Chapter 4 #2
“Exactly,” Ren said with a sharp nod. “But you? You want more. And you want Sean to want more, too. Best way to go about changing his mind? Get naked with him.”
“I’m really not sure that’s true,” Gabriel said. Ren was smart, and he was good at this, but he’d never tried to get someone to fall for him ever. In fact, he was unapologetic about the fact that he actively tried to do the opposite.
“Then don’t listen to me,” Ren said, throwing up his hands. “Keep arguing with him. Keep bickering and insulting him, that’s definitely worked so well for you over the last two years.”
“Hey, it got me a kiss. More than one kiss, even,” Gabriel said.
Ren rolled his eyes. “We could call that an accident of chemistry. You want something, you actually have to do something. In this case, it’s get naked, which really considering how attractive Sean is, shouldn’t exactly be a hardship.”
“It wouldn’t be,” Gabriel said. Just thinking about it made him tingle all over. “But should I really . . . lie about what I want?”
“You’re gonna have to decide if you want to play fair and get nothing, or play unfair and get everything. For me, not a decision. But then I’m brutally, bluntly honest with every single hookup. You’re gonna have to decide what’s right here, for you, and for Sean.”
“Right,” Gabriel said uncertainly. It felt wrong for him, especially after Sean had been so honest about his husband, to enter into a sexual arrangement, and hide his true intentions. Even if Sean eventually fell for him, would it make it right? Gabriel didn’t know.
He was going to have to think about it more. Figure out a way to resist if Sean showed up and tried to convince him again.
For better or for worse, Gabriel didn’t have to wait very long to see how Sean was going to react.
It was a slow lunch day, and an even slower afternoon.
Days like today, when they could take as many long breaks as they wanted, lounging in the sunshine and catching up on their reading or their podcasts, made up for the weekend days when even having an extra person didn’t make the endless lines any less crazy.
Ren was sitting on the picnic table just outside the food truck, browsing something on his phone. His shirt was off, and he was working on his tan. Between infrequent customers, Gabriel had amused himself by observing all the visitors to the lot do a double take at the sight of him.
Maybe Gabriel should go to the gym with Ren and Lucas more. If he took his shirt off, he definitely wouldn’t be getting that many admiring looks.
He was thinking of sending Lucas a text about when his training hours were, when a figure approaching out of the corner caught all his attention.
It was Sean. At first, Gabriel was sure that he’d come over to talk to him, but he didn’t spare even a single glance for Gabe, up in the truck, clearly outlined in the big window.
Instead, he’d stopped by Ren, and Gabriel had expected Sean to say a few words and move on.
He wasn’t . . . moving on, that was. He was standing there, laughing with Ren like Ren had been his primary objective the whole time.
And that was . . . Gabriel couldn’t handle that.
Before he’d not really ever considered Ren a threat when it came to Sean, but now that Gabriel knew that he was only looking for sex? And his cousin was rather infamous for only providing sex?
It was a terrible, rather perfect combination, and Gabriel felt a chill right down his spine at the thought that Sean had figured that out. That he’d try to replace Gabriel with his cousin.
Gabriel didn’t even remember yanking his apron off and running down the back stairs of the truck but he felt his feet hit the ground and that was when he realized he could hear them.
“So you go twice a week, then?” Sean said, and yeah, Gabriel thought with anguish, that was undeniably admiration in his voice. For Ren’s undeniably gorgeous physique.
Gabriel felt like throwing up.
“Sometimes three times,” Ren said, and yeah, Gabriel would have to be deaf not to hear the flirtatious edge to Ren’s voice. That was the same tone he used every single time he was setting up for a hookup.
He wouldn’t do that to Gabriel. Would he?
Gabriel didn’t want to discover the hard way that he might.
“Wow. Well, I can definitely tell,” Sean sounded very impressed. Gabriel rolled his eyes. He considered walking around the truck and interrupting them, but . . . he also felt stuck in place. Mesmerized by the horrible possibilities blooming right in front of him.
