Chapter 1
Chapter
One
Present Day – Off-Season After Heartbreak Hockey
I’m not an idiot. I know when a man’s looking at me. Like, looking-looking. Like I’m a fucking snack.
At least try to be fucking discreet, Trav.
But—sigh—I’m one to talk. I look. Oh boy, do I look. By this point, it’s either an obsession or karma from another life. It’s a compulsion I can’t stop.
So why are you still there? Why haven’t you quit yet, Dirk?
To everyone’s face, I tell them I return every summer because I’m obligated by loyalty and the money’s good. Trav depends on me. I know this restaurant in and out and can fill any role.
But that’s only part of the truth. The other reason, the more pressing one, the one that threatens to destroy me with each passing day, is that I crave him.
Anything him. A touch, a word, a look. Fuck, just his laugh.
I could make a damn soundtrack outta that rough laugh of his, tinged with enough of the devil, it makes me smile every time.
Only on the inside, though. I’ve gotten better a limiting smiling on the outside.
Just because he knows doesn’t mean I’m going around flaunting my illicit attraction.
What I did before was fucking stupid. God, what if someone other than Sophia had caught on?
I could have gotten us both in serious trouble.
You’re twenty-four now, Trav is forty-four, a deadly little voice whispers. Yeah, I know, because I watch our ages like that stupid Doomsday Clock. At what age is our age gap more palatable? Will it ever be palatable?
But I’m at least smart enough not to ask those questions, even when I’m lying awake, in the dark, willing my boner to go away because Trav stared at me for a little too long when he was passing off food to me.
Although, spoiler alert, it never goes away until I make it go away, which I do, repeatedly.
If only Dash knew that I get off on imagining his dad doing the filthiest fucking things to me.
Anyway…
By some miracle, nothing major has happened, but if it did, it would be the end. Because if I haven’t been able to stop this … this longing, this possession, this single-minded hunger, knowing what it was like for him to do anything to me—even just a kiss—would render me ruined.
It’s Tuesday. I came in early to help the prep cooks, even though I’m not technically kitchen staff. My presence at this ungodly hour is a heavy mix of how much I love this restaurant and how pathetically desperate I am to be near Trav any chance I get.
At least the flirting isn’t one-sided, but with how much we actually do toe the damn line, we’re lucky to have Casey and Sutter to take the heat off us, or someone would have caught us by now.
Dressed in my black cotton kitchen jacket, I head into the walk-in fridge to grab a box of steaks, imagining Trav’s eyes on me when I walked into his office with coffee earlier.
Fuck. I’ve never seen him look at me like that, and he’s looked at me in a lot of ways.
Definitely gonna rub one out to that shit later.
Or maybe do what I’ve done every now and then and find an older hookup.
Trav might have morals, but most of the men on Benduovr don’t.
It’s never been hard to find an older man willing to fuck a guy my age and pretend I have a kink for balaclavas.
With their faces covered, it’s easier for me to pretend they’re Trav.
Only easier, though. I know all of Trav’s movements too well to trick my mind into thinking it’s actually him.
The way he stands. The way he tilts his head and turns his eyes down when he’s about to say something important.
And fuck, the way he smells, his unique Travis scent of leather, whisky, and sweat.
But it’s enough to create a Travis-like atmosphere for my brain, so I can experience something close to him fucking me.
It’s rare that I do that, though. Only when I’m utterly desperate for him.
I don’t want some faceless man. I want Trav to walk into this fridge and bend me over one of the stainless-steel shelves. I picture it often. He’d walk in, looking for some creamer to fill the server fridges with, and here I’d be riffling through the steak boxes.
There are no cameras in here, a fact he’d remember as he struggled with the restraint of keeping his hands off me, and it’d break him.
And, okay, technically—in real life—we’d need condoms and shit, but it’s a fantasy, so I’m gonna ignore all that since it’s only happening in my head.
He’d reach around, yank my pants down, and shove inside my ass.
I’d have ass bruises before I even knew what was happening. Markings. Something to say I was his.
But I’d always know it was him. Him making me feel good. His whisky-smoke scent surrounding me while his callused hands scraped over the sensitive flesh of my cock …
I leave the fridge with a box of sirloins and the hard-on from hell.
