by V. L. Locey
“But…” I prompted because I could hear it and the thought that there was a but had me all tingly in my pants.
“But affairs of the heart aren’t ruled by logic. God knows I spent months trying to talk myself out of lusting after Jim. He was everything that I’d been brought up to avoid. Brash, a bad past, from the wrong side of town, longhaired, pierced, rode a Harley for God’s sake.”
“If I were wearing pearls I’d be clasping them.”
He laughed softly then looked from the sky to me. “Trust me, my aunt and uncle were clutching everything they could clutch. But in the end, Jim and I were…magical. What I feel for you is terrifyingly similar.” His eyes clouded up, the blue overtaking the gray. “And I’ve fought my desires for you for weeks. Since the first time my eyes touched you the pull was there. Talking with my uncle about the ethics of dating someone whose future I directly impacted was a last-ditch effort to drive a wedge between us. That kiss…it rattled me. Made me feel things that I thought I’d buried with Jim.”
“Good. It was supposed to.” I leaned to the side, my arm now resting against his, our chins and noses mere inches apart. “What did you and the honorable uncle judge decide to do?”
“I decided that despite his grave warnings, I wanted to spend more time with you.”
“Yeah, I like that decision a lot,” I purred, wetting my lips for the kiss that I planned to steal.
“And you’re no longer taking part in the community garden program.”
“What? Wait! No man, that’s not fair!” I bristled up instantly. Bran, with a small smile that hid all kinds of things, patted my leg comfortingly.
“Nate, this is for the best. I can’t have you being a part of the community service program while we’re dating. I do have power over you. Say we do become intimate and we have a fight. What if I decide to not sign the forms for the court just to be a spiteful jerk?”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“No, of course not, but the possibility is there that I could misuse my authority over you. Also, there’s the age gap.” I started to spout off. He put a finger over my lips, a soft little pressure but enough to quiet me down. “People are going to have plenty to say about that. It’s just better all around if we remove you from this program and transfer you to another one. This way I can’t be accused of any impropriety or sexual harassment.”
“I’d never do that,” I stated, his finger resting on my lower lip. A gust of wind whipped around us but I never heard the roll of thunder. I’d kind of fallen into his gaze and the warm rough touch of his finger on my mouth. “I like coming here to help. To see you.”
He removed his finger from my lip. “Then come out as a volunteer and not a participant of our court-ordered group. I told my uncle about the hockey advisor role you’ve been offered. He seemed to think that mentoring youth would be a fine way to work off the rest of your hours. I hope I didn’t step over a line by doing that?”
“No way, no lines, no stepping, no bad nothing. Can we kiss? I really want to kiss you again.”
He threw a look around the parking lot. “Maybe when we hang out tonight, if that offer is still open?”
“You’ve seriously given me the worst case of blue balls I’ve ever had.” I grabbed my crotch and fell to the side groaning in mock misery. He nudged my feet then stood to look down on me lying on my side in the back of his truck. He looked amused. Sort of. “Thanks for talking to the judge about us, the summer league, and all that. I’ve never had anyone go out of their way for me like that aside from my brother and my agent. It’s…you’re…thanks.”
“I know, Nate.” He pulled back and took a few steps away. “You’re officially done here as of noon as part of the probationary program. You can start volunteering out of the goodness of your heart after we have lunch.”
“Cool yeah, Maggie brought cucumber sandwiches for her and me.” I slid off the tailgate and padded up to him. “So what time are we meeting up tonight?”
He drew in a huge breath then let it out in a rush. “You tell me.”
“Okay, Blue Button Café, seven o’clock. We’ll do dinner and see what happens.”
“Right, dinner, of course. God, I’m nervous.”
I rubbed my hand over his back, sidling around to get his nose and mine touching. “It’s only a tuna sandwich and some coffee.”
“Mm, you and I both know it’s way more than just a tuna sandwich.”
