Chapter 6 Galen
Galen
I’m so tired I can’t focus on my phone screen. I showered at the station, and again at home. But somehow I still find soot in my ears and grime on my skin. And, as my vision clears, a reply to a message I barely remember sending.
Jesus.
I scroll back, matching what he’s saying to what I said, when I should’ve been out cold before my next shift instead of sleep-texting on my phone, and…
Yup.
Stop the fecking lights. Somehow I’ve set up a hypothetical orgy with the sexiest, nerviest bloke I think I’ve ever met, and that’s what I get for messaging before I face-plant on my bed.
I get…lucky, right?
I think so. But that I don’t know eats away at me as I study his message in the murky light of my kitchen.
It’s Monday morning in the second week of November.
Clan McCarthy, too fecking early as usual, are starting to heckle the family group chat with begrudging arrangements for festivities I’m not attending, a standard state of affairs for a time of year that brings back shite memories for all of us when we let the past take up too much room.
But as I drink in what Sab’s saying—or at least what I think he’s saying—every buzz and chime goes unheeded.
I think I’d like that xx
Like what? Exactly? Hooking up with lads while I’m there? Couples? Women? In private or…?
Fecking-A, past me could’ve been a little clearer.
Why? You like all those things.
I do. I’ve done most of them with other people. But Sab doesn’t feel like other people, and I’m too frayed from the worst fire incident I’ve faced in two Christmases to figure out why.
I’m so tired.
Too tired to calibrate words. So I don’t.
I leave Sab on read and drag myself to work.
Lug myself round the shitty station gym before we get called to a gas leak at a local school, and then a car that’s spun onto its roof.
No serious casualties. Which should make my day, and it does.
But hauling the car door open strains the shoulder I hurt three Christmases ago instead of two, and I’m in a rare grump by the time I drive home through rush hour traffic.
I get caught in town and find myself idling at the temporary lights outside the homeware shop.
My phone haunts me. I need to reply to Sab’s message.
I need to act on it. But despite spending most of my adult life as a fun-loving fuckboy, opening that app and finding a willing soul to take on a Sab-themed adventure feels like—
Actually, I don’t know what it feels like.
Just that I can’t seem to do it. Feck’s sake.
What the hell is wrong with me today? Logan would probably know, but he’s on nights.
In Devon, the cheek of it. If he’s awake right now, he’ll be with his kids.
Or with his fella, who he’d never dream of sharing—
Sab’s not your fella.
Obviously. We’re chatting on a hookup app. A swingers hookup app. And since the day I first realised how my dick worked, no one’s ever been my fella, or my missus, or anything in between. So why the roadblock in my head over this fecking dude?
I find no answers in the bumper stickers on the car in front.
Or the radio as I prod at it every time a Christmas song comes on, which by now, is every other minute.
It’s weird that I’d forgotten how much these tracks get under my skin.
Weird that Sab saw it in me when Logan’s never noticed.
That I can’t stop thinking about kissing him—
The door to the homeware shop opens and a masculine figure steps out.
Tall.
Dark.
Handsome.
Feck me, it’s him. I know it by the skip in my pulse even before one of the high street’s newly hung decorations flickers on above his head, limning his gorgeous face in soft, warm light.
Sab’s wearing tradesman clothes. Grey utility trousers and a worn hoodie in faded blue, sleeves shoved up his corded forearms. His phone is in his hand and he’s not looking where he’s going.
He’s not looking at me, slouching in my car six feet from where he’s paused to frown at something on the screen.
Makes me wonder if he’s online. If he’s talking to someone else instead of me. If he’s already lining someone up for the madness I tangled us both up in yesterday.
Makes me want to punch his phone out of his hand, which is an odd enough feeling that I can’t sit with it.
I slide my window down and let out a low whistle, sitting up a little straighter, ignoring the throb in my shoulder and East-17 invading the airwaves. “All right there, boy. Leave some skirt for the rest of us.”
Sab’s head jerks up, gaze darting around before it lands on me. Then he slow blinks in the festive light, as if he’s woken from a dream, and the split second it takes him to smile does a number on me almost as much as the happy lurch in my chest as he steps up to my open window. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself. What’s got you so serious?”
