Prologue #13
She grins. “Oh, just,” she clears her throat, lowering her voice.
“Don’t organize the bar prep like that or Dirk’ll flip.
He likes things a certain way. You can have Sunday opens until Dirk gets home, those shifts are his.
Your son is three? That’s Dirk’s hockey number.
Dirk’s the same way as you if he doesn’t get enough coffee—he doesn’t know this, but I keep filling his mug, and then I switch it to decaf halfway through shift, hoping for the placebo effect. ”
Bastard. I knew he fucking did that.
“Um…” My face heats. We’re so busted. Sophia’s a smart woman.
I can lie, but she’ll know, plus, I don’t think she’ll tell anyone.
I want to hear about all the fucking cheesy crush-type shit he babbles to her, and I’ll miss out if I start denying.
I can’t even picture it—Trav’s so not the babbling kind.
“Please don’t tell anyone. We know we can’t do anything about it, and I swear we won’t. ”
Her brows press together. “Why?”
I list the reasons off. “He’s my best friend’s dad, there are twenty years between us, my older brother will fucking kill me.”
“That best friend over there?” She points to Dash. She knows Dash.
I roll my eyes. “Yes.”
“He’ll get over it, and so will your brother.”
Ha! She doesn’t know Hunt. “What about the age gap?”
She shrugs. “The people who mind don’t matter and the people who matter don’t mind.”
“Get that one off The Gram, didja?”
“It’s true. Tell you what, I’m moving back east at the end of the summer, which makes me the perfect person to vent to—if you want.
” She downs her beer and tosses some cash on the table.
“But I should get home. Besides my son, Trav looks like he’s thinking about all the ways he can legally fire me without cause. ” She laughs. “Night, Boulder.”
She leaves. Trav can’t be—
I turn. Oh shit, he’s on his way over here. I can’t contain the smile. Does he think I have a crush on Sophia? The man—apparently—knows seven hundred tiny details about me. Did he miss the part where I’ve never been with a woman? I’m gonna have so much fucking fun with this.
He signals to Jack to bring him his usual—a dirty whiskey on ice, two olives—and makes himself comfortable in the bench seat across from me.
“Yeah, Trav?” I smirk.
“How’s Sophia?”
“Fucking, smoke show, don’t you think?”
“Not really. I mean, she’s pretty, but not my type.”
That’s … surprising. They’re so similar. Then it dawns on me. Sophia isn’t Trav’s type, but she’s somebody’s.
“Huh. I guess she’s more mine,” I say. “Leather, tattoos, motorcycle, older.” I let that hang in the air. He’ll get that I’m flirting, that I mean him, right?
“She’s missing something you need in her pants.”
I bite my lip to keep from laughing. This is too fun. “Have you been to a sex shop lately, Trav? I’m sure whatever you think she’s ‘missing’, we could find there.”
“She has a son,” he tries, teeth grinding.
“Perfect. Love people with kids.” He remembers he’s got one, yeah?
Jack sets his drink down. Poor guy, he’s here in body, but not in spirit. He and Rhett broke up at the beginning of the off-season. His headspace is all over the place.
“Here yah go, Trav,” he says, lacking the usual Jack sunshine.
“Thanks.” Trav takes a burning swig as Jack saunters off. His stone glare hasn’t left me. “Are you gonna date her, then?”
Okay, I’ve pushed him to the edge. I could live here, this close to the fire, all the attention of his jealous ass on me, but it’s in danger of going too far. I lock ankles with him under the table. He jolts but doesn’t pull away.
“I’m not into her, Travis.” Because my heart’s too into you to understand that anyone else exists.
His knee relaxes against mine, and for the briefest of moments, the exhaustion wrought from the ache of wanting him day in and day out gets a dose of relief. It’s there in Trav, too. He closes his eyes, the weight of the world seeping out of him, and opens them again, renewed.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Fine, I’m not.” He downs the rest of his drink way too fast. “New rule, no dating coworkers.”