Thank fuck Dash is there when I step into the kitchen. He keeps me from going over the edge. Not even because I think he’d disapprove, he wouldn’t. He’d be weirded out by the idea of me with his dad for half a second, but then he’d be happy for us.
Trav’s the one who would be bothered. I get the impression Trav’s soothed himself by adopting some kind of “look but don’t touch” mantra, just like I’ve finally given in to my primal desires, masturbating under the cover of darkness, imagining Trav all over me after the longest fucking time of tossing and turning and losing sleep.
Our attraction is such a fucking curse.
Dash has his hat on—actually, nope that’s Stacey’s hat—backward, and he’s wearing what I call the Stacey hoodie, hands in kanga pocket, huge smile on his face.
Most likely because …yep, there’s Stacey right on cue. I catch sight of him through the window of the double-swinging kitchen door, headed this way.
“Heya, Dirky. Sorry, I’m late. Stacey and I stopped for coffee on the way here, and we sorta took advantage of the fact that I’m the boss’s son.” He winks.
These two are clearly attached at the hip. They must be dating, right? Only, no, they’re fucking not. Dash is seeing someone else casually, and Stacey, well, I don’t really know much about Stacey’s current love life, but I guarantee it’s fucked up.
But—cue heavy sigh—I’m a fucking hypocrite for judging them. I’m doing the same thing with Trav, living in hell, too chickenshit to do anything about our predicament, too scared to think it’s a good idea.
I tried to date someone last season, hoping it would help me get over Trav, because Trav and I are never, ever, ever going to happen.
Date is a loose adjective to describe what it was we did.
I never kissed him, gave off like I hated being touched.
And sex? Hell no. Wasn’t interested. But he was nice, and we had fun when we went out.
I talked it up to my friends, trying to convince myself I was into the guy, so when I gave up and ended things, the guys mistook my blue mood crash out for devastation over the breakup.
But “dating” that guy made it that much more glaringly obvious that no one will be Travis, and it fucking sucked.
I was angry. At the world, at love, at whatever it is that made me fall for Trav.
I poured my aggression into hockey until it was all used up.
But I decided no more. There is no getting over Trav, it’s not worth putting me and someone else through that.
It'll just be me and my hand for the foreseeable future. Maybe I should visit that sex shop Trav and I talked about?
Stace barges through the door, carrying a box of wine glasses destined for the dish pit.
Honestly? I wish they’d have been even later.
I’m so fucking horny—was so fucking horny—that I’d been daydreaming about what it would be like to slip into Trav’s office and see where things went.
I mean, he was the one looking at me in that way, with all that hunger.
If I mistook it for an invitation, can I really be blamed for that?
“Hey, Dirk.” Stacey puts an arm around Dash, and Dash leans in like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Anger rises. Irrational fucking anger. I love them, but they’re dumbasses.
The dumbest dumbasses to ever dumbass. Do I look like them with Trav?
No. How could I? I’m not allowed to touch him in public or stare at him for too long.
They’re so fucking lucky. They take for granted the ease with which they can lay their hands on each other, cuddle on the couch every damn night, and generally live in each other’s pockets.
But can they get their shit together? Nope.
“We brought you and Trav coffee. It’s on the pass bar.” My eyes pan to the stainless-steel shelf in front of the grills, where food is passed off from the kitchen staff to the expo. Two coffees sit there. “Where is he?”
I drop the steaks on the counter, forming a probably stupid idea. But I can’t stand it for another minute, and it’s their fault.
“Office. I’ll give that to him.” I brought him coffee earlier, but bringing him a second one screams “I just wanted to see you”. I don’t know if I can do this odd-ass purgatory for the rest of my life, so maybe it’s time I … I dunno. Something.
Dash and Stacey, though. Those two just might be destined for purgatory.
Dash darts in front of me as if the universe is pushing the whole “you snooze, you lose” narrative. “I’ll do it! I wanna say hi to Dad before we get started.”
There’s nothing I can do but stare after him, coffee in hand, taking my place in the Travis coffee-delivery chain.
Is it weird that I’m jealous? He gets to visit Trav whenever he wants.
Stacey’s staring after him, too, but for different reasons.
As much as I judge them for their dumbassery, his Dash obsession is gonna be as good for me this summer as Casey and Sutter’s obsession with each other.