Chapter 5 DIEGO #2
Annie held Kelly at arms’ length, looking her up and down. “Any chance you’re….?”
Tom winced and moved away from them, putting me between him and his mother-in-law.
“Yikes,” I said sympathetically.
Kelly took a deep breath. “Mom. Don’t start.”
“Just asking!” Annie grinned as if she was just being adorable and not annoying.
Tom whispered, just over my shoulder, “I don’t think she knows how an IUD works.”
“Nope,” I said. “Best not to tell her.”
Annie was moving on, already heading for the kitchen. “I made chicken cacciatore! Diego, you never eat right; I’m gonna give you extra to take home.”
I was about to protest when Kelly said, “He’s got a new man who takes him out for fancy dinners.”
Aaaand so much for not bringing up Taran.
“What?” Annie halted in the kitchen doorway. “Who? Oh my god, not—?”
Kelly laughed. “Told you there was something going on there!”
Annie came to me, hands out. I tried not to sigh as I took them.
“Everyone at the wedding was asking how you two knew each other,” Annie said brightly. “He’s quite the local celebrity. His mother’s a nice woman. A little stuck-up, but she has a good heart.”
“Uh-huh.” Stuck-up was exactly what I would’ve called Taran’s family. I gave her a little squeeze, then turned to Kelly. “So, what’d you eat in Hawaii? I hear their macaroni salad is off the fucking chain.”
With a knowing look, Kelly let me wiggle out of the tight spot she’d created. “Definitely. The whole plate lunch thing sounds kinda weird but it’s incredible.”
“I saw some on your Instagram,” Annie said, now leading all of us into the kitchen.
I lingered in one corner with Tom, accepting a beer from Dad and otherwise letting Kelly and Annie catch up without interference.
Annie had clearly been working in the kitchen all morning because she had a whole-ass feast ready for lunch.
It’d drive me fucking nuts if she came into my place when I was gone, even if it was to fix me a huge welcome lunch, but if Kelly and Tom didn’t care, I sure as fuck didn’t.
Food smelled amazing, though, and I had plenty of time before work, so I hung out and finally got Tom to talk about his trip. Dad sat and listened, nodding like he knew all about it, but otherwise on good behavior.
As I was cleaning up after the meal, Taran texted.
Taran
Tell Kelly thanks for inviting my mom to her wedding.
I smiled to myself and set aside the dishes I’d been carrying. Typed back:
I got stuck for lunch.
Oof. Thoughts and prayers.
Thx big help as always.
We still good for tonight?
Yes plz.
Pick you up at work.
Kelly popped up to read over my shoulder. “Is that Taran?”
“Shut up.” I shoved my phone back into my pocket.
Of course, Annie was heading for the sink too, so she heard. “He’s so handsome, Diego. And his mother says he has a very good job.”
“Yep.” I kept smiling, though. It was kinda sweet of Annie to even be interested. Ten years ago, I never thought I’d be talking anywhere near my dad about a guy I was dating. But here we were, and that was mostly down to her.
“She never mentioned he was gay,” Annie said thoughtfully. “I think he was engaged before?”
“Yep.”
“He was?” Kelly frowned. “To a man?”
Yeah, I wasn’t getting into all that. Not least because I was painfully aware that I had some shit to sort out with myself, and then with Taran, before I let this get out of hand. I didn’t need it accidentally spilling out of my big mouth in front of my family, thanks.
I just said, “Nope.”
Annie took the plate I’d been carrying and dumped everything into the sink. “Isn’t that a little iffy? I mean, I know some people say it’s a thing, but I’ve just never known anyone who was really bisexual.”
Kelly winced but just looked at me as if to say, All yours. She was cool like that.
I said, “Oh, you probably have, Annie. They just probably didn’t tell you because they knew you’d say something like that.”
Kelly held out her fist.
I bumped it.
Dad cleared his throat from the corner. Of course, he hadn’t moved to help us clean up, just sat there as everyone else buzzed around him.
Annie nodded thoughtfully, to my surprise. “Well, as long as he’s good to you. It’s a good family.”
What the hell did his family have to do with me and Taran fucking? I mean, I knew what she meant by it—it was the most Stanley County thing she could’ve said in the moment—but I still hated it.
Dad said, “He doesn’t want to talk about it.”
Wow. I shot him a grateful look, and he very nearly smiled.
Before anyone could comment further, I headed for the door. “I should go. I gotta work tonight. Thanks for the food, Annie; it was great.”
“Wait. Take the extra I made you.” She pushed some Tupperware into my hands as I tried to slip out.
