Prologue #12
“Yeah, things aren’t going too well with her,” I say as I rummage for the last Corona. I know it’s here somewhere.
If only Stacey knew how bad that was going. She’s sick of his work schedule. It’s always the same with Hunt. He’s married to his job. No man or woman has ever been able to make him fall harder than he has for a construction site. It’s too bad, she’s sweet, and Hunt just isn’t.
“He’s into men?” Stacey says, still stuck on that point. Probably because all his hopes and dreams of Hunter being out of Dash’s realm of possibilities just got shot to shit.
“Yeah, he’s like Dad,” Dash says. “Into more than one gender.”
My hand slips, bottles topple like bowling pins, crashing. “Trav’s into dudes?” My heart’s beating so damn fast it’s in danger of stopping.
Dash lies back, placing his grimy feet on the fucking counter. Stacey should spank his ass for that, but Trav’s not the only one who lets Dash get away with murder. “Yep.”
“I’ve never seen him with one,” I mutter more to myself. Where the fuck are you, Corona? Did somebody drink you? Figures. Ugh. Guess I gotta go to the liquor store.
Or The Wicklow. We have plenty of Corona at The Wicklow. I know because I went with Trav to pick up the liquor order.
Am I really thinking about going to The Wicklow on my only day off this week?
Yes. Because all I had to worry about before was Trav being with women, now men have entered the chat.
Fuck. It’s too late to talk myself out of it.
What I’m about to do is fueled by jealousy and my unhealthy need to be with Trav night and day.
Me
You busy, Trav? Hoping you could take a look at my arm. It might not be so fine after all.
I send it before I talk myself out of what a stupid idea this is.
And it is. Not only is the cut on my arm the “knife equivalent” of a papercut, as soon as I get there, he’ll see I’m full of shit.
That it’s all a ploy. A ploy to what, though?
Keep men away from him? Does that mean I’m okay with him dating women?
No. Not even a little bit, gender doesn’t matter, but it’s somehow just a little easier to swallow. Tolerate.
Trav
Get your ass over here. Or do you need me to come there?
Hmmm. Maybe I went too hard about the arm.
Me
I’ll come there.
But I panic. Dirk, you jealous fool, stay the fuck home.
I head to the restaurant anyway, as if compelled.
It’s noon, they’re in the middle of a mild rush. I get a few looks, because if I’m not already on the floor, it means I’m not working, so why am I here?
Good question. Wish I knew.
Trav’s in the kitchen, dressed in one of the black chef’s jackets. The short sleeves reach the crest of his biceps, the bottom of his skull tattoo peeking out. He’s got a pen over his ear, and he hasn’t shaved yet, a nice dusting of coarse hair contours his strong jawline.
Wait, he’s busy? He answered his phone and told me to get over here, even though he’s busy?
Just like he’d do for Dash—not a big deal.
Why am I getting Dash-level care?
As if he senses I’ve walked in, he turns, setting his indigo eyes on me. A smile breaks across his lips, the kind that happens instinctively, and fluttery butterflies bombard my insides. He turns to stone just as quickly, eyes flicking around as if checking if he was caught smiling at me.
No one saw.
Just me.
He leaves the line like it’s meaningless, like he doesn’t give a fuck if it crumbles and dies.
“C’mon upstairs. I have better stuff up there,” he adds when I raise a brow.
I’ve been in Trav’s apartment many times.
I hung out here with Dash a lot when he lived here, and I got comfortable seeking refuge here if I only had an hour between a double shift.
But as soon as my feelings for Trav began to shift, I spent less time.
Though I’ve forced myself to come up to keep the visage of “normal”.
It means Trav and I have caught the odd show together by default.
I’ll have something on when he comes up to grab a clean shirt, and if what I have on looks interesting, he’ll sit on the couch—way at the other end—and watch with me.
But right now doesn’t feel like any of those times. My heart pulses, veins sizzling as I follow behind him, all the woodsy scents of his apartment filling my lungs.
“Sit. Put your arm on the table,” he demands, setting the box on the counter. He’s all business now, enough that I’d be questioning what happened in the kitchen if I didn’t know Trav so well. But I can’t anymore. We’re so fucking obvious. I should kick my own ass for being in denial.
“Dash said you’re into dudes,” I blurt out. He freezes, fingers clenched around the gauze he’s pulled out of the kit.
He grunts, which I think is supposed to mean yes, reanimating, unwrapping my totally fine arm. He inspects it as if it’s the most interesting thing in the world. He’s gonna have to look hard to find something wrong with it. Using some antiseptic, he cleans it.
