Chapter 2 #2
Sean shot him one last scorching glare—Gabriel felt it down to his toes—and then finished storming off, like they’d never been interrupted by the hottest goddamn kiss he’d ever had in his whole life.
Gabriel wished he could leave it behind so easily, but he already knew he couldn’t.
Sean told himself that the next time he saw Gabriel, everything would be exactly the same as always.
The flirting that had happened inside the bar and the kissing that happened outside of it had been a random aberration brought on by his longtime celibacy and too much alcohol.
The next time he saw Gabriel, he would be just as annoyed as he usually was. Then Gabe would say something rude and infuriating, and Sean would hate him like he always had.
The good and bad news was that now that they’d both joined the lot, they saw each other nearly every day.
There would be no reprieve for Sean to mentally re-stuff Gabriel back into the same box he’d been in from the beginning.
Hopefully, Sean thought as he locked up his bicycle behind his truck and walked up to the back door, pulling his keys out of his pocket, Gabriel would make it easy on him by saying something particularly rude today.
That’d make it . . . not exactly easy . . . but, Sean decided, easier.
He unlocked the back door and walked up the single step to the interior of his truck. It was small, but it was cozy, and two years in, he still loved working here as much as he had the very first day.
This was everything he and Milo had wanted to build together; the dream just looked a little different after his death, but it was still the same dream. With the same name, Sean thought with pride as he pulled his favorite apron off the hook in the corner.
Buried beneath it was one other—was the very first apron he’d worn in this truck. The one that was permanently stained with a big red circle, thanks to Gabriel.
Sean fingered its starched cotton fabric, and nearly put it on instead. Maybe he couldn’t wear armor, but he could protect himself with the knowledge that Gabriel was not a good guy.
Maybe remind Gabriel too, while he was at it.
But his perfectionism wouldn’t allow him to wear something so obviously stained for customers, so he left it behind, pulling on the pristine white one instead.
He’d just begun his prep for the day, when he heard an all-too-familiar voice.
The day was already warm, so he’d opened up the big window that ran the length of the truck, and flipped the little mini fan on, hoping for some circulation. Which meant he couldn’t help but hear everything Gabriel said.
He was talking to Tony. Loudly. Of course, this was Gabriel, did he ever talk at a lower volume? He did last night, Sean’s uncooperative brain supplied. He was practically whispering sweet nothings in your ear.
“So, did you guys work it out?” Tony asked.
Gabriel looked right over, and his gaze caught Sean’s. He stared at him for a long moment, and then looked away. Aware now, though he probably had been before, that Sean was listening to every word he was saying.
“Not quite yet,” Gabriel said. “But I’m working on it.”
“You’re working on it?” Tony wondered. “What about Sean?”
Sean was rewarded a thousandfold for his eavesdropping when Gabriel’s face flushed bright red. “Oh, I mean, of course he is too,” he said, nearly stuttering. “He’s definitely . . . involved.”
Tony looked confused. “Okay, then,” he said. “Remember what I said.”
“I know, we’re going to figure this out,” Gabriel said, sounding like he was chock-full of confidence.
“Good.” Tony clapped him on the back, and Sean knew both of them well enough to know that Gabriel didn’t really think they could, and Tony hadn’t believed a word he’d just said.
Ugh.
Why had he let his cock get so carried away last night?
It had made something that was already difficult even tougher.
And that’s on you, Sean’s conscience reprimanded him. You did that.
Technically it had been Gabriel that had incited him, but Sean had been the one to kiss him. Twice.
If Sean could kick himself, he absolutely fucking would.
“So, you’re lying to Tony now, huh?” Sean asked, before he could stop himself. Stopping himself—something that apparently he couldn’t quite do anymore.
Gabriel glanced up at him through the open window. He took a few steps closer, and shrugged. “I told him what he wanted to hear. He didn’t want to hear that we kissed.”
His voice stuttered slightly over the last word of his sentence, and Sean felt the echo of it in his stomach. They’d kissed. And no matter what he might claim, he did want to do it again. He wanted to do it again, and he wanted even more.
“Actually, he might,” Sean said lightly, stepping out of the back of the truck and walking around to the front, until he was face to face with Gabe. “Those guys are practically a gossip factory.”
“Exactly,” Gabriel retorted. “That’s our business. Nobody else’s.”
And Sean realized, at the worst possible moment, that Gabriel wasn’t being just protective of himself, he was being protective of . . . him?
The knowledge knocked the wind right out of him.
It was difficult to convince himself that Gabriel was a bad man, when he didn’t act like a bad man.
“I agree,” Sean said, and hesitated. There was an apology tugging at him, deep down, annoying and persistent.
But he didn’t say it out loud, because he didn’t even know what he was sorry for.
For claiming that he’d seduce Gabriel into changing his mind?
For walking away so abruptly, twice? For wishing that Gabriel had followed him the second time?
None of those were apologies that would end well, so Sean did the only thing he could—he kept his mouth shut.
“I guess we still have to figure our shit out,” Gabriel said.
An understatement of the century.
“Well, you just told Tony that we would and . . .” Sean trailed off.
He’d been arguing for two years that nothing needed to change.
He and Gabriel could always share the name, right?
Never mind that they’d never done it particularly well.
But it wasn’t really affecting either of them.
Sales were good. Even when Tony had come to them last night, Sean had mostly thought it was bullshit.
But then after he’d walked home from the Funky Cup, angry and worked up in ways that he didn’t want to examine too closely, he hadn’t been able to fall sleep right away.
Finally, in desperation, he’d pulled out his phone and went to his truck’s Yelp page, which he tended to avoid, and then visited Gabriel’s as well. And just like Tony said, there was an undercurrent of frustration. A few reviews claiming confusion. More reviews posted on the wrong truck’s page.
