Chapter 5
Five
August
The Stack looks the same as it did when I was a regular customer.
It’s just one of the many brick-fronted shops that line the downtown area of the picturesque New England community where I was raised.
A worn, wood sign shaped like an open book is hanging over the door, along with a secondary plaque which reads simply: Books, Coffee, Tea.
Someone—presumably not the owner—took the time to cover the big, plate glass windows in paper snowflakes for the holiday.
A few of the neighboring stores are open, with last-minute shoppers hustling through the cold to make it inside, shopping bags dangling from their arms. The Stack is dark, but a pickup truck is parked on the street right outside, and I feel a prickle of awareness as I pause beside it, looking through the windshield at a sparse assortment of objects left out on the passenger seat.
A knit cap. A charger for a phone. Fifty-eight cents.
Icy wind nips at my exposed skin as I turn away, staring into the dark windows of the small bookshop.
The first time I visited this place, I was wrapping up my final year of med school and took a break from studying to see my brother’s new business venture.
Bram and his partner had just purchased the defunct bank a little way down the street, with the intention of turning it into an architecture firm.
It had been vacant for a decade and absolutely looked it.
His enthusiasm was infectious, however, and I found myself grinning when I stepped outside afterward, looking back and forth down the street, in search of a convenient place to sit down and work on a lab report for a few hours.
The Stack was visible from the front doors, a beacon of caffeine, comfortable seating, and free Wi-Fi, and I hadn’t hesitated to head that way.
It turned out to be exactly what I had in mind.
The Wi-Fi was fast, the other customers were quiet, and nobody minded if I took up residence at one of the little tables in the back with my computer.
That isn’t why I went back, though.
After all, there were other places to study, ones closer to my apartment, and with similarly favorable qualities. Just as I did when I booked a room at The Chestnut Bed and Breakfast, what drew me to return to The Stack was a person. A man. One who became much more than a friend before too long.
I’d liked Wells. A lot. He was great, and maybe if I hadn’t been leaving for my residency, it would have gone a different way.
I did, though. I left, and after this goddamn long, I have no business showing up at his place of work.
Not when he looked at me like he’d seen a ghost and all but bolted at the earliest opportunity.
Before he’d seen me, though, I’d seen him.
I’d stood in the doorway, watching him talk to Lacey, gripped by a twisted combination of desire and jealousy.
Wells was older now, his hair had changed from brown to gray, his features were more rugged, and his shoulders a little broader.
Still, I knew him immediately, and the relationship I’d gone out of my way to avoid thinking about too much had all come rushing back.
Inside the shop, I can now see a figure moving around, a deep-red sweater discernible even through the darkened glass. Without pausing to second-guess the impulse, I step forward, marching away from Wells’ truck and across the sidewalk, pushing open the door to The Stack.
This place hasn’t changed much, and I pause, reeling at the sudden sense of déjà vu as a gruff, male voice calls over the towering shelves. “We’re closed, and the register’s empty! If you want to steal some shit, take it from the self-help section!”
I can’t help laughing as the sound of booted footsteps echoes off the wood floors in the otherwise silent shop. In seconds, the scowling proprietor of The Stack steps into view, his expression darkening at the sight of me.
“Am I really less welcome than a burglar?”
Wells scoffs. “Burglars don’t want to have a conversation with me. What do you want, August?”
“To have a conversation with you,” I counter, watching him carefully. “Are you dating Lacey?”
Silence. “Why?” His expression is rigid when he responds, as though he’s forcing himself not to react.
Wells isn’t the only one struggling to keep himself in check.
The thought of him and Lacey together is, at once, the most arousing and the most horrible thing I can imagine.
She said she was single, but I know what I saw when I entered the lobby of The Chestnut this morning.
Whether or not they’re together now, Wells is most definitely interested, and if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say Lacey is, too.
The two of them live here, they run businesses only a few miles apart, and possibly have a few friends in common, too. Wells is a few years younger than me, closer to Lacey’s age than I am. They fit together in a way that makes sense, and in a way that I certainly don’t.
A bitter taste fills my mouth.
