Chapter 4
Galen
My hot neighbour doesn’t message back right away. He stays online, though.
Typing.
Typing.
Typing.
And I’ve been there with my whole chest often enough to back off and leave him to it.
I don’t go far. I leave FlingIt open while I haul myself off my floor mattress and shuffle into the shower, embracing the power of steam to clear my grumpy lung.
I’m almost fully recovered. Gone are the days where I’d cough for a solid ten minutes before I could even stand. But yeah. This bit still sucks more from my day than I’m happy with.
Half an hour has passed by the time I come back to my phone and I’m glad to see my new friend still online and not climbing up the side of his house without a proper fecking ladder. I’m not built to watch that kind of foolery unfold.
LeLionDuBois96 is still typing. I take a seat on the edge of the bed and check the time.
I haven’t slept late. There’s a few hours to play with before I need to cart my arse back to the station.
Golden hours I’ve been known to fill with all kinds of shenanigans, though it’s been a while.
And I have other options. By now, I’m a pro at hookup sites.
I get what I want and make sure everyone involved has a grand old time.
I don’t need to be waiting on a newbie who’ll probably ghost me when he loses his nerve.
And yet, I don’t click out of the message thread with LeLionDuBois96.
For whatever reason, I linger through my physio routine and the half-cooked home workout I lump on top.
Stare at his flickering presence while I breathe through the lightheadedness I land myself with like it’s the North Star guiding me home.
Can’t say why.
Just that I do.
And eventually I get my reward in the form of actual fecking words.
LeLionDuBois96: Thanks. That’s nice to hear. Sorry. I’m really fucking shit at this x
I’m typing before I’ve loosed the breath caught in my chest.
HotCraic97: Shit at what? We’re just talking
LeLionDuBois96: Exactly
LeLionDuBois96: No one’s here for a chat, are they?
HotCraic97: Says who?
A pause stretches out. There’s no typing at his end and I wonder if I’ve lost him already. And why the mere thought of it has me scrolling up and down our short chat, searching for where I’ve stuffed my foot in my mouth.
Silence hangs in the air like steam from a forgotten tea mug. It shouldn’t bother me. People dip and ditch on these apps all the time. Hell, I do it when life pulls me away and I don’t look back. But this fella…
I scroll up. Study our thread for where I’ve fucked it. Don’t see it. But my gut tells me I need to be careful. Gentle, if that’s what he needs. That I want to be.
Which should spin my head, but it just…doesn’t.
I leave our chat open for the rest of the afternoon, ignoring the other messages that land in my inbox.
Photos I won’t be opening in public. Propositions I’d usually at least think about taking up.
Watching and waiting for LeLionDuBois96 to come back to me.
The lad who says he’s shit at this and means it.
He goes offline and I let him be. And yet I stay, and it’s teatime when those three dots start flickering again.
I’m halfway out of my house, dressed for work in jeans and a brigade hoodie.
My overnight bag’s already slung over my shoulder.
I’m not running late yet, but I don’t have the kind of job where I can.
I need to be at the station at 6 p.m. sharp, no messing about.
Still, my hustle slows as I watch those dots get busy. As finally his message fills the screen.
LeLionDuBois96: I don’t know who says what. Or what I want. Just that talking to you has me feeling some type of way
Christ.
Stop the lights. That’s about a thousand more words than I usually get from men on hookup apps, and they’re worth waiting for. They’re good words…I think?
To be sure, I type back, my heart thudding deep and solid against my ribs.
HotCraic97: A feeling that you want to keep talking?
This time, he doesn’t keep me waiting. His message blows back so fast I rock back on my heels, a slow grin stretching my face.
LeLionDuBois96: Yes
That’s more like it. I make a quick decision and fire back with a message I don’t usually bother with for a hookup.
HotCraic69: I’d like that too. Do you want to keep talking here? Or maybe meet for a drink?
I’ve run out of time to wait on his answer. I go offline, pocket my phone, and drive to work with every intention of checking in the moment I get there.
But fate isn’t on my side tonight. The first shout comes in as I’m parking up. And they keep coming all night long.
The good news is my watch commander clears me for some real work.
The bad news is it destroys me.
Out of practice at hoofing up and down ladders, I’ve never been so knackered in my life. Only pure Irish grit gets me through till I drag my exhausted husk of a body back to my locker and pull out my phone.
And my reward for pushing through?
