Chapter 5
FIVE
TRAVIS
Gabe
You’re coming, right?
Travis
I looked at the schedule again, and I might actually need to cover a shift that night.
I said it lightly, but the truth was that I kept glancing at Casey’s name in my messages like some part of me was already choosing him over everything else.
Barrett
One of my favorite excuses to get out of *anything*
Reed
All of you are full of shit. The only one who can use the shift excuse is me.
Gabe
Ha! The doctor has spoken.
Reed
I don’t own my company, you idiot.
Levi
Is that how a Daddy should speak?
The word pulled at something old and familiar in me, something I’d kept locked down since before I quit hockey.
Barrett
To Gabe? Abso-fucking-lutely.
Gabe
Be nice, or I’ll sic Nico on you.
Barrett
I’m twice his size. I can take him.
Levi
It’s not his fists you need to worry about. It’s his mouth.
Gabe
Anyway, back to you, Travis. You need to come.
Levi
It’s gonna be hard to find a boy when you don’t go to places where boys are at. Just sayin’.
Hearing it out loud hit that quiet place in me that already knew exactly who I kept thinking about.
Travis
I know, I’ve kinda got my eye on someone.
Barrett
Is he a boy?
Travis
Yeah, he’s a guy.
Reed
Heh.
Barrett
You know what I meant, asshole.
Travis
Not a boy.
Gabe
YOU said you knew you wouldn’t be happy long-term without one.
Levi
I spent three years with someone who wasn’t, and it wasn’t the *only* reason we split, but it was a huge part of it.
It makes a difference even if you think you can get by without it.
Travis
You’re not wrong.
Gabe
You can say we’re right. It won’t hurt.
Travis
It kinda will.
Reed
Don’t worry about finding anyone. Just come and enjoy the company of friends.
Travis
Yeah, you’re right. I’ll be there.
“There you are, sir. Enjoy your evening,” the attendant said, finishing the placement of the paper bracelets on my wrist before motioning for me to head through to the next area of the club.
As it turned out, I’d had to cover at least half a shift, so I was later than I expected. Everything was already in full swing.
I made my way down the long hallway until I reached the area where the littles usually gathered with their Daddies.
As usual, Owen had outdone himself with the decorations.
With vintage red and gold colors, velvet draping, and real Christmas trees covered in red glass ornaments and dripping with lights, the space looked like the inside of an old-fashioned train car.
I had no idea how much they paid Owen to pull this off so many times a year, but the man was an absolute fucking genius when it came to transforming a space.
A quick scan of the room didn’t give me the surprise I was hoping for. I’d know it wouldn’t happen, but part of me still wished Casey might be there. It would’ve been my own little Christmas miracle.
With no luck there, I spotted the usual gaggle of Daddies sitting on the sofas with drinks in hand and dodged giggling boys on my way over to join them.
“Damn, I thought you were gonna skip out on us after all,” Gabe said with a welcoming smile.
“I ended up having to cover half a shift, but I made it.” I sat and realized I’d forgotten to order a drink on my way in. Goddammit. Now I’d have to get up again, and I was bone-tired tonight.
Since those hot-as-fuck kisses in my car a week ago, Casey and I had been polite strangers, and I hated it.
The mental toll of it wore me down, and the worst part was that a small, selfish part of me hoped it bothered him too.
But he wasn’t wrong. He was my employee, and I was his boss.
Fooling around in a car had been one of the worst ideas I’d had in a long time, even if it had felt like the best.
Lines blurred every time he looked at me like I was something safe, and I kept pretending I was not crossing them already.
“You’re here now, which means we can find a boy for you,” Reed said. He scanned the room as if there might be a boy holding up a sign that said Perfect for Travis: Inquire Here.
Sadly, when I looked that way, there were no boys to be found. Their stuff was all over the table—half-colored pages, sippy cups, the usual—but no boys.
“They abandoned us to go do crafts,” Gabe said.
“Oh. Did you not want to join them?” I asked, puzzled. In my Daddy dreams, doing things with my boy was always part of the picture.
“One on one, they’re more than happy for us to play with them. But when it’s all of them together in a group, they don’t want us to ruin their good time,” Levi said.
“And by ruining their good time, it means telling them something they don’t want to hear,” Levi added with a grin.
“No. They don’t want to hear us say no,” Gabe interjected.
“No?” Barrett said and swung his head toward Gabe. “When have you ever told Rory no?”
