Chapter One
Two years later
Sean Cooper couldn’t quite believe that even though so much time had passed, he could still feel that goddamn meatball.
Before that moment, he’d been laboring under some kind of wild delusion that maybe he and the hot Italian guy could be friends.
He’d needed friends in LA—he’d been brand fucking new to the area, and lonely, and looking for friends.
But from the very beginning, it was clear that Gabe hadn’t been looking to be friends.
The tweets that Gabriel had sent that day had been the beginning of the end. But the end end of it? Definitely the meatball missile.
Technically, it hadn’t hurt. It’d stained his apron, of course, and he’d never been able to completely get the red shadow out of the stark white cotton.
But sometimes, when Sean came face to face with Gabe, like right now, when they sat across from each other at a table in their favorite bar, the Funky Cup, there were moments when he swore he could still feel it hitting him.
Time might have passed, and maybe he’d never changed his truck’s name, but neither had Gabriel, despite many threats to the contrary.
Even though they’d kind of uncomfortably settled into the same friend circle, and the same food truck lot, they were always more apt to argue about something than agree on it.
And that, Sean thought, sometimes felt more like habit than anything else.
Gabe argued because he liked to. And Sean argued back because by this point, it was sheer reflex.
Maybe he could’ve stopped it. Milo would’ve told him long ago that it was a waste of his time.
But then, Milo wasn’t around. Hadn’t been around for awhile now, and Sean had occasionally, especially in the last six months, found himself not really caring that Milo might not have liked what he was doing.
He’d long since stopped blaming Milo for leaving him.
The spot in his heart, the one that always belonged to his husband, still stung every once in awhile when he prodded it especially hard. But mostly, he was a little embarrassed to admit that, with a lot of goddamn therapy, he’d mostly gotten over Milo’s death.
Milo would always be a part of him, but he wasn’t around to be a part of Sean’s life anymore. Sean had to make his own life, now.
And for better or worse, that life now included Gabriel Moretti.
“I can’t believe that everyone’s still intact,” Tony muttered as he slid into the seat next to Sean. He pushed over a bottle of beer towards Sean, and another towards Gabe.
“Hey, there’s been no meatball-on-man violence for some time now,” Gabriel said. Boasted. Like it had been some feat of his self-control to not chuck any more meatballs in Sean’s direction.
Sean rolled his eyes. “He didn’t say anything stupid for . . . well, now we’re back at zero, but before that, he was up to almost twenty-four hours.”
Tony didn’t laugh, and Tony almost always found their antics humorous. The miniscule but insidious part of Sean that had worried for the last two years that his steadfast refusal to change his truck’s name would come back to haunt him began to get antsy.
He’d worried this might happen before they were both invited to the Food Truck Warriors lot down by the Coliseum football stadium. But that had gone through without a hitch. But now, there was some kind of look in Tony’s eye that Sean hadn’t seen since the very beginning.
Since Gabriel had chucked a meatball at him.
“I’m . . .” Tony cleared his throat. And couldn’t look at either of them. “I really hoped that it would never come to this, but I think . . . well, we think, actually, that it would be better for overall guest experience, if we didn’t have two trucks with the same name.”
“We?” Gabriel echoed Sean’s own thoughts, even the disbelief practically identical.
“Ryan and I, well, and Wyatt, too,” Tony said.
“So they sent you to play nice with us,” Gabriel bit off.
“I sent myself,” Tony’s voice was firm. “I thought it might be better coming from me, since I know we’re all friends here. I want to help you guys succeed. Just the same as I know you want the lot to succeed.”
Sean told himself to stay calm, even as he felt his heart begin to race. “Why now and not six months ago, when we all joined the collective?”
“It wasn’t a problem then. We didn’t think it’d be a problem.
But . . .” Tony winced. “It kind of is, guys, and I know you’re not blind to it.
There’s a lot of confusion, even though we’ve set you up on opposite sides.
We went through your Yelp reviews, and there’s a lot of cross-posting.
Lots of customers don’t understand that there are two On a Roll food trucks, and they don’t realize they’re both in LA, and they definitely don’t get that they’re both semi-permanently parked in the same lot. ”
Sean didn’t know what to say to that. Tony wasn’t wrong. But he also, more today than he had been two years ago, was absolutely determined not to give up his truck name to Gabriel.