LeLionDuBois96: I’d really like that drink
It’s a while before he has any free time. I’m figuring it’s because of the cute-as-a-button kid I’ve seen him playing with in the garden, but I keep that to myself. I’ll tell him we’re neighbours eventually.
Maybe.
It’s not like I’m planning on staying in my place forever. Just until I’ve done it up. Which occupies me in the downtime I’d usually spend messing around with whoever.
Women lately.
Couples.
Lord, it’s been a while since a fella last turned my head. And even then it didn’t feel like this. Certainly didn’t find myself hollow-bellied and full of fecking jitters before I met them for the first time.
Not the first time, boy.
I remind myself of this every day LeLionDuBois96 and the scheduling gods make me wait.
Six days, to be precise. It’s Friday by the time we both have a free evening, and by then I’m as addicted to our message thread as I am the solitary photo he’s posted on his FlingIt profile.
An abstract shot of his shoulder revealing nothing but smooth olive skin and a curve of muscle so artfully subtle I die every time I look at it.
Bet his inbox is jumping.
I’m also willing to bet he has no idea why. As in, no real understanding of how powerful that image is. How fecking alluring. At least, it is to me. And I’m a pretty basic human, something my best friend has no trouble reminding me on a regular basis.
“What’s up with you?”
The question is growled through my phone screen. Sounds kind of ferocious, but that’s Logan Halliwell if you don’t know him well enough to see he’s an absolute sweetheart. For the people he likes, anyway. And I’m blessed to be one of the privileged few.
“Nothing’s up.” I take him through my half-built house and upstairs to my bedroom. “Just having myself a tidy up. Fettling the fecking homestead. Making room for a Christmas tree.”
Logan narrows his gaze, peering closer at my surroundings through the video call. “You only tidy up when you’re getting some.”
“Not true.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it isn’t. You haven’t been around me since I’ve lived here, in this house. I’m a changed man, and you know I never bring anyone upstairs.”
“That couch needs burning,” Logan grunts, giving me a look that lets me know he smells bullshit and he’s cutely concerned about it.
Kinda love it.
Mostly hate it.
He’s been looking at me like that since I nearly died in a sooty mess at his feet, and I’m wondering what it’ll take for him to stop. To make him remember he got hurt in that fire too, so it’s not just him who gets to skewer people through a phone screen.
Also, I’m really not picking up my junk because I think I’m getting laid tonight. The Christmas tree angle might be bollocks, but the truth is, I’m trying to keep busy and I’ve run out of workout time.
I’ve also extinguished my capacity to keep my fat mouth shut. “I have a date tonight.”
Logan’s washing dishes. My confession has him pulling his big hands from the sink and drying them on the towel tossed over his burly shoulder. “A say what now?”
“You heard me. A date…well, a drink. That’s a date, right?”
“Did you ask her on one?”
“Him.”
“Him?” Logan leans in to study me again. “You don’t date blokes, you fuck them.”
That he’s so free and blunt with his assessment tells me he’s home alone without his kids. And he’s not wrong. I don’t date men. What’s the point? We all want the same thing and it’s not a pint and game of darts down the local. “This one’s different.”
“Why?”
“Dunno.” I sink down on my unmade mattress, the clothes I’ve rescued from the floor piled around me. “Only met him once, and that was in passing.”
“And you got his number?”
“Heh. Not quite.”
Logan cocks a brow. A question without a question, but I let it hang. We talk about most things, but he’s too much of a papa bear to cope with my adventures on hookup apps.
“I don’t think he’s been out with a lad before,” I say instead. To Logan only. The man’s a vault. “I’m trying to be gentle with him.”
“Trying?”
“I am being gentle,” I amend.
And Logan believes me. We’ve seen each other nearly cark it too many times to survive a lie.
“You look good,” he tells me after a beat long enough that I know he’s done poking me. “Better without the beard.”
I roll my eyes. “I haven’t had a beard for months. And even when I did, it was a protest, not a style choice.”
“Against who?”
“You. My mam. Everyone else who wouldn’t get out of my face.”
“Everyone who loves you then.” Logan’s severe tone returns with a parental edge, reminding me he’s ten years older, wiser, and all the other good stuff I lack. “It’s been a long road, eh?”
I don’t answer that either. Neither of us needs reminding I’ve spent the last two Christmases believing my days in the service were done.
Or how thankful I am they’re not. Instead, I paw through the piles on my bed, searching for clothes that aren’t what I wear to the gym, work, or with every intention of tearing them off ten minutes later.