Chapter 16
Bryce
“You look like you’re in love,” Verity said, leaning against the bar at Rapture and staring at the wall of bottles instead of Bryce.
Verity was the co-owner of Rapture, alongside their best friend, Landon.
Whereas Landon was stoic and practical in most things, unless his husband was around, Verity was like a walking dream.
Non-binary, unintentionally androgynous, and utterly breathtaking, there wasn’t a single room Bryce found that wasn’t made better by their presence in some way.
Bryce had worked at Rapture for eight shifts over the last two weeks, and Verity had been around for most of them. They were as much a fixture as the towering stained glass panels on the outside walls, and Bryce had enjoyed watching the way people naturally gravitated toward them.
“That obvious?” he asked, which earned him a melodic laugh.
“I recognize the signs. You look just like Aaron.”
Bryce finished rinsing a pint glass, looking up at Verity from the corner of his eye. “Is your husband so hopeless for you?”
“Of course he is,” Verity teased. “He wouldn’t be my husband if he wasn’t.”
Bryce groaned, nodding his agreement. “I haven’t told him. Not Aaron, but…haven’t told him I love him.”
“What on earth are you waiting for?”
Bryce shrugged, moving on from washing to cutting limes. There was still half an hour before the club opened, and he had plenty of time to get the bar prepped.
“We haven’t been together long. Also, I’m staying with my brother right now, and I don’t think he would like it.”
“Why does your brother’s opinion matter?”
“He’s my brother,” Bryce answered. “Why wouldn’t it?”
“I think it’s one thing to take it into consideration, another thing to let it color your decision making,” Verity said gently.
“They work together.” Bryce shoved the sliced limes into the condiment tray, then refilled the cherries from the jar under the bar. After he finished, he wiped the bar top clean and shoved the towel into his back pocket.
“Do they have to stop working together if you’re in a relationship with…” Verity trailed off, swirling their hand in the air.
“Holden.”
“Do they have to stop working together if you’re in a relationship with Holden?”
“No. I just don’t want it to be weird.”
“You’re very sweet, Bryce, but you’re very young. Too young to worry so much about other people.”
“Verity!” Landon stuck his head out from the back hallway that housed his office. “Do you have a sec?”
“Always for you.” Verity looked at Bryce, cocking their head to the side and giving him a silent appraisal. “Much too young.”
Bryce made a dismissive sound in the back of this throat and said goodbye to his second boss.
Well, technically his second. Maybe his third.
Rapture was a lot like family, owned by two best friends and staffed by the kind of people who were in group chats and shared alarm codes.
The lead bartender, a man named Callum, was also married to a friend of Landon’s.
The other senior bartender was in a relationship with Verity’s brother, and it seemed Callum’s boyfriend and Verity’s brother were the only ones not employed by the club.
It was nice, Bryce had told Merrick and Holden—separately of course—to be in a place that felt so much like home.
It made the adjustment of his move a lot easier.
But Holden had a big part in that too. The two of them had come so close to admitting things that probably should have had no place in a relationship as new as theirs, but there was no denying how right it all felt when Bryce thought about saying the words.
He’d wanted Holden from the moment they’d seen each other.
That walk to the sandwich shop had been torture, Holden’s quiet flirting not making things any easier for him.
Their first night together had been groundbreaking for him, and things hadn’t slowed down since.
Maybe it was fast to get tested, to commit as quickly as they had, but there was no denying how right it felt.
Bryce had been with Bella for years, and he’d never felt for her the things he felt for Holden, and definitely nowhere near the level of intensity.
The past two weeks since he started the job at Rapture had passed in a bit of a blur.
He’d seen Holden as much as he could, but not getting off until three in the morning on the weekends meant their time was short.
They stole some overnights during the week, but it was hard with Bryce still using Merrick’s car.
Which was precisely why a vehicle of his own was at the top of his to-do list. He’d come into work a little early to get the prep done because he was supposed to meet a guy who had a beater he was trying to sell for five grand.
It was a bit more than Bryce wanted to spend, but he didn’t want to waste money on something that wasn’t reliable.
Between the tips he’d made at Rapture and the money he had saved from home, it wouldn’t make too huge of a dent in his savings.
His phone vibrated against his thigh, and he pulled it out to find a text from the car guy and a message from Holden.
As much as he wanted to read it, he needed to take care of the car before Rapture opened.
He ran out to the parking lot, taking the front stairs two at a time until he landed in the dirt in front of an idling early 2000s BMW 3 series.
Even in the fading light of the day, he could tell there were some scratches and dings on the door panels, but that was fine with him as long as the car ran well.
Bryce gave the car a good once-over, test drove it around the block, then paid cash and took the title and the keys. It was quick and painless, and he snapped a picture of the black car beneath the parking lot lights and texted it to his brother.
You’ve got your car back finally.
Merrick
Thank god. Is the apt next?
jkjk you know you’re welcome to stay
I know but also yes.
After that, he jogged back into work, checking the message from Holden.
Holden
When can I see you again?
It was such a simple question but also so loaded.
