Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Bull
Mom keeps insisting I attend some party at the clubhouse this weekend. Is this a real thing or is she just trying to get me to be more social again?
H e tucked his phone in his pocket as he pulled the door open to Bo’s. He’d stopped at his moms’ house before coming to work, and Sally had jumped on him about the party, even though he hadn’t heard anything about it from Marv.
He was really beginning to suspect it was a trick to get him to go spend time with his brother’s MC.
He tried to tell her he had his own friends, and that was…
sort of true. He considered Marv to be his best friend, and he didn’t care if other people thought that was weird.
Most everyone else he was just friendly with, really.
How many friends did one person need? He’d never be a social butterfly, and his size made him feel awkward in a lot of situations, like he took up too much space and drew all the attention to himself just for existing.
Besides, working took up most of his time. Every year, his mom did a little less, and he filled in a little more as they geared up for her retiring in a couple of years. Which was terrifying, but he’d manage… somehow.
And when he wasn’t working, he was either at home relaxing in front of his TV, working out in his home gym, or out at Marv’s old farmhouse, helping him fix it up.
It wasn’t that he was necessarily against having other friendships; he just didn’t feel like he needed them to simply fill some unspoken societal expectation. He was comfortable with his life and with spending time with his family. He didn’t need anything else.
Well… except for someone in the empty side of his bed. He wouldn’t say no to that, but dating hadn’t been a priority for him in a while. He knew that part of the reason was because of Malcolm and that he was being ridiculous.
He should get back on some apps. His stomach curled at the very thought of strangers asking him to show them his dick and wanting quick and furtive hookups. He was thirty-five—he wanted more.
A horrible thought occurred to him as he stepped inside the diner, nodding absently at an elderly couple who waved and called hello.
Was Mom pushing the party so hard because she was trying—in her overbearing way—to help him get over a certain straight server?
It would be almost sweet if he didn’t know her well enough to suspect there would be way more to the scheme.
Whipping his phone back out, he shot her a text right there, two steps inside Bo’s.
Bull
This party isn’t you trying to set me up or something, right?
Just the idea had him shuddering. Sally picking a date for him was the stuff of nightmares.
Trying to shake off the thought, he glanced around the dining room, doing his best to get into Manager Mode, and nodded at Christina as she carried a tray of food to one of the occupied tables.
It was the weird time between lunch and dinner, so they weren’t busy, but that would change soon.
Monday’s special was a grilled cheese bar, and people went nuts for it.
He scanned the rest of the room, frowning.
Maybe Dahlia was on break? But why wouldn’t she have waited until he got there so Christina wasn’t alone?
He’d texted them both—and Raul—to let them know he was on his way.
If she hadn’t shown up for her shift, why hadn’t Raul let him know?
Though he had a hard time believing that could have happened.
In the nearly three years she’d worked at Bo’s, Dahlia had never no-called, no-showed.
Meeting Christina at the drink station, he asked, “You okay? Where’s Dahlia?”
“I’m fine,” Christina said, playfully hip checking him out of the way so she could reach the lemon wedges. “She’s in the office with Malcolm. I can handle things until she comes back.”
He stared at her for a moment, his stomach doing that stupid flip thing it always did when Malcolm was mentioned. He really needed it to stop. “Malcolm’s here?”
He wasn’t on the schedule. Bull knew because he made it, and he could never not notice when they wouldn’t be working together.
When he’d first started developing feelings, he’d tried to put them on as few shifts together as possible, but that hadn’t lasted long.
His moms had teased him about it, but that wasn’t what had changed his mind about keeping his distance.
He’d fucking missed him too much. Not getting to lay eyes on his pretty face regularly, to know for sure he was doing okay, had been more than Bull could take.
That’s also when he’d known he was cooked.
There would be no getting over his little crush. He’d just have to lean in and let it run its course until his heart caught a clue.
Months later and he was still waiting.
“Yeah, he came in a few minutes ago.” She glanced around, then lowered her voice as she sidled closer. “He looked really upset, Bull. Like, on the verge of tears.”
His heart lurched so hard in his chest he was forced to take a half step back.
He hadn’t really talked to Malcolm since picking him up at the department store the other day.
