by Beth Bolden
And, Gabe thought dreamily, as his hands pulled Sean even closer against him, until he could feel all of that lean, strong body pressed against his, maybe it didn’t. All he could feel right now was Sean. He’d wanted him, just like this, for so long now. Despite all his annoyance that first day, he’d wanted to do exactly this, even then.
It was just as good as he’d always imagined it would be.
Actually, it was better.
But then, before he could start to think of what he could do next, without maybe getting arrested for public indecency, it was over.
Sean was pulling away, his mouth missing from Gabriel’s, and then slowly, he dragged his body away too. Until they were standing with too many inches between them and an increasingly distressed look on Sean’s face.
He opened his mouth, and instantly Gabe wanted him to close it, because he was going to say something he didn’t want to hear.
But Gabriel had always considered himself a very stupid man, so he let Sean say whatever it was that was apparently more important than kissing.
“We . . . we shouldn’t have done that,” Sean said, then licked his lips, like he could still taste Gabriel on them. Like he couldn’t quite get enough.
Gabriel already knew that he couldn’t get enough. Even if he had Sean naked in his bed, it wouldn’t be enough. He hadn’t even gotten him there yet, and he still knew that he’d always be wanting more.
He forced himself to focus. To try to handle this right so that he wouldn’t scare Sean away. So Sean wouldn’t scare himself away. Rolling his eyes, Gabe shoved his hands into his pockets. Mostly so he didn’t try to touch him again. “Could you be any more cliche?” he asked.
“What?” Sean looked shocked.
“I mean, that is such a cliche, right?” Gabriel said. “You sure didn’t seem to think it was a mistake when it was happening.”
Sean licked his lips again. “Well, that was because . . .”
“Because you really liked it? Believe me, I know. I was there.”
“No,” Sean said. Then hesitated. Like he hadn’t really meant to say that. “Actually . . .”
“Yeah, I know,” Gabriel said. “You enjoyed it.”
“But it’s such a bad idea. What are we going to do about the truck name? We can’t just tell Tony, sorry, we got so busy fucking that we never decided who should give up the name.”
Gabriel was momentarily very distracted by the idea of them being so busy fucking that they couldn’t even do anything else. Even the premise felt solid; like if they finally got their hands on each other, that was absolutely something that could happen.
In some faraway future, if Sean lets it happen, Gabe thought ruefully.
“I don’t see how they have anything to do with each other,” Gabriel said.
Sean eyed him skeptically. “Seriously?”
“They aren’t related,” Gabriel insisted, though even he wasn’t stupid enough to believe it. And Sean? Definitely not that stupid.
“I think they’d be hard to separate,” Sean said slowly.
“Do you want to have sex with me?” Gabriel asked, even though he knew better. His fragile ego might not be able to handle Sean’s answer. But then, if he was being truthful, how could it be anything else but the truth? But yes? He’d felt Sean’s cock, a hard line against his thigh, only a few minutes earlier.
But then, there was always the possibility that Sean would lie. To Gabriel. Or to himself.
“I . . .” Sean hesitated. “I do,” he finally finished. Gave Gabriel a timid glance, like he was afraid that once he’d admitted it, Gabe would press him against the wall and continue to ravish him.
It was a good idea. Gabriel wanted to do it more than he wanted to take his next breath. But he knew if he pushed now, well, it would never happen. If he was going to get Sean naked underneath him, it was going to have to be Sean’s choice.
He was a stubborn, infuriating man, and Gabriel had discovered that as difficult as that made everything, it was also kind of a turn-on.
“And do you want me to have the truck name?” Gabriel asked archly.
Sean didn’t even hesitate this time. “No,” he said emphatically. “Absolutely fucking not.”
“Then, there you go,” Gabriel said with a wave of his hand. “They’re not related.”
“What are you saying, that we can argue about the truck name during the day and fuck in the evenings?” Sean’s forehead creased in confusion. Like he wasn’t quite sure he could compartmentalize that way.
