Impromptu Match (Goliaths of Wrestling, #1)

by Lily Mayne

Then it hit me, and I had a mini existential crisis at my desk. This is it. This is my life. I spent ten minutes picking out my tie this morning. I ironed my underpants even though no one ever sees them but me. I’m going to die here.

Relatable

It was like I was outside my own body, hovering over myself, looking down at my tidy desk with its single succulent in a plain brown pot and the white mug I’d gotten for Secret Santa five years ago that said, You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps!

When the corporate existential dread hits

Maybe I’d brought an apple instead of a banana a few times too, but that was it. That was the extent of me deviating from my routine.

But I’d done it, because I’d loved him, and I’d thought it was what he wanted.

When Marcus left me, he told me this wasn’t how he’d envisioned our life together. That it had become humdrum and too predictable. That I was too straitlaced. “You made me this way!” I’d wanted to scream at him.

Oof this hit hard.

I’d made him a herbal tea while Marcus was taking half the mugs from the kitchen cabinet.

“Nice tie, man.” Gary from Finance clapped me on the shoulder as he passed, a HutSec coffee mug in his hand. “Got the same one in blue. Last week’s sale at Standard Suits and Such?” I chuckled woodenly. “You know it.”

Oh, the BANALITY!! Love how Taylor’s life is framed with these details.

What have I become? Why aren’t I the one going to orgies all the time with a twenty-something hippy called Sage?

Questions you ask yourself as you approach middle age

Zero pints of ice cream consumed in over a decade. Zero orgasms at the hands of another person for four years. Exactly zero orgies attended.

Bleak

Tension lines bracketing my mouth, which looked all miserable and droopy. Dick-starved, I decided. It was a miserable, dick-starved mouth.

Sometimes I wondered what it’d be like to have my own office, and the fact that my lofty ambitions in life amounted to daydreaming about sitting in a soulless, eighties-era office kind of made me want to cry.

“Wouldn’t miss it.” I’d forgotten all about it, but I supposed drinking my single beer in the company of other human beings instead of alone in my apartment might be a nice change. Maybe I’d even have a slice of cake this time. Go full-on rebellious. Throw caution to the wind. Seriously, fuck my life.

Great wrap up to a promising first chapter.

Mindy turned to me and Lance and brightly asked, “Did you see the new brochure design? Becky made some fantastic font choices.”

Riveting stuff, Mindy. This is *exactly* what birthday parties in stuffy corporate offices are like.

Someone had just said, “Thought leadership,” across the room. One of the managers was describing how the new “outside the box” ad campaign really “resonated” with the board of directors.

Oh god the corporate-speak. Feeling this party on a soul-deep level.

I couldn’t go back in there. I would just start shouting, ‘How about this for synergy?’ and flip the table.

DO IT

Was there a secret punk book club held in the basement of the building after office hours?

Love that wildest thing he can think of is a punk book club.

I’d never been to a rave.

This poor guy hasn’t lived a day of his 40 years.

God, I probably looked like a depressed old man in the midst of a midlife crisis, trying to regain his lost years by mingling with the alternative youth.

Me at the club

Was I going to be chased through the basement by a smartly dressed businessman with night-vision goggles and a crossbow?

I hope so

“He specifically requested—” He squinted down at his clipboard. “‘—sad office worker forced to attend a colleague’s birthday party.’ I mean, that’s clearly you.”

I highly, highly doubted anyone would ever pay to see my pasty white ass cheeks clench around a dollar bill.

Don’t be so sure… ;)

“God, I can smell the ennui from here. Fucking perfect.”

My reaction to chapter 1

“Exquisite.” Holt’s husky voice made my belly tighten. I must’ve misheard him though, because there was no way he’d use that word to describe me. I was far from exquisite.

No matter who you are, there’s someone out there who thinks you’re perfect.

“I want to feel that sense of dread specific to a man who has just realised that the crushing grind of his daily life will inevitably leave him an empty husk.”

Laughed my ass off at this

“You’re just a sad little office drone who thought he might claw back some excitement in his life by stripping for strangers after work, aren’t you? God, that’s hot.”

