Chapter 22 #2
Then there was another photo. This one was of a man’s hand holding a hard cock. While it was plenty hot, it wasn’t Alex. Although now that I looked at both photos, I could see the man was similar to Alex in body type and coloring.
I typed back.
HotChief: Who is this?
The next photo that came through was a snapshot of my Alex dancing at a wedding.
He looked so hot in his tux, my gut immediately tightened with heat and desire.
The way the pants curved along his delicious ass.
His white shirt pulled around his biceps.
The jacket was gone, and the bow tie was loose enough to allow an open button at the base of his neck.
He was dancing with a woman in a wedding gown, and I zoomed in to look for similarities in the sister I hadn’t met yet.
TimberAlex: I want you.
I quickly typed back in an effort to figure out what was going on.
HotChief: If I tell you Josh and I go way back, which Josh am I referring to?
TimberAlex: Stop playing silly games and ask me out on a date. Feuding makes the best foreplay.
Whoever was pretending to be Alex was at Mattie’s wedding but didn’t know the two of us were no longer feuding. It had to be Ella or one of his Legacy cousins.
HotChief: Why would I go out with someone who’s reckless and careless?
TimberAlex: Because I’m amazing in bed.
No shit.
HotChief: Send me another dick pic. This time I want to see those black and white socks in the pic, too.
Unsurprisingly, I didn’t hear back from TimberAlex.
I waited until I got a text from him a couple of hours later, asking if I was still up, before video calling him.
“Hey,” he said with a wide grin as his image appeared on my larger laptop screen. “God, it’s good to see you. Fuck.”
I noticed his glassy eyes and soft grin. “You’re drunk.”
He grinned. “Shakespeare said, ‘So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.’ I think I finally get it. So long as these eyes can see…” He stopped on a sigh.
“Good shit. Can always count on the Bard, can’t we?
Ignore me. I get poetic when I drink.” His snicker of laughter was adorable.
“I take it you had a nice time at the wedding?”
“Woulda had a better time if you’d been here, Chief. How’s the convention? I feel like I haven’t seen you in days.”
My eyes roved over him, taking in every detail. “Because you haven’t seen me in days,” I said with a smile. “I miss you, too.”
“Take off your clothes,” he said in a sexy voice.
“First, I need to ask you to do a search on your phone for the Flint app.”
His forehead crinkled. “I don’t have the Flint app.”
“Just check and see. Can you think of anyone who might have had access to your phone tonight?”
I saw his jaw drop as he stared down at his phone screen. “What the fuck? Oh shit, I’m going to kill her!”
“Was it Ella?”
“No! It was my great-great-aunt Tilly! She does shit like this all the fucking time. I can’t believe she… Whose dick is this?”
He took a minute to read through the messages, murmuring, “The wine,” to the Josh question. Then his expression became thoughtful. “She’s not wrong. Feuding does make the best foreplay. I’m kinda bummed we didn’t get to have angry sex when we were still enemies.”
“Our relationship is young, Firebug. Give it time.”
His eyes lit up. “Yeah? You gonna stay with me long enough for us to have makeup sex?”
I grinned. “Expert-level care, remember?”
Alex’s alcohol-flushed cheeks went even pinker, but he looked pleased… at least until he glanced back at his phone. “I’m so annoyed that Tilly did this. What was her goal? Humiliating me?”
“I think she was trying to matchmake us.”
He frowned. “By telling you I’m amazing in bed? Gross! Why not tell HotChief what a nice man I am or how smart I am?”
I let out a laugh. “That’s… not what men usually share on Flint, baby.”
Alex’s eyes narrowed. “Oh yeah? You familiar with the app?”
“It was created by firefighters for firefighters,” I explained.
“Answer the implied question, Chief.”
“You said something about me getting naked,” I said, moving to pull up my shirt.
Thankfully, that got a laugh out of him. “Fine, change the subject with a strip show. I’ll allow it.”
He was so fucking fun. So sweet and interesting. And he was nice and smart… as well as amazing in bed.
By the time we were both on the verge of coming on camera, he begged. “I need to come. Please.”
