3. Max
Max
“ S omeone from Iceland commented on my video,” I said, scrolling through the increasingly populated list of comments on my phone.
I’d started up The Cocktail Bro page just for fun, and now it was quickly becoming something real. It was thrilling.
I’d never expected more than a dozen mixology nerds to give a damn about my posts, but now I actually had… fans.
“Why’s that surprising?” Andrew asked. “People in Iceland like cocktails. And hot guys.”
I was behind the bar. I set my phone down on the top of it, sliding it over toward my friends.
Andrew played football at TNU, the local university I’d graduated from last year. He was here sharing a pitcher of beer with Robbie and Jesse, who were seniors on TNU’s hockey team, along with Jesse’s boyfriend Mason.
All four of them crowded around, looking down at my phone.
Then, as they were scrolling around through my video comments, a different message popped up at the top of the screen.
“ Whoa . What is this? Does one of your fans have your phone number?”
I reached out for the phone, reading the message.
It was a text, not a video comment.
Unknown Number
So, what was it you liked better, the arm on your neck, or when you were pinned down onto the ground?
My face flashed hot.
I clutched the phone in my hand, rereading it over and over again.
“Who was that?” Andrew asked.
“Oh. Uh, I’m not sure,” I lied.
I knew exactly who it was.
I tapped out a reply.
Max
How did you get my number?
Draven
Calm down. Lily gave it to me. So what part did you like best?
When you knocked me onto the ground on my front porch? I’d say the best part was fantasizing about getting you thrown in jail.
Really? You didn’t have fun?
My idea of fun is playing pool or chatting with friends. Not everyone’s a violence whore like you.
Well, you clearly liked some part of it. Your grey sweatpants seemed to think so.
Die, please.
Most people don’t act like that. Or react like that.
Like…?
Down to fight. You came at me, but you also bit me. Spit in my face. Seemed to enjoy an arm against your neck. All of that, and then the precum…
The phone suddenly felt like a live grenade in my hands.
There were two things at war inside me: my compulsive need to be honest all the time, and my own good common sense.
If I was being honest?
Yes. There were some things I liked about it.
I wasn’t a fighter, and it was true that I would never seek out violence. But the incident with Draven was the first thrilling thing that had happened to me in…
In a very long time.
Forever, maybe.
My life had been simple, easy, and routine since the day I was born.
Bestens, Tennessee was all I knew.
I’d lived here for my whole life. I was 22, and I’d never been on an airplane. I’d been out of Tennessee on road trips, but only to Kentucky once, Georgia twice, and one school trip to a museum in North Carolina.
I’d gone to college only ten minutes from here at Tennessee North University before graduating last year with a marketing degree and no goddamn clue what to do with it.
For now? I was just a bartender. I liked a simple life, and I wouldn’t change it for the world, but there had been a switch flipped in my mind once Draven and I were getting physical, too.
Maybe I didn’t crave pure violence, but I did crave physicality.
Back when I played hockey, I secretly liked when players on other times would try to fuck with me. I was a sweet person, but the moment someone actually got in my face?
I wasn’t backing down.
Ever.
It had to be the only reason why my cock had responded when things got intense with Draven. Why I’d come alive , once I started trying to fight.
And against my better judgment, I couldn’t be dishonest with anyone. Not even Draven.
Max
Fine. Yes. I liked it. But I was also terrified, and I still don’t trust you.
Draven
Good boy. Thanks for the honesty.
Call me good boy again and I’ll kill us both.
Why? Did reading it make your cock too hard all over again?
Quit talking about my dick. You’re Lily’s boyfriend.
Not exactly her boyfriend at this point.
I didn’t know what the hell he meant by that last comment, but my whole body was heated at this point, and I had shit to do around the bar.
Ugh.
Fuck it. Not wasting time on him or any provocative things he says.
I muted the text conversation before sliding my phone back over to my friends, because they didn’t need to see a goddamn word of this.
I opened my video comments back up again and they scrolled through those for a few more minutes, keeping themselves entertained.
I tried to act normal even though it felt impossible. I walked over and greeted an older couple on the other end of the bar, making them a vodka cranberry and a standard gin and tonic.
Back into the regular routine.
My life hasn’t changed just because of one weird night, and it’s not going to change because of people watching me online.
Andrew was laughing again when I made my way back to the other end of the bar.
“This guy NedHedd3 said he’d pay a hundred bucks if you send him a fully naked pic. You gonna do it, Burnett?”