Being on the outside has never bothered me more than it does right now, as I’m forced to confront the possibility of the man I left behind and the woman I hardly know being in a relationship. They’re good people, and I should want them to be happy.
Even knowing it makes me a selfish asshole, I can’t stand it.
“Curiosity,” I reply simply, turning my attention to The Stack’s display of branded merchandise on the wall beside me. Absently, I reach out to touch the hem of a heather gray T-shirt, remembering the one just like it stored in a drawer back at my house in California.
It’s probably too small for me now, though I don’t know for sure.
I never wear it or even take it out. It’s been there for years, unworn, untouched, and often forgotten, but never donated or thrown away.
It’s fairly obvious that I’m not the sentimental type, yet I’ve held on to that ratty old T-shirt, and never once did I dare ask myself why.
With difficulty, I allow my hand to fall back to my side, turning to the owner of the shop. “I stayed at The Chestnut the last time I was in town, too.”
Wells’ jaw tightens. “Good for you,” he spits, glowering at me.
This reaction seems to confirm my initial assessment of the situation.
Just like me, my old flame is attracted to the pretty bed and breakfast manager and isn’t excited about having competition.
He certainly isn’t aware that I’ve already fucked her, and I can’t decide whether it’s wise to disclose that information just yet.
Once, I adored getting a rise out of Wells Davis. He liked to think of himself as immune to any playful antagonizing, and it was a special kind of satisfaction to prove him wrong.
I liked him, and I’d forgotten just how much, until now.
Wells’ stare is heavy on my back as I turn, strolling over to the bulletin board by the door, which has a selection of local flyers for events, services, and business cards pinned up around the edge.
What the hell am I doing here?
“If you’re interested, ask her out,” comes the gruff challenge from the man behind me. “I don’t give a fuck. You’re here for what? Three days? Four?” He lets out a hard, humorless laugh. “When you leave her in the dust, that will be one more thing she and I have in common.”
Unable to keep up the pretense of giving a shit about the senior center’s bake sale, I round on him.
“You’re still pissed at me for that? I chose the career I’d battled my way through four years of medical school for, over a man who wouldn’t admit he was bisexual, even when he was balls deep in my ass. ”
Color crawls up Wells’ neck, but his steely look doesn’t waver as he crosses his well-built arms over his chest. “I’m bisexual. I liked fucking your ass, almost as much as your throat. There, I said it. Are you happy? Will you get the fuck out now?”
Almost growling in frustration, I rake my hand through my hair. “Fuck, Wells. It’s been over a decade; can we get the hell over it?”
This question is met with a hard, disbelieving laugh. “I am over it, August! You’re the one who showed up here, demanding to know if I’m dating the bed and breakfast manager, bringing up shit that’s ancient history.” His lip curls. “From where I’m standing, you’re the one who isn’t over it.”
The energy that had me on edge from the moment I walked in here begins to fade.
He’s right. He’s absolutely right. I came back here, to my hometown, looking for something. Maybe I wanted to prove to myself that work wasn’t everything. Maybe a selfish part of me hoped that I’d left some scars in my life, ones that weren’t surgical.
Whatever logic I employed to convince myself that this little visit was a good idea was ass backward.
“Shit.” I swallow back the bitter taste of shame, dismissing the impulse to argue with this.
“You’re right. You’re—” My words falter, and I force a noisy breath out through my nose.
“Yeah, you’re right. You have every fucking right to hate me.
I’m sorry for coming here. Have a good holiday.
” With one last, pained grimace, I turn to leave.
Before I can make it two steps, though, a deep voice calls after me. “August.”
Reluctantly, I pause, looking back at the man whom I am clearly not fucking over. Wells doesn’t smile, but there’s less tension in his features as he looks at me. “I don’t hate you.”
It’s as close to an olive branch as I’m getting from him, and I probably don’t even deserve this. Stiffly, I nod. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”
“It was a long time ago.” It’s Wells’ turn to look uncomfortable now, shifting on the spot, his brow furrowed. “I understand why you wouldn’t have wanted to wait around for me. It was… I wasn’t comfortable with it yet.”
