Chapter Nine #2
He went straight home afterward and marched his ass into the shower, where he went through his full primping routine before giving himself a pep talk in the mirror.
“This is just a temporary setback. You are hot.” He smoothed moisturizer onto his face and neck.
“You are rich.” A quick but deft application of sixty-dollar mousse to his hair.
He reached for the blow dryer. “And you really need to get laid and get it out of your system.”
Still, he only had the energy for so much effort.
He squeezed into an exorbitantly priced and very flattering pair of jeans, paired them with a black polo shot through with silver thread, and grabbed his fall jacket from the hall closet.
He needed to get laid, but he didn’t need to get fancy about it.
He didn’t have the drive to go clubbing, but he knew his neighborhood. The bar down the street would do fine.
It wasn’t even ten when he arrived, but the bar was full—always a good sign. Aubrey ordered his usual from the bartender, slid onto one of the last available stools, and glanced around to get his bearings.
Everyone else seemed glued to the television screens, which were all playing the same show.
Aubrey ransacked his brain, trying to come up with the name.
Love Vote or something like that? Some sort of train-wreck-like mashup of Survivor and The Bachelor, with too many barely clothed straight people and not enough brain cells.
The bartender deposited Aubrey’s beer, and Aubrey caught his eye with a tilt of his head. “What’s up with the screen zombies?”
The bartender rolled his eyes. “It’s bingo night.”
Before Aubrey could fathom a response, the TV program went to commercial. Someone yelled, “Artificially cutting off a sentence to manufacture suspense!” and three other people yelled, “Bingo!”
Aubrey tore his eyes from the screen and realized that nearly everyone had a piece of paper in front of them. He looked back at the bartender. “I want you to know that a piece of me just died.”
“You want a shot to numb the pain?”
Aubrey laughed. “Yeah, sure.” Why not.
If everyone here was too busy playing bingo to notice Aubrey was hot and looking for company, his chances of getting laid had just gone out the window. But maybe someone here had gotten dragged along and wasn’t in it for bad reality-TV bingo on a Friday night. He just had to find the right target.
Aubrey took the shot.
A couple guys didn’t seem to have bingo cards, so there was some hope. Though if they were anything like Aubrey, they might give up and leave if bingo went on for long enough.
“Show’s over at ten,” the bartender told him.
All right. Aubrey could wait that long. Meanwhile he nursed his beer, watching the patrons for people who weren’t watching the TV. Wedding band, wedding band, terminal heterosexuality… hm. That one had potential.
Aubrey couldn’t see much. The guy was standing at a high top on the other side of the room.
The woman next to him was blocking his face, but he was standing in a classic “come and get it” pose, elbows on the table, ass out.
It was a good ass too, high and round and interestingly not marred with any kind of underwear line.
Jeans that tight, there was a better than average chance the guy was into men. Target acquired.
Now Aubrey just needed to choose his moment.
The show came back on, and the majority of the patrons returned their attention to the screens, leaving Aubrey’s path to Maximus Gluteus clear. Unfortunately for Aubrey, before he could make his move, Mr. World Squats Champion 2019 left his table and went to the restroom.
Well, fine. Aubrey could intercept, but he didn’t want to be creepy. He gave it sixty seconds and then gave pursuit.
Aubrey lived in a nice neighborhood. The bar was likewise a nice establishment. Even the bathroom had mood lightning.
Captain America’s butt double was the only other person in the room, and he was washing his hands, which was a nice affirmation of Aubrey’s choices.
He had his head ducked, so Aubrey still couldn’t see his face, but the rest of him was nice—broad shoulders showed off under a lavender cotton T-shirt that clung lovingly to every muscle.
And there were many. Aubrey helped himself to an eyeful, leaning back against the door in a way he knew would show himself off just as well.
“Not into the whole bingo theme, eh?”
The guy’s head came up.
Oh shit, Aubrey knew that haircut.
“Don’t tell me you’re here for Love Vote.”
“To tell you the truth, I was looking for something a little more temporary.”
Nate raised his eyebrows. “This place is kind of low-key for you, isn’t it?”
Aubrey felt judged. “I can’t do Lycra and glitter and thirty-dollar cocktails every night.” The conversation was getting away from him. “What are you doing here?”
Nate’s brows went up farther and he looked down at himself, expression pointed. Aubrey could see his nipples. Yeah, it was a stupid question. “Picking the wrong night to try this whole hookup thing, apparently.”
On the other hand, this gave Aubrey the opportunity to ask a question that had been nagging at him all week. “I take it things didn’t go well with Kelly’s cousin.”
Nate’s face shuttered like a seaside villa in a hurricane. “He’s an anesthetist who’s very good at his job.”
Yikes. “My condolences,” Aubrey said, torn. On the one hand, maybe that guy’s loss would be his gain. On the other hand, Aubrey had enough feelings already, and getting them more tangled up in his cohost seemed like a bad idea.
Aubrey only had two hands, so it would’ve been a tie, but when his dick weighed in, the balance tipped pretty obviously in one direction.
“So I was thinking,” he started, just as Nate said, “Do you want to get out of here?”
They both stopped. A flush was creeping up Nate’s cheeks. He flexed his fingers as though he was trying not to fidget.
Aubrey shoved his hands in his pockets to quell the same impulse. This was stupid. He was smooth, God damn it. He didn’t fidget. He didn’t stammer. He did not have trouble getting hot men to go home with him for sex.
Before he could think of what to say next, Nate raised his arm and rubbed at the back of his neck.
Aubrey followed the movement with his eyes, tracing the underside of Nate’s arm, the way the fabric pulled against his chest. “I mean,” Nate said, “we obviously came here with the same thing in mind. I know hooking up with someone you’ve already had sex with is sort of the opposite of the point, but on the other hand, that’s twenty minutes I don’t have to spend pretending to give a fuck about some spray-tanned brats in an ugly house. ”
Fuck it. If this was all Aubrey was going to get, he was going to take it with both hands and be grateful. “You had me at ‘Do you want to get out of here,’” he said. “Let me pay my tab.”