Freddie
Luckily, I’d left my rucksack in the car from the night I turned up uninvited to Liam and Ryker’s place. I didn’t plan to end up in a bar, but with my rucksack stuffed with essentials and my wallet filled with cash for a hotel room, it’s where I’ve ended up.
The Fox and Hound.
It’s a favourite of Ryker’s, who values toilet stalls over prices.
According to him the cubicles are particularly sturdy and provide an acoustic echo of his name.
On more than one occasion, I’ve heard his name being shrieked from a stall while entering the bathroom to use it for its intended purpose.
The bar is next to Achilles, the one and only gay nightclub in town.
I buy one beer, then sit hunched over at the bar, wanting to be left alone. My solitude lasts for ten minutes before a woman approaches. She introduces herself, and I shake her hand before offering to buy her a drink.
I realise while ordering her a beer that I hadn’t caught her name, but I have a gut feeling it begins with an A. I don’t ask for it again. One flash of my thick wallet and Amy, Abby, or possibly Annie, slams herself down on the stool beside me.
I tell her I’m not a talker, and she replies she could talk enough for the both of us.
God is she right.
The droning chatter helps me zone out, though, and it stops me replaying the moment I stepped into the bedroom over and over.
Amy, Abby, Annie, whatever, is pretty with straight, platinum-blonde hair, red lips, and smoky eyes.
The dress she wears is figure hugging, and every inch of the black fabric refuses to let go of her curves.
I catch the envious glance from a man at the opposite end of the bar as I sip my beer, and I think, why not?
If she wants to come back to whatever hotel I find for the night, I’ll let her.
She might take my mind off everything.
I stiffen when she leans in to deliver a kiss to my cheek. It leaves a sticky residue.
“What was that for?”
She winks. “To cheer you up. There are plenty available if you want more.”
I don’t miss her quick glance at my wallet on the bar. She obviously thinks I’m super successful from the wad of money in my wallet, and I have no desire to reveal that isn’t the case.
She’ll find out later when we arrive at the budget hotel.
It’ll be the kind of place where cash is better to use than card, to prevent scammers draining your bank account.
Amy can decide then whether she wants to go through with sleeping with me or not, but for now I bask in her intense eye contact and the whiff of her sweet perfume every time she plays with her hair.
And that’s when Ryker comes into the bar with his latest conquest in tow—a pretty redhead with freckles across his nose and cheeks.
The guy is a full foot shorter, and he gazes up at Ryker like he’s the moon and the stars.
His fingers are linked with Ryker’s on his shoulder, securing Ryker’s arm across the back of his neck, and I spy a possessive grip from him and a relaxed one from Ryker.
“Do you know them?” she asks.
I shake my head.
Please don’t see me.
But of course, Ryker does, and he swaggers over with his arm draped across the man’s shoulders, cocky smile intact but a frown marring his brow.
His eyes ask questions I refuse to answer, and I break our stare to take a of swig of beer.
I’ve been sitting here so long that the bottle has been warmed by my palm.
Without the cold all I taste is the bitterness.
“Freddie?”
Ryker says my name like he’s not sure, like I might not be who he thinks I am.
His arm slips from his companion’s shoulders and falls back to his side.
The pretty redhead lifts his eyebrows at the retreat of Ryker’s arm.
He glances at his shoulder as if there’s a sudden chill without him and claws at his skin.
Poor guy. He’d been picked for the night, but Ryker’s changing his priorities when faced with me slumped over a bar with a lipstick mark on my cheek.
It’s a shame he couldn’t change them days, weeks, or months ago when I still needed him.
“We were just leaving,” I say, then finish the rest of my bottle with a grimace. Amy—she looks more like an Amy—slips off her bar stool and hits Ryker with a dazzling smile. Her mouth smeared when she kissed me, blurring her carefully applied lipliner.
I hope Ryker notices.
“Have a fun night.” She winks playfully.
Ryker stares at her, then back to me. His cocky smile vanishes, and he looks like Liam. He stands like Liam, no longer loose and carefree, but stiff and watchful.
I gesture with a dismissive flick of my hand for him to move aside.
“I don’t fucking think so,” Ryker says as he steps closer. The redhead eyes the distance between them with panic on his face.
Ryker doesn’t notice, but I do.
Everyone wants a piece of him.
“You do know he has a fiancée, right?”
Ryker’s tone reeks of judgment, but he has no right to judge. He brags about the number of taken men he’s seduced. Husbands, fiancés, boyfriends. He doesn’t care about the aftermath, it’s all about the fucking.
