14. George
George
“Can’t believe you drove all the way to Point Loma, which is nowhere near anything you ever need to be, and showed up at my date, which I had handled, by the way, completely handled, and then decided the best move was to start swinging with the hand that’s been in a splint for three weeks, George.
Three. Weeks. Do you have any idea what that means for soft tissue healing, or do I need to spell it out for you—”
Lance keeps fucking going.
I lose track of what he’s actually saying somewhere around the second minute. It turns into background noise. I end up watching his mouth instead, the way his lips move when he gets worked up like this, full, pink, the occasional flash of teeth when he really leans into a point.
He hasn’t stopped since we left the bar. Drove us back, dropped his keys on the counter, still talking. Moving around my place, grabbing supplies, running water, back with the kit, then down in front of me on the couch. Still talking.
His hands don’t match the rant at all.
They’re steady and gentle. He cleans the cut on my cheek with careful passes, turning my face toward the lamp with two fingers under my jaw, firm enough to hold me in place, not rough about it.
He’s pissed. I can hear it in every word. Still handling me like I’m something he doesn’t want to break.
I shouldn’t find that funny. Or hot.
I find it both, so I’ve been trying not to laugh while my dick starts paying way too much attention.
“—and another thing, why were you taking hits at all?” he goes on.
“I’ve seen you in bar fights before, or even when you try stopping them.
You don’t get hit unless you decide to get hit.
So what was that, huh? Slowing down? Aging process?
Because last I checked, you used to put people on the floor before they even knew what happened, and you were like just standing there letting them swing at your face—look at your face, George, your goddamn sprained hand—”
“I’m fine,” I say.
“—you were going to say that,” he cuts in immediately. “I knew you were going to say that. You’re not fine. Your cheekbone is going to be the size of a tennis ball by morning, and before you say anything else, just sit fucking still—”
I sit still.
He moves to my hand, unwraps the bar towel, holds it up to the light. His face shifts for a second, clinical, then he catches it and goes back to annoyed. The knuckles are split. Swelling’s worse than it was at the bar.
He starts cleaning it. I don’t look at it at all, because his face is more interesting.
He’s wearing a hoodie over the shirt he put on for the date.
Dark blue, fitted, chosen on purpose to look good for someone.
I noticed it at the bar before anything else.
From halfway across the room, through a crowd.
Elliot beside him, his hand on Lance’s lower back when they came in from the patio, resting there like it had already made itself fucking comfortable.
And just like that, I considered cutting that hand off and mailing it back to its owner days after.
I drove to Breakwater without thinking. Clocked out, got in the truck, and pointed it toward Point Loma like the decision had already been made for me.
I sat in the parking lot for a minute, engine idling, feeding myself the same weak excuse: I was just checking on him.
Making sure he was alright. Staying close, just in case.
Bullshit. Truth was uglier.
So, I went in anyway.
I told myself I’d have one drink and leave. Picked a seat with a clear line to the back patio. Watched Elliot lean in too close, smiling like he already thought he had a chance.
A hot, ugly feeling twisted in my chest. I’d never felt threatened by another man over anyone before. Tonight, I fucking did.
Elliot’s got that polished look. Crisp button-down, expensive jeans that fit exactly right. He orders off-menu like he owns the place. Lance laughs at something he says.
I looked down at myself. Flannel I’ve had since the shop opened, soft from a hundred washes, sleeves pushed up over forearms that are permanently a shade darker than the rest of me from sun and grease.
Jeans with a stain on one knee I stopped trying to get out.
Grease under one thumbnail that’s never coming out, not after ten years of engines.
I got up and went to the bathroom. Washed my hands again anyway, even though I knew it wouldn’t do anything. Stood there scrubbing at a nail bed that’s looked like that for ten years and would look like that for the next ten too.
Guy probably grew up going into places like this. Lance grew up in that world too, even if he doesn’t act like it.
I dried my hands and looked at myself in the mirror. I told myself to get over it, because that wasn’t even the part that mattered. I went back out to my seat.
That’s when I saw the drunk guy from another table lean into Lance’s space and grab him.
Lance looks up and catches me staring.
“Are you even listening?” he snaps.
I don’t answer, looking out the window.
His eyes narrow. “Are you smiling?”
“No.”
“Jesus Christ, you think this is funny?”