“Take the tie off first,” he purred. “And tell me how it felt to stand in that sad, lifeless room with all your colleagues and realise you’d be doing it for another thirty years.”

this whole scene is comedic gold

He was hard? He had a boner from listening to me list all the details of my miserable life? What kind of sadist was he? And why the fuck was it kind of hot?

The time I’d farted in Chase’s office after he’d gone home and closed the door in the hopes that the smell would linger until the next morning.

“Around nine-thirty okay? First match starts at nine forty-five.” Good grief, I was usually in my jammies by nine-thirty,

Real

“Have I fucked any of the wrestlers? No,” Holt had said while stirring rum into what remained of the salted caramel ice cream so he could drink it. “Have I imagined them all passing my naked and willing body around the ring to do whatever they want to me while a crowd of lusty spectators looked on? I’m not made of stone, Taylor. Of course I have.”

I actually felt kind of… lighter. Freer. Liberated. Like I’d purged all the little niggles that crowded my brain late at night, the memories that made me cringe and wriggle frantically in my sheets as if that would get rid of them.

My asshole was already practically puckering at the thought of Holt… Of me and Holt maybe…

Can Holt sense his horniness? Is horniness an emotion?

I chuckled. “He’s pretty hot, yeah.” “He’s not that hot,” Holt muttered from his other side.

Aw widdle bb Holt is getting jeawoussss

Was I seriously such a loser that he’d thought I’d get “overwhelmed” by an energetic wrestling match? Like I’d get the vapours and pass out?

Honestly this would prob be me

“Fuck, Taylor,” he panted desperately against my mouth between more messy kisses. “I want you to sit on my face and dip your balls into my mouth.”

“Like, I just want him to gaze down at me all lovingly and shit while he rearranges my guts, you know?”

I took a long gulp of soda to replenish the fluids I’d lost, the ones currently drying in my pants,

Gotta stay hydrated

“I want to feel you come again,” he murmured raggedly in my ear. “It made me come so hard.”

Damn Holt is so HOT!!

“Dude, the sexual tension in here has been thique all night.” Larkin rolled his eyes. “I’ve had a boner by proxy pretty much the whole time.”

This place is a ticking HR time bomb

I watched him warily, then spotted my sad party hat sitting on his desk. It was a little dented from when we’d been playing catch with it while drunk, and I vaguely remembered Holt sitting on it by accident at one point too, but I could see he’d gone to the effort of shaping it back into a cone. He’d kept it?

So cute

“W-wait, I need to… let you process.” “I’ve processed,” I insisted breathlessly, chasing his mouth. “Lizard Granny. Orcs. Sexy nun incubi. I’m up to speed. I’m all good.”

“Fuck, I can taste your cum,” he groaned, long fingers curling under the waistband of my sweats and peeling them down to tuck them behind my sac.

“Oh my god,” Holt sobbed, breaths sawing in and out of him. “You’re sucking it so good. Oh my god, Taylor. Wh-what the fuck…”

Dicksucking muscle memory kicked in

I could clearly see his sac hanging between his legs. Weak morning light from the window behind him framed them like some weirdly erotic halo.

“You want to borrow these?” “Can I?” He gazed at me imploringly. “I’m definitely gonna jerk off in them later. Just so we’re clear.”

I couldn’t even remember the last time someone had hugged me. In fact, I was pretty sure it had been Sage as Marcus had been climbing into his car after packing up all his stuff on the day he moved out. Sage had said my energy had been “totally chill,” thanked me for the herbal tea, and pulled me into a hug that had been surprisingly comforting even though he was the man Marcus had left me for.

This brought home just how lonely Taylor was with Marcus. Here he shows more of a connection to Sage, receives more comfort from the man Marcus left him for than Marcus himself.

No one had touched me the way Holt did in so, so long. I hadn’t realised just how lonely and starved of affection I’d become.

Excuse me while I bawl my eyeballs out :’(((

Thank you for the breakfast and, um, the frotting—”

“With some calming syrup, because I was, uh, kind of nervous on the way here.”

Adorable

Holt was so weird. I loved it.