Merrick had done a very good job at pretending to keep his nose out of Bryce’s business, but it was only a matter of time before his brother got insistent, demanding more transparency about Bryce’s whereabouts than he was willing to give.
It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Merrick had always been a little overbearing, and Bryce knew he meant well.
Bryce also hated lying, but he wasn’t ready to out his secret relationship until he was certain it would last.
Tomorrow?
after tonight I’m off until Tuesday
Tonight
It’ll be late and I don’t have clothes.
He wanted to.
God, he wanted to.
I want to see you
come get a drink then
He slid his phone back into his pocket, ready for work, trying to pretend he wasn’t about to jump out of his skin at the prospect of seeing Holden again. Verity had been right—it was so fucking obvious. How embarrassing.
Holden showed up two hours later, hair wet from a shower.
Bryce saw him walk in and watched him snake his way through the dance floor before stepping up to the bar and waiting his turn.
Bryce was in the middle of making margaritas for a group of four, and he smiled at Holden and stabbed the button on the blender.
Blended drinks were an abomination, and he had no respect for anyone who ordered them outside of a restaurant setting, and even then…
Bryce finished pouring them out, took a heavy black credit card out of a twink’s hand and started them a tab. He grabbed two beers for a couple on his way down to Holden and then finally, finally reached his man.
“Drink?” he asked, hating how giddy he felt in Holden’s presence.
Holden’s bright blue eyes searched his face and a soft smile flickered across his mouth. “I’ll have a beer.”
Bryce grabbed him one, popped the top, and slid the beer across the bar. Holden took it, raised it in a one-sided toast, then cocked his head to the side and smirked.
“I’m going to wander,” Holden said. “Get some ideas.”
Heat rolled down the length of Bryce’s spine and he managed a nod, watching Holden take a sip of his beer before turning and heading back into the middle of the dance floor.
“So, that’s Holden,” Verity said in his ear, startling him.
Bryce jumped, hand flying up to his chest to keep his heart behind his sternum. “How did you know?”
“The heart eyes, probably.”
“God.” Bryce scrubbed a hand down his face. “Am I that bad?”
Verity reached up and tweaked the tip of Bryce’s nose. “It’s cute.”
Bryce rolled his eyes. “It feels like it’s killing me.”
“Only because you’re keeping it inside.” Verity glanced toward the far wall of the club, and Bryce let his stare follow. He watched Holden climb the stairs, muscles flexing under the tight stretch of his plain white shirt. “For what it’s worth, the feeling is mutual.”
“How can you tell?”
Holden reached the loft and looked down at the bar, smiling when he caught Bryce and Verity staring up at him.
“He looks at you the same way.”
“Does he?”
Holden finally looked away and Bryce let go of a breath he’d been holding.
“Does he?” Verity mocked. “Be serious.”
Thankfully, before Bryce could come up with a response, a handsome man in a suit walked up to the bar. He ordered three drinks and carried them all away, up to the loft and into the dark. Bryce rested his elbows against the bar and groaned, unable to pick Holden’s silhouette out of the shadows.
The night dragged on, and an hour later, Holden reappeared. His hair had finally dried and he walked downstairs slowly. Bryce watched as he made his way to the bar, setting down his empty beer bottle and pushing it toward Bryce.
“Another?” Bryce asked.
“I think one’s good. I want my wits about me later.”
“Why’s that?”
Holden’s lips quirked up at the corners. “I’ve got plans.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. They’re going to keep me busy until Monday night at the earliest, so I don’t want to spend half that time hungover and hating life.”
Bryce swallowed hard, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. “Monday?”
“If that works for you.”
“It very much works for me,” Bryce said.
Holden pulled a ten-dollar bill out of his wallet and set it down beside his beer bottle.
“Your brother won’t worry about your whereabouts?”
“He’ll assume the worst, which for him means I’m shacked up in a hotel with a married man or five.”
Holden’s expression darkened. “I don’t like the way he thinks about you. The way he sees you.”
Bryce thought about the conversation he’d had with his brother a couple of weeks before, when he’d gotten the job and told Merrick where he’d be working.
It was hard for Bryce to reconcile his understanding of his brother with a version of the man he didn’t know.
The mere thought of Merrick enjoying time at Rapture was something impossible for Bryce to comprehend, and he imagined it was much the same for Merrick to do to him.
There was so much about each other they didn’t know anymore.
Maybe that had been unintentional or maybe it had been by design—they were too many years into their lives for Bryce to know for sure—but it cost him nothing to ignore the digs his brother made about his sex life and his enjoyment of it.
“He’s just projecting,” Bryce said without having any idea about what Merrick said about him when he wasn’t around. “Whatever he thinks about me doesn’t bother me at all, so don’t let it bother you.”
Holden studied his face carefully, obviously searching for any indication Bryce wasn’t being honest. He was being absolutely truthful about Merrick. There wasn’t anything his brother said in public that he hadn’t implied in private.
“I’ll see you after work then?” Holden asked. “Mine until Monday?”
Yours until forever, Bryce thought.
“Until Monday.”