Frankly, Gabriel wasn’t sure he could either. But trying was better than not ever getting a chance to feel Sean the way he wanted to so desperately.
He’d thought he’d wanted him before all this, but now that he’d gotten a taste? He thought he’d go mad with it.
Gabriel nodded. “Exactly.”
“Or,” Sean said after a long, fraught pause, “we could try something else.” He took a step closer, crowding Gabriel against the brick wall again.
“Try what?” Gabriel’s voice came out in an awkward squawk as Sean’s hands rested on his shoulders, creeping up towards his neck, tucking behind and tangling in his hair.
“This,” Sean said, and laid another hot-as-fuck kiss on him. The kind of kiss that would keep him up late tonight, his hand fisted around his cock, as he imagined every dirty, filthy thing he wanted to do to this man.
Sean’s tongue was agile and quick and also slow as molasses, sliding over Gabriel’s leisurely, like he owned it. Owned him.
And goddamn it, Gabriel liked that even more.
One of Sean’s hands trailed down his chest, towards where his cock throbbed in time with his heartbeat, trapped behind the zipper of his jeans. Ten more seconds, and Sean would know just how hard he was.
But then, Gabriel realized with a start, he already knew.
Sean’s mouth left his two seconds before his hand reached just where they both wanted it to be, and then, like some kind of black magic, his hand was gone too, and Gabriel was left wound up, nearly panting, with nowhere to go.
“I could do that,” Sean said.
“You think you could convince me with really, really good sex that I should change the name of my truck?” Gabriel heard how high and wrecked his voice was. “You think you could seduce me?” Oh, he could. So easily. They both knew it.
But that knife cut both ways, and Sean’s own eyes were glassy and unfocused. As he’d been winding Gabriel up, he’d hardly been unaffected himself.
“I think I could,” Sean said. “I think I’m already doing it.”
He was, goddamn it.
“Even if you could,” Gabriel said, “you’re not that kind of guy. You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself afterwards.”
Sean shrugged.
“It won’t matter,” Gabriel vowed, though he wasn’t quite as sure as he sounded. “I’m not going to be led around by my dick.”
“Me either,” Sean said, his voice hardening, the steel edge back in his tone. He took a step back and then another, and Gabriel resisted the urge to drag him back. To prove to both of them that they could keep it separate. But maybe Sean was right. Maybe it was impossible.
But then maybe he was right too, and they were inevitable.
“I guess we’re settled, then,” Gabriel said. “It’s back to fighting, and not the fun, sexy, mock kind of fighting where I try to rub your dick every five seconds.”
Sean’s lips compressed into a tight line. “Like I’d actually enjoy that.”
“I actually think you might,” Gabriel said thoughtfully.
“You don’t know me,” Sean said. “Just because you’ve had your tongue down my throat doesn’t mean that you know me.”
“Right, of course not.” Gabriel rolled his eyes. He extended his hand, waving it towards the empty sidewalk. “Well, I apologize. I interrupted your carefully choreographed huffy exit. By all means, continue.”
Sean shot him one last scorching glare—Gabriel felt it down to his toe
s—and then finished storming off, like they’d never been interrupted by the hottest goddamn kiss he’d ever had in his whole life.
Gabriel wished he could leave it behind so easily, but he already knew he couldn’t.
———
Sean told himself that the next time he saw Gabriel, everything would be exactly the same as always.
The flirting that had happened inside the bar and the kissing that happened outside of it had been a random aberration brought on by his longtime celibacy and too much alcohol.
The next time he saw Gabriel, he would be just as annoyed as he usually was. Then Gabe would say something rude and infuriating, and Sean would hate him like he always had.
The good and bad news was that now that they’d both joined the lot, they saw each other nearly every day. There would be no reprieve for Sean to mentally re-stuff Gabriel back into the same box he’d been in from the beginning. Hopefully, Sean thought as he locked up his bicycle behind his truck and walked up to the back door, pulling his keys out of his pocket, Gabriel would make it easy on him by saying something particularly rude today.