So instead, he kept listening.
“Maybe I could stop by sometime,” Sean continued. “Get you to help me out.”
It truly was bad enough that Ren was considering doing this at all. It was even worse that Sean was initiating it.
“Oh, maybe. I usually go on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays,” Ren said very casually and normally, Gabriel might not feel a surge of righteous indignation—but he knew exactly what Ren was doing.
This was what he did. And he’d clearly decided that if Gabriel wasn’t going to take Sean up on his very obvious offer, then he might as well.
But that was not okay, Gabriel decided in a huff. Ren knew how he felt! He had feelings, and even though Ren might think that was silly, they still mattered.
He marched right out from behind the truck and over to where they were sitting.
All cozied up together on the picnic table.
Ren still had his shirt off and he looked tan, and if he hadn’t been Gabriel’s cousin and he also hadn’t hated every molecule in his body right now, he might have been tempted too.
It was more than a person could goddamn bear.
“What are you doing?” he asked, glaring at both of them, and refusing to specify who the question was actually for.
“I’m sorry, were we bothering you?” Ren asked in a silky tone. “I thought you were up in the truck, keeping yourself busy.”
“Well, I was,” Gabriel said, “but I couldn’t help but hear your little . . . conversation.”
“Oh, you were eavesdropping,” Sean said. He shot Ren a look. “Don’t you ever get really, really tired of his bullshit?”
“All the time,” Ren said airily. Gabriel had a sudden realization that his cousin was actually . . . enjoying this. Anger surged inside him again.
“That explains it, then,” Sean said.
“Explains what?” Gabriel demanded to know between clenched teeth. If he’d thought this situation was unfair before, finding Ren flirting, shirtless, with Sean, was on a whole new level.
“Explains why Ren is so cool,” Sean said. “He’s got to balance you out, man.”
Gabriel was half a breath away from retorting that his general Gabriel-ness had not bothered Sean last night, when he’d propositioned him, or the night before that, when he’d kissed him. Twice.
“Ren is not . . .” Gabriel felt his temper begin to short-circuit.
“Right, of course not. Ren’s not anything,” Sean said, unconvincingly. “I was just asking how he got so ripped. Wondered what gym he went to.”
Gabriel’s temper frayed the rest of the way. “And I’m sure he wasn’t out here so you’d come by and coo over his muscles either.”
Ren shot him a look. “I’m working on my tan. You know that.”
“Yeah,” Gabriel said. “You’re working on something, that’s for fucking sure. When you’re done ‘working’ on that, maybe you could get your ass back in the truck and actually do something I pay you for.”
“You’re being an asshole,” Ren said in precise, careful words. “But alright. I guess my break’s over.” He turned to Sean. “Sorry about that. But then you know how he is.”
“That I do.” Sean shot Ren a blindingly beautiful smile. Gabriel realized with a sinking, pathetic heart, that Sean had never looked at him like that.
What was he even doing? He wasn’t going to win the guy over with gruff words and accusations and arguments.
He’d learned that much over the last two years.
But he couldn’t seem to help it. He saw Sean and he saw red—but also green and blue and purple and a whole rainbow of colors.
He saw a future. But Sean? All he saw was that annoying asshole he wouldn’t mind fucking.
It was enough to bring a grown man to his goddamn knees. Enough to make a guy cry.
Sean turned to go, and Gabriel realized, not only had he handled that in completely the wrong way, he was everything that Ren claimed he was. He was the King of Feelings.
How did someone like that fuck with no feelings? He didn’t know—but he should at least try, shouldn’t he? Or could he give Sean up, to Ren, and then to the unknown guy who would win him over? Convince him that there was love and life and happiness after pain?
“Hey, wait,” Gabriel said, getting his voice back. “Don’t . . . I’m sorry.”
Sean turned, a wry expression on his face. “What are you sorry for?”
What was he sorry for? God, a whole laundry list of things. So many it was impossible to get into now.
