Rough and Rugged: A Meet Me In Milwaukee Charity Anthology

Chapter Two

Griff

Well, this isn’t how I thought my night was going to go. When I left the hardware store and saw Gray’s truck across the street in the parking lot of Hank’s Tavern, it was like my feet took over and decided I had new plans. I’m usually not one to walk into a bar by myself. Most nights when I do come into Hank’s I’m followed by a dozen or so of my employees after a hot, sweaty day of working outside, but there are worse places I could be on a Saturday night.

To say I have a bit of a crush on the man my feet brought me to see would be an understatement, but unfortunately, I can’t do a damn thing about it. He’s one of my employees, and that’s a line neither of us has attempted to cross in the year he’s worked for me. Hell, I don’t even know which side of the fence he’s on. My gaydar is usually spot-on, but when it comes to Grayson Sanderson, I’m clueless.

Sometimes, I catch his eyes on me and think he’s checking me out, but as soon as he notices me watching him, he looks away. I’m not one to toot my own horn, but I know I look good. Years of manual backbreaking work have done my body right. I’m tall, tanned, and muscular. While I’m forty-two years old, and have a bit of gray starting to grow at my temples, I’ve been told I could pass for someone in their mid-thirties. I’d date me. Several men have, but none of them have been the right one for me. I just don’t know if Gray would, and for some reason, that bothers me. And seeing him sitting across the bar with a beautiful woman bothers me even more.

Yes, I’m gay. I like men. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know when a woman is attractive, and this one is. It’s not until she gets up and disappears down the back hall toward the bathrooms that I realize they don’t seem to be talking much. Gray’s attention is locked on baseball highlights on the TV, and her nose was buried in her phone. If they’re on a date, it’s not going very well. Maybe that’s a good sign for me.

I’m not trying to hide from him on this stool, tucked at the end of the bar where it meets the wall, but I didn’t want to interrupt whatever Gray had planned for his evening. Now that the woman has stepped away for a bit, I guess there’s no shame in going over to say hi, right? A quick greeting won’t kill either of us.

I grab my beer, swivel on my stool to stand, and turn back his way, only to see another man has beaten me to the punch. Dammit. It’s only when I see Gray shake his head and lean back, away from the mystery man, that my feet take over again and carry me his way. I make it a few steps before I can hear what they’re saying over the music from the jukebox.

“Just one drink. What’s the harm?” asks the mystery man in dirty jeans and a dusty t-shirt.

Would it hurt you to take a shower before stumbling into public?

“No, thanks,” Gray replies before holding up his own beer and taking a swig. “I’m waiting on someone.”

“Come on. One drink won’t kill ya.” Jeez, this man is relentless. Get a grip, dude. “Maybe you should just come to my apartment with me. It’s right across the street. I’ve got beer there too.”

Oh. Fuck. No. Gray is going nowhere with this douchenozzle. My steps pick up, but I stop dead in my tracks a dozen feet behind Gray, when he drops a bomb.

“I’m engaged.”

What? Damn, I really have no shot now. I can’t believe he’s been working for me for this long and I hadn’t heard. I didn’t think I was that kind of boss. I don’t want to be that kind of boss. I thought I knew a lot about my employees because I consider us all friends, or at least friendly. When you’re on a jobsite for twelve hours a day, five or six days a week, your crew ends up slipping their life stories to everyone. While Gray isn’t out with us every day—being an architect keeps him in the office a lot—I know he has friends on the crew. He talks to them when we go out for drinks, and I hear him making plans or discussing prior plans with the others when they cross paths in the office. Is it just me he doesn’t like?

How is it that until now I didn’t realize the only person Gray doesn’t have a one-on-one conservation outside of working hours is me? How can that be?

“Engaged?” The woman from earlier reappears, pushing the unsuccessful man out of her way. He takes his loss and disappears. “To who? Why didn’t you tell me? I’m your sister, for fuck’s sake.”

Sister? Thank God! Maybe I do have a chance.

Wait . . . no, I don’t. He’s engaged to someone else.

“You wouldn’t know him. And thank God you don’t, otherwise, you would’ve tried to fuck him too,” Gray snaps.

Those are some angry words. If I couldn’t tell he was pissed off by the grenade he just threw, the bright red skin on the back of his neck and tips of his ears would be a blaring sign to stay away. But too bad for him, and probably her, my brain is reading the signs but not heeding their warnings. My feet start moving again.

“I said I was sorry a million times, Gray. What do you want from me?”

“I want you to go away. I don’t want you here.”

Stepping to Gray’s side, I drop a kiss on his temple. “There you are, hun.” Hoping to make this harebrained, by-the-seat-of-my-pants idea look convincing, I throw my left arm over his shoulder and lean into him just a bit. I look over at him and smile, hoping I’m doing the right thing and won’t get punched in the gut. “Sorry my errands took so long. I ran into Phil at the hardware store, and you know how much he likes to gab.”