He goes back to the hand. I last for a few seconds before my eyes drift to him again. The smile I’m definitely not wearing keeps trying to break free. I drag my good hand down my face, covering my mouth, as if that’ll physically stop me from doing something stupid.
Like kissing that sharp, angry mouth just to get it to shut up.
Fuck. I’m getting worse.
“You’re impossible,” he mutters, not even looking up this time. “You pick a fight with a guy who had forty pounds and six inches on you, and then use your barely-healed hand like it’s a goddamn club—”
“More like two inches, and he went down.”
“That’s not the point, George. The real question is whether you made a single responsible decision tonight—and the answer’s a hard no.” He shakes his head, reaching for the antiseptic. “And you sitting there looking stupidly pleased with yourself makes me want to pour this straight into your eye.”
“That would be unprofessional.”
He points the bottle at me like a weapon. “Don’t. Push. It.”
I press my lips together, but the smile is still winning. He leans in to do the second knuckle. I don’t flinch.
“You went there on purpose,” he says, not a question.
“Was in the area.”
Lance gives me a flat look. “What were you doing in Point Loma, G?”
“They’ve got good beer.”
He exhales loudly, already exhausted with me. “Right.”
The real answer is sitting heavy in my chest, but I go with something safer.
“Got curious how you’d handle your first date with a man,” I say, shrugging.
Lance frowns, and for once I can’t read it. Disappointment? Annoyance that I don’t trust him to figure his own shit out? Both feel like knives.
“My first date with a man,” he repeats slowly, like he’s testing how the words taste out loud.
I wait for more, but he shifts gears.
“You scared me tonight.” His voice drops. “I looked up and there you were. For a second I thought—” He stops, jaw tight. “You got hurt again.”
I try to play it light. “We’ve been in worse. No big deal.”
The split knuckles are nothing. The fucking problem was watching that drunk guy put his hands on Lance like he had any right to touch him at all.
Something in me snapped. There was no thinking, just movement. I went straight through him, and I didn’t care who got in the way. It felt too right, driving them back and putting them down, like all that pressure finally had somewhere to go.
I would’ve kept swinging until there was nothing left to swing at. But Lance stepped right in front of me, pressed up against me exactly like that night.
He was close enough that I could feel every sturdy inch of him again. Chest, hips, thighs, the full weight of his body against mine. It’s the first time since that night I had him this close, so close that I could pull him in and hold all of him.
It was driving me out of my fucking mind.
Lance finishes wrapping my hand, then stays kneeling between my legs, my battered fist still cradled in both of his. The lamp light catches the sharp line of his jaw, the faint flush still riding his cheekbones, the shirt he wore for someone else.
He looks fucking beautiful.
And another man almost took him home tonight.
“You know I can handle myself, right?” he says. “If you hadn’t shown up, I still would’ve wrecked those guys.”
I don’t answer. I just watch him.
He stands, grabs two glasses of water, and drops onto the couch beside me. Close. Our arms brush. Neither of us moves away.
Lance stares at the floor for a long beat, then says, clearing his throat, “You can probably tell that I’m…bisexual.”
He says it like he’s bracing for impact, like there’s nowhere to step back to after it leaves his mouth.
The vulnerability in his voice hits me square in the ribs. I keep my focus on him for a moment, not rushing past it.
“Okay,” I say with no hesitation in it, nothing for him to brace against.
“I haven’t figured it out, not really,” he continues with a shaky laugh. “I just know I’m not straight. I’m still trying to come to terms with it.”
I grunt. He tucks his legs under him, hoodie sleeves pulled over his hands, looking smaller than usual.
I start carefully. “You talking about Adrian?”
“It wasn’t just him,” he says. “It was the whole thing, how it felt to exist in that space without pretending. I thought it would fade, and it didn’t. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
I’m in the same boat, I just don’t say it out loud. I’m too busy fighting the part of me that wants to pull him closer, and the one that’s terrified he’ll see how badly I want this.
“What can’t you stop thinking about?” I ask, voice rough.
“How it felt being with men. How something just… clicked. I’ve been with women my whole life. Flirting with women is easy. It’s automatic, expected. Lance is not Lance if he’s not like that. It was good. But this?” He meets my eyes, raw and honest. “It felt like the last piece sliding into place.”