That’s gonna be a problem. Half the staff is either dating or fucking. Pretty sure he just means me, though.
“We weren’t on a date, Trav.”
His gaze flicks to the money on the table. “That’s enough for two beers and a tip.”
“I’m not into women, Travis.”
“Didn’t look that way to me with you laughing … fucking smiling—when do you smile like that?”
When I’m talking about you, dumbass. “I’ll buy all my own beers from now on. Happy?”
He grunts something that I’m pretty sure means “okay”, but he’s not happy. I’ve gotta do more. My goal was to be a tease, not an asshole. I slide a bare foot out of my flip-flop and let it toy with the hem of Trav’s pant leg.
“Is it true you feed me decaf? That’s criminal, Trav.”
He leans back, a wolfish grin on his face, and flinty steel in his gaze, pinning me. “I am a criminal.”
Whoa. The shiver.
It’s a quick move, his booted foot hooking my ankle, his callused hand reaching under, trapping my foot in his crushing grip.
His thumb presses into the arch, fingers wrapping around my toes, all the while his gaze never leaves mine.
There’s a catch in my throat as my heart hammers against my ribcage.
That rough thumb traces a path along my sole, branding heat into my skin like an invisible mark.
Mine.
An immeasurable amount of time passes before he lets go and stands up. He scoops up the cash.
“I’ll leave this with Jack’s tip out. I’m paying for the beers.”
He leaves, and I laugh. Possessive bastard. But I love it, every bit as much as I love the ghost of his hand around my foot.
Dirk, Age 23
Guess it’s the night for lust. Jack left with someone about an hour ago, and he’s already slipped away to drop a few fire emojis in the group chat. I haven’t seen Jack this excited about anyone in a long time, but Mercy’s reviving him.
Trav sits at the bar, our eyes meet, that familiar buzz of desire kicks in, and I forget how to breathe right. We don’t need words at this point. I know what he wants, so I make it and set it on the bar top in front of him.
My screen beeps—drinks for server tables—so I get busy making them.
When I turn around, a man, a handsome one, has his hand on Trav’s shoulder, smiling at him in a way no one has any right to smile at him.
There’s a drink in front of him that I know I didn’t put there.
I turn to glare at Casey, who’s on bar with me tonight, as if he’s betrayed me.
But there’s no way he could know about how I secretly lust after Trav, because I haven’t told anyone.
Technically, not even Trav.
It’s obvious the man wants to get his dick wet, and he actually fucking thinks Trav’s gonna be the one sucking him off later. Yeah, like hell that’s happening. I storm over, snatch up the man’s drink, and down it, not giving a fuck that I’m still on shift.
“Get out,” I deadpan. He’s not moving fast enough, and I’m seconds away from taking him outside to rearrange his goddamn nose. He trips over his feet on the way out the door.
I don’t do anything other than shake my head at Trav. No.
But no what? No men? No man but me?
I don’t know.
This has gone way too far, but I don’t know if we can stop this now that we’ve started. We’ve pressed an invisible button, a very forbidden and highly dangerous button, and ripping ourselves from this newfound Dirk and Travis gravity would prove fucking impossible if we tried.
I do my cashout in Trav’s office later, because I’m a fucking simp that just wants to be near him, and I’m pretty sure it was me who went way over the line tonight, so I should apologize at some point.
It’s just, I don’t feel very sorry. Apologies should be authentic.
All I’ve got is an “I’m sorry I didn’t take that guy outside and make him spit Chicklets. ”
But maybe, eventually, I’ll drum up something close to remorse.
I wait for a lecture, for some kind of speech about how way wrong we would be.
It doesn’t come. We sit on opposite sides of the desk, with only the snapping of the spring-loaded bill holders occasionally breaking the companionable silence, blanketing us.
“Hey, I was gonna ask you something,” he says.
Here it comes. This is where he puts his foot down and strips me bare with a few quiet orders: stop being jealous, stop flirting, and stop orbiting him like I’m the moon chasing Earth. It’s about time. Someone needs to stop this, and he’s the more adultier adult, so it should be him.
