Chapter 2
“You look grumpy this morning.” Gabe shot an appraising look over the huge pot of red sauce he was babysitting on the stove.
Ren stared at the onion he was chopping. Normally he whipped through the prep on the truck quickly and efficiently, because he hated doing it, so he might as well get it done as fast as possible so he could move on to something he did like.
Like making the thousands of meatballs they sold a day.
But instead he was sulking in the middle of the onions.
He knew it and it was annoying, but predictable, that Gabe had called him out on it.
“Regular grumpy or extra grumpy?” Ren asked, even though he already knew the answer.
“Regular grumpy I can handle. When your knife is flashing over there, trying to emulate an Iron Chef, I know better than to interfere, but you’re definitely pissed off about something because you’ve been on that one onion for the last five minutes.” Gabe eyed him again over the huge pot of sauce.
Ren loved his cousin. There was nobody else he’d ever tolerate running a business with.
He was funny, he was lighthearted, he was a hell of a great cook, and he ran a tight ship.
And, more importantly than anything else, he was loyal.
To the Moretti family, and also to anyone he called a friend.
And he called just about everyone a friend.
But he was also so fucking emotional. He always wanted to talk about his feelings.
On a normal day, that was bad enough.
But now he wanted to talk about Ren’s feelings.
“Maybe, maybe not, but I don’t have to talk about it.” Yeah, he was sulking. It wasn’t attractive, but if you couldn’t be unattractive at eight in the morning while dicing onions, when could you be?
“Yes, you do.” Gabe pointed a wooden spoon perpetually stained red at him. “You absolutely do.”
“You’re the King of Feelings, of course you think that.” Ren finished with the onion, finally, and moved on to the next. Only about a million to go.
He loved working here. He loved it. Coming to the truck, a situation that happened six days a week, always made him feel better.
Except this morning.
He’d woken up, and the bitterness of Seth’s rejection had tasted like ash on the back of his tongue.
It was bad enough he’d stooped low enough to ask again.
Doubly bad that it had gone just about as terrible as it could have gone.
It would only have been worse if Ren had done the unthinkable and actually, honest to God, kissed him, only for Seth to say, “Yeah, thanks, but no, thanks.”
What was the world coming to, if the second-worst possibility had come to pass?
Ren did not want to know.
“I am the King of Feelings, and you should be impressed that I’m embracing that horrible nickname these days,” Gabe said.
“It’s not horrible, it’s accurate.”
It was the worst kind of day when even bantering with his cousin—but more importantly, his best friend—didn’t make him feel any better.
“Then it’s my duty to convince you to tell me at least a little of why you’re so mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad? I could be . . . well, sad. Or disappointed. Or hungover.”
“You’re not hungover, because I saw you leave the bar, from the back porch, and you didn’t even look unsteady.
Also, you only ordered a double instead of a triple espresso this morning, and you always get a triple if you had too much booze the night before.
And you’re not disappointed, because you’d tell me about that.
The precise way you’re cutting that onion tells me that you’re mad. ” Gabe gestured again with the spoon.
Ren looked down, and yeah, Gabe wasn’t wrong, because there was definitely a murderous intensity to the way he was currently slicing this onion.
He’d kind of been imagining that it was Seth’s dick.
If he wasn’t going to get to take a ride, then nobody should get to.
Fair was only fair.
Besides, they could always sew it back on, right? They did that these days. He’d just be the new gay Lorena Bobbitt.
And that got weird fast.
Ren set his knife down.
“Okay, fine, I’m mad,” Ren said. Hating that Gabe had suckered him into this, but wondering if maybe . . . if maybe Gabe could actually help him.
After all, Gabe was now a man with some real relationship experience.
Ren didn’t want to consider it, but what else could he do? Continuing on this way was fucking futile.
“Good, now tell me why,” Gabe said, a glimmer of a smile on his face.
“Seth fucking Abramson,” Ren said succinctly. “I asked him to have sex with me again, and he turned me down flat.”
Gabe looked astonished. “You asked him to sleep with you again, and he said no, again?”
“That’s exactly what I just said.” Ren picked his knife back up and began cutting through another onion. It didn’t feel too good to hear the shock in Gabriel’s voice, or to hear the evening’s events repeated back at him, incredulously.
At least Ren wasn’t alone. Gabe couldn’t fucking believe it either.
