Chapter 13
Nate
“What’s got your panties in a bunch?”
Nate looks up from his black coffee. He’s been holding it for so long, it has gone cold. “Huh? Nothing.”
Sheryl peers at him from across the desk in the little staff room they have at the station. “Something has made you upset. Spill it.”
Nate is tempted to, but it’s not like he can share what has been happening.
For once, it’s nobody’s business that he has temporarily lost Will Thomas, and second, he can’t let Sheryl know anything about what is happening with Owen and that undercover job.
So no, he can’t spill anything about what is going on in his life.
Like always, he’ll figure it out on his own.
“I’m fine. Didn’t sleep much because of the crickets outside my window.”
“You tried shooting them?”
He smirks. “Maybe tonight.” He sips from his cold coffee, enjoying the bitterness. “How’s it going with Owen?”
She leans back and lets out a long sigh. “He’s met someone.”
Nate’s hand tightens around the coffee mug. “Oh?”
“Spent the night with him.”
Nate puts the mug on the table, trying to keep himself calm. “If he met someone around town, you know what it means…”
She shakes her head, giving him a warning look. “Don’t go there. He said this man was from out of town.”
“Oh, cool. You know how they met?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know how gay people meet. Maybe there’s a fairy out there who takes care of that.”
“Either way, you better keep an eye on him.”
“Why? He’s a grown-ass man, and he’s a good kid.”
“You just said he was a man.”
“You know what I mean. He put together a book club, for fuck’s sake—I don’t need to worry about him.”
We’ll see about that.
Nate knows he was too rough during his meetings with Will.
He should have been smarter and not pushed the man so far and so fast. But he also knows that Owen’s appearance in town has had a hand in making Will abruptly stop their arrangement.
Nate can’t accept it, not after tasting victory for such a short and sweet time.
Sheryl goes to start her shift, leaving Nate to finish his cold coffee in peace. He takes his final sip when the sheriff walks in. “Good morning,” he grumbles and goes to make himself coffee, grabbing a bagel from the box on the counter. “How’s it going with you-know-what?”
“You mean Owen?”
The sheriff gives him a look. Sheryl might not be here, but there are two other police officers at the front.
“He’s been there twice. It’s going well.”
“Just twice? Did they mention any names?”
“Nah, not yet.”
“I’m getting heat wherever I go, Nate. I need names, or I’ll have to arrest those two in Eminence and start to squeeze.”
“You’re likely to get the same from them as you got from the ones we arrested a few months ago. How long will it take for others to replace them? An hour?”
The sheriff grumbles into his coffee. “We just need one name to make the domino pieces start to fall. I’ll try again to get the feds involved if I have to. Maybe this time they’ll actually send people to help.”
That would be very bad. Nate had told the mayor that things were getting out of hand, but the mayor didn’t take him seriously.
Even that arrogant man can’t possibly want to deal with the feds.
Nate hasn’t updated him about the undercover work, but he’ll have no choice if the sheriff keeps pressuring him.
“I’ll try to speed things up, but going too hard might risk Owen.”
The sheriff gives him a hard look. “You’ll do nothing to risk that boy, Nate. He’s doing us a favor, and I won’t have his aunt haunting me for the rest of my life.”
“Well, she’s gonna kill you rather quickly, so I wouldn’t worry about the rest of your life.”
“Shut up and get to work.”
“Yes, sir.”
He goes out on his patrol, but it’s a slow day.
He gives a few speeding tickets, which he hates since people should drive as fast as they want on these open roads.
There’s one domestic abuse call that gets interesting, allowing him to shout and threaten a loser who slapped his wife.
He knows that couple well by now, and the wife never files a complaint, so there’s not much he can do about that.
He stops for lunch in town, where he buys some pizza with a discount because he’s in uniform and some people still appreciate that.
As he walks back to his car, he notices Owen’s book club poster on one of the walls.
He walks over to the poster and pulls it from the wall when no one’s watching.
For some reason, Owen thought it would be smart to make each poster by hand, giving each one a slightly different look.
There are three repeating elements in all the posters: the details of the event, the library building, and Will Thomas.
He’s either a small character among others or the main one, looking hot even as a cartoon.
Nate grips the poster tight enough to tear it.
He hurries to throw it in the trash before anyone notices, telling himself there’s no point in keeping a poster for an event that already happened.
He wonders if it was a success, and against his better judgement, he hopes that it was; Owen worked hard on that silly thing, and despite everything, Nate doesn’t hate him—he just needs him out of the way.
That evening, Nate goes out to Rodie’s. He sits at his usual dark corner, keeping himself in the background while slowly sipping from his beer.
Unsurprisingly, Will arrives with Bradley.
Their usual table is occupied, so they go sit deeper inside, where Nate can still see them.
He stares intensely at the man who, until recently, was partially under his control.
It almost feels like a fever dream or a hallucination.
To think that Nate could ever get a man like that in his bed is downright absurd, but it did happen.
If they didn’t have that blowout a few days ago, Nate would have signaled Will to come over to sit with him.
He’d touch the man without anyone noticing, whispering nasty things he wouldn’t dare say to anyone else.
Someone walks past Nate’s peripheral vision, and of course it has to be Owen, heading straight to Will and Bradley’s table.
He tastes bile when he sees the way Will lights up like the Fourth of July at the sight of Owen.
