7. Chapter Seven
Chapter seven
R yder
I pulled my bike into the parking lot at Big O’s and parked next to Lucas’s and Cooper’s.
Max wouldn’t be here tonight. He didn’t come when we got together over the weekends because he reserved that time for Travis, so he only joined us on Thursdays.
Other than the guys, there was hardly anyone here yet, but in another hour or so, that would change.
Owen had created a great atmosphere with his bar, and he had a large group of regulars who were here every weekend.
When he first told me what he wanted to do here, I wasn’t sure it would work, but I’d liked the idea.
I’d never really been much of a club person, rather preferring a bar atmosphere.
But I’d never really fit in at most of the gay bars in town, and straight bars were a crapshoot.
You never knew how that was going to go.
Owen’s idea was to create a space where people would be comfortable stopping in after work and grabbing a beer no matter who they were.
No frills, no dress code, no fuss, and absolutely no homophobia tolerated.
It had a homie-dive-bar feel to it, and there was a loyal clientele made up of local men and women who wanted a friendly place to stop for a drink after a hard day’s work, and a place to hang out, play pool, and have a little fun on the weekends.
The familiar smell of beer and nachos greeted me as I walked in. Country music was blaring on the jukebox, and the few patrons who were already there seemed to be getting a head start on the weekend. I made my way to the end of the bar where Lucas and Cooper sat.
“Happy Friday, guys. We made it through another week,” I said.
“That we did,” Cooper said. “June is always such a crazy time for me. Not that I’m complaining about the work, heaven knows, but it’s like I go from nothing to can’t keep up overnight.”
“Yeah, you got all those rich people wanting their lawns to look perfect for their pool parties and summer soirees,” Lucas said.
“Speaking of soirees,” I said. “I was thinking about having a BBQ soon. You guys want to come?”
“Hell, yeah,” Cooper said. “I’m in as long as it’s not on the fourth. You know I’ll be beat from trying to get everything finished up for everyone right before.”
“I’m game,” Lucas said.
I hadn’t had the guys all over since I finished redoing the deck and added the patio to my house. “Yeah, I wasn’t thinking of that weekend. I wanted Desi, Angela, and my sister to come, and I know they’ll be busy.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Coop said. “How did your week go? Did you get the Ferguson’s sunroom finished in time?”
“I did. It was a pain in the ass, though. Desi had to drive to Waco to pick up the correct windows, and I had to hire some day labor to get everything done on time, but we made it.”
“Awesome,” Coop said, sticking his fist out for a fist-bump. “How about you, Lucas? Got any cool bikes you’re working on?”
“Yeah, right now I’m working on a restoration job.
It’s an awesome bike. A guy found it in an old barn on his grandparents’ property and asked them if he could have it.
He said his grandfather was like T hat old thing?
It was Uncle Henry’s, never knew why he insisted on keeping that piece of junk, but it’s your s if you want it . ”
“Okay, and what is it?” Owen asked, wandering over and joining our conversation. He loved bikes almost as much as Lucas did, and he never could resist a chance to talk about them.
“It’s a 1943 Indian Scout .”
“No way,” Owen said, reverently.
“Yes, way.” Lucas laughed. “You can come by and see if you want.”
“You know I will.”
“We still on for tomorrow?” Coop asked. Earlier in the week, Owen had suggested we take our bikes out this Saturday.
It was supposed to be a beautiful day with perfect weather for a ride.
We didn’t go out together all that often because it was hard to coordinate with our schedules, and this weekend was no exception.
“I don’t know. I really want to, but I shouldn’t after the window debacle and the rush to get that sunroom finished. I didn’t have a chance to do invoices this week. And if invoices don’t go out, I don’t get paid. So, I really should stay home and finish them,” I said.
“What you should do, like you’ve said before, is hire someone to take care of those invoices for you. You need to do it not only for your business, but for you. You need to have time off to do things you enjoy,” Coop said.