I smiled. “He’d have to pay a lot more than that.”
“What, like, a hundred and five bucks?” Mason teased.
“You’d do it for free, babe, and we both know it,” Jesse told him, leaning in to kiss his boyfriend on the cheek.
Robbie shook his head. “Go be lovebirds somewhere else. Andrew and I are trying to hang out without catching stray precum from your guys’ constant love-boners.”
Jesse cackled. “How do you think precum works, dude? You think it’s going to shoot out of my pants just because Mason makes me?—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” Andrew said, holding up a hand.
“You should listen to him,” I said.
“Why?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Because football players are always smarter than hockey players.”
I caught daggers from Jesse and Robbie across the bar for that one.
“Max Burnett, you want to die tonight?”
“Hey, I played hockey, so I’m allowed to say it,” I protested.
“All I’m picking up,” Jesse said, raising a finger, “is that Andrew wants to see me and Mason fuck right here on this bartop?—”
“Gonna smack you, Sanocki,” Andrew said, holding up a threatening hand.
Mason was still scrolling through the comments on my video, transfixed by how many there were.
“Seems like a lot of gay dudes like your Cocktail Bro videos ever since you started posting shirtless, Max,” Mason said. “Is that weird for you?”
“I don’t mind,” I said, grabbing my phone back and looking through the comments. “It’s weird. All I wanted to do was share cocktail recipes. Now everything’s getting complicated.”
I couldn’t deny it. There was a lot of action from gay men. They liked my backwards hat, my biceps, and the way I wore my shorts low-slung, apparently.
I’d just thought I looked ready for a pool party, but apparently, I was bait.
Bait for freaks, both online, and on my own goddamn front porch.
“Who is that Rex67 guy?” Andrew asked. “He seems to comment a lot.”
I shook my head. “Nobody. Just a random guy.”
“He said he wants to watch you sleep? Bit weird.”
“He definitely is a weirdo.”
“Stalker levels of weird.”
I missed when I lived in a frat house and always had tons of other guys around. Until now, I never realized how much safer it felt. Living with my frat brothers had been my favorite part of my life so far, and goddamn, I still missed college.
That masculine energy. How fun it had been, too. I was fucking jealous that Andrew, Robbie, and Jesse were still at TNU.
Something was always happening over on the TNU campus, but since I’d entered “the real world,” most days had been the same.
Not that I didn’t love bartending. It was actually something I was good at, after a lifetime of having no idea what I wanted to do for a career. Bartending wasn’t exactly making me rich, but making cocktails? I could do that all day, every day.
“Maybe you should send the stalker guy a cock pic and get it over with?” Andrew said with a shrug.
“Just because there’s a bar between us doesn’t mean I won’t slap you,” I told him.
“Max wouldn’t send a guy a naked pic,” Mason said. “He’s the straightest guy I know.”
“The straightest? What does that even mean?”
“Straighter than most frat guys I know,” Robbie added. “Most people in ours have at least smacked a dude’s ass before.”
“Who says I haven’t?” I asked.
I was used to this.
My… innocence was a common topic of discussion among my friends.
They knew I’d never been to a real concert, other than ones held in my high school.
They knew I hadn’t traveled, or ever had an office job, or been in a skyscraper.
They knew I wanted an easy life, drinking good drinks and eating good food and hopefully ending up married with kids soon enough.
I liked my life, though.
Even if the guys got on my ass all the time for being inexperienced.
“Hell, when’s the last time another guy even touched you, Max?”
I locked my phone and slid it in my pocket.
“Last night.”
Andrew’s eyebrows raised up fast.
“Excuse me? Storytime.”
I kept my eyes down on the bar top as I grabbed a rag, cleaning off the polished oak.
“No story,” I said, even though there sure as fuck was one. I’d been terrified at first last night and then fucking pissed off afterward, but the one thing I hated about living in a small town was gossip.
I wasn’t going to gossip.
Not about Draven, and definitely not about myself.
Maybe you could call that my naive, small-town pride, but I didn’t care.
“Who was the guy?” Mason asked.
“My sister’s boyfriend.”
“Holy fuck, double storytime ,” Andrew repeated, more emphatically.
I waved him off. “We accidentally ran into each other on my front porch. He was just coming to borrow a bottle of whiskey.”
Big.
Fucking.
Understatement.
“I didn’t know Lily was back in town with a boyfriend,” Mason said. “I can’t wait to see her. Feels like she’s been out in Montana forever now.”