While Bradley settles for a handshake—like a man should—Will stands up to hug Owen, though they keep it short.
Nate smirks into his beer when he notices Will glancing around nervously, as if he’s worried people might read too much into that hug.
He’s done a solid job keeping a low profile in the last few years, but people have good memories, and dealing with another gay couple isn’t something that will go down well.
Nate orders a burger. As he chews on the tender meat, he watches closely at every exchange between Will and Owen. He can’t tell what they’re saying, but they sure talk a lot.
Since Nate knows he can’t interrupt them like he did last time, he orders the check. He’s about to leave to drink himself to sleep at home when he notices Will and Owen getting up together.
Nate looks away, trying to make himself as small as possible.
When he thinks the coast is clear, he turns around to see that they have left.
He counts to ten before doing the same. The air outside is cold, and the parking lot is almost packed, but Will isn’t here with his truck.
Nate spots them walking on the sidewalk, heading down the path that leads to Will’s house.
Has Owen told his aunt he’s spending another night with his male friend from out of town?
Before he can stop to think, Nate begins to walk.
On this quiet evening in peaceful Van Buren, he feels like a predator.
He knows where they’re heading, so he gives them enough space to not raise their suspicion.
After almost ten minutes, they take a turn left, where they’ll climb on the dirt road leading to Will’s house.
Nate waits another minute before taking the same turn, in time to see Will and Owen enter the house at the end of the path. Lights come up inside, spilling through the two front windows.
Nate wonders if this is his cue to turn back, but his legs carry him forward.
He takes off his shoes when he’s close to the house, stepping on dirt and ruining his socks.
When he reaches the porch, he stops to listen.
They’ve put on music in the living room, a song Nate doesn’t recognize.
It’s a singer’s voice, playing a guitar.
It sounds intimate and not very polished, yet still beautiful. Hell, it sounds like Will!
Nate’s skin turns colder than the night’s air. Somehow, knowing that Will is now singing for Owen cuts him deeper than any other shit that happened between them.
Will’s voice is raspy and raw and plain sexy. I would’ve made him sing for me if I had known he could sound like that.
Nate has no doubt where these two are about to move to next.
He walks quietly toward the side of the one-story house, where the bedroom is.
He crouches and sits on the ground, the window close to his head.
Even if they open it fully—unlikely with the cold air outside—they shouldn’t notice him sitting so low.
A part of him thinks he’s seen enough and anything else from this point on will just hurt him more. But maybe he needs this pain to fuel his motivation to retake what was stolen from him.
He tenses at the sounds coming from the bedroom. Even with the window closed, he can hear their words.
“I’m going to repeat my previous claim,” Owen says. “You should never be allowed to wear pants.”
Nate growls, an image of Will’s muscular body floating in his mind.
“You’re going to get me into trouble with all that solicitation. Come here.”
Nate can hear their hungry kissing as they move around the room and come closer to the window.
“I love your skin,” Will says. “Maybe it’s you who should be walking around naked.”
“Well, it’s very common in Kansas City. Maybe you’ve been living in the wrong place all along.”
“Tell me about it.”
Silence follows that statement, and Nate can sense the tension in the air.
“I’m sorry,” Owen says. “I know this town is different for you than it is to me.”
“Nothing for you to be sorry for. Someday soon, I’ll share with you what happened between Joel and me, and that should make things clearer.”
Nate scowls, the wheels in his head spinning fast. There might be an opportunity for him to beat Will to the punch and tell Owen the version that most townsfolk believe happened. Owen can rack his head over which version to believe.
“Can I ask for something?” There’s hesitation in Owen’s voice, and Nate listens closely.
“Of course.”
“Can you fuck me?”
“You sure?”
“No, Will, I have so many doubts about you fucking me in every possible position.”
They kiss some more, and Nate reaches for his gun.
He holds it close to his face, inhaling the scent of metal.
It calms him down a bit, but it doesn’t last long.
Inside the bedroom, the springs in the mattress begin to creak.
They’re not fucking yet, but their foreplay is loud and involves a lot of rolling around.
Are they fully naked yet?
Are they holding each other’s cock? Deep-throating each other?
Nate holds tighter to the gun, finding himself rocking back and forth as he silently curses Will for moving on so quickly. They were never in a relationship, but they were in an arrangement, and isn’t that the same thing?
The minutes pass, and the only thing providing any sense of comfort is the gun in Nate’s hand, bolstered by the knowledge that he can easily get up, open the window, and shoot those two fuckers inside.
Unless someone walks around at the exact time on the nearby road, the gunshots shouldn’t be loud enough to draw attention.
But then what? He can’t fuck Will’s ghost.
Will isn’t loud during sex, but Owen sure is. When Will does make a sound, it is to tell Owen how amazing he feels.
Nate can’t take it anymore. He’s not going to shoot anyone, but he is going to have a peek.
As quietly as he can, he turns around and raises his head above the window edge.
The curtains are in his way, but there’s a gap between them which provides a good view of the bed.
He can’t see their faces, which likely means they can’t see him, but he can see Owen’s pale legs as Will lies on top of him.
He’s rocking his hips back and forth, his cock sliding in and out of Owen.
Nate’s cock presses painfully against his pants until he lets it out. He should go back home and stop torturing himself, but he ends up stroking his cock and ejaculating on the wall, his cum trickling down onto the ground.
Until he can once more make Will Thomas his own, this will have to do.