Not just because it was Gabriel and he was kind of a smug asshole sometimes. But because Sean had made a promise to someone who deserved to have that promise honored.
“I’m not changing my name,” Gabriel announced. And god, he could be a smug asshole. Sean didn’t even feel a tiny pulse of guilt for thinking it.
“I’m here to talk about it with both of you,” Tony said gently. “You and Sean. It’s a decision you guys are going to have to discuss on your own. Maybe you’ll both need to learn to bend a little.”
“Bend a little?” Sean echoed. “How is that going to work? We can’t each have the name six months out of the year.”
“No,” Tony said. Hesitated. “But surely there’s something you two can work out.”
“And what,” Gabriel retorted, “you’re here to be our referee?”
Tony threw up his hands. “Hey, if you guys hadn’t proved on at least one occasion that you needed it, I’d be happy to walk away. More than happy, trust me.”
“Yeah,” Gabriel said. “I know Lucas is here, so trust me, as someone who has walked in on you two more than once, I understand you’d rather not be coaching us through it. And,” he continued, his voice turning thoughtful, “maybe you shouldn’t be.”
“What?” Tony sounded surprised. Like he’d expected more of a fight from Gabriel than from Sean. And truthfully, Sean was just as shocked. Yeah, he’d been pretty stubborn about the name thing—but he had reasons. Gabriel was just being stubborn about it because he could.
“Yeah,” Gabriel said. “Just . . .” He turned to Sean. “We can figure this shit out, right?”
Sean was not as easily convinced. “If this is just a ploy to get me one-on-one and away from Tony’s pacifying influence, you have to know by now that it’s not going to work.”
“It’s not. I swear . . . I just . . . it’s fucking embarrassing, okay?” Gabriel admitted. “We can’t even talk about this without Tony being afraid we’re going to lose our shit. Tony.”
“You’re the one who used me for target practice,” Sean reminded him.
“Hey,” Tony said a moment later. “I just got that.”
“Yeah, we know you got your shit together,” Gabriel said to Tony, “but maybe it’s time you let us take care of ours.”
“Well, I’ve been trying,” Tony said. Then glanced over at Sean. “What about you? Are you really with him on this?”
Sean wasn’t sure he believed Gabe either. Of course, after the meatball incident, they’d stopped arguing about the name. They’d argued about everything else, instead.
Had enough things changed in two years that they could find a solution to the problem that was satisfactory for both of them?
Sean didn’t really believe it, but otherwise what were they going to do?
Flip a coin? One moment everything would be fine, and then the next, Sean would be forced to give something up that he had zero intention of ever giving up.
It wasn’t like the name of his truck was his last tie to his husband.
It wasn’t. But it felt like the most important one.
This was what Milo had wanted for him. This was something they’d both worked for, before Milo had passed. Sean wasn’t going to let it go.
Maybe two years of discovering just how stubborn Sean was might be enough to convince Gabriel that it was time to give in. Not likely, but possible.
“I don’t see any other way we can do this,” Sean said.
“Okay,” Tony said uncertainly. He was clearly not convinced either, but while he was also their friend, he was also technically the owner of the ground they parked their food trucks on—an arrangement that over the last six months had made everyone a lot of money and brought tons of success.
Nobody wanted to leave. And while he’d not exactly said so, Sean had a feeling that this was a watershed moment.
One of them needed to change their name, or one of them was out.
Tony had known Gabriel first. Gabriel was still really well-known in the community. Sean had made a lot of inroads in the last two years, but if Tony had to pick someone, Sean was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be him.
He was better off negotiating with Gabriel, as awful as that idea was.
“Something needs to change by September first,” Tony said.
“That’s the first home game at the Coliseum,” he added, referring to the home football stadium of the University of Southern California—the lot was situated only a few blocks away from the stadium entrance, and they already knew on game days, they’d be overwhelmed.
“Alright,” Sean said. “We’ll figure something out.” That gave them a little over a month to either make a decision—or kill each other. Whichever came first.
Tony stood. “Good luck,” he said. “I’ll be around if you decide you need a referee.” And then he was gone, leaving the two of them alone.
Sean couldn’t remember a time they’d ever been alone. Their friends had probably gone out of their way to make sure of that. Not sure if anything would still be left standing if it was just the two of them.