Chapter Four #2
Kerry chuckled, though nothing about his life was funny. He used Sven’s comedic interlude to pull himself together. By the time he put his shirt on, Keegan had turned away to study the gym setup. “You’re right,” Kerry said.
“Of course I am.” Sven preened for a few seconds before sobering. “About which part? You’re going to unleash vicious fury?”
Kerry chuckled and shook his head. “What good would that do? A furious reaction is sloppy and a waste of time. I need to be strategic and precise. Like a surgeon.”
“We’re not going to neuter him,” Sven argued. “Although…”
“Kerry is right.”
The trio turned to see who’d interrupted them.
Dominic stood in the open doorway wearing the same clothes from the previous evening and carrying his messenger bag.
Either he wore the same outfit every day, or he hadn’t been home yet.
Kerry was going with door number two and added guilt to the cocktail of emotions burning a hole in his stomach lining.
“I’ll take it from here.” Dom strode across the gym with a swagger that matched his confident remark.
Sven narrowed his eyes. Kerry knew he hated being dismissed or ignored almost as much as he resented Kerry for cockblocking his attempt to seduce Dom at the Thirsty Cowboy on the same night Kerry met Keegan.
“Why should I trust Kerry’s future in your hands?” Sven demanded.
Dom smirked as he joined them, staying just out of clawing range. “You sure wanted my hands all over you not that long ago.”
Sven snorted. “As if. You would’ve been lucky to make it past first base.”
“Oh my god!” Keegan turned big hazel eyes on Sven. “He’s the lion from the Thirsty Cowboy.”
“Mmhmm.” Sven’s eyes flashed with irritation when he looked at Kerry. Clearly, his brother still held a grudge about his interference.
“Lion?” Dom asked.
Keegan recapped the story of Rueben’s playful narrations, and Dom seemed to get a kick out of the comparison. He raked his gaze over Sven and said, “A gazelle, huh?”
“Graceful and beautiful,” Sven said smugly.
“And still shopping in the twink department,” Dom said. “Aren’t you a little old for crop tops?”
Sven’s cobalt eyes shimmered with wicked delight, and his mouth twisted into a smirk. He was about to unleash one hell of a snappy comeback, and Kerry was certain it would contain details from their encounter that he didn’t want to know.
“Whoa!” Kerry said, stepping between them. “Let’s not hit below the belt,” he told his friend.
Dom held up his hand. “Sorry, Stevie. Maybe I’m just jealous because my midsection has gone to hell while your body is banging.” He cut his eyes to Kerry and grimaced. “Sorry.”
Sven normally would’ve been pissed at anyone calling him Stevie beyond the age of twelve, but the compliment seemed to soothe his ruffled feathers. “I’m sorry too. There’s no one better than you to have Kerry’s back at a time like this.”
Kerry was on the verge of patting himself on the back when Dom turned his full attention to Keegan with a spark of interest in his gaze.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Dom said, a seductive smile curving his lips.
Keegan had been watching Dom and Sven’s byplay like a tennis match. His gaze widened when he realized he’d gained the lion’s attention. “Hi. I’m—”
Sven slapped his hand against Keegan’s shoulder. “Time to go. Dom and Kerry don’t need our help.” Sven propelled Keegan toward the door.
“You could at least introduce me to your friend,” Dom called after them. His lips curved into a smile until he turned his head and met Kerry’s gaze.
“Don’t,” he growled.
Dom’s eyes widened. “What?”
“Keegan isn’t for you.” Kerry dropped his gaze to avoid the knowing look in his friend’s eyes. He went to work, removing the tape from his hands instead.
“Man, I didn’t realize you were dating him. Sorry. I just flirted with Keegan to irritate Sven.”
Kerry had congratulated himself for preventing what he’d been certain was a mistake eighteen months ago.
Dom and Sven hadn’t seen each other for several years and hadn’t recognized one another.
Dom had been in the middle of a nasty divorce and wasn’t in the right headspace.
The situation had “recipe for disaster” written all over it, and Kerry had put a stop to it before things advanced too far.
Now, he suspected he’d only created an unresolved sexual tension situation between them.
He pulled the last bit of tape off and dropped it into the trash can.
He flexed his fingers to get the blood circulating freely and met Dom’s curious gaze.
