Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
The guy’s hand was on Leo’s thigh, his thumb tracing slow circles through the denim, and Leo was thinking about engine grease under someone else’s fingernails.
He didn’t even know the guy’s name. Tyler, maybe. Taylor. Something with a T. Dark hair, good jaw, arms that said he knew his way around a gym. He’d been talking for ten minutes, and Leo had stopped tracking the conversation about eight minutes ago.
“So I told him, if you’re not going to commit to the bit, don’t even show up,” Tyler-or-Taylor said, laughing at his own story.
“Totally,” Leo said. He took a drink and looked anywhere else.
Kruz was good. Not Orlando good, not the spot on Mills Ave where the bartender knew his order and the DJ played house music that vibrated through the floor.
But it was decent. Dark, crowded, an hour’s drive from Port Haven, and full of men who looked at him the way men used to look at him before he’d been shipped to a town where the closest thing to a gay bar was a dive with framed hockey jerseys run by a gay couple.
He’d spent forty-five minutes getting ready, which was actually pretty quick for him.
The Balmains that had gotten him a phone number every time he’d worn them to a bar in Orlando.
Put six hundred dollars of denim on a hockey player’s ass, and men always noticed.
The YSL button-down with the collar that sat open just right showed enough throat and collarbone to be an invitation.
He’d styled his hair twice because the humidity up here did something different from Florida, then hit it with finishing spray until it behaved.
Cologne last. Tom Ford on his wrists and neck, the one a guy in Orlando had once followed him across a dance floor to ask about.
He’d checked himself in the mirror before walking out and stood there longer than he needed to.
Shoulders pulled back, jaw set like he was walking into a game instead of a bar.
Collar open wide enough to show his collarbone and the top of his chest, all the hours in the weight room on display exactly the way he wanted them.
He’d looked like someone who got what he wanted, and for the first time since his former coach sat him down to break the news about the trade, he’d felt like it too.
The second he’d walked in, a guy at the end of the bar had looked up from his drink and hadn’t stopped staring since.
Another one had shifted closer while Leo waited for his vodka soda, close enough that their arms brushed when Leo reached for his glass.
A third had caught his eye in the mirror behind the bottles and held it.
Leo had options. He could’ve gone home with any of them, or to a restroom, or even a dark corner in the parking lot, and fucked until his brain shut off.
Except his brain wouldn’t shut off. Because his brain was in Port Haven with a mechanic who acted like Leo was wasting his time by existing in the same room.
Tyler-or-Taylor’s fingers found the back of Leo’s neck. Warm. Deliberate.
The hands Leo wanted on him were rougher, wider, and permanently grease-stained.
Leo took another drink and scanned the bar. Two guys had tried to catch his eye in the last twenty minutes. The one by the pool table was still flashing him fuck-me eyes. Any other night, Leo would’ve walked over and introduced himself. Tonight, he finished his drink and set the glass on the bar.
His damned brain had been infiltrated by the mechanic all week.
Dawson crouching beside the pulling rig with his shirt off.
Dawson’s arm under his hand during the full pull.
Dawson’s flat “hey” at The Penalty Box, like Leo wasn’t worth the effort of a full sentence.
The guy barely gave him the time of day, and yet his libido hadn’t gotten the memo that it was never going to happen.
“I should go,” he said to nobody in particular, and walked out before he could change his mind.
The air outside was warm and the street was loud with groups out partying. Leo sat in his Audi with the engine off, his forehead pressed against the steering wheel. He’d driven an hour to get laid and couldn’t close because a guy who worked on trucks for a living wouldn’t get out of his head.
He started the car and headed north.
The county road between Milwaukee and Port Haven had no streetlights, spotty cell signal, and corn on both sides that was tall enough to make Leo feel like he was driving through a tunnel. Leo had the windows cracked, the music low, and his jaw clenched tight enough to ache.
He kept replaying his pathetic behavior at the bar. The whole night had been right there in front of him, and he couldn’t take it because his brain was stuck on Dawson’s hands, Dawson’s arms, Dawson’s complete indifference.
He saw a flash of brown in the headlights and slammed on the brakes.
The hood crumpled. The airbag exploded into his face and chest and slammed him back against the seat.
Every time he tried drawing in a breath, he tasted the white powder.