“You don’t do that, though. Like . . . I thought you’d asked and he said no, and you moved on. And wait, you went on a date last night. Did you break up your date so you could proposition Seth again?”
“We agreed mutually that it wasn’t going to work out,” Ren said, close-lipped. “I didn’t break it up to ask Seth or anything.”
“Ah,” Gabriel said. There was a multitude of opinions in that one single sound.
You, Ren reminded himself, love your cousin. He’s your best friend. Your roommate. Your business partner.
“Just say it,” Ren said.
“Well, again, I thought you’d moved past this?” Gabe leaned against the side of the counter that ran along one side of the truck. “It was . . . well it was some time ago, wasn’t it?”
“Six months ago.”
“Right, six months ago. I guess I didn’t realize you were . . .” Gabe paused, clearly trying to search for the right term. “Crushing on him still?”
“It’s not a crush,” Ren said firmly. Except . . . what else could it be? The man was under his skin. He wanted him. Bad. What else was that except for a crush? An inconvenient affliction of lust?
If it was actually a crush, the first thing he wanted to do was get rid of it.
The second thing he wanted to do was totally smash it dead.
The third and most important thing was to completely annihilate it.
He didn’t need this bullshit in his life.
No, thank you, he’d done perfectly fine without it for the first twenty-six years, and he wasn’t intending to change now.
“I really think it might be a crush,” Gabe said thoughtfully.
“You’re kinda hung up on him. Obviously.
Unless you’re . . . what? Afraid? Afraid you might like him?
Afraid he might really like you? Afraid he might get to know what you’re really like, unlike all these other guys who never stick around long enough to find out? ”
“That is complete bullshit,” Ren retorted. “Stop it.”
“Fine, fine, fine,” Gabe said, holding his hands up in faux surrender. “It’s complete bullshit that you’re afraid.”
Ren glared at his cousin. Why was he like this?
Unfortunately there had never been a satisfactory answer to that question.
“I just hate this,” Ren said, annoyed by the sulkiness in his own voice.
It had been amusing watching Gabe struggle with the same thing last year, when he’d had this ridiculous crush on Sean, his mortal enemy.
But then Sean had never really been a mortal enemy. Ren had known that much from the start. Gabe had just been a little slow on the uptake. But once they’d gotten their shit together and fallen in love . . .
Well, there was going to be no falling in love here. That’s what happened when a crush got serious.
It was bad enough that he was crushing. He didn’t need to complicate everything by doing the one thing he’d sworn he’d never do: fall in love.
He’d told Gabe he didn’t think love existed, but obviously it did.
It had been fun to see Gabe get all worked up about it, though.
Of course love existed. He’d seen it blossom and bloom and grow settled and sweet between his mom and his stepfather.
He’d seen it grow, despite all the odds stacked against it, between Gabe and Sean. Lennox had even shot a guy for Ash.
Admittedly, he’d just blown up Ash’s food truck, and he’d definitely deserved it . . . but it was still a grand romantic gesture, born out of the deepest love.
But love? Not for him.
And not because of what Gabe claimed, because he was afraid or something. He wasn’t afraid of anything. And letting a guy get to know him? He let people get to know him.
“So what are you going to do about it?” Gabe asked after a long silence.
The answer to that was obvious enough.
“Move on, move past, pretend it never happened,” Ren said. “Take your pick.”
“But you’ve already been trying to do that, right?”
Ren hated it when Gabe was right. Especially about things like this.
The good news was it didn’t happen all that often.
“Yes, of course I have. I don’t enjoy feeling like this,” Ren said through clenched teeth.
“Then maybe you should try something else,” Gabe said thoughtfully. “Like . . . try to find someone else.”
“I did that, remember? Last night and quite a few times before that. Hasn’t helped.”
“Maybe you haven’t met the right guy,” Gabe said. Ren could tell he was working his most persuasive tone of voice. The one he used when he was trying to convince Sean that yes, he actually did want to go to the Star Wars movie marathon with him.
“And how am I supposed to do that? I meet plenty of guys.”
“You could always try that new app, that one I’ve been hearing so much about.”
“An app?” Ren could hear the derision in his voice. “I do not need an app, thank you very much.”
“No, of course not, but it might . . . widen your search? If you’re just gonna stick to the guys who you meet here, at the truck, or at the gym, or at the Funky Cup, it’s a much smaller group. You want to find the guy that’s gonna make you forget all about Seth? You gotta widen your sample size.”