Chapter 5
Sam
“Checkmate!” The excited teenager whose mom had brought him to Common Grounds’ second games night, the first one of my tournaments, leaned back in his chair and threw his arms wide in victory.
Across the table from him, the elderly man wrapped in a cardigan who had probably assumed he was doing the kid a favor by playing against him pinched his wrinkled face into a frown. “That was a clever move, young man,” he said, struggling to be gracious.
I had a feeling Larry wasn’t used to losing. “It was a noble effort,” I said, squeezing the man’s shoulder and trying not to grin too much. Larry was one of our regulars, after all, and the point was to bring more new people into the café, not to alienate the ones who were already loyal to us.
“Who do I play next?” the kid asked, all brightness and confidence.
I would have loved a little of that confidence.
As the kid’s mom said, “We’ll have to check the roster,” I turned to the side of the room where the roster in question and the leaderboard were attached to the corkboard where we usually hung posters for upcoming shows and events.
Brian stood to one side of the table that held a few extra chessboards and timers, chatting with another of the old guys from the retirement village up the street.
Brian seemed to sense I was watching him. He glanced up in the middle of explaining something to the old guy with enthusiastic gestures. As soon as our eyes met, he burst into a smile that had my heart hitching in my chest.
How had I gotten so lucky to have a sweet, hot guy like Brian in my life?
How had I gotten so unlucky to have him as an employee?
The guy Brian was talking to needed his attention again, and I had to turn to answer a question from another wannabe chess master who had just finished her game.
It was probably for the best. I couldn’t spend all my time gazing across a crowded room at Brian and eating my heart out over some perceived reason the two of us couldn’t be together.
The good news was that the room was crowded.
Chess tournament night had gotten a great response despite me having barely any time to pull it together.
That probably had something to do with the fact that there wasn’t a whole lot else going on in town on a Thursday night and Gilbert had given the go-ahead to hand out vouchers for free coffee with the purchase of a pastry during our regular business hours.
Everyone was chipping in to do what they could to keep Common Grounds afloat during the construction.
“Okay, I’ll admit it,” Brian teased me half an hour later, as the last of the chess matches started to wrap up and people gathered their things to go home. “This tournament-style games night isn’t such a bad idea after all.”
“Damn right, it’s not,” I teased him right back. “People like structure as much as they like chaos.”
“Open games night was not chaos,” he insisted, eyes shining as he stood by my side, arms crossed in imitation of me as we looked around the room at the remaining games. “It was fun and unstructured. People like that sort of thing.”
“People like structure and format as well,” I pointed out, glancing sideways at him, my heart refusing to calm down.
“Sure they do, Mr. Boss Man,” Brian drawled.
He was so unbelievably cute, especially when he joked with me. So much so that I only felt a slight jolt over the way he called me Boss Man. Things were easy between us, and I liked that.
I more than liked that.
I also let the moment of me staring at him, heart fluttering, go on a bit too long. Brian’s jovial smile morphed slowly into something more, something that probably wasn’t appropriate for a public games room that still held half a dozen people finishing up their games.
And my brothers. We couldn’t forget that.
Diccon and Gilbert had stuck around the café to help out and, in Gilbert’s case, to get a little of the extra work done that he swore he couldn’t concentrate on during the day with all the construction noise.
I was very much aware of my brothers sending covert glances my and Brian’s way as they pretended not to be interested.
“We should start cleaning up what we can so we don’t have to be here too late,” I said, surprised that my voice came out a little hoarse.
Brian, who had leaned slightly toward me, flinched and stood straighter. “Yeah, we should,” he said, then cleared his throat and took a step over to the table.
Inwardly, I rolled my eyes. I was a grown-ass man.
I should have been able to navigate my way around a guy who I liked.
This wasn’t high school where we had to be careful about who would perceive us and potentially beat us up behind the gym after school.
We were allowed to be attracted to each other and show it.
“You planning to do something about that soon?” Diccon asked a few minutes later, once the last of the chess players had finished their games and the two of us swooped in to clean up their table.
“Do something about what?” I asked, playing dumb.
