Chapter 6
SIX
Van wasn’t sure what to think when Joshua called him less than forty minutes after setting off to try and win back his boyfriend.
Van had wandered down to the boardwalk and right into a juice bar for a snack and a few rounds of Candy Crush on his phone, and he was getting serious flirty looks from a redhead behind the counter.
He was a sucker for gingers, and she had curves for days.
Maybe this trip won’t be a complete personal bust.
Kidnapping Joshua hadn’t been the most thought-through plan in his life, and he’d meant it when he told Joshua he was paying it forward. But the possibility of a quickie with a cutie would be an excellent reward for making friends.
He stared at Joshua’s name on his phone a long while before he answered. “Hollywood Phone Sex Line, how may I direct your call?”
Two bikini-clad teenagers at the next table turned to stare. Van winked.
Joshua’s laughter rumbled over the line. “Look at you, using my lines.”
“Seemed appropriate somehow. So? Did he kiss you or deck you?”
“Kissed me, and then some.”
Van gave a mental air punch, even as his fleeting hope for a chance to sample either man died a fast death. “Glad to hear it. So you two are solid again?”
“More than ever, and it’s all thanks to you. I mean it, man. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He loved the joy in Joshua’s voice, so different from the man he’d spoken to this afternoon. “So are you two going to celebrate?”
“Something like that. Listen, Benji really wants to thank you in person for running interference on things.”
Van resisted the idea of being fussed over, but he also wanted a chance to see the pair together. He’d only ever seen them separately. “Sure. I can stop by the room when I get my car.”
“Actually, Benji wants you to come to the show tonight. It starts at eight-thirty.”
He had no idea where the club was located, but that’s what GPS was for.
He also scrambled for some excuse not to go, but Joshua already knew he’d called out of Off Beat.
Plus he liked Fading Daze, and he’d never heard Benji sing live.
Melody would give him hell for not leaving complicated alone and coming home, but whatever.
“Okay, I’ll go,” Van replied.
“Awesome. Perfect. I’ll text you when to meet where, okay? That way you’ll be backstage with us.”
He’d never been backstage at a concert before. “Sounds good.” He had maybe two hours to kill, and that redhead was still eyeing him like a smoothie straw she wanted to suck. “Have fun with your boyfriend.”
“Will do. See you in a while, Van.”
Van hung up, then turned in time to see the redhead plant a big wet kiss on a brawny guy covered in tattoos.
Bummer.
Distracting himself at a resort wasn’t hard, so he wandered a while, inspecting the tourist traps and various t-shirt shops—until he caught himself staring at a royal blue VA Beach t-shirt and wondering how it would look on Joshua.
Then he found a place to sit and play with his phone, until Joshua texted him a meet-up time.
Van hoofed it three blocks to the venue, arriving hot and a little sweaty from the salty sea air.
Joshua said to go around to the back of the building.
The alley was a bit sketchy, but it opened into a clean back lot where Fading Daze was unloading equipment from a van.
He immediately zeroed in on Benji, who stood near the back of the van and was bouncing on his tip-toes, smiling from ear to ear.
As adorable today as he’d been back in July, with brown hair lightened by the summer sun, and energy that vibrated off him in waves.
Benji was happy and in love, and Van wanted to hate him for that, but he didn’t. Not even a little bit.
Until Joshua walked around from the other side of the van, all long limbs and dark, slicked hair, with the gait of a very satisfied man. The smoldering look he leveled at Benji made Van’s own heart turn over. Goddamn, he wanted someone to look at him like that.
He wanted Joshua to look at him like that.
Stop. That. You can’t have him.
And then Joshua was looking at him like that—except the smoldering melted into something softer and friendlier. “There you are,” Joshua said, which got Benji’s attention.
Van met Benji’s eyes and, holy hell, he couldn’t stop a sudden rush of want. Want that made him feel like a total asshole, because hello, both men taken. By each other. Van had set out to make sure the pair got back together, so he needed to chill the fuck out with the feelings.
“Hi,” Van said lamely.
Benji practically skipped the twenty or so feet between them and threw his arms around Van’s shoulders.
Van stiffened under the unexpected hug, resisting the urge to pull Benji in tight and inhale his cologne, because those were two very bad ideas.