But he wants to stop me from doing what he prides himself on.
Hypocrite.
It’s what Amy wants too, although my perceived wealth might be part of her motivation. But the point is, we’re two consenting adults, and what we do or don’t get up to is none of Ryker’s concern.
I could tell him now, tell him I’m no longer taken, that Keegan and I are done, but I don’t owe him an explanation.
Amy smirks in a way I’ve seen Ryker do countless times. She wraps a strand of her hair around her finger and shrugs. “Her loss.”
Ryker scoffs as he shakes his head and turns his attention back to me. There’s that look again, like he doesn’t recognise me, like this might be a case of mistaken identity.
He has a twin, and I have a doppelg?nger.
I take the initiative, gesturing for the redhead to step closer.
He does, and he’s level with Ryker again.
Ryker glances down at his hand as I take hold of his wrist, then I’m lifting his dead-weight arm, pulling and tugging, and knocking the side of his companion’s head with it until he gets my intention and bends his neck to receive the honour of Ryker’s appendage.
It’s not the appendage he wants, but it’s a start.
I place Ryker’s hand on the man’s shoulder and give it a patronising pat. Redhead’s hand shoots up to hold and align their fingers. They’re in the same position as when they first noticed me.
Normality can resume.
“There,” I say, but when I release Ryker’s wrist, his arm falls.
The expression Ryker hits me with looks at home on his brother’s face but alien on his.
It’s murderous.
Then it’s gone and Ryker is back. He turns to Amy, and his friendly, flirty demeanour shines through. I tense, unsure what he’s planning. He’s a gay man, surely he’s not considering seducing Amy to cockblock me, but his lazy smile has the predictable effect.
Amy returns the look, and her cheeks turn pink under his gaze.
I hate that he can do that, fluster people with a smile.
I hate that she unconsciously leans towards him and pushes out her chest to showcase how the fabric stretches across her breasts.
It’s sheer at the bust, teasing the outline of the black bra beneath.
“One more for the road?” Ryker says, and that’s his play, to keep me here longer.
I begin to shake my head, but Amy is lost in Ryker’s deep brown eyes. She nods as I shake, and Ryker doesn’t spare me a glance as he steps up to the bar. The redhead stands awkwardly on his own, eyeing Ryker’s back, lost and confused.
I feel for him.
He thought his tongue would be in Ryker’s mouth by now.
I offer him an olive branch, because it’s the least I can do considering I’ve interrupted him being fucked in the toilets. The whole time I’ve not heard him speak, and I wonder what voice will be screaming out Ryker’s name and making it echo.
“I’m Freddie,” I say. He probably knew that, considering Ryker said my name, but I tell him anyway.
“Nathaniel,” comes the agitated reply, and he doesn’t even look at me. He licks his lips with his gaze fixed on Ryker.
Any pity I feel for him evaporates.
“Nathaniel,” I repeat. I turn my body towards Ryker so we’re both facing his back. “I don’t think he’s had a Nathaniel before . . .”
Ryker stiffens. If he turns, I know he’ll look more like Liam again. I know he’s glaring at the bottles on the other side of the bar. The satisfaction at irritating him makes my heart thud hard in my chest.
Good. Fucking good.
Ryker orders at the bar, then turns around with a beer in his hand. He makes a move like he intends to pass it to me, before smirking and offering it to Nathaniel.
I glare at him.
“I think you’ve had enough for the night.”
Ryker couldn’t be more wrong. I’ve had one. One unsatisfying drink, which hasn’t taken the edge off anything and was interrupted by his arrival.
Nathaniel takes the beer like he’s handling something sacred, wide-eyed and smiling. His smile grows when he looks at me, absent an offering from the god in front of us.
Amy slides back onto her stool and twists to face us while sipping the mojito Ryker bought her.
I’d wager there’s more green foliage in the glass than rum.
“So . . .” Ryker says. He’s looking expectantly at Amy, and she gives him what he wants.
“Alice.”
And damn, I really thought she looked like an Amy. At least I heard the first letter right.
“Alice.” Ryker nods to himself. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”
I inwardly cringe. Amy—no, Alice. Alice, Alice, Alice loves to talk, and Ryker, Ryker, Ryker loves to charm, and any chance of her quickly finishing her mojito vanishes.
She’s not going to take a sip for at least twenty minutes, and she stirs her straw in the glass, spinning the ice.
It’ll be gone by the time she drinks, and the flavour will no longer be balanced and refreshing.
Watered down and weak, and that’s exactly what Ryker is doing to Alice’s and my lust for each other.
He’s killing it.