“Taxes.”
“Oh. Thought you might be looking at bad dick pics.”
I speak softly enough that he doesn’t have to worry about anyone overhearing. A kindness I’m repaid by him leaning closer to catch every word. By his rueful half grin as he pockets his phone.
“Bad dick has got to be better than chucking all my savings to the government.”
“At least you get the autonomy to do it your damn self. Bastards take all my money before I ever see it.”
“Fighting fires doesn’t make you rich, eh?”
I shrug. Regret it.
Sab’s brows cinch. “Hurt yourself?”
There he goes again, seeing straight through me in the first six seconds of our interaction when I’ve spent the last four hours hiding this shite from people who’ve known me years.
“Old injury. Gets moody when it’s this cold.
Gotta stretch it out, maybe. Just need to remember how—it’s been a minute. ”
Sab snorts. “Sounds like me and sex.”
“You haven’t been knocking off women either?”
“Nah. Not since my ex.” Sab shivers, the motion as sudden as the subject retreat he swings into. “What’s up with your shoulder? Rotator cuff?”
“How’d you guess?”
“I tore mine lifting oak worktops. Bothered me in the gym back when I had time to go.”
Before his daughter, I assume, but it doesn’t feel right to poke at that just yet. Not when every conversation we have seems to start and end with sex.
I spot the bag tucked under his arm. “Christmas shopping already?”
“Lights. Cables were frayed on the old ones.”
“You bin them?”
Sab cocks his head, catching the instinctive sharpness I can’t help. “Buried them in a skip at work.”
“Under what?”
“Ripped-out waste disposal. Trust me, no one’s digging under there.”
“That’ll do.” I force the tension from my limbs and find a dry grin. “Sorry. Just seen Christmas go wrong too many times, you know?”
“Can imagine. My brother-in-law is a nurse. Gets all rowdy about ladders and sharp objects.”
“He’s not wrong.”
“I know.” Sab’s gaze slides to my radio.
A beat passes as Bing Crosby fills the space.
Then he reaches in and switches stations, his muscled arm an inch from my face, and I’m done. Who knew a breath of pinewood and vanilla could erase all thought and pain?
Me. That’s who. I knew it a week ago. But it still catches me napping, the urge to touch any part of him I can reach so strong I nearly do it.
I want to lick him.
Fecking hell.
Get a hold of yourself, lad.
I try.
I do.
But he smells so good I have to bite my tongue, and Christ knows what my face is doing when he pulls back enough to see me again.
“Are you okay?”
Negative. But I’ve been faking it since that flashover nuked me two years ago, and this…
This isn’t that. And it should be easy compared to recovering from smoked-out lungs.
As easy as falling headfirst into Sab’s dark gaze and staying there. Which I do for way too long before I give him another instantly regrettable shrug. “Yeah, just sore and moody. I’ll get over it if this bugger in my shoulder lets me sleep tonight.”
“When are you back on shift?”
“Friday.”
Sab’s gaze flickers and he seems to step away, even though he doesn’t move.
And that urge to touch him, it comes back stronger than ever.
It wins, and I reach for him, closing a hand around his wrist as the traffic ahead starts to move, fingers to his exposed skin, and Christ, it’s like I’ve touched a live wire.
He’s so warm, and he feels so good against my palm. Familiar in a way he shouldn’t be. Not yet. And maybe I’m imagining it, but I swear he feels it too as his hand covers mine, absent and sweet as we stare at each other in the street.
It’s a strange moment. For me, at least. And yet it’s kinda perfect.
But it’s short.
Fleeting.
A car horn blares and I realise we’re out of time unless I want a dust-up with the irate driver behind me.
Sab’s hand slips from mine.
I mourn it even as I drown in the searing sensation it’s left in its wake. Even as he really does step back this time and I put my car in gear without making a conscious decision to do it.
Drive away.
My feet twitch on the pedals. But Sab holds me hostage with his brown eyes and shy curiosity, and I can’t fecking make myself move.
