Chapter 31
TIM
Istock a fresh case of Budweiser into the ice bucket under the counter before taking my next two customers.
The date with Mark last night was incredible, especially when we got back in the car.
It was a defining moment in our relationship.
In my life. It symbolized this transitionary period I’m going through.
This is the new me. I figured I’d be annoyed working at The Independent, knowing a bunch of the kids who frequent this place are some of my old clients, but it hasn’t been bad.
They’ve been pretty friendly, and my boyfriend brings his buddies around more often just to sneak a kiss every once and a while—something my boss Karen not only enjoys, but encourages.
While I’m chatting up my customers, I catch a familiar face within my periphery.
Greg steps into the bar with his new boy toy, some freshman at Emory. I saw them around campus together during those last days when I was still dealing.
Haven’t seen Greg here before, but a lot of the Emory kids hang out at the Independent, so it’s not a huge surprise.
When he spots me, his eyes light up.
I can tell what he’s thinking. That I’ve fallen from grace now that I’m working at a bar.
He thinks of this as some dead-end job. If only he knew how much freer I feel here than I ever did when I was swapping cash for drugs.
Might as well been a fucking stripper. The sleaze.
The stigma. The judgment. All from the ones paying for it.
He heads to the bar with his man.
“Oh, hey, Tim,” he says. “Funny seeing you here. Can I get a vodka sprite and a Long Island Iced Tea for my friend Ryan?”
“ID?” I ask.
He sizes me up like he’s wondering if I’m gonna get all prudish with him now that I’m behind a bar rather than working the streets.
They hand me fake IDs, but pretty good ones, and I’m not gonna be a dick tonight.
“Those are pretty damn good,” I say. “Who gave you those? Marco Ventura?”
“You know it.” He turns to his guy. “Hey, babe.”
The word babe makes me fucking cringe, but I think it’s the way it sounds coming from Greg and knowing that he’s a fucking asshole.
“Why don’t you get us set up at one of the pool tables before the guys get here?”
“Okay.”
I’m irritated with how willing this guy is to be told what to do. How he submissively obeys Greg’s command. Save that shit for the bedroom.
Greg slides onto the stool in front of me.
“How’s Mark?” he asks.
“Good. Real good.”
As I start mixing their drinks, Greg says, “So the drug industry didn’t work out for you? I didn’t realize there was a big turnover? I can’t imagine demand was an issue. Did you piss someone off?”
“Nope. Just wasn’t for me.”
“You seemed to fit the bill pretty well.”
“I wanted a little more out of life.”
I mean Mark, but I’m not going to rub that in Greg’s face. I already won by getting to have the best boyfriend in the world.
“Mark, you mean?” he says.
His lips twist into a smirk, and he eyes me skeptically, as though he can’t understand what I could be talking about.
“You chose this for Mark?” he asks.
“I’d choose worse for Mark.”
He’s silent. My answer must’ve surprised him.
“Because he deserves it,” I add.
“If you insist.”
“He deserved better than what you did to him.”
“Who’s an ex-druggie to be self-righteous about shit?”
“At least I knew what I was. Do you know what you are?”
“Why don’t you tell me what you think I am?” he asks.
“A spoiled rich kid who’s so used to getting shiny new things that he’ll keep finding something new and better everywhere he looks, and he won’t be happy…ever.”
I add straws to their cocktails before setting them on the bar in front of Greg.
“I do like shiny things,” he says with a conceited grin. He turns and eyes Ryan as the guy sets up the rack at the pool table and waves at us.
Greg raises his glass to me and drinks before grabbing Ryan’s Long Island Iced Tea and heading over to the pool table.
The place gets busy, and I end up mixing a lot of cocktails and taking some orders for food back to the kitchen.
We don’t have much more than bar food—fried everything.
I’m in the middle of making six vodka sodas when I catch something out of the corner of my eye at the end of the bar.
Mark leans over and checks my ass out, whistling loudly.
I raise my finger to let him know I’ll be free in a bit.
“Take your time, Timmy,” he says with a wink.
He’s more confident than when I first met him. He’s playful. Frisky. Fun.
He’s so much better than I deserve, and a hell of a lot better than that asshole Greg ever deserved.
His friends Danny and Sean stand beside him, chatting with each other. As they separate, I see Keith is behind them.
Fuck.
