Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Mason
I’d been staring at the same paragraph of the MediCorp financial report for twenty minutes, and I still couldn’t tell you what it said.
The office was silent except for the hum of the heating system and the distant sound of traffic on Franklin Street. Nine o’clock on a Saturday night, and I was the only idiot still here, pretending to work while my brain replayed every moment of today on an endless loop.
Beau’s laugh when I’d organized his spice rack. The vulnerability in his voice when he’d talked about his family, about coming out, about living authentically instead of for someone else’s narrative. The way he’d looked at me right before my father called.
I closed my laptop with more force than necessary and scrubbed my hands over my face.
“This is insane,” I muttered to the empty office. Beau Thatcher was completely, entirely, categorically off-limits.
We worked together. We were on the biggest case of my career, and just because we’d managed two days of semi-functional collaboration didn’t erase years of competition and resentment.
And even if none of that mattered—even if we worked at different firms and had no history and the stars aligned perfectly—getting involved with someone like Beau would be a disaster.
He was chaos and instinct and reckless energy, everything I’d spent my adult life trying not to be.
We’d burn each other out in less than a week.
So why couldn’t I stop thinking about him?
Why did my apartment feel emptier than usual tonight? Why had I come back to the office instead of going home, as if putting physical distance between myself and that empty space would somehow quiet the restlessness gnawing at my chest?
I stood abruptly, grabbing my jacket from the back of my chair. I needed to get out of here. Needed to do something, anything, that would reset my brain and remind me that Beau wasn’t the only person in Richmond.
The idea hit me as I was locking my office door.
Therapy.
The gay bar on Grace Street, the one I’d been to a handful of times over the past few years when the loneliness got too heavy and I needed to feel like a normal person instead of a corporate robot.
The last time I’d gone—months ago, maybe longer—I’d met someone.
A grad student with dark eyes and an amiable smile, and we’d spent a night together that had been exactly what I needed: uncomplicated, satisfying, and mostly forgotten by morning.
Maybe that’s what I needed now. One night to get Beau out of my system.
Meet someone, have a drink, remember that physical attraction was just chemistry and proximity.
And damn it, there was nothing special about the way Beau looked at me or the sound of his laugh or the fact that working with him felt like the most natural thing in the world.
Twenty minutes later, I was pulling up to a metered spot two blocks from Therapy, my heart pounding like I was about to argue a case instead of have a drink.
This is ridiculous. You’re being ridiculous.
But I got out of the car anyway, fed the meter, and walked toward the bar with my hands shoved deep in my pockets.
The street was busy—groups of people moving between bars and restaurants, the energy of downtown Richmond on a Saturday night. I’d changed before leaving the office, swapping my button-down for a navy sweater and trading my work anxiety for a different kind entirely.
A simple neon sign and a bouncer checking IDs marked Therapy’s entrance. I showed mine, paid the cover, and stepped inside.
The bar was packed. Bodies pressed together on the small dance floor, groups clustered around high-tops, the bar itself three-deep with people trying to get the bartender’s attention. The music was loud but not deafening, the lighting dim enough to feel intimate.
I made my way to the bar and flagged down a bartender—a woman with purple hair and impressive arm tattoos.
“Whiskey neat,” I said.
“You got it, handsome.”
While I waited, I scanned the crowd. A mix of ages and types—college students, professionals, couples, groups of friends. The usual Saturday night crowd. No one I recognized, which was a relief. The last thing I needed was for someone from the firm to see me here.
The bartender slid my drink across the bar, and I paid, leaving a generous tip. I took a sip, letting the burn ground me, and turned to survey the room more carefully.
That’s when I saw him.
Beau.
Standing at the other end of the bar, drink in hand, talking to a guy with bleached blond hair and too many piercings. He was laughing at something the guy said, his entire face lighting up in a way I’d never seen at the office.
My stomach dropped.
Of fucking course.
Of all the bars in Richmond, on all the Saturday nights in the world, Beau Thatcher was here. I should leave. Walk out, pretend I’d never seen him. But even as I thought it, Beau’s gaze swept across the room—and landed directly on me.
His eyes went wide.
For a moment, we just stared at each other across the crowded bar, and I swear the music faded, the crowd disappeared, and it was just the two of us locked in this impossible, ridiculous moment.
