Heart on the Line

[yolandekleinn]

Heart on the Line
by Yolande Kleinn
M/M, Erotic Romance, Friends-to-Lovers
[30 Pages / 6,900 Words]

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In the months both he and Avery have been single, Landon has gotten too much in the habit of sleeping with his best friend. For all the times they've hooked up through the years, they've never carried on quite so long, and the intimacy between them has never felt like this. Now, with Avery calling in the middle of the night and Landon desperate to see him, it might be time to acknowledge that something—maybe everything—has changed.


Excerpt:

It's the middle of the night when Landon is jarred out of a pleasant but disorienting dream—something involving quiet laughter, soft grass, and a spaceship for some reason—and he spends several seconds trying to turn off the alarm clock on his bedside table before realizing clocks don't vibrate.

He reroutes and reaches for his phone with a mumbled curse, clumsy but slightly more awake now. He has to unplug the thing to get it anywhere near his face, and then he squints one eye open to glance at the screen. He fully intends to make sure it's not a family emergency and then send whoever's calling to voicemail, since at this hour it's far more likely to be spam or a drunk dial or some kind of oops-forgot-about-time-zones-sorry situation from one of his friends who live abroad. Then he can roll right over and squash his face into the pillow, and hopefully get back to the same contented dreamscape for the remaining hours of his night.

Then he sees the name on the incoming call. Avery. And quick as that, he's wide awake with an inconvenient rush of heat flooding beneath his skin.

Apparently he and his best friend have both been single too long—or perhaps simply playing the friends-with-benefits card too often—because this is all it takes for Landon's whole body to light up, his pulse speeding with a downright Pavlovian surge of arousal. Certainly these past couple months have involved more sex than usual, even factoring in all their years of sleeping together between relationships.

Spontaneous hookups are one thing. Whatever they've been doing this time around feels like something else entirely. And if any other man were making Landon feel this horny and vulnerable, he would long since have cut his losses and put a little distance between them, contrary monster that he is.

But it's not any other man. It's Avery. And Landon rolls onto his back as he swipes his thumb across the screen to answer the incoming call.

"What do you want?" he grumbles. He's eager to hear Avery's voice, even at this unreasonable hour, but he's not going to admit it aloud. That would give Avery far too much ammunition right out of the gate.

Landon blinks at the ceiling—at the distorted glow coming through his windows from the streetlight below—and considers that maybe it's ridiculous to be thinking about a conversation with his closest friend in such confrontational terms. Maybe a man nearing thirty ought to allow some sincerity into his greeting.

He shakes off the idea quickly. He and Avery have been friends for twenty years. Landon isn't going to change the rules of the game over an unexpected call in the middle of the night.

"You sound even grouchier than usual," Avery chirps, instead of answering the question. "Am I calling at a bad time? Do you have a date over?"

Landon snorts and shakes his head, scooting to sit up against his headboard and reaching over to turn on the bedside lamp. The question isn't completely ridiculous on its surface. There's nothing inherently unlikely about Landon bringing a hookup home, if he's in the mood for anonymous sex. But he wouldn't change course without giving Avery some warning first, no matter how casual their understanding might be.

Maybe once upon a time. Maybe when they hooked up once a year at most—a thought that gives Landon pause, when he stops to consider what that says about his romantic life—that even when actively trying to date people, he still ended up single and sleeping with Avery at least once a year.

Still. He would warn Avery, if he intended on fucking around with someone else, and he trusts Avery would offer him the same courtesy.

"You know damn well I haven't." He rolls his head to the side, scratching idle fingers through his beard. His gaze drifts past overstuffed bookshelves to find the window with its foggy, perpetual glow of the downtown skyline in the distance. The glass is scattered with raindrops, landing steadily and rendering the city a blurry and abstract patchwork. Landon hadn't realized it was raining, but now that he's paying attention, he can hear a quiet pattering on the roof and walls. "Do you actually need something, or did you call just to irritate me out of a good night's sleep?"

"You were sleeping?" Avery sounds incredulous.

"It's one in the morning."

"On a Saturday." Warm laughter softens the words. "I didn't see you at the bar before I left, but I figured that meant you had other plans. I didn't expect you to be hibernating at home."

"For a self-styled recluse, you're certainly one to talk."

"Hey!" Avery's affronted tone is obviously a facade concealing laughter, and it takes all of Landon's self-restraint not to laugh as well. "I went out tonight, didn't I? Figured if I spent some time with our friends, I might actually see you in the wild for once. But you weren't there."

Which is surprisingly sweet, actually. Landon wonders if Avery realizes what he just admitted: that he stepped outside his usual habits and routines hoping to spend time with Landon—and okay, also with a handful of their mutual friends, who still make time to socialize despite how busy everyone's gotten since finishing various grad programs and postdocs and internships—and Avery was disappointed enough by Landon's absence to pick up the phone and call him, instead of letting the night end there.

Landon's chest gives a dangerous little hitch at the idea. He does his best not to look too closely at the sudden spread of warmth behind his ribs. It's a familiar sensation, one he's been experiencing more and more often over the past couple of months. But Landon can't afford to wonder what it means, unless he wants to complicate something that should be unassailably simple.

"Sorry I wasn't there," Landon says. He doesn't mean to sound so sincere. Sincerity is not something he and Avery do out loud. It's reserved for gestures, for difficult moments, for the times they actually need each other. But the words are already out, and Landon doesn't feel any particular impulse to take them back, even when Avery falls quiet long enough that he's clearly trying to figure out how to interpret the tone.

"Are you busy right now?" Avery finally asks. The words come out a little too soft, but he makes up for it with the sardonic edge to his voice when he adds, "Should I let you get back to the beauty sleep you so desperately need?"

"Fuck you," Landon retorts cheerfully. "I'm the prettiest man you know."

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