Mark said he talked to him, and he’s cool now. I hope that’s true. Don’t want to handle any weird nights of him crying or begging for me to talk to him via text.
He approaches the bar, rubbing his right palm against his jeans the way he used to do whenever he’d get uncomfortable about something. In a black jacket, his hair gelled to the side, he has an uneasy expression on his face as he says, “Miller Lite.”
I grab one and pass it to him.
“I’m sorry that I got all weird there,” he says.
“Not an issue,” I lie.
“I’m friends with Mark, and I’d like it if we were cool, too, if we can be. If not, I get that too. I know I had a hard time with everything when it went down, but I’m good now. I was just—”
“Don’t sweat it,” I say. “It’s not anything that we can’t get past for Mark.”
He smiles. “Yeah.”
I hand him his receipt and merchant copy and a pen.
Mark and Keith and their friends find a pool table to play at for a couple of hours while I do my job, walking by occasionally to check on them and slap Mark’s ass. When we close up, Mark slides onto the stool across from me while I wipe down the mats on the bar, a playful light in his eyes.
“I like the black polo and jeans look,” he says. “The name tag is a little much, but very sexy.”
“You have a thing for bartenders?”
“I have a thing for guys with big dicks.”
I laugh, and we share a knowing look—one that reminds me of how comfortable we both are with where we’re at.
How at ease we both can be. How relaxed.
When we curl up in bed and watch a movie or TV show, me holding him in my arms, I know I could do that for the rest of my life and be perfectly content.
I cherish the time we spend together. Even stupid shit like when I wake up before he does and get to watch him sleep right up until his alarm goes off.
I’ve gotten into the habit of licking his cheek to wake him—something he likes a hell of a lot.
And I’m getting even better at hitting his spots, pleasing him the way he needs to be pleased.
“Mark, hey,” Greg says as he approaches with Ryan.
Greg’s been eyeing him all night, but since Mark and his buddies were at a pool table on the opposite side of the bar, he never had a convenient opportunity to approach.
Mark turns to Greg. “Hey, man.” He doesn’t seem as playful as he did when he was talking to me, and I’m pissed that Greg had to pop by and kill the mood.
“This is my boyfriend, Ryan.”
“Hi, Ryan,” Mark says. They shake hands. “Hope this one’s not giving you too much trouble.”
Ryan smiles. He seems nice and innocent. I would say that’s Greg’s type, but I know better now.
“No, he’s great,” Ryan says with his blind faithfulness.
Mark glances at Greg. I can tell he’s judging him for what he’s going to do to this poor guy.
I wonder if he’ll call him out, but he just says, “It was nice meeting you.”
They chat briefly before Greg and Ryan say their goodbyes and head for the door.
“Keep an eye on him, Ryan,” Mark calls out. “He’s got a few tricks up his sleeve.”
Ryan laughs as they head out, and Mark turns to me.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He takes a moment before saying, “You think I should have said something? On one hand, I feel like I should, but then on the other, I’m like, ‘What if it was just me? What if he’s good with that guy, and I’m the one that he wasn’t…satisfied with?’ ”
“Trust me, if he can’t be satisfied with you, he can’t be satisfied by anyone.”
As he gazes into my eyes, his smile returns.
I can tell his insecurity has dissolved.
“I don’t want to hear you saying stupid shit like that anymore, okay?”
“Okay,” he says, “but while we’re on the subject of Greg, I might as well tell you, Morgan texted me the other day.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m not sure what to do about it. He sent me a Facebook message a while back. I guess I don’t know how I can face him right now. But then I think about what we did behind Keith’s back and—”
“Whoa, whoa. I wasn’t dating Keith.”
“I know, but just…he gave me a chance to explain myself, and I wonder if I owe that to Morgan.”
“You’re a good guy, Mark. Too good sometimes.”
He smiles. “Whatever.”
“Give me a kiss.”
He leans over the bar for a light peck, but I grab the back of his neck and pull him in for a real kiss—the kind he deserves.
My face warms as the sensation of his lips against mine makes my dick hard.
Damn, the things he does to my body.
If I don’t stop this now, we won’t be getting out of here anytime soon. I pull away. “Now let me get some of this work out of the way, and we can have a little fun.”
After I close the place up, we sneak into the bathroom for a few kisses, and he gives me a blowjob. I don’t return the favor until we head back to the house and I shove my cock in his needy ass.
I can get fucking used to this.