Payback's A Blast - 1. Chapter 1

When Tristan called me in the middle of the week and didn’t want to chat on the phone, I knew it was bad. Tris made a point of not drinking during the week, even if he had a late shift the following day. He only ever wanted to go to the pub on weekends. And he didn’t want to talk on the phone, and that alone should have sent enough alarm bells ringing to wake a coma patient.

“Well I guess you could go curl up into a ball and cry,” I sat back in my chair and sipped my beer while Tris started sort of breaking down opposite me at the little corner table, “Fuck Tris! How did you not know?”

Tristan wiped his hand across his face and snivelled.

“I sort of did know. He’s wasn’t actually discrete.”

I knocked back a fairly big portion of my beer, thinking that it was supposed to be the one who got dumped who was supposed to do the drinking. The bastard had cheated on Tris pretty much from day one, lied and treated the poor guy like shit.

If he’d been my boyfriend…

It was a thought started a million times. I’d met Tris about a week before he and The Dick had started dating, and there had been chemistry and sparks and all the loin burning stomach fluttering good stuff in those first few days. If I’d been any less of a nice guy, I’d have gotten in first, asked him out before The Dick had swooped in, stole Tris’s heart and then trod all over it. If Tristan had been my boyfriend for the last eleven months, then he wouldn’t be crying over anything at all.

“Not discrete? Tris, he’s been fucking around with…” I didn’t want to crush him anymore, “He’s been cheating on his affairs for fuck sake.”

Tristan looked like he was about to cry again, his lovely hazel eyes red rimmed and his face blotchy.

“What happened?”

Tristan sighed and drank the rest of the larger half on his pint. The empty glass made a surprisingly loud noise when it hit the wood.

“I caught him in bed in the middle of the day with some little towheaded twink. He didn’t even stop, just looked at me in the mirror and grinned like he wasn’t fucking some other guy on our bed.”

“Tris…” I didn’t know what to say, of all the horrible things to walk in on. Even if it meant he and The Dick were over, I would never have wanted him to see that. His shoulder shook, and I just reached across the worn surface and grabbed his hand in my own, “Please don’t cry over him anymore, he’s done wrong by you for so long now. Don’t get angry and jealous, it’s not worth it.”

Tristan gripped my hand tightly, a strength in his slender frame it was easy to forget about.

“And what would you suggest I do then Aeri?” Tris is the only person who had ever shortened my otherwise boring name.

“Payback’s a blast?” It was the wrong time by any rule book for what I wanted. Tristan’s heart had gotten pounded if not smashed, and by anyone’s standards he would need a nice clean rebound before he would be ready to be with anyone else. But I’d waited long enough to have him. We’d been friends for nearly a year, and there was nothing about the guy I didn’t love. We spent all our time together, hung out, made dinners, watched movies, went clubbing. The Dick had either never had time or never been free, and art college plus gallery shifts had left me an easy schedule to worth with. I loved the rare days that Tris and I got to work together when he was moonlighting from his fashionista job.

“Airy?”

“Revenge is a dish best served straight up.” And boiling hot, “He cheated you, get even.”

“With you?”

“With me.” I sort of hoped that my smile said it all, “If I know that jackass at all I know he can’t stand me…” And I’d been thinking about Tristan’s touch, his lips, the way he might kiss for months on end.

“Airy… he’d be so fucking angry.” Tristan was looking at me with those big fireworks-in-November eyes.

“He’s gonna go crazy thinking about how much he’s lost. He always took you for granted. I won’t.”

“Aaron…” Tristan looked unsure but full of desire, like lightning that might or might not be vengeful

I stood, stepped around the table and pulled Tris up against my chest. He let out a little ‘oof’ of surprise, but his eyes dilated like mad when we were touching from sternum to knee.

“Come on,” I smiled and my teeth caught on my lower lip, “Let’s really piss him off.”

Tristan’s eyes were wide and round, and he was breathing in these little short gasps, as though we weren’t standing in the corner of some pub in full view of everyone. I could feel him growing hard against my hip.

It had been an unspoken thing. I fancied him rotten, adored him to bits and would have jumped at the chance to touch him, kiss him, make love to him all night and fuck him into oblivion if that’s what he had wanted. And he felt something for me too. I had always been able to tell when things had been bad between him the The Dick because he’d be extra affectionate and I’d find his fingers moving in my hair, his head on my shoulder as we watched a movie. The Dick had hated me hanging around with him, banned our friendship and then continued to fuck about on the best thing he’d ever had in his life.

I felt no one jot of guilt, not a single gram of shame as I leant in and kissed Tristan’s lips. He was still for a moment, sort of shocked, and then his fingers were in the back of my hair and his tongue was practically down my throat and there wasn’t a spare space between us.

Wolf whistles and cat-calls broke us apart.

“Get a room!”

“Make a video!”

“Oh, you go get him boy!”

Tris turned bright pink, I just grinned. We were both panting like we’d run all along the seafront

“I don’t wanna get even with you.” Tris was still smiling, “I don’t wanna even think anything to do with him when I’m with you.” He grabbed my hand, pulling me along towards the door, “Let’s go and just think about each other for the next like, twelve hours.”

My cock twitched in my jeans, and I couldn’t help but pull him back against me, all soft and hard and perfect and everything my right hand and I had dreamt about for months.

“And then some.”

Tristan giggled, we left half my drink and a bunch of people staring at us, and I’d no idea how we got home. But it was amazing, a sexy, and good.