Safe in His Arms by Renae Kaye

and quickly turned the laughter into a cough, hacking out a couple more just for show. Jerkwad didn’t lose his smile. He grinned wider and shook hands. “So, do you live around here?”
    Casey remained snug in Lon’s embrace and answered pleasantly enough. “A couple of rows over. I’m staying with my grandmother.”
    “Cool. Tell Lon to bring you down to the pub one night when he comes to see the lads. Lon’s sex life is pretty much talked about as pitiful, so seeing you will make the lads shut up. They’ll take one gander at a hot boy toy like you and be pissing their pants in jealousy.”
    Lon moved around Casey, entered the van, and opened the fridge to fetch more beer. “Shut up, Paul. It’s your sex life we all pity. I thought nothing could be lower than you sleeping with Tommy Krantz, but now I hear you’re pursuing a relationship with a married man? Low, man, low. Casey? Do ya want a beer or Coke?”
    Casey opted for Coke as Paul slumped on his chair and muttered darkly, “Yeah, I guess you could say that Tommy Krantz was lowering the standard a tad too much.”
    Lon and Paul talked about different guys they’d fucked or been fucked by—although Casey noticed that the “fucked” total for Lon was a lot higher than the “fucked by” total. He sat back on the recliner and watched Lon, wondering how old he really was. Thirty? Thirty-five? Was that too old for him? Was Casey too young for Lon? Did numbers really matter?
    “Do you remember that teacher we had at school, Lon? Mr. Haggert or something? The hot one who taught Phys Ed?”
    “Fuck, yes. That man was total boner material. I saw him pissing one day, and he had a fucking bull on him.”
    “That’s him. I swear that his twin brother came into a club once. He was the first to fuck me, and I swear I only let him because he looked so much like Mr. Haggert.” The confessions were getting a bit saucy, making Casey think that it wasn’t the first lot of beers these guys had consumed. They must have started a little earlier in the afternoon to be this pissed already.
    Lon choked on his beer. “You did? How old were you?”
    “I dunno. Eighteen I must’ve been if I was in a club. The year after high school, anyway. Why? How old were you the first time you gave your arse to someone?”
    Lon ditched his beer bottle into the bin and grabbed another. “I was twenty-five before I bottomed for the first time. It’s not really high on my list of things to do. I always preferred the top.”
    “Really? Even when you were young, you could find guys who wanted to bottom for you?”
    “I’ve always been a bear, Paul. I was born fuckin’ big and I was huge even at sixteen.”
    “True. It took me three years at the gym before anyone took me seriously. But still. Twenty-five before you took it? Fuck. Who was it?”
    “The worst thing is I can’t even remember the guy’s name. He was cute, and I was drunk.”
    That seemed to be a rather sad story to Casey. Your first time should be someone special, or at least someone who’s going to take time with you. Paul turned to Casey and tried to include him in his conversation. “So who was your first time, Casey? How old were you?”
    Casey opened his mouth to tell Paul to fuck off, but unfortunately the truth came out first. “My father. I was fourteen.”
    It wasn’t like time was frozen, because Casey could still hear someone’s TV playing in the background, and there was the sound of traffic on the nearby road. But the people inside the tiny space made by the canvas were all doing really good impressions of statues. Casey was horrified by what he had admitted, but Lon and Paul were simply horrified. Full stop. Paul’s jaw fell open.
    “You’re shitting me?”
    “No.” Casey was still reeling from his confession, but he put on a brave face and shrugged. “You could probably find the video of it if you looked hard enough. I hear that it’s still doing the rounds on the web somewhere. Hundreds of