That’d make it . . . not exactly easy . . . but, Sean decided, easier.
He unlocked the back door and walked up the single step to the interior of his truck. It was small, but it was cozy, and two years in, he still loved working here as much as he had the very first day.
This was everything he and Milo had wanted to build together; the dream just looked a little different after his death, but it was still the same dream. With the same name, Sean thought with pride as he pulled his favorite apron off the hook in the corner.
Buried beneath it was one other—was the very first apron he’d worn in this truck. The one that was permanently stained with a big red circle, thanks to Gabriel.
Sean fingered its starched cotton fabric, and nearly put it on instead. Maybe he couldn’t wear armor, but he could protect himself with the knowledge that Gabriel was not a good guy.
Maybe remind Gabriel too, while he was at it.
But his perfectionism wouldn’t allow him to wear something so obviously stained for customers, so he left it behind, pulling on the pristine white one instead.
He’d just begun his prep for the day, when he heard an all-too-familiar voice.
The day was already warm, so he’d opened up the big window that ran the length of the truck, and flipped the little mini fan on, hoping for some circulation. Which meant he couldn’t help but hear everything Gabriel said.
He was talking to Tony. Loudly. Of course, this was Gabriel, did he ever talk at a lower volume? He did last night, Sean’s uncooperative brain supplied. He was practically whispering sweet nothings in your ear.
“So, did you guys work it out?” Tony asked.
Gabriel looked right over, and his gaze caught Sean’s. He stared at him for a long moment, and then looked away. Aware now, though he probably had been before, that Sean was listening to every word he was saying.
“Not quite yet,” Gabriel said. “But I’m working on it.”
“You’re working on it?” Tony wondered. “What about Sean?”
Sean was rewarded a thousandfold for his eavesdropping when Gabriel’s face flushed bright red. “Oh, I mean, of course he is too,” he said, nearly stuttering. “He’s definitely . . . involved.”
Tony looked confused. “Okay, then,” he said. “Remember what I said.”
“I know, we’re going to figure this out,” Gabriel said, sounding like he was chock-full of confidence.
“Good.” Tony clapped him on the back, and Sean knew both of them well enough to know that Gabriel didn’t really think they could, and Tony hadn’t believed a word he’d just said.
Ugh.
Why had he let his cock get so carried away last night?
It had made something that was already difficult even tougher.
And that’s on you, Sean’s conscience reprimanded him. You did that.
Technically it had been Gabriel that had incited him, but Sean had been the one to kiss him. Twice.
If Sean could kick himself, he absolutely fucking would.
“So, you’re lying to Tony now, huh?” Sean asked, before he could stop himself. Stopping himself—something that apparently he couldn’t quite do anymore.
Gabriel glanced up at him through the open window. He took a few steps closer, and shrugged. “I told him what he wanted to hear. He didn’t want to hear that we kissed.”
His voice stuttered slightly over the last word of his sentence, and Sean felt the echo of it in his stomach. They’d kissed. And no matter what he might claim, he did want to do it again. He wanted to do it again, and he wanted even more.
“Actually, he might,” Sean said lightly, stepping out of the back of the truck and walking around to the front, until he was face to face with Gabe. “Those guys are practically a gossip factory.”
“Exactly,” Gabriel retorted. “That’s our business. Nobody else’s.”
And Sean realized, at the worst possible moment, that Gabriel wasn’t being just protective of himself, he was being protective of . . . him?
The knowledge knocked the wind right out of him.
It was difficult to convince himself that Gabriel was a bad man, when he didn’t act like a bad man.
“I agree,” Sean said, and hesitated. There was an apology tugging at him, deep down, annoying and persistent. But he didn’t say it out loud, because he didn’t even know what he was sorry for. For claiming that he’d seduce Gabriel into changing his mind? For walking away so abruptly, twice? For wishing that Gabriel had followed him the second time?