“We’re not dating. It’s just…” His voice trailed off as he considered what to say.
Declaring Keegan as vulnerable felt like betrayal, and Kerry couldn’t form the words. “Just don’t, man.”
Dom held up his hands in surrender. “I hear you.” He cocked his head to the side as he lowered his arms. “That snarly growl you used sounds pretty possessive. Pretty sure at least some part of you has staked a claim on that cutie.”
Kerry didn’t dignify the comment with a remark. He thrust Chuck’s flyer at him instead. “Sven thinks Chuck and Keith Bozeman are working together to ruin my company.”
“Yeah, I overheard most of your conversation. You were too busy gawking at the guy you don’t date to notice I’d entered the gym.”
“Why are you provoking me?” Kerry asked.
Dom chuckled and shook his head. “I’m only speaking the truth. That’s never bothered you in the past.”
Kerry almost didn’t recognize himself lately.
He wasn’t used to feeling possessive over a guy, but he’d snarled at that Ken from the bar and then treated Dom’s harmless observations as threats.
He cycled through a deep breath as he thought about his options.
Maybe his problem was that he didn’t have a single person in his life he could talk to about Keegan without them getting matchmaking ideas.
“Fine. I want him. I want Keegan more than my next breath, but I can’t have him. ”
“Why?”
Kerry shook his head. “You didn’t come here to talk about my shitty love life.”
Dom’s brow shot up. “Since when do you have a love life?”
“Sex life,” Kerry amended. “Same thing.”
“A person can have sex without love, as you damn well know,” Dom said. He settled his big hand on Kerry’s shoulder. “Seems like you need to get something off your chest. You can trust me, Ker.”
“I know.” And he did, but Kerry couldn’t talk about what he didn’t yet fully understand. “Right now, winning my lawsuit and preventing Chuck from stealing all my business has to take precedence.”
Dom grinned wickedly. “Do you know what’s better than winning a lawsuit?”
“Building a time machine so I can go back and prevent this clusterfuck from happening?” Hell, if Dom could do that, Kerry would go back twenty-five years and save his sister and father.
But then he couldn’t imagine his life without Steven and Sven in it.
He couldn’t go back and change one thing without impacting dozens or possibly hundreds of others.
Had he not learned anything from watching Back to the Future?
A wiser man would reference complex theories and multiple concurrent universes, but there was a reason people complimented Kerry on his looks and physique.
He relied on a different kind of intelligence that rarely let him down.
But when it did, he ended up getting sued.
“I can’t procure a time machine, but I think it might be the next best thing,” Dom replied.
“Consider me intrigued. Let’s take this to my office.”
Dom followed him out of the gym and down the long corridor.
The doors to the left and right opened to private spaces for his overnight crew to use between calls.
Some questioned the expense and extravagance of keeping the rescue staffed twenty-four hours a day, but those people had likely never found themselves in a perilous situation where minutes mattered.
Yes, he could’ve hired a dispatch service to field the calls and alert the responders on call, but that meant his crew would either have to take their service trucks home, or they’d have to drive to the station, pick up their rigs, and then proceed to the accident.
No one wanted to be trapped in a disabled vehicle for a minute longer than they had to, especially if that vehicle was in a perilous spot.
He’d invested time and money to provide the best environment for his employees and offer an incomparable service to the community.
The desire to protect everything he’d built surged to the forefront of Kerry’s mind, enabling him to push away thoughts of anything else.
Kerry opened his office door at the end of the hall and switched on the light.
Something about the space had always brought him peace, even on the most stressful days.
Maybe it was the family photographs hanging on the wall or tucked into the gaps in his bookshelves.
Perhaps the cool tones of the slate-blue paint color soothed his nerves.
Kerry figured it had more to do with the pride he felt every time he stepped into his office.
This was something he’d built through grit and determination.
He gestured toward the coffeepot and minifridge. “Care for something to drink?”
“I’ve far exceeded my caffeine limit, but I’ll take a bottle of water if you have one,” Dom said.
Kerry retrieved two bottles and handed one to Dom before sitting behind his desk. Dom sipped his water and perused the photographs on the shelves for a few moments before pointing to a photo of them from their youth football days.
“Who are these studs?” Dom asked.
Kerry chuckled. “We thought we were big shit, didn’t we?”