But mostly, right at this moment, he was sorry for wanting to be a caveman, and wanting to throw Sean over his shoulder and cart him back to his food truck for a lot of hot, messy sex.
And then after, cuddling and hopefully sharing all their feelings.
“I’m sorry I was a jerk.” That seemed like a better option than the caveman idea.
“You should apologize to your cousin, too,” Sean said reproachfully.
“Why?” Gabriel said. “We express our love through insults.”
“Maybe everyone isn’t like you,” Sean said.
“Well, that’s a pity,” Gabriel said.
Sean rolled his eyes. “Actually, it’s not.”
“That’s not what you were saying the other night,” Gabriel said, lowering his voice. “Because I remember that too. I can’t forget about it.”
“You said you weren’t interested in . . . what was it? Fucking away the memory of my dead husband.”
Ouch, he had said that. Definitely not his best moment.
"So, I thought that maybe your cousin might be,” Sean said.
“He’s not,” Gabriel said, even though he worried that Ren might. Normally, knowing Ren, he’d have been all over it, but considering Gabe’s feelings, he sure hoped that Ren wasn’t interested.
Or if he was, that he hid it well.
“You seem pretty sure about that,” Sean said, smiling. “Maybe you didn’t see him flirting with me just now.”
“Ren flirts with anything with a pulse. I once saw him wink at a labradoodle.”
“You don’t want me, so I’m not sure why you care,” Sean said casually.
The problem was, Gabriel could think of a million ways to prove to Sean that he wanted him a whole hell of a lot more than Ren possibly could, but none of those ways were casual.
“I . . .” Gabriel stuttered. He couldn’t bring himself to say, no, I do, and I’m willing to do it any way you want it.
Maybe because the future felt so full of unknowns.
If they got in deeper, if Gabriel gave him exactly what he wanted, he’d want to give him everything.
And he was not sure Sean was even interested in any of it.
“That’s what I thought,” Sean said, and turned and walked away.
Gabriel watched him go, and wished he was not quite so familiar with Sean’s back—or his ass in those cute denim cutoffs. Or that he wasn’t so goddamned hot in them Gabriel wanted to melt through the floor.
“Wow, you really suck at this.”
Gabriel turned and groaned. Ren was standing there, leaning against the side of the truck, a knowing grin on his face.
“I do not,” Gabe grumbled, even though he was willing to accept Ren’s assessment. After all, he’d just let Sean walk away again. How many times could that happen before Sean stopped showing up?
He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.
“Take him up on it, before I do,” Ren said.
“You wouldn’t,” Gabriel said, as he stomped to the back stairs and climbed into the truck. Surely there was something he could do, could put his hands on, so he wouldn’t go insane with boredom and frustration.
“I don’t know,” Ren said, following behind him. “I might. The guy’s practically gagging for it.”
Ren didn’t know because Sean wouldn’t have told him. He couldn’t have any idea that Sean had spent the last four and a half years being celibate. By this point, he probably was gagging for it.
“I’m just saying,” Ren continued, because the guy never knew when to shut up, even if it was good for him, “if you don’t do it, I will. It’d practically be a public service at this point.”
“It would be a public fucking service if you quit talking about it,” Gabriel grumbled.
“Fine, fine,” Ren said. “But at some point, he’s gonna meet someone who isn’t as nice and charitable as I am. And you’re going to lose him.”
“Let’s prep for tomorrow,” Gabriel said, pulling a bag of onions out of one of their storage bins. “It’s slow, and we can get a head start, and maybe even sleep in.”
“Message received,” Ren said. “You don’t want to talk about it.”
He didn’t. He didn’t want to think about it either.
Sean with another guy . . . it was just wrong.
It felt wrong. But at the same time, calling whatever they had between them just sex felt wrong, too.
Like Gabe had already accepted that he could never live up to the man that Sean had loved and lost.
Maybe he couldn’t. But a Moretti never gave up without a fight.