None of those were apologies that would end well, so Sean did the only thing he could—he kept his mouth shut.
“I guess we still have to figure our shit out,” Gabriel said.
An understatement of the century.
“Well, you just told Tony that we would and . . .” Sean trailed off. He’d been arguing for two years that nothing needed to change. He and Gabriel could always share the name, right? Never mind that they’d never done it particularly well. But it wasn’t really affecting either of them. Sales were good. Even when Tony had come to them last night, Sean had mostly thought it was bullshit.
But then after he’d walked home from the Funky Cup, angry and worked up in ways that he didn’t want to examine too closely, he hadn’t been able to fall sleep right away.
Finally, in desperation, he’d pulled out his phone and went to his truck’s Yelp page, which he tended to avoid, and then visited Gabriel’s as well. And just like Tony said, there was an undercurrent of frustration. A few reviews claiming confusion. More reviews posted on the wrong truck’s page.
He’d lain in bed and for the first time acknowledged that maybe it really was time.
Not for him to change the name, of course, but for them to figure something out.
“And?” Gabriel asked archly.
“And it’s time,” Sean said. “Don’t ever tell him I said it, but Tony is right.”
Gabriel shrugged. “We could always keep going like this.”
“No,” Sean said. “We need to do something.” It cost him something, to admit that. To reveal he’d not only been wrong, but that he’d been deliberately ignoring that wrongness for a really long time.
“Okay,” Gabriel said, but didn’t say anything else.
“Don’t you have any brilliant ideas?”
“Oh, I’m brilliant now?”
Sean rolled his eyes. “You weren’t brilliant last night, that’s for sure.”
“Yet,” Gabriel pointed out, “you still kissed me. Twice.”
He had. And goddamn it, he wanted to do it again.
Sean cut that thought off hard and fast. This negotiation didn’t need to be tainted by thoughts of everything he wanted and shouldn’t ever indulge in.
“That’s . . .” Sean cleared his throat. “That’s not what we’re talking about right now. You said it yourself, they’re not related. And they nee
d to stay unrelated.”
“Fine,” Gabriel said. “Why don’t we start with your reason why you won’t change your name?”
“What?” Sean supposed he should have seen it coming. But he hadn’t, and the question hit him right in the solar plexus, stealing his breath.
Why had he ever thought that Gabriel would fight fair?
“You have a reason. I’m just a stubborn asshole,” Gabriel said with a wry smirk, “but you? You’ve got a reason you’re clinging to.”
The last of Milo, Sean thought, even though that wasn’t even remotely true. He had lots of pieces of Milo; he’d carry one of them in his heart, forever, no matter what his food truck was called. But old habits died hard.
“It’s none of your business,” Sean said. Even though he knew that was a lie. It kind of was Gabriel’s business. Not only because Milo was the reason that Sean wouldn’t address for refusing to budge, but also because, before last night, Milo had been the last person Sean had kissed.
“That’s not true, and you know it,” Gabriel said. “I can even see it on your face. You don’t even believe yourself.”
Sean had never wanted to be that guy with a dead husband, so when he’d moved to LA, to start fresh, and to start On a Roll, he’d deliberately never mentioned it to any of the guys who had become his friends. Milo was his, private and inviolate, and he had no intention of sharing now, or ever.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” Sean said stubbornly. “All that matters is that it’s none of your fucking business why I won’t change the name, just that I won’t. Not now. Not ever.”
“But you think Tony is right,” Gabriel stated with disbelief.
“Well, I would think the conclusion you could draw from that is pretty obvious,” Sean said. Knowing he was being prickly, and not really caring. He wished that he’d put the stained apron on this morning, if only because he knew Gabriel felt guilty about it, and reminding him of what he’d done might have given him an advantage.
“I don’t see why I’m the one who needs to give in,” Gabriel said.
“Because I have a reason and you’re just, as you so charmingly put it, a stubborn asshole.”
“Why are you allowed to keep secrets and I’m required to just give in because of a personality flaw?”