Prologue #10
He gives a curt nod. “I’ve told you and Dash a bit about my past, and it’s too easy to let that part of me stretch its legs when I see glaring red flags.”
That description. Not “who he used to be”. More like he’s talking about a weapon he keeps oiled and ready for battle. One that was fashioned by his past, and something he’s never seen reason to let go of.
None of that helps my aching dick. A man who’s willing to throw hands for me is my kind of man. I’d do the same. But a little voice whispers to me. I’d do that in a hockey kinda way, Trav would do it in another. Like a predator.
God fucking damn you, brain.
“I understand,” I force out. The less words I say, the better. It’s bad enough I can’t stop the onslaught of filthy visions, and they do have to stop. Are there self-help groups for this kind of thing?
“Good,” he grunts.
Wait a sec, good? “Isn’t this the part where you apologize for overstepping and promise not to do it again?”
He looks around as if he’s hoping someone else will appear to answer that question for him. Then he scratches his palm over the rough five o’clock shadow I know would feel ooooh so good against my balls.
A laugh with undercurrents of incredulousness and something dark—very fucking dark—rumbles from his chest. “Never said I wasn’t gonna do it again.”
I guess this is the part where I tell him off.
Where I tell him to mind his own fucking business.
But the words won’t form. For three whole seconds, it’s just me, my pounding heart, and deadly silence.
Trav’s right. Something woke up the version of Trav that was forged while he was in that biker gang.
It’s not going back in the arsenal any time soon.
He taps his fingers on the bar top, standing. “Welp, glad that’s sorted. Get back to work.”
But there’s still a question on the tip of his tongue. I see it hanging there, waiting to cause trouble. He doesn’t ask it, and I don’t chase after it. I don’t plan to ever chase after it. Even my little bout of curiosity was dangerous.
Is that what triggered this?
A fucking lapse in judgment is what it was. I can’t do that again. I have to get that shit under lockdown.
We’re in the weeds. My bar top’s full. Drinks for the rest of the restaurant pour in as if the people of Vancouver heard there was a liquor shortage, and they’re trying to get their fill.
The air reeks of sweat and panic. Being in the weeds means you’re already drowning. All you can do is call for a life raft.
“Trav, we need your help back here,” I snap, not even looking up. I’m on bar with Rhoda, but it’s not enough.
A second later, he’s behind me, his rough voice low and steady. “Where do you want me?”
“I’ll take bar top, you deal with the server’s drinks.”
Muscle memory drives my actions as I pour drinks on my side, him on the other.
I brush by Rhoda a few times as we maneuver behind a bar top that was really only made for two.
There are several near crashes and a couple of actual crashes, but we keep going.
Beer foam wets my hands, and wine stains my skin.
Customers shout, wanting their drinks yesterday, and I’m about to strangle someone.
“Shit, outta tequila,” Trav curses.
“Over here,” I call. I don’t have time to pass it to him, though. I reach for the vodka as he reaches for the tequila bottle beside it. Our hands brush, and I light on fire—a feat with how much I’m already burning up. A wave of searing heat straight to my gut.
It’s enough to arrest us. Frozen. Staring. Unhinged restaurant chaos swirls, blurring into static, and the air between us hums—wired, waiting, unbearable. My brain short-circuits, and I forget how to make my limbs work.
“Dirk, limes. We need more fucking lime wheels yesterday,” Jack yells over the bedlam, shattering the spell. “People are losing their minds for limes out here.”
I jerk back, pretending to care about the damn drink garnish while my nerves sizzle and threaten to combust. Trav snatches the tequila, taking a slow step away like I’ve suddenly turned into a viper, throat working like he’s swallowed something sharp.
Holy shit.
I’m not alone this time. He felt it too.
That means … he was being a protective brute before. Whatever’s going on for him now is turning his world upside down. Welcome to the fucking club, Trav.
For the next two hours, I have to force myself to make drinks, all while my heart wants to fall out of my chest. The night ends, but not the aftermath; my body feels fried from the inside.
I can’t even look at Trav, afraid of what I’ll see.
If he experienced what I did, he’s not gonna take it well.
Nothing about this stupid crush has been going well for me, but it’s a little more acceptable for a younger man to lust over an older one.
It doesn’t go both ways. What if he fires me?
No, Trav wouldn’t do that without cause, but he would ask me to leave. What do I say?