Diccon snorted and shook his head. “Oh my gosh, and I thought I was hopeless.”
“Am I the only one around here who remembers Matt and Melissa?” I asked, leaning closer to him and trying to keep my voice down by moving my mouth as little as possible.
That only made Diccon laugh harder. “Am I the only one around here who recognizes an excuse when he hears it?”
I took a step back and frowned at him. “It’s not an excuse,” I insisted, then immediately glanced across the room to where Brian was walking the last of our customers to the door and waving them goodbye. “I don’t want to upset the balance around here.”
“See?” Diccon grinned at me. “Another excuse. God, you’re full of them. You need to get over yourself and make a move already.”
“I don’t know if Brian wants me to—”
I couldn’t even finish the sentence. I knew it was a lie.
I sighed and rubbed a hand over my face.
“Maybe it’s stupid of me, but the employee dating rule thing matters to me,” I said, still keeping my voice down and watching to make sure Brian didn’t walk back in and hear what I was saying.
“I wrote the rule, so wouldn’t I be a massive hypocrite if I also broke it? ”
Diccon fixed me with a flat look like only a younger brother who thought his older brother was an idiot could manage. “You wrote the rule,” he said. “So change it.”
Change the rule. That seemed like such a glib and oversimplified thing to do.
Or maybe it was a stroke of genius and I was just overcomplicating everything.
Either way, I shook my head and went back to cleaning up chessboards. Brian wandered back into the room a few seconds later, and when he did, Diccon mysteriously disappeared, leaving the two of us alone.
“I’ll give you this much,” Brian said once we’d gathered up all the boards and timers and stacked them in the closet at the back of the performance space. “Cleaning up after a chess tournament is faster than tidying up open games night. Fewer pieces, less mess.”
“Not to mention the fact that the sort of people who play chess tend to be less rowdy than your open games crowd,” I said with a smirk as I locked up the closet, then gestured for Brian to walk with me to the front door.
“Less rowdy, less fun,” Brian said with a lopsided grin and a sparkle in his eyes.
The man was making it extremely difficult for me to keep my distance and my hands to myself.
We locked up, but paused outside the café’s door.
It was a balmy night, and without the construction noise, the sidewalk outside the café felt almost peaceful.
Brian and I were illuminated by the light of a streetlamp, which somehow made the strong lines of his face and the good humor in his eyes stand out even more.
It would have been so easy to step into him and kiss him again. I still couldn’t get our first kiss out of my head. Even with my hangups, I had to admit Brian had been eager for that kiss. He looked like he could use another one.
He looked like he could use someone to fold him in their arms and never let go.
I sucked in a breath and took a step back. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” I said, giving him a tight smile, though I felt like giving him so much more.
Brian’s expression flickered for a second, but he put on a valiant smile. “Yep, tomorrow,” he said.
“Okay, good night. Get home safely.” I raised a hand and waved at him like a doofus.
We stared at each other for a few more seconds before turning and going our own ways. I grimaced at my cowardice as I made my way down Glenside Ave and the turn to the street where our family house stood.
“Get a grip, Samwise,” I muttered to myself as I picked up my pace, eager to get home. “You’re letting a stupid rule and someone else’s trauma from years ago stand in your way,”
I was probably using the whole Matt and Melissa thing as an excuse to not make myself vulnerable and put myself out there, too.
But by the time I made it home, tossed my keys into the communal bowl by the window, and marched past the room where Gilbert, Diccon, and Theo were watching some late-night TV program to head up to my room, a new sort of resolution was growing inside me.
I wasn’t going to let this stand in my way. Everyone was right. Brian and I would be good together, and if a stupid rule in an employee handbook was keeping us apart, I had the power to do something about it.
I stripped down to my boxer-briefs once I was in my room and grabbed my laptop before climbing into bed.
Filled with a new confidence, I opened up the employee handbook and scrolled down to the rule against coworkers dating.
I already knew what changes I needed to make, and it took less than a minute to delete one sentence and to add another.
I wasn’t going to be held back by the past for another day.