Kelly followed me into the living room. “I wanna meet him.”
“Okay, maybe.” I waved her off. “Eventually.”
“Thanks for the ride.” She took my free hand and pulled me in for a hug.
“You sure you don’t need the car back? I don’t need it to get to work.”
“Nah, keep it a while. And don’t let them get to you.”
“Never do. Bye.” I kissed her cheek quickly and opened the front door. “Later, Annie, Dad. Later, Tom.”
Tom yelled back, “Thanks, D!”
“Careful driving back, Diego!” Annie called.
The second I got out of their driveway, I rolled down the windows and lit a cigarette.
Jesus fucking Christ. Family, amiright?
***
There was a huge show at Heinz Field (okay, Acrisure Stadium, but no one calls it that) that night, so I took the long way around through West End to avoid the tunnel.
It was hot and sticky as fuck when I walked to work in the early evening.
The crowd was out the door—no surprise; it’d been even worse when Taylor Swift was in town last year—as expected, so I took a deep breath and pitched headfirst into my shift.
Thankfully, I was working with Bryn, the bar manager.
I loved them for their heavy pours and insistence on taking no shit from the patrons.
I’d had one too many managers who liked to throw their staff under the bus, so Bryn was probably why I’d stayed at The Pike so long.
We hit our rhythm fast and were turning out drinks in no time.
The kitchen was fucked, but that was normal. I could hear Chef yelling every time I got near the food window, so I stayed away unless I had something to pick up. I like a little pain, admittedly, but not the kind of pain the kitchen doles out when they’re underwater. Yikes.
After dark, shit started to kick off—a fight in one corner, a few disgruntled patrons in the other, and a guy at the bar who was swearing belligerently at the baseball game on the TV above him.
Thankfully, Stevie, this 6’3” white guy with biceps bigger than my head, came on to work the door right about then, and he settled everyone down and kept anyone too drunk to be served from coming in.
It was smoother after that, but fucking exhausting. I took half a break to smoke one time, but otherwise I was behind the bar, sweating. Regulars didn’t come in when we were packed out like that, so the few conversations I had were pretty short and sweet.
And then my past walked in. Larson Drake, the silver fox with control issues, strolled right through the middle of the crowd and up to the bar. He elbowed himself between two people already waiting for a drink and waved to catch my eye.
I held up a finger, then kept washing glasses like my life depended on it.
If I just waited a few minutes, Bryn would grab him; we had a rule about saving each other from unwanted flirtation, and that always extended to exes.
Drink orders spooled out of the machine, and the bar back—a Pitt student called Alyssa with purple hair and a nose ring that immediately endeared her to me—pushed me out of the way. “I got this, D. Go!”
I started for the register, but Bryn was already on the spooling drink orders. They had not seen Drake—because of course, he liked being called by his last name. Especially if it was prefaced with “Mister.”
I steeled myself and moved to the standing section of the bar. Drake called my name, so I said as coldly as I could, “They were here first,” and took the other two orders.
His eyes bored into the back of my head as I worked on them.
I almost put bitters in a cosmo, I was so distracted.
Drake hadn’t shown up in forever, not since I dumped his bossy ass and told him to lose my number.
Ugh, that had been even more dramatic than the dissolution of the polycule the year before.
Partly because I’d actually thought Drake was interesting and I’d been pretty into some of the stuff he showed me, kink-wise.
I just didn’t want it to extend outside the bedroom. And he knew it. And tried it anyhow.
And now a perfectly good DILF was ruined forever. Gross.
I handed off the drinks and finally turned to Drake, smiling as fake as possible. “What can I get you?”
“Crazy in here tonight, huh?” he said in that low, rumbly voice. He had a barrel chest and the pipes to go with it. Met him at a party for the West End Playhouse, where he was a regular leading man.
“Yep,” I said cheerfully.
“North Shore must be a mess,” he guessed.
“Maybe.” I smiled even harder. “What can I get you, Drake?”
He shifted, not looking uncomfortable, exactly, because the smooth prick never did. But this wasn’t going how he wanted.
No, I wasn’t going to pretend we ended as friends. You pushed my firm boundaries, bitch. Fuck off. I lifted my chin and stuck out my tits.
“Come on, Diego,” he said quietly, fixing me with a dark look. “Doesn’t have to be like that.”
“We’re really busy,” I pointed out. “So if you could just tell me what you want, that’d be great.”
He frowned and said, “The usual.”
Fucking prick. If I asked him what he meant, he’d know goddamn well I was being a brat. Which he liked—especially when he got to correct it. And he was dying for me to do what he wanted, right here, in public. Again.