A thousand scenarios and outcomes flood my mind, but none of them end with me wanting to leave. Just a raw ache. A desperate scrape against my ribs. He doesn’t say anything, and I don’t follow him to his office to demand a conversation.
It’s a whole twenty-four hours before I see him again. Surely that’s enough time for whatever happened to wear off. Heading in for my next shift feels like waiting for a puck to the face—inevitable, stupid, and somehow my own fault.
Trav’s in the bar area. Has he been pacing? He would have known I was coming in. He didn’t tell me not to. Trav flinches when his gaze lands on me. My palms won’t quit sweating
“Hey. Um, hey,” he tries again.
Fuck. Things are weird now. That’s the last thing I want. The only way I know through this is to pretend like nothing happened.
“Hey, Trav. We in for a busy one?”
“Mmhmm,” he hums, more taciturn than usual.
Is that how he’s gonna be now? I’d rather never be together and stay friends than slowly drift apart—this is the beginning of option “slowly drift apart” if I let it.
I’ve had more time than he has to get used to what it’s like to want him and know that I’ll be pining for him, maybe for the rest of my life.
My brain scrambles and scrounges for anything that will render this less weird. I’m not fast enough.
“If you could get on the floor early, we’ve got a few last-minute reservations and the kegs are running low.”
Kegs, really? That’s the barback’s job. I get it, though. He’s gonna exist in a perpetual state of boss mode.
“Yeah, I’ll start early, Travis.”
The man’s wound tight. He’s all jaw and forearm tension, and it bleeds off him like the electric energy before a storm. None of that helps the static between us, the constant buzz, the bolt of lightning that we don’t dare touch.
But I understand the assignment. We’re choosing denial.
There’s just one minor, teeny-tiny problem.
The lightning won’t let us. Every time we brush by each other, it ignites, refusing to be forgotten.
It won’t be put in a corner. It won’t go back in the box.
And it’s an evil motherfucker, existing to taunt us, to pull at the strings of our morals until they unravel.
We can put on professional faces and give all the pretend-it’s-fine energy we want, but that’s not gonna turn off the surge of biochemistry fucking with our sanity.
By the end of shift, neither of us can take it anymore. The shock fades into acceptance—it’s there whether we like it or not, all we can do is learn to live with it.
I find myself in his office, the last place we should be alone, door shut, forehead against the door so I don’t have to look at him.
“Do you want me to go, Trav?” I croak.
“No,” he rasps. “Do you want to go?”
“No.”
An eternity seems to pass. “Look, it’s normal, and it happens,” he says, trying to adopt the sage voice of an elder or something. It’s not that Trav isn’t those things; it’s just that his tone most often gives away the fact that he’s the most dangerous thing walking the streets.
He’s not even wrong. Attraction happens between coworkers, especially in the restaurant industry.
“Yeah, I know. It’s no big deal.” Except all the times I’ve done things, like try to taunt him into taking me, flash before my eyes, making me live to regret my choices yet again. He probably thinks I’m over here obsessing about him.
Maybe because you are.
Anyway…
He doesn’t have to be like me. So, he’s attracted to me? It’ll pass. Get buried in the same place he buried his feelings for Lana. Speaking of Lana, maybe all this is really just Trav’s reaction to his first time being attracted to a man. That could explain at least half the shock.
Not totally intense feelings of desire for me.
I just spent twenty-four hours in agony, thinking Trav was gonna be outta my life for good. I’m not rocking the boat by making that clarification.
“That’s right. No big deal.” His voice is as flinty as steel, and it’s so fucking clear that he doesn’t wanna touch the idea of us with a forty-foot hockey stick.
Man, I was so delusional. As much as I told myself it wouldn’t and shouldn’t happen, guess I wanted it. Guess all of that was bullshit. I take a slow breath before I forget to.
We slowly find our way back to a new normal. The lightning’s always there, threatening to consume us.
But we never touch it.
And Trav does a helluva lot better at getting over it than I ever could.
Dirk, Age 21
What do you do when your lungs want to burst as soon as you’re near someone? Turns out, no one knows the answer to that question. It happens like clockwork. Trav walks into the room, and it’s like a million fireflies bursting brightly inside me. We don’t even have fireflies in Vancouver.
I’m clearing one of my tables. The two-way door to the kitchen swings open at the same time Jack’s coming around the corner with his hands full of steak knives.