“What would you have bought from the sex shop? When you were thinking about dating Sophia?” he tacks on.
Only, he knows I wasn’t thinking about dating Sophia. Ever. It took me a whole week, but I finally convinced him that I’ve never been into women, and it wasn’t likely I ever would be.
Has Sophia become code for him? A spin on what I’d been doing that night?
And fuck, that was a whole season ago. He’s still thinking about it? Or did my jealous fit give him the courage he needed to ask?
“If we’re actually talking Sophia here, yeah, I would have needed a strap-on with the largest dildo we could find.” My cheeks heat a little, and my cock wakes up further past the general state of arousal it’s in when I’m with Trav.
Trav’s nose wrinkles. Okay, so we weren’t talking about actual Sophia.
“But if Sophia were a he, and he already had a sizable appendage—”
“He does,” Trav says in a low voice, almost a growl.
I shudder, taking a slow breath. This is brand new territory. This is dangerous fucking leaps and bounds past the cutesy, cheesy shit we’ve been toying with. My hand moves to my throat, clutching the soft hollow.
“Do you like to be tied up?” he asks, not waiting for my answer.
I shake my head.
“Held down?”
Nod.
“Marked, branded, owned?”
Breathe, Dirk. Fucking breathe. Nod, nod, nod.
“You’d look even prettier with a fat purple hickey down the crease of your neck,” he murmurs. “Would you like it if Sophia spread your legs wide, bent you over his desk, and turned you into his personal fuck toy?”
My eyes flick to the desk in front of me. “Yeah,” I whisper. “Fuck, yeah, yes.”
He exhales slowly, afraid to move too suddenly. I’m glad I’m not alone with that. My body’s so ridged it aches.
“It’s a nice fantasy,” he says.
“It is.” I swallow and lick my lips.
“Sophia can’t, though. It can never happen, Dirk.”
I hate the way he stresses “never”, but he’s right. I needed him to say it.
“I know.” All too fucking well. “But if you expect an apology for what I did tonight, you’ll have to wait for the Orcas to win a Stanley Cup.”
That’s the equivalent of hell freezing over. They’ve never won a Stanley Cup. Probably won’t, ever.
“Wasn’t expecting an apology. I’ve never apologized for any of my jealous behavior, and I never will.”
“What does that mean, Trav? You plan on being jealous all the time? Letting that fester between us?”
“What other choice do we have?”
He’s right. I know he’s right, but I don’t know how long I can live like this. “D-Dash won’t care. He won’t.”
Trav scrubs a hand over his face. “Most likely, he won’t. But I’ll care. If a man twice my son’s age tried to date him, I’d make sure no one ever found his body.”
Of all the reasons we wouldn’t work, that’s the worst one—his own damn morals. But I know he’s right. Hunt will feel the same way.
He continues adjusting scheduling and time-off requests on his laptop, and I finish my cashout, placing it on his desk. He looks up as I’m about to leave, and my heart races like it always does.
“Night, Trav.”
“See you tomorrow.”
And we carry on.
It’s official. We’re doomed. We can’t be together, we have to live in denial, pretending the obvious doesn’t exist. It’s just as well. Sure, we have these moments where it seems like something might be within our reach. But we always return to reality.
In no fucking universe am I telling my brother, the only real parent I’ve ever had, that fate decided to screw with me and hit me with the kind of chemistry that ruins lives with a man twice my age.
I don’t know what kind of mental gymnastics Trav’s doing, but he’s clearly as horrified with his own feelings as Hunt would be should he ever find out.
We know how wrong our massive age gap is in the court of public opinion, so all we can do is toy with it.
Fantasize about it. Let our hearts break over and over again.
But we tread further over the line every day—‘cause, yeah, we’re already way over it. Pretty soon, we won’t even be able to see the damn line.
One of us is going to fucking snap. Both of us will pay the price.