His ears were ringing, and his hands were locked on the wheel so tightly that his fingers ached.
When he opened his eyes, the windshield was spidered, one headlight was pointing at the ditch, and the deflated airbag hung off the steering column like a spent balloon.
The engine ticked. Something hissed under the hood. He didn’t look at the shape on the road in front of him.
His phone had landed in the footwell. When he reached for it, his hands shook hard enough he dropped the phone twice before finally grabbing it.
The screen had a new crack across the corner. He called roadside assistance, hoping like hell they’d come out to the middle of fucking nowhere. The hold music was the same mechanical smooth jazz every other company seemed to use.
Leo slumped back in the seat and shoved the deflated airbag out of his way. When a woman finally picked up and asked for his location, he said, “Somewhere between Milwaukee and Port Haven. I don’t know the road.”
“Can you see any crossroads or landmarks?”
Leo looked out the window. Nothing but corn and the back end of the deer.
“There’s a dead deer,” he said. “Does that count?”
She took his membership number and told him to stay in the vehicle with his hazards on. A tow truck would be dispatched from the nearest affiliated garage. Estimated arrival: thirty to forty minutes.
Leo turned on his hazards. The clicking sound was the only thing breaking the silence. He flexed his hands open and closed, open and closed.
He should call someone to figure out what you needed to do when an animal jumped out in front of you and mangled your car.
His mother would panic. Phil would tell him it was outside the scope of his duties.
Neither of them could do anything about the fact that he was sitting alone on a county road at midnight in a state he didn’t choose, smelling like a bar he shouldn’t have gone to, waiting for a tow truck.
He tossed his phone onto the passenger seat.
A second deer stepped out of the field with its head up and its eyes catching the headlights. Two flat disks of green stared at Leo through the cracked windshield before the deer turned and disappeared back into the stalks.
His phone buzzed.
Unknown
On my way. 20 min. Stay in the car and pull it to the shoulder if you’re able with the hazards on.
He typed back Thanks, deleted it, typed Cool, deleted that too, and put the phone down. This wasn’t someone expecting him to be a great conversationalist.
He waited. A car passed going the other direction, slowing when its headlights caught the deer, then speeding up again. Leo watched the taillights disappear.
Headlights appeared behind him. Big, high, slowing down. Leo shoved the door open and got out, his legs stiff from sitting too long, and stood in the road with his arms crossed while a truck pulled up and flooded the scene with light.
The figure that came around the side was broad-shouldered and unhurried, flashlight sweeping the road in a clean arc that found the deer, the debris, the Audi’s crumpled hood. The beam swung up and caught Leo full in the face, and he squinted and put a hand up.
The flashlight dropped.
“Leo?”
Leo’s stomach churned. Of course the universe would decide to kick him while was down. “You’re kidding me.”
Dawson came closer, flashlight angled down now.
His eyes moved over Leo’s face, and Leo watched them stop on something.
His forehead, maybe, or his cheek. Something Leo couldn’t feel yet, thanks to the adrenaline.
He winced when he reached up and felt the abraded skin from where the airbag punched him.
“You hurt?”
“No.” His chest ached where the airbag had caught him and his left wrist throbbed when he flexed it. “I’m fine.”
Dawson didn’t look convinced. He stepped past Leo and circled the Audi with the flashlight, crouching at the front end, running his hand along the bumper. When he came back, his face had shifted from concern to skilled assessment.
“Radiator’s done. Hood’s going to need work, and the bumper.” He clicked the flashlight off. “The good news is it’s not actually as bad as it looks.”
“That’s the good news?”
“Yep. Stay out of the way while I load it.”
Leo took a step back and watched Dawson work.
Jeans, a T-shirt he’d probably pulled on in a hurry, a high-vis vest over it that caught the light every time he moved.
He worked the winch and the chains with the same unhurried efficiency Leo had seen at the tractor pull, and the Audi crawled up the ramp with a groan of damaged metal.
Leo watched Dawson’s hands on the winch controls and thought about the guy at the bar whose hand on his thigh had done nothing. Dawson hooked a chain to a tow point, not even looking at him, and Leo’s mouth went dry.
He was so fucked.
Dawson secured the car and came back, pulling a rag from his pocket to wipe his hands.
“So what’s the bad news?” Leo asked.