Surprisingly, Gray’s eyes don’t pop out of his head, and he shocks me even more by wrapping his right arm around my side and hooking his thumb through my belt loop. He tips his chin up, and by instinct, I drop mine so our lips meet.

Fireworks. Fourth of July. Chinese New Year. Big bang. Fireworks!

From the top of my head to the tips of my toes, my body is buzzing. One kiss is all it takes. I don’t care who this man is engaged to, it can’t be any more real than this. Whatever it takes, I need to figure out how to make Gray mine.

Our kiss doesn’t last long, but as soon as it does, Gray presses his sexy lips to my ear. “Please play along. I’ll owe you big time, and I promise I’ll make it worth your while.” It’s then that I realize his hand has moved from my hip to my backside. His whole hand is holding my right ass cheek, squeezing tight, and I’m starting to pick up what he’s throwing down. I don’t think he’s really engaged, but he wants his lying, cheating, homewrecking sister to think he is. Game on.

Returning the gesture, my lips to his ear, I nip at his earlobe and whisper back, “I’ll play along, but we are far from over. This is just the beginning. Do you understand?” I grab him by the back of the neck and squeeze, forcing his face up to mine, and slam my lips to his. And this time, it’s no silly peck. It’s tongue and heat and a whole year’s worth of pent-up aggression all rolled into one lip lock.

If Gray thinks I’m joking about this being the start of something, he’s sure not letting on. He’s giving back just as good as I’m giving.

“Whoa whoa whoa now,” a voice says, breaking through the fog. “Who the fuck-nuggets are you?”

I drop one more soft kiss on Gray’s now bee-sting swollen lips, sure mine look the same, then stand back to my full height at his side. I rest my elbow on the back of his stool and let my fingers tease the hairs on the back of his neck. Then, and only then, I give the impatient witch my attention.

“I’m his fiancé. And you are?”

“His sister.” Her snarky attitude is paired with a squinting glare, arms folded across her chest, hip cocked to the right, and a tapping high heel-wrapped toe. She’s dressed in all black from shoulders to toes, but don’t let the monochromatic look fool you—every item touching her skin is designer label expensive.

“I’ve heard very little about you. Sorry, but if Gray doesn’t want you here, you need to go.” I’m no actor, but I would even fool myself if I heard me spouting all this bullshit.

“Well, I’ve heard nothing about you, so fuck off, lumberjack.” If her eyes could shoot lasers, her glare would turn my head into ash. She turns to Gray and steps closer. “Who is this asshole? He’s trash and not worth the ground you walk on. You deserve better than the filth of this town. Come home now.”

She’s a feisty little thing, I’ll give her that, but too bad for her, I don’t like liars or cheaters. And in the few minutes I’ve been eavesdropping on their conversation, I’ve learned she’s both, so I won’t miss a wink of sleep if tonight is the first and only time I meet her.

“Excuse me? I don’t much care for name calling, but if you’re saying I’m a lumberjack because of what I wear, go right ahead, witch.” I take a step her way, trying to block her approach. It’s only when I feel Gray tug on the back of my flannel that I stop. I rest my left hand back on his knee and give it a tight squeeze, intending to silently let him know I’ve got this. “I don’t care if you’re the damn Pope, if you say one more mean or rude thing about our town, I will toss you out of it. You and your thousand-dollar shoes don’t belong here, so why don’t you leave?”

“Are you going to let him talk to me that way?” she screeches. “Gray, come on. Who is this guy?”

“I told you, Jamie, this is my fiancé.” This time, when Gray tugs on my shirt, I step back to his side. “Jamie, meet Griffin. Griff, meet Jamie, my sister. She was just leaving.”

“Wait!” Her volume goes up a few decibels and sends one of those nails on a chalkboard-inducing shivers through me. “Don’t you have a boss named Griff? You’re engaged to your boss?”

“One and the same,” Gray replies with a nod before taking a sip of his beer, looking bored. How can he be so calm around this lunatic sister of his? If my sister acted like this, I’d hip-check her ass out the door. I was brought up with the ideology of never hitting a woman, unless she starts it, and this woman is toeing really close to that line.

“You’re dating—“

“Engaged,” I correct, cutting her off.

“Do you have a pattern of sleeping with your bosses or something? Real classy, Gray,” she says with a sneer. “And how old is this guy anyway? Fifty-five? Sixty? Sheesh! Are you really that hard pressed to find someone your own age?”

“No—“ I try to nip her attitude in the bud, but she cuts me off this time.

“Let Gray answer for himself for once. Or are you too much of an asshole?”