“I’ve thought about it.”
“When?” Barrett asked.
“Fine. Once. I thought about telling him no once, and then I realized how unreasonable I was, changed my mind, and kept my mouth shut.”
“That only works because he’s not a brat. I can’t even imagine the chaos that would happen if I let Nico do whatever he wanted.”
“If you could explain to me how to get Nico to listen, that would be great. I want to know your ways,” Gabe said.
“Yeah, sorry, my friend. You’re on your own with him at work. Good luck though,” Levi said with a crooked grin. “You probably need a lot of it.”
It was like watching a Ping-Pong match between them.
It was clear they all loved each other and their boys just as much as their boys loved them, but it was interesting to see how intertwined their lives actually were.
Owen and Barrett worked together. Nico, Levi’s boy, worked for Gabe.
Reed and Jakob didn’t work together directly, but they worked at the same hospital.
Gabe had done work for all of them, including Levi with his architectural business.
As best I could tell, there were no secrets between any of them.
“Travis, to get back to your original question, even if we’re not there, Anders is usually around to keep an eye on them.”
“Who’s that? I don’t think I’ve met him before. Is he another boy?” I asked.
“No, he’s not a boy, but he’s their unofficial babysitter who tries to be the voice of reason.”
“‘Tries’ is the operative word,” Barrett said with a laugh. “He does his best, but it’s never his fault when they go off and do shenanigans. Nine times out of ten, he warned them it was maybe not a great idea, and they just didn’t listen.”
“And the tenth time, he definitely told them it was a bad idea, and they absolutely did not listen,” Reed added.
“Any luck getting him to join your company?” Reed asked.
It was like a light switch had been flipped. The group suddenly went from silly and good-natured to somber.
“Unfortunately, no,” Gabe admitted with a shake of his head. “He said there was some issue with the books he was working to get straightened out before he could even consider it.”
“Fuck. That asshole boyfriend of his is bleeding him dry.”
“With money?” I asked.
“Maybe,” Gabe said. “I’m not really sure. I know emotionally he’s like a goddamn vampire, but I don’t know if he’s taking his money too. It wouldn’t surprise me if he were. He’s done everything else to make his life miserable, and I sure as hell don’t understand it.”
The guys exchanged looks as if they’d said too much to someone who wasn’t privy to it. Rather than push for more, I glanced down at my empty hands and said, “I forgot to grab a drink on my way in. Give me a second, and I’ll go grab one.”
They waved me off while I dodged and weaved my way through the crowded room.
I wasn’t blind enough not to notice a few interested looks from some of the boys, but none of them made my breath catch or stopped me in my tracks.
They didn’t have deep brown eyes or dark black hair.
None of them had the kiss of the sun on their skin or were built like a barrel just waiting to be tapped. None of them was Casey.
While I waited for a boisterous group of littles to move to their next station, I looked over the crowd again. The clear advantage to being slightly taller than average was the ability to look out over the crowd. Off in the far corner, I spotted the boys.
Rory and Jakob stood out with their red and almost white hair, respectively.
Nico was slightly more difficult to spot as he was whispering in the ear of Owen, who had a stuffie and a bottle in his hands.
There was another person in the group, but his face was obscured by the boys.
Whoever it was, they were excited to see him because the amount of bouncing would put Tigger to shame.
I bought myself some time with the drink, but it was still too early to bail. There was no way in hell I was going to try and find someone whose best feature was that they reminded me of someone else. I was no saint, but I wasn’t shitty enough to do that.
The crowd closed around the boys, and I could no longer see them, so I moved on to the bar and got my beer.
Before I returned to the table with the cuffed and happy Daddies and boys, I needed a minute to give myself a mental shake and pep talk.
Leading on Casey, no matter how attracted I was to him, wasn’t fair, and I knew it.
He was a damn good barback and even better cook, and if I were smart, I’d chalk it our kissing up to holiday foolishness and move on. It was the only route I had.
“Travis! You made it!” The sound of sunshine was directly behind me, and when I turned, I was greeted with a radiant smile.
“Jakob! Your Daddy told me you were around here. Nice to see you.”
“Yeah, we went on a ’venture, and Papa stayed with the Daddies.”
“Papa. That’s right. Sorry, I used the wrong name.”
“He’s my Papa, not yours.” Jakob scowled at me. Well, as much as the perpetually happy Jakob could mean-mug a person.