Prologue #2
Somehow, impossibly, Seth’s own closing smile was even more devastating than Ren’s own.
Ren was unmoored. Blown away. Blown apart.
What would it be like to be under him, when he smiled like that?
What would it feel like to kiss that smile off him?
He was going to get to find out. Ren could feel it. Could nearly taste it.
“Really straightforward,“ Seth said, not sounding like he hated that at all.
“Why bother pretending that you don’t just want a sandwich?” Ren shrugged. “We’re both interested. I’m free tonight, and I know we’d both enjoy ourselves.”
“What about tomorrow, then?”
Ren had learned the hard way that it was better to always be honest about his intentions. But this guy, even if he didn’t do one-night stands, was so hooked that Ren knew there was no way he’d ever turn him down.
Ren could feel the other side of the hook, buried in him, tugging him even closer, and he dared anyone to try to resist that completely irresistible pull.
“What about tomorrow?“ Ren asked archly. “Why do we have to worry about tomorrow?”
“I’m all about the tomorrows,” he admitted with a shrug. “I’m not here for just the tonights. I want to know there’s going to be a tomorrow, too.”
Ren frowned. “I don’t do tomorrows. Not when tonights are so freaking great.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to make do with just a sandwich.” Seth sounded genuinely regretful, which was why Ren didn’t even register the rejection right away. He’d been so goddamned nice about it. Like he hadn’t wanted to say no.
Like he’d wanted to say yes.
“Just a sandwich?” Ren knew he was quick and intelligent, but this guy just took it right out of him.
“Just a sandwich. I’ll go with Gabe’s—I think Lennox mentioned his name was Gabe—suggestion of the Thai meatball crunch wrap?”
Ren couldn’t believe it. Seth wanted to talk about food right now? Could think about food right now? After he’d just turned him down?
He had a healthy ego; Ren knew it. But he was worried it wasn’t just his ego that was smarting right now.
“Is it another guy? Is it Lennox?” Ren knew he was being stupid. Stupid and obvious, two things he tried never to be. But there was something about this guy . . . he didn’t want to just let it go.
It wasn’t that he rarely got rejected.
He’d never been turned down by someone he really wanted before.
Not once.
“Lennox?” Seth laughed. “No. We’re just friends. I just . . . I don’t do the one-night-stand thing. It’s not my style. I don’t suppose I can persuade you to go on a date with me?”
Ren stared at him. “A date without sex? A date . . . with just the expectation of another date?”
Seth nodded. “I’d like to take you out.”
Guys didn’t take Ren out. He never let them. He’d never even been tempted before.
It was easy enough turning them down.
It was not easy turning Seth down, because he wanted it so badly.
And because he wanted it so badly, he knew he had to.
He could get into this guy. He could . . . well, Ren wasn’t sure he was capable of falling in love, not the way other people did, but if he could, maybe he would, with Seth.
But he wasn’t going to.
He didn’t want to.
And one guy, no matter how attractive, no matter how many butterflies he gave Ren in the base of his stomach, wasn’t going to change him.
“I don’t do that,” Ren said frankly. “Ever.”
He watched as Seth sighed. “I was afraid of that.”
“So . . .” Ren swallowed hard. “Just the sandwich?”
“Just the sandwich.”
Ren turned towards Gabe, who was still somehow, impossibly, saying goodbye to Sean. Like they hadn’t spent all night together.
“He wants the Thai meatball crunch wrap,” Ren said shortly.
Gabriel raised his eyebrow. “Don’t you want to make it for him? With your own two hands?”
It was an unsurprising question. After all, if his proposition had gone well, he’d have wanted to do exactly that, so he could deliver it to Seth and make some thinly veiled innuendo about how he’d touched it all over.
“No.” Ren wasn’t going to give Seth the satisfaction.
He’d had a chance, and he’d turned it down.
Turned him down.
Flat.
Gabriel said goodbye to Sean again, and then finally turned back to the stove, setting a pan on it.
“You asked him and he said no? Really? Maybe he’s dating someone.”
It would’ve been easier—barely—if that was the case.
There might’ve been some kind of hope for the future.
But no.
Seth just didn’t want to fuck him. He wanted to romance him. Ew.
“He’s not. I asked.”
“Well, maybe he’s like Lennox and just . . . well . . . cold,“ Gabriel suggested. Trying to be nice. Because Gabriel always tried to be nice.
It was exhausting sometimes.
And cold? Seth? There was no fucking way that was true.
He’d been plenty hot. Just not for Ren.
