Chapter 10 #2
“I mean, why didn’t you just tell him to fuck off?” Ren said, returning to his bread and milk and egg mixture, which, because he’d had to spend all that time listening to the lawyer-turned-food truck conglomerate bloviating about how great he was, had become over-soft.
He’d add a bit more bread, Ren decided, poking at it. That might help.
“That seems kind of short-sighted,” Gabe said with a sigh. “You didn’t like him?”
“Do I like Tony?”
“Most days I think you tolerate him?”
“Exactly,” Ren said, tearing up another stale bun into small pieces, tossing them into the bowl and beginning to mash them up. “That Jonas guy was barely tolerable even for five minutes. He’s smoking too much of his own Kool-Aid.”
“Isn’t the metaphor drinking the Kool-Aid?” Gabe asked with a chuckle, stirring the sauce on the stove.
“Yeah, but not for that guy. He totally would snort it or smoke it or something weird. Just like Tony.”
Gabe laughed. “Yeah, I can see that. But seriously, it’s a good offer. I’m sure Tony would be angry but . . . I wasn’t thinking of leaving here. I was thinking, business is good. Why shouldn’t we expand?”
Ren hadn’t even considered that, and when he did, he wanted to throw the whole bowl of gloppy bread-milk-eggs at his cousin. “You’re serious? You want to split up?”
“I don’t want to,” Gabe said with a shrug, “but we should talk about it. This would be a good way to do it.”
“No,” Ren said.
“No, like no this wouldn’t be a good way to do it or no way, you’re cracked?” Gabe asked.
“You already know the answer. I don’t want to split up. I don’t care if we could start a whole fucking empire, like your brother.”
Gabe chuckled under his breath. “Okay, okay, I get it. No Luca-like aspirations for you, huh?”
“Listen”—Ren turned to him, just so Gabe knew he was one hundred percent deadly serious—“I know the world tells you that you should always be reaching for more, that settling for something that just makes you happy is wrong, but it’s not.”
Gabe settled against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. “What about Shaw? He opened the new bar.”
“And that was right for him. But this isn’t right for us.”
“You’re sure about this?”
“Have you ever known me to not be sure about something?” Ren asked as he poured his gloppy mixture into the ground meat. It was true; he was by far the more decisive of the two of them.
“Yeah.” Gabe uncurled himself so he could stir the sauce again.
“About Seth. But not about business. Not about the truck. When I told you I was thinking about leaving Napa and starting it, you said, when can we leave? And you pushed me to change the name way before I ever did. In fact,” Gabe said, huffing with laughter, “you’re the one who came up with the new name. ”
“Yep, I did.” Ren ignored the part where Gabe had said he’d been indecisive about Seth. He wasn’t, was he? No, he’d just wanted the man on his terms. That wasn’t being indecisive. That was being the most decisive.
“I just don’t want us to close ourselves off to the possibilities,” Gabe said. “So, think about it, okay?”
“Ugh, I don’t need to think about it,” Ren said. And then suddenly it occurred to him that maybe he was sure, but Gabe wasn’t.
Did Gabe want to split up?
Ren opened his mouth to ask and then snapped it shut again, and instead of saying anything else, he attacked the meatball mixture in the bowl.
He didn’t like questions he was afraid to hear the answer to.
Now there was this one about Gabe, but last night, he’d wondered, as he lay in bed, unable to sleep even after his orgasm, and overthinking how the evening had gone, that maybe the reason why Seth was reticent to sleep with him was because it could be easy for him.
He’d still been picky about guys—he only slept with guys he wanted to sleep with—but if he’d wanted someone, he’d never hesitated.
Was that why Seth kept pulling away even though it was clear he wanted Ren as much as Ren wanted him?
Ren folded in a whole bunch of chopped parsley, as well as finely diced onion, into his meat mixture, and began to form balls, hands moving quickly as he laid them out on large trays for storage.
But as fast as his hands moved, his brain was moving even faster.
And he didn’t like any of the conclusions he was afraid to jump to.
Where are you at?
The message came through just as Seth parked his car on the street, home from another consult with Diego and Benji, the Star Shadow guys. He’d been planning on going for a run after, and had already told Lennox, as he’d driven home, that he wouldn’t be back in the office.
He’d thought he’d take a nice, long run, try to work off some of his sexual frustration—it definitely didn’t help that it was self-imposed—and then wander over to the food truck lot for dinner. Maybe see if he could convince Ren to hang out again.
That had felt more casual than texting him today and making official plans.