Benji kept the hug brief, though, and then bounced back on the balls of his feet.
“Thank you so much for everything you’ve done for us. I mean it,” Benji said. “You saved our relationship, and I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”
Van tried to shrug off the praise, even while it lit him up inside. “Hey, I got a free concert out of it. Backstage pass to meet the band and everything.”
Benji laughed. “You already know the band.”
“This is true. However, I don’t know the lead singer very well, and I’d like to remedy that.”
“Awesome.” He cast about, probably searching for his other half, who was still lingering by the van.
“Listen, Joshua managed to get a room for me and him tonight, which is a miracle at the beach last minute, but if you don’t feel like driving home after the performance, you can totally crash with Danielle and the others. They’re cool with it.”
Do not picture Benji and Joshua fucking. Do not picture that. No.
“I think I’ll play it by ear,” Van replied, proud of his neutral tone of voice.
“Cool. I have to finish getting set up, so I’ll see you backstage.”
“See you there.”
Benji dashed off, his energy kind of infectious, and Van found himself smiling for no good reason. Joshua walked over, hands in his pockets, a bit of a sheepish grin on his face.
“So you bared your soul and it worked out in your favor,” Van said. “Congrats.”
Joshua’s smile wobbled. “It’s scary as fuck, let me tell you. But cheating isn’t genetic, it’s a choice someone makes.” His gaze dropped. He tried to be fast, but Van still caught that Joshua cruised him. “I won’t hurt Benji like that.”
“Good decision. He seems like a terrific guy. I’m a little jealous, actually.”
“That he chose me?”
“And that you chose him.” Van cleared his throat hard, embarrassed by the truth bomb he’d lobbed out there.
He didn’t want to guilt Joshua for his decision, but he kind of sucked at holding his tongue.
After repressing his true self for so long as a child and a teenager, he’d been bitten by the honesty bug as an adult, and therefore had a very finicky filter.
Joshua held his gaze for a long moment while a thousand different things filled the air between them. Everything from regret to lust to satisfaction. Then he blinked. “Yeah, I did choose him.”
Van nodded. “As you were meant to.”
Except Joshua didn’t agree. He stared at him, seemingly unable to commit to an answer, and that should have been Van’s signal to walk away.
To go back to the hotel, get his car, and drive home.
Stop interfering, stop flirting, stop wanting to get Joshua under him in bed.
Stop wanting to see Joshua and Benji naked together, while Van watched.
He needed to be the bigger man and walk the fuck away.
But the draw he felt, first to Joshua, and to a lesser degree to Benji, was unlike anything he’d ever known. In his entire adult life, he’d never had such complicated feelings for another person, much less two at the same time. It had to mean something.
Except they’re exclusive now, and you’re shit out of luck.
Van took a deliberate step backward.
Joshua turned and walked away, and somehow Van managed not to stare at his ass.
Tonight was going to be all kinds of awkward.
This is going to be so awkward.
In between working with the band and stage crew to set up their equipment, Benji spent a lot of time watching Van and Joshua interact backstage.
Van was sexy as hell, smelled amazing, and he hadn’t been able to hide his reaction to seeing Joshua very well.
Joshua, too, had body language that screamed “I want you” with every slow rock of his hips or soft peal of laughter.
Benji wasn’t able to hear what they were talking about, but he’d been around gay men long enough to know what was happening.
They wanted each other.
And Benji had finally closed the door on his relationship with Joshua, which meant a whole lot of look-but-don’t-touch for his boyfriend from now on.
Look-but-don’t-touch with a very hot, gorgeous guy who bartended at a local watering hole that Joshua could frequent as often as he wanted, because he now lived nearby.
Maybe he should have let Joshua get Van out of his system before closing the relationship.
One last chance for Joshua to fuck around, blow off some steam with a guy he couldn’t seem to stop eye-fucking with Benji in close proximity.
The mental image of Joshua and Van together, handsome as they both were, was intensely appealing, and Benji seriously needed to stop with those thoughts.
Except he couldn’t help wondering if he’d somehow set Joshua onto the path of fulfilling his worst fear about becoming a cheater, because it was clear to anyone who looked at them that Joshua and Van had chemistry to spare.
I got my greatest wish today, but what if that’s what really does doom us in the end?
Nope. Not going there.