“Lennox isn’t cold, he’s just interested in Ash,” Ren said, because it was easier to diagnose Lennox’s problem than discuss his own.
“Maybe there’s a good explanation for him turning you down.” Gabe still was attempting optimism, like he could excuse away the sting Ren was feeling.
“Maybe.” Ren knew the reason why he’d gotten turned down, but the last thing he wanted to do was explain it to Gabe, because then he’d have to hear again how he was wrong, and love was wonderful, and didn’t he want to open himself up to new possibilities?
No, that was not what he wanted to open himself up to. He knew that for sure.
Three months later
It had been hard enough to turn down Ren Moretti the first time.
It was hard in a completely different, and so much harder, way, to be confronted with the guy he’d rejected over and over and over again.
When he’d done it, Seth hadn’t realized that Lennox spent so much time at Food Truck Warriors—or that he would fall in love with Ash, who owned one of the trucks. Or that Tony, the owner of the lot, would fold him and Lennox into their friend circle without even blinking.
Or, that, most difficult of all, Seth would find himself face-to-face, again and again, for the last three months, with the irresistible guy he needed to resist.
It was easier only because Ren clearly carried a grudge and never bothered with any small talk or friendly greetings or even the barest acknowledgement that Seth even existed.
That helped.
But he did talk to everyone else, and he was his snarky, charming, absolutely sinfully hot self. Truthfully, he was tough enough to resist even without turning all that charisma on Seth.
Tonight, he was standing over by the firepit, laughing with his cousin and Sean, throwing his head back, endlessly amused by whatever it was that Gabe and Sean were teasing each other about.
His profile was devastating enough, but with the flickering firelight playing across it, he could have been a Renaissance painting, hanging on the wall at the Louvre or the Met. Seth couldn’t get enough of looking at him.
If he’d known how difficult this was going to end up being, maybe he should’ve just slept with the guy.
But he’d known, after talking to the guy for less than ten minutes, that one night wouldn’t ever be enough. He was going to want more, and more, every single goddamn night. He was going to want to unpack his secrets, and twist Lorenzo around his finger, until he never wanted to leave.
He’d never have left it at one night, and since Ren didn’t do tomorrows, only tonights, it would’ve been impossible.
In fact, it probably would’ve been a catastrophe.
But then, it felt like a fucking catastrophe now, that he’d never gotten to touch him.
“You’re glowering. Again.”
Seth looked up, and Ross Stanton was standing in front of him. Awkwardly, because Ross Stanton did most things out of the kitchen awkwardly, but over the last few months, they’d become friends.
Especially after Ross had ended up getting together with Shaw, who co-owned this bar with his brother.
He’d drifted from the fringes of the friend group to the center, and Seth, who spent a lot of the time on the fringes himself, understood how baffling it could be to have your center of gravity change so drastically.
“Am I?” he asked casually. He knew he had been, but it was one thing to feel it, and it was another entirely to admit it.
Even to Ross, who was a friend.
Though, it would still be easier to admit to Ross, than to someone like Lennox. Someone who knew him a little too well.
Who knew all his demons.
“You are,” Ross said succinctly, sitting down.
One of the reasons he’d always liked Ross was that both of them liked to speak the truth bluntly.
“Your guy inside working?” Seth asked, referring to Shaw.
Ross nodded. “With this crowd, he won’t be off early. So I thought I’d come down. See who else was here.”
“Just about everybody,” Seth said, glancing around.
Considering it was a Friday, and a gorgeous clear night—cold but not overly chilly with the space heaters scattered around the edges of the patio, and the firepits that all gathered a crowd—that wasn’t all that surprising.
He’d known Ren would likely be here. But he’d told himself at the very beginning that he wasn’t going to change his life or his routine or alter his friendships because of what had happened between them.
And, he’d been so sure that over time the feeling that he’d let something precious slip away would fade.
Except three months later, it was still going strong, and he’d considered starting to beg off some of these social evenings, but if he did, then Lennox would want to know why, and he couldn’t talk about it.
Not with Lennox.
Not when Lennox was so happy, and wanted everyone else to be happy too.
“Tony and Lucas, and Gabriel and Sean, and even Ren, came,” Ross said.
“Must not have had a hookup planned tonight,” Seth grumbled under his breath.
But he hadn’t been nearly quiet enough, because Ross tilted his head. “You’re worried about Ren with other guys?”
“No, of course not. Ren can go out and fuck anyone he wants. That’s . . . it has nothing to do with me.” But Seth heard the lie in his own voice.