Something deep in my chest twists painfully. I’ve seen that expression on his face before, when I pushed too hard or asked for things that Wells Davis wasn’t ready to offer.
In the period after I got my residency placement, and the promise of a cross-country move was looming closer by the day, I’d begun pushing our relationship past the secretive arrangement we’d constructed. He hadn’t wanted it, though, and I hadn’t wanted to weather the rejection head-on.
So, without bothering with goodbyes, I left and didn’t see him again until we went chasing after the same woman, twelve years later.
Yet again, I experience the sharp pinch of panic at the prospect of what will happen between them when I leave. What will I find when I come back here a year from now?
Will they be in love? Dating? Married?
Will I be a single line in a story that goes on for far longer?
Shoving aside the panicked, jealous thoughts, I look at the beautiful man standing before me. Wells Davis doesn’t let anyone get too close, but he did me, and it registers that the attraction which once drew us together is still fucking there.
The shock of seeing him again might have distracted me, but it hits me with the force of a truck as we stand on opposite sides of the very room where we met, with nothing but the past twelve years between us.
“How have you been?” I ask, noting the low timbre of my voice, which seems to issue from deep in my chest.
Wells’ eyebrows arch. “We’re doing small talk now?”
“Humor me, Davis.” I chuckle, trying to ignore the way blood is suddenly rushing to my cock. “For old times’ sake.”
The reminder of these old times does nothing for the state of my dick.
My former fuck buddy merely grunts, shaking his head, as if I’m asking him for an incredibly inconvenient favor.
“I’ve been good enough. This place is mine now.
We’re expanding, opening an attached coffee shop when our neighbor’s lease is up.
” He shrugs, glancing around. After what seems like too long, his gaze returns to me.
“What about you, doc? Did you get that shiny career you always wanted?”
“I did,” I admit, shoving my hands in the pockets of my coat.
Wells nods slowly, apparently taking this in. “Happy?”
My response comes before I can think better of it. “Not particularly. You?”
He scoffs. “Nah. Not really.”
Until recently, it had been years since I bothered to consider my own contentment, or lack thereof.
Strange, considering how, on paper anyway, every part of my adult life has gone according to plan.
I went to med school, got my first choice in residency placements, a prestigious fellowship, and when my current department head retires in a few years, I will almost certainly take his place.
I should be over the damn moon, and it’s a little dizzying every time it hits me how over the damn moon I’m not.
“That why you’re here? In the market for a pretty, young girlfriend?” There’s a bit more of an edge to his voice now, and it strikes me that he may be afraid of the same thing I am. The only question is whether he’s worried about losing out on Lacey or losing out on us both.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” I admit, at long last, looking away from him to stare at the snowflakes swirling out on the street.
“For a while there, I got a little… disconnected.” This statement prompts another deep, uncomfortable tug of guilt at the reminder of how shitty a brother I’ve been lately.
Wells' voice comes from behind me, harder than before. “Disconnected, huh? Well, do me a favor and leave Lacey alone while you’re in town.”
I turn to look at him, experiencing a bizarre combination of irritation and arousal at the stern, protective look on Wells’ face. “Is this concern for your sake, or Lacey’s?” I muse, tilting my head to the side, studying him without apology.
A muscle in Wells’ jaw ticks. “How long are you in town? A few days? You’ve got one hell of an ego, Doctor Vogel. What makes you think you could make an impression in that kind of time frame?” It’s clear from his tone that he doesn’t think much of my professional title.
His words have touched a nerve, but I’m careful not to let him see that as I allow my gaze to drop, perusing his body and coming to rest on the unmistakable bulge in his jeans.
My own cock throbs. Jesus, I’m attracted to him.
Despite being comfortable with my flexibility on the sexuality spectrum, I’ve dated and slept with more women than men.
It’s becoming clear, however, that those connections were decidedly void of the raw desire that was always so potent in my short-lived relationships with Wells Davis or Lacey Lovette.
Taking my time, I lift my eyes to look at him again, and my lips curve. “It looks like I already have.”