Official plans to have sex, he reminded himself. If anything deserves the word official, it’s finally getting Ren into bed.
But it had felt weird for Seth to text Ren and ask, Tonight? So he hadn’t.
Seth hadn’t anticipated that Ren would text him and ask him where he was right at this moment.
Just got home, he typed back once he’d let himself into the house, and headed back to his bedroom to change. What’s up?
A minute later, there was a knock on the front door. Seth, who’d just pulled off his t-shirt, considered putting it back on, but then as he was trying to decide, the person knocked again, more insistently.
“Fine,” Seth grumbled, and headed towards the front door, shirtless.
He pulled it open, and Ren was standing on the porch, looking impatient.
“Hi?” Seth said, surprised to see him. Good surprised, yes, but still surprised.
This was a Ren on a mission, though, not interested in small talk, though Seth could feel his appraising, admiring glance at his bare chest as he walked in.
He turned around in the living room, and Seth waited a moment, because there was a determination shining in his eyes. He was here for a reason.
And not for what you think, Seth told his cock, because it now just automatically perked up whenever Ren was around. Half in hope, probably, and half in despair that it would never happen.
“Are you not sleeping with me because I’ve slept with a lot of guys?” Ren demanded.
That was not the question that Seth had expected Ren to ask—though he hadn’t really been sure what Ren was here for.
“What?”
“Are you not sleeping with me,” Ren repeated, slower, enunciating each word carefully, like he did not want Seth to mistake his meaning even one iota, “because I’ve slept with a lot of guys?”
“No? I don’t . . . I don’t care what you’ve done,” Seth said, a little bewildered.
“I just wanted to wait til it felt right. I was a little concerned, I guess, because once all this tension was gone, you might not . . .” It was hard to admit this, and harder still to admit it when Ren was looking at him like that. “You might not want me anymore.”
“Oh.” The wind went right out of Ren’s sails and he abruptly sat down on the couch. “Sorry. I just . . . I didn’t think that, not really, but . . .”
“But,” Seth prompted, going to join Ren on the couch. He put a hand on his knee, and squeezed gently.
“It’s not really about you,” Ren confessed. “Well, it was. I did worry about that, a little last night, but I didn’t think so, because it’s never exactly dissuaded you from pursuing me before.”
“Nope,” Seth agreed. “Not one bit. Your past is what it says on the tin: past.”
“Right, okay, well . . .” Ren sighed. Looked a little embarrassed. “It wasn’t really about you. This guy came to see Gabe and me today and made me . . . well, he made me question things.”
“Question what? And what guy?”
Ren chuckled. “Don’t worry, he’s no competition.”
“I wasn’t . . .” Seth protested, but Ren just grinned.
“Yeah, you were. But it’s okay. I . . . I get it.”
Seth squeezed his knee again. “Alright. So tell me what happened.”
“The guy is Jonas Anderson. He’s opening a food truck lot a few blocks away from Food Truck Warriors, and he’s been trying to recruit some of the food trucks to join his lot.”
Seth raised an eyebrow. “What does Tony have to say about that?”
“I’m not sure Tony knows yet,” Ren said wryly.
“But, here’s the thing: he’s like a Tony clone.
A corporate lawyer, so he didn’t grow up in restaurants like Tony did, and he’s trying really hard to be all casual even though he’s so curated it’s painful.
But that same earnest attitude, I can do it better than anyone else, and I know better than anyone else, that he absolutely shares with Tony. ”
“And he wants you and Gabe to jump ship and join him?”
“Yep, and I was totally expecting Gabe to tell him to fuck off, we’re happy where we are—because I thought we were—but Gabe listened. Actually took the guy’s card. Then told me that maybe we should consider expanding.”
Ren’s voice grew bitter towards the end, especially on the last word, like he couldn’t quite bear to hold it in his mouth.
“You mean, splitting up,” Seth said softly.
“He didn’t see it that way, but yes,” Ren said.
“And you don’t want to?” Seth asked, even though he already knew.
He’d done some long assignments in San Diego, which had taken him away from Lennox and their base of operations here in Los Angeles, but after the last one, he’d told Lennox that even though it paid well, he didn’t want to spend so much time away from home again.
They’d let the client go, even though they’d paid well.
Because Los Angeles and frankly, Lennox, they were home to Seth.
He’d been looking for a family since he’d joined the Navy—even though he still spoke to his mom occasionally, it was never the same—and he’d found it.
And then he’d found an extended one in the food truck guys.