Had that guy been bothering him again? He should have found out who he was and why Malcolm had needed to be picked up.
Bull hadn’t wanted to pry—and Dahlia hadn’t needed to give more information for him to speed over and then storm inside like a jealous boyfriend—so he didn’t know what the story was, but he’d seen the way the man had grabbed Malcolm’s arm to stop him from leaving.
Bull’s vision had turned red, and it had taken all of his self-control not to beat the shit out of him right there.
“Thanks for letting me know,” he mumbled, already backing away. “I’ll send Dahlia back out.”
“No rush!” she called after him, grabbing her lemon waters.
He’d always appreciated her can-do attitude, but he didn’t want her getting overwhelmed if a large group happened to come in or something.
He forced himself to stop and pop his head into the kitchen, wanting to make sure there weren’t any fires to put out since his mom had left earlier.
Raul was in charge when neither Bull nor Sally was there, but he preferred being head cook over manager and could get downright grumpy when left to “mind the children” too long.
Bull found the tall man standing over a huge pot, muttering to himself in Spanish. The black-and-gray flaming skull on the front of his throat gave him a menacing appearance, but he’d been a model employee since Bull and Marv were teenagers and Sally had first hired him, fresh out of prison.
“? Todo bien ?” Bull called to him, and Raul gave him a thumbs-up without looking away from his tomato soup.
Satisfied, he made his way to his mom’s office to see what was going on.
The space was small, but since Sally loved being interrupted and having an excuse to avoid invoices and payroll, the room had become an informal break area that was used more than the tiny employee space across the hall.
He knocked, hesitating to just walk in despite knowing he had every right to.
“Uh, it’s Bull,” he said awkwardly, grimacing. He told himself he was just checking on them because Dahlia really needed to be up front working and not because he couldn’t stand the idea of Malcolm being so upset.
The door swung open, revealing Dahlia’s usually smiling face pinched into worry lines. He was temporarily distracted by the end of her blond curls being bright pink, matching her skirt and sneakers. He had a feeling he knew who’d done the dye job. “Hey, Bull.”
Clearing his throat, he threw off the surprise over the new look and focused on what was important. Malcolm was behind her on the tiny couch, knees pulled up to his chest, eyes red, and his cheeks flushed and damp.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” he asked before he could stop himself. He squeezed his hands into fists so he didn’t do something insane like shove tiny little Dahlia out of his way and barge into the room.
Malcolm shook his head and buried his face in his knees, mumbling, “I’m fine.”
Dahlia frowned over her shoulder at him, then told Bull, “He is hurt, but not physically.”
“Lia,” Malcolm groaned, banging his forehead against his legs a few times. “Don’t bother Bull with my sorry love life.”
Oh.
More relationship issues.
Ignoring his queasy stomach, Bull stepped back, prepared to leave them to it and go and help Christina himself, but before he could say anything, Dahlia shook her head at him.
He paused, not sure what that was supposed to mean.
Did she want him to stay and hear all the gory details about the woman who’d hurt Malcolm?
Was she contradicting Malcolm’s statement about not bothering him?
Frozen in place as sweat began to build under his arms and along his hairline, he prayed it was the latter and not the first. He wasn’t sure he could stomach hearing about a woman Malcolm had cared about—oh fuck , what if he loved her?—and why he was so upset over her.
Darting over to the couch, Dahlia wrapped her arms around Malcolm. “I love you, but I’ve done all I can while we’re here. We’ll get drunk tonight, if you want, then have Becca make us ramen.”
Malcolm chuckled wetly. “Just because she’s Japanese doesn’t mean she has to be the one to make it.”
“Shut up.” She straightened, swatting at his shoulder with a laugh. “She just makes it better . Why fight it?”
Bull glanced down at his shoes, a little uncomfortable about watching them in what was obviously a familiar exchange in a loving friendship.
It also made him wonder if he was too hasty at shrugging off his mom’s less-than-gentle pushes toward making more friends.
Sure, he could go to Marv if he was upset about something, but was there a single person outside his family he could turn to like Malcolm could Dahlia?
“Come hang out in my section when you’re ready. I’ll sneak you a rib eye.”