He’d lain in bed and for the first time acknowledged that maybe it really was time.
Not for him to change the name, of course, but for them to figure something out.
“And?” Gabriel asked archly.
“And it’s time,” Sean said. “Don’t ever tell him I said it, but Tony is right.”
Gabriel shrugged. “We could always keep going like this.”
“No,” Sean said. “We need to do something.” It cost him something, to admit that. To reveal he’d not only been wrong, but that he’d been deliberately ignoring that wrongness for a really long time.
“Okay,” Gabriel said, but didn’t say anything else.
“Don’t you have any brilliant ideas?”
“Oh, I’m brilliant now?”
Sean rolled his eyes. “You weren’t brilliant last night, that’s for sure.”
“Yet,” Gabriel pointed out, “you still kissed me. Twice.”
He had. And goddamn it, he wanted to do it again.
Sean cut that thought off hard and fast. This negotiation didn’t need to be tainted by thoughts of everything he wanted and shouldn’t ever indulge in.
“That’s . . .” Sean cleared his throat. “That’s not what we’re talking about right now. You said it yourself, they’re not related. And they need to stay unrelated.”
“Fine,” Gabriel said. “Why don’t we start with your reason why you won’t change your name?”
“What?” Sean supposed he should have seen it coming. But he hadn’t, and the question hit him right in the solar plexus, stealing his breath.
Why had he ever thought that Gabriel would fight fair?
“You have a reason. I’m just a stubborn asshole,” Gabriel said with a wry smirk, “but you? You’ve got a reason you’re clinging to.”
The last of Milo, Sean thought, even though that wasn’t even remotely true. He had lots of pieces of Milo; he’d carry one of them in his heart, forever, no matter what his food truck was called. But old habits died hard.
“It’s none of your business,” Sean said. Even though he knew that was a lie. It kind of was Gabriel’s business. Not only because Milo was the reason that Sean wouldn’t address for refusing to budge, but also because, before last night, Milo had been the last person Sean had kissed.
“That’s not true, and you know it,” Gabriel said. “I can even see it on your face. You don’t even believe yourself.”
Sean had never wanted to be that guy with a dead husband, so when he’d moved to LA, to start fresh, and to start On a Roll, he’d deliberately never mentioned it to any of the guys who had become his friends. Milo was his, private and inviolate, and he had no intention of sharing now, or ever.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” Sean said stubbornly. “All that matters is that it’s none of your fucking business why I won’t change the name, just that I won’t. Not now. Not ever.”
“But you think Tony is right,” Gabriel stated with disbelief.
“Well, I would think the conclusion you could draw from that is pretty obvious,” Sean said.
Knowing he was being prickly, and not really caring.
He wished that he’d put the stained apron on this morning, if only because he knew Gabriel felt guilty about it, and reminding him of what he’d done might have given him an advantage.
“I don’t see why I’m the one who needs to give in,” Gabriel said.
“Because I have a reason and you’re just, as you so charmingly put it, a stubborn asshole.”
“Why are you allowed to keep secrets and I’m required to just give in because of a personality flaw?”
“It’s the secrets that really bother you, isn’t it?” Sean challenged.
“Well, yeah,” Gabriel said. “I had your tongue down my throat last night. I think I deserve a little fucking consideration.”
“Except you said that had nothing to do with changing the name on your truck,” Sean argued. “You even went out of your way to prove it, if I remember correctly.”
Gabriel glared at him, and this felt . . . well, not better, but at least more normal. Like always, like they hadn’t figured out last night that the heat between them was actually sexual.
It’s not, Sean told himself, you still really don’t like him. He threw a freaking meatball at you.
“So that’s it, then, I just have to change my name, no cooperation and no compromise from you? Just because you say so?”
Sean wasn’t normally an unreasonable person, but after being shoved between a rock and a hard place by his own stubbornness, what else was he supposed to say? No, I’m sorry, this is about something you’ll never understand. A love that transcends time and space and life and death.
He didn’t usually make a habit of saying nothing, but he kept his mouth shut again, and that made for the second time today.
“Yes,” Sean said.
Gabriel threw up his hands. “You are fucking unreasonable, you know? I’m trying here, and you’re just trying to tie me up in knots.”
He felt a pulse of guilt, but pushed it away. “There’s an easy way to untie yourself,” Sean said. “Give in.”
Gabriel actually glowered at him. “No way. Not like this. Not just because you want me to.”
“See, this is actually how I thought last night’s ‘discussion’ would go,” Sean said. He glanced down at his watch. “I’m sorry, I’ve actually got important stuff to do. More important than having a pointless argument with you, anyway.”
Gabriel opened his mouth, and then snapped it shut again. “Fine. Fine. But just so you know, I’m definitely not the only stubborn asshole here.”
As Sean watched him march off, temper rolling off him in nearly visible waves, Sean found that he couldn’t disagree. He was being both ridiculously stubborn and kind of an asshole.
He should go apologize. There was a part of him that knew he should. He should sit Gabriel down, even though the lunch crowd would show up in less than an hour, and explain all about Milo and the plans they’d made when they were still so young and naive and starry-eyed.
He should. But he didn’t.
Instead, he went back to his truck, and instead of starting the veggie prep like he needed to, he went straight to where the aprons were hung up, and grabbed the one with the stain, the one that Gabriel had branded, two years before.
Sean could still feel the weight of that stupid meatball, smacking him right in the chest. And maybe it didn’t excuse every shitty thing he’d done and said to Gabriel in the past, but it sure made it easier to ignore them.