Then Beau said something to the blond guy and started walking toward me.
Fuck.
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t look away. Could only watch him cut through the crowd with that calm confidence, his eyes never leaving mine.
“Price,” he said when he reached me. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“I live four blocks away. What’s your excuse?”
“I needed a drink.”
“At a gay bar?”
“Is there a problem with that?”
Beau’s expression shifted—surprise giving way to something more complicated. “No. No problem.” He took a sip of his drink, and I couldn’t help tracking the movement of his throat as he swallowed. “Just didn’t peg you for the type.”
“The type?”
“To go to bars. You seem more like the ‘drink expensive scotch alone in your apartment’ type.”
“I contain multitudes.”
His laugh was unexpected and genuine. “You’re quoting Walt Whitman at me in a gay bar. That’s very on-brand.”
“I don’t have a brand.”
“Everyone has a brand, Mason. Yours is ‘uptight perfectionist who secretly reads poetry.’”
“I’m not uptight.”
“You organized my spice rack alphabetically.”
“By cuisine, not alphabetically.”
“That’s somehow worse.” But he was smiling, and standing closer now, close enough that I could smell his cologne over the bar smell of beer and bodies. “Want another drink?”
I looked down at my glass. Still half full. “I’m good.”
“Come on, Price. Live a little.” He flagged down the bartender with an ease that suggested he did this often. “Two shots of tequila.”
“I don’t want tequila.”
“Yes, you do. You just don’t know it yet.”
The bartender—a different one this time, male, with a nose ring—set down two shot glasses and a plate of lime wedges. Beau pushed one toward me.
“I’m not doing shots with you, Thatcher.”
“Why not? Afraid you can’t keep up?”
And there it was—that competitive edge, that challenge in his eyes that bypassed every rational thought in my brain and went straight to some primal part of me that refused to back down.
“I can keep up just fine.”
“Prove it.”
I picked up the shot glass. “This is a terrible idea.”
“The best ideas usually are.” Beau raised his glass. “To new beginnings?”
“To surviving this merger without killing each other.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
We tossed back the shots in unison. The tequila burned going down—cheaper than what I’d order, but effective. I bit into the lime wedge, and when I looked up, Beau was watching me with an expression I couldn’t read.
“Another one?” he asked.
“You trying to get me drunk, Thatcher?”
“I’m trying to see if the great Mason Price knows how to have fun.”
“I know how to have fun.”
He was already ordering another round. “Come on. I bet I can drink you under the table.”
Every rational part of my brain was screaming at me to walk away. This was dangerous. We were colleagues. We’d spent the day together in increasingly intimate circumstances, and now we were at a gay bar doing shots, and nothing about this was a good idea.
But the tequila was warm in my stomach, and Beau was looking at me like I was a puzzle worth solving, and I was so tired of being careful.
“You’re on,” I said.
Two shots became four. Four became six. Somewhere around shot number five, we migrated from the bar to a small table in the corner, away from the worst of the crowd.
Beau was telling me a story about a case he’d worked in San Francisco—something involving a tech CEO and a very creative interpretation of contract law—and I was actually laughing.
Not the polite laugh I used at networking events. A genuine laugh, the kind that came from my chest and made my face hurt.
“You’re different here,” Beau said, leaning back in his chair. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes bright. “Less...”
“Uptight?”
“I was going to say ‘controlled.’ But yeah, uptight works too.”
“Maybe I’m tired of being controlled.”
“So what are you doing about it?”
The question hung between us, loaded with subtext. Beau was watching me intently now, all traces of humor gone from his face.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“You are.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table, close enough that our knees brushed. “Why did you really come here tonight, Mason?”
“I told you. I needed a drink.”
“Bullshit. You could’ve had a drink at home. Or at any of the dozen other bars between here and your apartment.” His eyes searched mine. “Why here?”
Because I’m terrified of how much I want you and I thought meeting someone else might fix it.
“I don’t know,” I said instead.
“Liar.”
“What about you? Why are you here?”
“Same reason.” His voice dropped, rougher now. “I needed to forget about someone.”
My heart kicked against my ribs. “Did it work?”
“No.” He reached across the table, and his fingers brushed mine. Just barely. Just enough to send electricity shooting up my arm. “Not even a little.”