LeLionDuBois96: I think I’d like that xx
What the hell does that mean? And why haven’t I asked him in the ten minutes we’ve been here?
Clearly, because it’s not just his addictive scent that renders me incapable of rational thought. It’s everything about him, a realisation that barrels into me as the driver behind loses his rag and swerves around me.
It’s the kind of knobhead manoeuvre that can get someone killed at any speed, and it’s my fault.
I need to move. But I feel like I’m waiting for something.
I just don’t know what until Sab steps back to my car, firing a glare at whoever’s behind me, and sets a pair of work-scarred hands on the window frame.
“Look, I’m not an expert or anything, but I’ve got some decent shoulder exercises in my arsenal.
Je pourrais te montrer un jour…si ca te dit. ”
“Say what now?”
Sab shakes his head—at himself, not me. “Fuck, sorry. I said, I can show you one day, if you want—”
“I want.” I speak so quickly I almost choke on my own tongue. “I mean, I’d really appreciate that if you have the time.”
Sab shrugs, mauling his bottom lip before he seems to catch himself. “I have time, and a bunch of weights and stuff I never use. You could come over tonight? After I get Esme to sleep, which could be pretty late…”
“Late is good. I have to put my life back together after a messy weekend anyway.”
Sab holds my gaze, the faintest lift in his lips, not quite a smile, but so close. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Message me when you’re ready, and I’ll be there.”
A promise that echoes in my soul as I drive away.
His daughter’s name is Esme. Like my favourite auntie. Except, she wasn’t really my auntie. Just my nan’s mate who drank a bottle of stout every Sunday at midday on the dot, unless it was Christmas Eve when she drank two.
Can’t say why those memories fill my mind as I kick around my house, waiting on Sab’s message, but recalling some of the happier vibes from my childhood is a million times more fun than hanging out on a dormant chat thread.
Ignoring other threads pinging with activity as the night settles in and folk go hunting.
I have a craving for vanilla and it has nothing to do with sex.
Mostly, anyway. Can’t deny I haven’t thought about fucking Sab.
That I’m not thinking about fucking him right now, as I chuck clothes in the washing machine and toss the old milk from the empty fridge.
As I consider ordering two pizzas for dinner so I don’t have to think about tomorrow’s breakfast.
LeLionDuBois96: I think I’d like that xx
A groan escapes me as I shut the fridge.
It’s not the message I’m waiting on, but it’s tattooed on my thoughts.
Stuck on repeat. Two weeks ago, if you’d told me I’d find myself a newbie pal who wanted to play around together, I’d have been proper fecking chuffed. Up the wall and tickling the bricks.
But it’s not excitement coiling in my gut as I think about setting meets with Sab. Maybe hitting a couple of clubs. Some private rooms. No. It’s not excitement at all, and I think I’m starting to know what it is instead.
Jealousy.
Dread.
A possessiveness I haven’t earned.
Because you want all his firsts for yourself.
Ack. Is that it? I drift from my kitchen space to the massive sofa I dragged from my flat on the Firbank estate when I moved here. The brown leather is old and weathered, but the cushions are moulded to my body at this point, and after all the adventures we’ve shared, I’m kind of fond of it.
Not that I pay it much heed as I sink into the lumpy cushions with Sab on my mind.
Picturing those firsts, revelling in the fact that I’ve already claimed his kiss.
Fecking anxious as hell that might’ve been it, the peak of the chemistry crackling between us every time we’re close.
Because it’s not enough. I want to be the first bloke who ever wraps a hand around his cock.
To ever take him in their mouth. To hold his face as he comes like a—
My phone flashes. A soundless notification from the app where the epic story I’ve concocted in the last few hours all began.
I snatch the phone from the pile of boxes I’m using as a coffee table with enough enthusiasm I nearly tip over. Thumb my way to the message waiting on the only thread I care about.
Two messages, actually. The first is everything I want. The other is Sab second-guessing himself and I know the sole way to fix that is to plant my handsome self in his face before he’s had too much time to think about it.
LeLionDuBois96: Come over now if you want
LeLionDuBois96: It’s fine if you don’t x
I shut that shite down.
HotCraic97: Be over in ten xx