“Slide your fingers inside your hole, baby,” I urged. “Find that good spot for me and stroke it.”
The camera angle was a little off, but I could see the pink flush of his skin, the hard shaft of his cock, and the tight skin squeezing around his fingers.
“Fuck, baby, coming,” I gritted out just as I heard his cry. After we both came down from our orgasms, he moved the camera up so I could see his ruddy face and bright eyes.
“My parents probably heard that,” he said sheepishly.
“It’s late, and their first child just got married. Maybe they’re having their own noisy celebration. Ever think of that?”
Alex’s face fell. “That’s disgusting. How dare you harsh my vibe like that.”
“I love that you have gay dads. My parents were definitely not accepting. Don’t get me wrong, I loved them. But I’m not sure they would have been supportive if I’d been old enough and ready to come out to them.”
“Half my family’s gay,” he said. “The poor straights like my sisters always feel left out. My cousin Cami even dated a girl because she was convinced that she was probably at least bi. No dice. Couldn’t even fake it.”
We continued talking for another half hour until I noticed his eyes beginning to droop. “Get some sleep, Firebug,” I murmured. “Talk tomorrow?”
His smile was sweet. “Yeah. Night, Chief.”
I ended the call and sighed happily. When I closed the video app window, my email app was open behind it, showing a new email from Max’s private investigator friend. I assumed it was my final statement, so I opened it… and found something else entirely.
Judd,
You said to stop the investigation, but I already had several irons in the fire. One lead came back tonight. Don’t know if you still want it or not?
I tracked down the IP address of the target to Napa, CA.
Specifically to a place called Alexander Vineyards.
The same IP address showed up on quite a lot of social media traffic this evening, including Grindr, Flint, IG, FB, and TikTok.
Unsure if the target works there, lives there, or attended an event there, although the idea he was carrying on regular conversations with you over a long period of time would indicate he lived or worked here.
The vineyard is owned by the Marian family.
During the year you were in regular contact with DrunkenPoet, the legal residents of that property included Bartholomew (aka, Blue), Tristan, and Alexander Marian, as well as a live-in caretaker named Angie Rousseau.
The only one of the four who took any fire certification classes during that time was Alexander.
According to online records, he attained his ICS-100 during that time.
Let me know if you have further questions or would like me to re-open the search to get confirmation.
I stared at the screen, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
Yes, Alex Marian was at his family’s vineyard in Napa. Yes, he and his friends and family had probably been using a ton of apps there tonight. But the connection to DrunkenPoet, to the investigator…
I thought back to the moment Alex picked up the call.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see…
What the actual fuck?
Ignore me. I get poetic when I drink.
My head spun as memories came flooding in. Of DrunkenPoet saying he was expected to take over the family farm. Farm.
But wasn’t a vineyard essentially a farm? And had he even been the one to call it a farm, or had I misunderstood?
I thought back through almost a year of messages between me and DrunkenPoet, a year of getting to know someone who I was… now sleeping with? How was that possible? It wasn’t. It just fucking wasn’t.
I opened the forum where we’d originally met and had all of our conversations. They were still there, but his messages showed as sent from [Deleted User].
It took me hours to go through them all, looking for proof that Alex Marian and DrunkenPoet couldn’t possibly be the same person.
Instead, I heard Alex’s voice in every single one of them. The same sweet, teasing tone, the sometimes naive take on things like relationships and sex. The love of pizza and dislike of grapefruit.
I also saw my messages encouraging him to leave his family and pursue his own dreams.
Which he’d done.
He’d moved to Montana three years ago to open Timber. Three years ago.
I couldn’t even wrap my head around this. How was it possible?
I had to tell him. What would his reaction be?
Since I was here in Spokane for an important conference, I had to force myself to try and get some sleep. But when I finally fell asleep, it was to thoughts of what Alex had said about his ex. He’d been a firefighter who’d died.
I fell for him, hard. It’s silly because we didn’t know each other that well, but… we had an amazing connection.
Was it possible that I was Alex’s dead firefighter? And that he’d had real feelings for me even then, the way I had for him?