3. Chapter 3 #2
Something inside him danced with pleasure at Frankie letting him help, and he immediately squashed it. He rounded the bar, having done it over a million times over the course of his life here, and grabbed the side of the keg with Frankie.
“Where’s this going?” Sam asked, already preparing his back for the heavy lift.
“Bar outside,” Frankie instructed. “Already ran out of the half-barrels.”
“Sounds about right.” Before he lifted, Frankie’s hand suddenly reached out and slid Sam’s sunglasses off his T-shirt and placed them next to the cash register.
“Don’t wanna break the doctor’s fancy glasses,” Frankie drawled smoothly, finally looking at him.
They were surprisingly close, bent over the keg and about to lift, their foreheads nearly touching, and all Sam could do was stare into those warm brown eyes, completely consumed by how much he had missed him and how much…
He wanted to kiss him again.
Stop. Stop it right the fuck now.
He tracked Frankie’s lingering gaze over his face, watching as his eyes dipped down to his lips, as though recalling their final moment together, his hot breath fanning Sam’s face.
Holy shit.
Sam’s gut twisted, and the tingling jolt between his legs made him sway forward into him, catching a scent of beer, spicy aftershave, and sunscreen. Why did Frankie have to smell good, too? Couldn’t he have one damn flaw?
“Kiss and make up already, Frankie!” Tina announced as she made herself a cocktail behind the bar. “You’ve been pouting for months! What did you expect Sammy to do when he became a doctor, stick around here forever?”
“Hey!” Frankie shot up, glaring at her. “I wasn’t pouting.”
“You were so pouting.” Tina slipped the black straw between her brightly painted red lips, grinning. “It was adorable, Frankie.”
“Shut it,” he snapped irritably. “And who gave you permission to come behind the bar?”
“Sammy’s back there!”
“Because he earned his stripes workin’ this place. You haven’t, princess. Now get out.” Frankie flicked a dirty bar towel at her, and she hurriedly grabbed her half-finished cocktail, sloshing it around her hand.
“You could’ve asked me,” Tina whined. “But you always asked Sammy.”
“Yeah, because he had a sense of urgency that you don’t. It’s what makes him a good doctor.”
Tina rolled her eyes at him and sauntered back outside to the parking lot party.
“Jesus Christ, that woman,” Frankie complained. “Wears more perfume than clothin’. She hugged you, didn’t she? You smell like her.”
Sam smirked. “That she did. I can change if you want.”
Frankie’s eyes jerked to his, widening, and he stiffened.
He inwardly sighed. He needed a drink. A big one.
He knew coming here was a risk. Frankie had been pretty upset by the way things ended the last time they saw one another.
And he had the distinct feeling that they were going to be tiptoeing around each other all day.
Frankie didn’t do middle ground. He was either all in or all out.
And he knew how hard it would be for him not to act like they used to.
But they couldn’t be chummy, affectionate pals anymore.
Sam had no interest in going back to the way things were.
He needed to move forward. He needed to be himself, gay and unashamed of his desires. And his desire had been Frankie for too fuckin’ long.
“Because you have a sensitive nose,” Sam clarified, eyebrows arched. “You could always tell when I changed deodorants. Gave me hell when I wore one that bothered you.”
Frankie, after a moment, visibly relaxed and shook his head. “Yeah, because you picked out shit like ocean breeze that smelled like salty ass.”
He chuckled, leaning against the backbar, gazing over those adorably cute pink flamingos on his chest. “Maybe I like salt and asses.”
Oh shit, did I just flirt?
Frankie quickly looked away as a slight, yet telling, flush formed on his cheeks. Something in that moment shifted within Sam, and his eyes narrowed over the nervous way Frankie shifted on his feet. He wondered, for a split second, if Frankie liked his attention.
No, that couldn’t be it.
It couldn’t be.
Or maybe there was something there. Just like there had been something there when he let him kiss him.
Stomping down the flurry of hope storming in his stomach, Sam cocked his chin to the side, eyeing his pink swim trunks. “You look good. Love the pink. I didn’t know it was a hula-themed holiday.”
“Yeah, yeah, fuck you,” Frankie grinned boyishly at him. “What? You don’t like flamingos?”
This was the Frankie he was familiar with.
Playful, charming, obnoxiously handsome.
If Frankie insisted on making this friendship work, then Sam would have to be himself. Even if that made them both uncomfortable, he couldn’t keep protecting Frankie, not at the expense of himself. Not anymore.
“I love flamingos,” Sam drawled, unable to keep his eyes off his body. “They’re adorable.”
Frankie cleared his throat roughly. “Stop.”
“Nah, I don’t think I will,” he drawled coolly.
“Sammy…” he said in a warning tone.
“Sam,” he heard himself correct firmly. “Sammy was the version of me that could never tell you the truth. If you wanna be my friend,” he leaned forward, invading his space. “Then you’re gonna have to get used to the real me.”
Frankie lifted his chin defiantly. “The real you?”
“Yeah, the me that doesn’t hide that I want you.”
Frankie released an audible breath through his nostrils, eyes darkening and jaw clenching.
“But I didn’t just come here for you,” Sam admitted, glancing around the bar and the people in it. “I love this place on the Fourth. So, c’mon, let’s move this fuckin’ thing.”
The lines around Frankie’s lips soften, and he joined him at the keg. Their hands were close, nearly touching, their shoulders brushing against each other, and he couldn’t help but notice how much Frankie wasn’t looking at him at this close proximity.
The two men muscled the keg through the crowded bar and back outside.
Barbeque smoke from the grill, hot July sunshine, and laughter wafted over them.
“Joel and Brendon are gonna be here soon,” Frankie informed him.
Sam smiled. Joel and Brendon went to community college with them.
They had become their own little tight-knit gang of late-blooming men who started later in community college after high school, deciding to work or play before returning to boring academia.
Adulthood eventually won out, and Joel was swept into a corporate job in the city, while Brendon got married and moved to the suburbs, becoming a dentist.
“Good,” Sam huffed out as they made it to the last leg with the keg, dropping it heavily behind the folding table with the beer jockey box. “I texted Mikey and told him I was here, too.”
“Mikey?” Frankie scoffed, stretching his knee out a little, pain tensing his expression for only a brief second. “Why the fuck did you invite Blue-Balls?”
Sam, distracting himself by hooking up the lines to the keg, wanted to ask about how Frankie’s knee was, but he resisted.
Frankie was already on edge, and asking him about a sensitive topic wasn’t a good idea.
He made quick work of detaching the hose from the empty half-barrel keg and connecting it to the fresh keg.
If they were lucky, it might last the whole night with this crew.
“Probably because I’ll be around temptation all night and will need a distraction,” Sam replied casually, honestly.
“You don’t mean Blue-Balls?” he asked incredulously.
“No. I mean you.”
Frankie frowned and opened his mouth, his cheeks reddening, and then cursed. “Fuckin’ knock it off.”
He glanced up from the keg, noting the telling flush in Frankie’s neck.