“You’re too young,” he murmurs.
I pull in a sharp inhale. “I can … get older.”
We laugh, and it dissolves some of the tension. Don’t know why that’s so fucking funny, but it is. It’s a fact, though. Maybe the answer is we wait it out—wait until I’m older, and it’s socially more acceptable, or wait until this feeling wears out. It’s gotta wear off at some point.
Eventually, the laughter disappears with the wind, leaving a hollow in my chest. Silence fills it in as he takes care of my arm like it fell off. It’s pretty clear by now that it didn’t need his attention; I just wanted his attention.
A lot of the things I don’t let myself think about swirl through my insides. I just feel made for Travis; I feel like someone made him for me.
But we’re too many years apart.
I wipe something warm and wet from my cheek—a hot tear. Trav sniffles, using the back of his arm to do the same on his own face.
“There,” he says, voice raspy. “All done.”
“Thanks. I’m gonna live?”
“Mhm.” He can’t tear his eyes from me, and this might be the first time, the first intimate moment where my dick isn’t hard, but I’d tear off my own skin to hear him call me his. “You, ah … you staying? I could use someone on the line.”
The same line he left without a second thought? He doesn’t need me on the line; he wants me to stay, but he can’t say that out loud.
“Yeah, but I don’t have my kitchen jacket.”
“Oh, uh, here.” He fumbles with the buttons, shedding the black cotton.
He’s not wearing anything underneath other than his tattoos.
Remember my dick? The one that wasn’t hard?
Yeah, well, it’s about to be, blood filling it so fast I might pass out.
He helps me into the jacket, all while being shirtless.
He attempts the buttons. I bat his hands away, doing them up over the top of my t-shirt.
“You need to put a shirt on, Trav.”
“Fuck. I wasn’t thinking. Shit,” he mutters, heading for the bedroom.
Catching my breath isn’t easy. Why does being with him make me feel like I’m running sprints?
He’s dressed in red plaid with the sleeves rolled up when he saunters out of the bedroom several minutes later. It doesn’t take that long to put on a shirt. Sure as fuck, he was collecting himself.
It dawns on me that I just said I’d work on my day off. “How long do you need me for?”
Trav shrugs. “Don’t know yet.”
All day. The real answer was all day.
Dirk, Age 22
Every off-season, I pray to fucking Cupid to remove whatever arrow he struck me with.
Or maybe it was a switch flipped courtesy of some bored prankster God.
Whatever it was, it’s unrelenting. At least the hockey season is a short reprieve from the longing and the wanting, and then I’m back, hit with the full force of Trav like I’ve never left as soon as we’re in proximity.
It gets worse every year, not better.
Maybe I should be grateful for that much relief. I’d be a goddamn wreck without hockey to bury myself in.
There’s always a ton of new staff when I return from the season.
I hate Sophia on sight. She’s a gorgeous redhead, and totally Trav’s type.
She even wears leather, drives a motorcycle, and is covered in tattoos.
She’s the one thing I can never be, close enough in age that Trav won’t feel like a monster.
But I end up working with her a lot, and she’s kinda cool.
Fuck, if she and Trav aren’t dating, maybe I should set them up—she’s awesome.
Oh, yeah, fuck no, but I have to admit I like her. She’s a struggling actress, trying to catch her big break, early thirties, and’s a single mom who lives with her sister, who helps her with childcare.
One night after being deep in the weeds for four hours, she holds out her fist for a bump. I knock knuckles with her.
“That was killer, Boulder. Glad to be in the trenches with you. Treat you to a beer after?”
“Sure.”
Jack’s the closer, so we order beers off him, and sit at the table in the back, where the staff usually hangs out after work. Others will likely join when they’re finished.
We cheers our pints. “I was intimidated to work with you,” she says.
I frown. “Why?”
“Travis. He speaks highly of you, and I was kinda worried I’d get fired if I looked at you the wrong way.”
“He talks about me?”
“And there it is, I fucking knew it.”
“There what is?”
“That smile—same one he has when your name comes up.”
I’m caught in the middle of ice-cold panic and over-the-moon elation. I run a hand through my hair, taking off my hat to do it. I’ve gotta get this cut or Hunter’s gonna have a bird.
“Um, it’s nothing … what else did he say?
” I can’t help myself. Everything seemed business as usual when I got back, well, for him.
I thought it was understood we were finally gonna let whatever thing this was between us fade into the background.
But he was talking about me? Enough that she was afraid to look at me wrong?