick, he was in a shitty mood on Christmas and got in a fight with Phoebe. It felt like it was my fault, but I couldn't bring myself to care.

I swiped away the missed call notification. Out of sight, out of mind, or something.

But then his name popped up on my screen again and I stared at it. I should ignore it, right? I didn't need to be at his every beck and call since I had made it clear to him that it was over. It had to be. He was getting in the way of my self-destruction.

I betrayed myself. I answered.

"Hello?"

"Thomas," he replied with what almost sounded like the break of a moan in his throat. I felt the goosebumps litter my flesh before I could see them and I covered my other ear. "I'm drunk."

Speechless. I was speechless. Good thing Dallas didn't need to wait for a response because he just kept talking.

"I'm drunk and . . . I'm thinking about you."

Oh, no. No, no, no—

"Naked."

I immediately stood up and walked out of the bar, needing fresh air and silence to fully soak in the conversation I was about to have. Though there weren't many people in the bar at midnight on a Wednesday night, the music was loud and I wanted to hear this.

When I was on the side of the building, hidden from the outside lights, I took a deep breath. "And you thought it would be a good idea to call?" I asked, a bit of a squeeze in my throat.

"Couldn't help myself," Dallas chuckled. "Do you want to know what I'm doing?"

I felt my breathing quicken. No, I don't. I don't want to know that you might be alone, in your bed, drunk and having dirty thoughts about me. I don't want to know that maybe you never stopped having those thoughts about me, because with that comes the temptation. And he couldn't lure me in with his seduction anymore, I was stronger than that—right?

"Thomas?" he breathed again and I melted.

"I can't do this right now. I'm out," I whispered, my words running together seamlessly and feeling that tug in my chest that always came with thinking about Dallas.

He moaned again, a quiet, guttural sound that echoed in my ears and probably would forever. I bit down on my bottom lip. "Where are you?" he asked. "Are you drunk?"

"No," I denied, but I was. I was five vodka sodas in, the fifth being the one he disrupted halfway through. "I'm at a bar."

Dallas hummed, easily mistaken for the dirty noises he had just been making seconds ago. But I knew his voice, his mannerisms and the sounds he made when he was closing in on the edge. He was toying with me. That teasing, playful taunting that always found a way to get under my skin.

"I'm single, by the way."

I stared at a pile of dirty snow on the ground and leaned back on the wall. "Good for you," I said, trying to sound disinterested but it never really worked out like that.

It was quiet for a moment and I could only imagine what he was doing on the other end of the phone—and I was. Every few seconds I could hear a sharp intake of breath. The image was burning in my mind.

Maybe he had the phone on his chest, sitting in beads of sweat from the heat of the moment, eyes shut while he pictured me doing the same. I could see his mouth, red and bitten, slick with saliva from sucking on the bottom until it was swollen. I could see his hands, one sliding over his chest and maybe pinching his tits as he thought about my mouth and the other gripped firmly around his cock, stroking the length but stopping to cup the head and wishing it were me.

"Fuck," I mumbled, cursing my own mind for creating visions like that.

"Are you picturing me, Thomas?" he asked, always the mind-reader. "Laying here completely naked and heart-broken over you. Touching myself, but wishing it was your hot mouth on me, instead."

"I'm not picturing you," I said, but he knew I was lying. "You shouldn't be calling me when you're drunk."

Dallas laughed. "No, I shouldn't. I'll say sorry tomorrow. For now, I just want to hear your voice," he said, a hint of something in his tone, but it confused me. "Remember, at the beach house, when we fucked on the top floor balcony? Anyone on the beach could have seen us, but you didn't care. You wanted me so bad—"

"Dallas," I hissed, but I was getting warmer and warmer even in the middle of the snowstorm. I remembered it clearly, the feeling of his hand over my mouth, knowing that we could have been caught any minute.

"And then remember when I sucked you off while you were on the phone? God, to see that face one more time," he said, what sounded like a strangled whimper following his words. "Come over."

I scoffed. "I can't drive."

"Uber," he said, like it was the obvious solution. "I need you."

My blood pressure was rising, my sobriety returning, and my hands were shaking. I didn't know how to say no to him when I didn't fucking want to. I wanted to say yes, to pay sixty dollars—at least—for a stupid Uber ride in the middle of the night for some drunken booty call that I'd regret in the morning. I wanted to go through the ache and torture of letting go of the love I'd lost time and time again. I wanted to kiss his stupid face for ruining my Wednesday night.

But I wouldn't.

Let's say, hypothetically, Dallas and I had a chance at making things work. If I wasn't such a coward and he wasn't so naive, then this wasn't the way I wanted to do it. But, fuck, would I ravish him if given the chance.

"You should go to bed," I said softly into the receiver, pushing my hair back from my forehead. My teeth were starting to chatter and I decided this one way conversation wasn't worth frostbite. "And finish jerking off without me."

He scoffed. "As if I could," he said with a grumble to his voice and then there was some muffled movement. "Pants are back on. Happy?"

"Not really," I muttered honestly.

"Goodnight, Tom-Tom," Dallas sighed, a sing-song undertone to the ridiculous nickname. I felt the corner of my mouth quirk upwards at how silly he was when he was drunk. "I will see you in ma' dreams. Loveyoubye."

And then he hung up without giving me a chance to say it back. I stood there with my phone in my hand, wondering if I even would say it back. I didn't know for sure, but I knew that if I did, I'd have meant it.

Hearing Dallas's voice ignited something in me. I returned to the bar and paid my tab, then walked home in a solemn silence. I didn't like this feeling very much. The desperate yearning for something I refused to have even though I could have had it many moons ago. It felt like a balloon nestled in some crevice between my ribcage and with every breath and every thought of my lover, it inflated just a bit. It took everything in me to force the air back out, releasing through my tears on the walk home.

I was a damned fool.