“I know you’re right, but it just seems like one more thing on a long list of things I don’t have time to worry about. It’s not like someone who could do all the things I need is just going to fall right into my lap,” I insisted.
It wasn’t like I didn’t know that what Coop was saying was true.
Like he said, I’d been saying it for months now.
But knowing it and figuring out how to make it work wasn’t the same.
I started to point that out when two guys walked into the bar, stopping my thoughts in their tracks.
Brennan. This was the last place I expected to see him.
I watched as Josh rushed over to greet them, like he knew them.
Which I guess made sense. He was probably around their age.
What are the odds that he’d wander in here of all places? Josh motioned them to a booth that sat on the far side of the room, and I watched as they walked over and took a seat.
I debated saying hello, but for all I knew, he was out on a date, and that would be…
well, my first thought was rude of me, but the truth was if he was, I didn’t want to know.
My cute little curly-headed blond had held a starring role in my spank bank for the last ten or so days, and I wasn’t in the mood to picture him in any way except on his back and naked in my bed.
“What about it, Ryder,” Lucas asked, pulling my attention back to the guys.
“About what?” I asked.
Lucas rolled his eyes. “I said why don’t we make it afternoon ride instead. That would give you a few hours tomorrow morning to work on your invoices, and we could still get in a ride. The day is going to be too pretty to waste.”
“Okay, yeah, worst case, I can work on the invoices on Sunday if I need to. But you’re right. I’d hate to waste this weather.”
Now that I had agreed to go riding, the guys went back to talking about something else, but I was only half listening as Cooper talked about some cute young pain in his ass that had moved into one of his customers’ houses.
My attention was on the two guys sitting on the far side of the room.
I was sitting off at the end of the bar with Cooper on one side and Lucas on the other, which blocked me from view, and he hadn’t seen me yet.
I felt like a stalker watching him and trying to figure out what the relationship was between him and the other guy.
“Hey, Ryder. You okay over there?” Coop asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You just seem a little bit distracted, and that isn’t like you.”
“Remember the guy I told y’all about? The one from the home improvement store?”
“The one with the, um, broken pipes?” Lucas asked, waggling his eyebrows.
“Yeah, that one,” I said, shaking my head at how ridiculous he looked. “He just walked in.” They both whipped their heads around to look. “Ugh, guys. Come on, don’t look.”
“Where?” Lucas said. “I don’t know which one.”
“Y’all are as bad as a bunch of gossipy old women. It’s the blond with blue shirt sitting in the booth to the left.”
“He’s cute,” Cooper said.
“Love those curls,” Lucas said. “Who’s the guy he’s with?”
“I have no idea. Could be a date for all I know.”
“Ahh, and that explains the distraction. You don’t like that much, do you?” Cooper asked.
“How I feel about it doesn’t matter. It was a onetime hook-up, nothing more,” I insisted, nodding a thanks at Josh when he sat another beer in front of me.
“Hey, Josh,” Lucas said before Josh walked away. “Who are the two guys over near the jukebox?”
“The young guys?” he asked, and Lucas nodded. “That’s my friend, Keegan, and his roommate, Brennan.”
So that was Keegan, the roommate, then. Not that it mattered. Brennan had been nothing but a distraction from a seriously shit day. Who he was here with didn’t have a thing to do with me, and I was not relieved. I wasn’t.
“Keegan’s hoping to convince Brennan to talk to Owen about a job, so they came in to check it out.”
“A job here?” I asked. “Why? He has a degree in business management. He shouldn’t be tending bar.”
“Oh,” Josh said. “You know him?”
“We’ve met.”
“He has a business management degree?” Lucas said. “And here you were saying the answer to your problem wouldn’t just fall in your lap.”
I stared at Lucas for a second, thinking about what he said.
Was Brennan the answer to my problem? I needed someone who could answer phones and do invoices, and he needed a job.
This was probably a very bad plan, but the idea of him working in a bar, even one like Big O’s, didn’t sit well for me.
He was pretty, and he was sweet. That would be like catnip for some of the gay men who came in here, and that didn’t make me happy at all.