“Just your luck,” Priest said with a shake of his head. “Blade and Dante are still setting up inside. Come on, you can borrow some dry clothes. No point in having a meeting if you’re just going to be sitting around miserable in your wet jeans.”
“Can’t argue with that,” I said. I was already starting to shiver, with my wet clothes and the chilly air, so I followed Priest down the path to his cabin.
I’d been inside the cabin a few times, and every time I visited, it felt homier and homier. I left my leather jacket draped over the porch rail outside, then toed off my muddy boots into his stack of shoes.
“It’ll be just a second,” Priest said as he hurried into his lofted bedroom. Mindful not to drip on the carpet, I padded into the kitchen, drawn to the photos covering the doors of the stainless-steel fridge. One in the center caught my eye—a young Aaron and Priest, arms around each other’s shoulders in front of Ballast.
God, they both looked so young. And so happy. Hard to believe how much time had passed—hard to believe we’d ever been that young.
“I was looking at that same picture this morning,” Priest said as he descended the stairs with a shirt and sweatpants in hand.
“Aaron’s so handsome here,” I said. “And you’re not half-bad yourself.”
Priest huffed a little laugh. “That’s right,” he said. “Easy to forget you knew Ankh when he was Aaron, first.”
“Yeah. To this day I think of him as Aaron just as much as I think of him as Ankh. Those years we had growing up… they were really formative for me.”
A soft, thoughtful look crossed Priest’s features. “I never heard a lot about those years, if I’m honest.”
“I’ll tell you some stories,” I said. “When we’re not late for a church meeting. And I still need to change.”
The thoughtful look quickly became one of slight alarm. “Oh, yeah, and those boys take their punctuality seriously,” Priest said. “We better get our asses moving.”
With a grateful smile, I took the clothes from Priest’s hands and hurried into the downstairs half-bathroom to change. I shucked off my wet jeans in a hurry, replacing them with the sweatpants, which were threadbare and super-soft with years of wear. Had Priest worn them a lot? Maybe fresh from the shower, pulling them on in his bedroom before he crawled leisurely into his bed?
I took a deep breath and tried not to think about my cock pressing against the same fabric his had countless times before. I felt like a young man, willing my cock not to get hard as I forcibly pushed the thoughts from my mind. Then I tugged off my t-shirt, grimacing as the wet collar dragged over my face, and unfolded the one Priest had given to me.
And, yeah, this wasn’t going to work. It was tiny. Definitely wouldn’t fit Priest, though the image of him trying to struggle into it did make me grin a little.
I left my shirt draped over the counter and stepped back out into the living room with the tiny shirt in hand. “Hey, Priest, I don’t think this shirt is going to work, unless you want me to show up to church looking like a Spice Girl in a crop top…”
Priest turned around from where he was waiting in the kitchen.
I held up the shirt demonstratively. “See what I mean?”
Priest glanced at the shirt, but his gaze quickly turned to me instead, skittering over my chest. He swallowed visibly, then blinked and dragged his gaze with some force back to meet mine.
I flushed under the weight of his blue eyes. Suddenly I felt self-conscious, standing in the doorway shirtless, and my cheeks heated. I wasn’t out of shape, by any means: there was still good definition in my pecs, and I had a strong core beneath a soft layer around my middle. I was sturdy, functional, in good shape.
I wasn’t bad-looking, but I hadn’t had anyone look at me like this in a hell of a long time. I wasn’t used to being looked at all.
I raised my eyebrows. “Maybe I’d wear it if I were a younger man, you know, but as co-president…”
That seemed to snap Priest out of whatever odd daze he was in, and he blinked a few times. He didn’t laugh at either of my little jokes, instead just swallowed again, and shifted his weight a little on his feet.