When the man was right, he was right. Nothing between us from here on out would ever be “just an anything” ever again.
Chapter Seven
I got to the Blue Button Café with ten minutes to spare.
Making sure I got the same table by the window we’d had the last time we were here, I ordered a glass of lemonade and waited. The tiny wadded up ball of straw wrapper kept my fingers busy as I stared through the brightly-painted panes of glass searching for that old truck to arrive. My heart did a stupid somersault when it pulled up to the curb. He slid out, fed the meter, ran his hands over his hair, his face, his chest, and his pants. I smiled at the nervous display. You’d think a man with all his experience being married and all wouldn’t be so edgy. I found it a huge turn-on, to be honest. Everything about Bran Cavanaugh got my dick hard. The old Neil Diamond shirts, the soft denim pants, the way he walked, his love of the planet and the things that grew on it, and the sensual undercurrent that ran just below the ice like a warm spring runoff slipping under the thick Arctic flows.
His gaze met mine as soon as he entered the café. I watched him walk to me, long legs carrying him closer with a strong, masculine gait. Each step nearer my cock grew longer and harder. By the time he was sitting across from me I was worrying over zipper integrity.
“Hi,” he said, his voice low and gruff.
“Hey.” I smiled in hopes he’d gift me one in return. He did but it was meager. “Bran, dude, try to lighten up. It’s a dinner date not a trip to the oral surgeon.”
That made his lips twitch in humor. “I’m sorry. I’m just incredibly nervous. I’ve never been good with casual…”
“Dating?”
“Hanging out,” he said, nodding at the skinny male server who’d arrived to ask about his choice of a drink. “Coffee with cream and a menu.” Skinny Guy ambled off and Bran’s gaze lighted on me again. I’d not taken my eyes off him while he ordered. “I was under the assumption that we were just doing friend stuff, like a burger and a movie or something.”
“We are…if that’s all you want to do. Were you this rigid with Jim?” I plucked my straw out of my lemonade and poked at the ice in my glass. I needed to do something with my hands that didn’t involve touching the man across from me. He was as skittish as a wild horse.
“At first, yes. It’s not just you, it’s expressing affection publicly. My family was not big on public displays of any kind. You met my uncle, I’m sure you could pick up his…” He floundered for a description.
“I’ve got a phone pole instead of a stick up my ass vibe?” I offered, smirking at my fidgety date.
“That fits. My father and uncle were raised with some strict values. Victorian values to be honest. Oh, thank you.” He turned to the skinny waiter. “I’ve not read the menu yet. Can you give me a moment?”
“Sure. I’ll be back in a minute,” Skinny Guy said, placed Bran’s coffee and a creamer on the table and went off to check on the only other diners in here, a young black couple.
“So how did they take the news that little Bran liked boys?” I enquired as his attention fell to the menu in his hands.
“Oh, about as you’d think.” He glanced up from the menu. “They did come around eventually as long as I didn’t flaunt it. But to be fair, they dislike het couples flaunting themselves as well. I often wondered how I’d ever been conceived given how much my family hates touching people. Which probably explains why I’m the only progeny my age among the Cavanaugh’s of New York.”
“No cousins or anything?” I leaned back in the boot
h, enjoying this little talk. He was answering some big questions I’d had.
“Not a one. My mother died of pancreatic cancer when I was seven, so my father and I moved in with my uncle Morton and aunt June. Dad was just a civil servant, working for the post office, and the medical bills wiped out the small savings he had. My aunt and uncle took us in and used me as a substitute for having children of their own.”
“Sorry about your mom. I lost mine too,” I murmured, glad to see the server return because Bran’s eyes were blue-gray pools of pity. We ordered chili dogs and tater tots. I’d hoped to get him back on course but he kind of veered way off the rails.
“I know you did,” he stated, his fingers rapping on the handle of his coffee mug. I hit him with an arched eyebrow, my straw dangling over the table, dripping droplets of yellow liquid on the Formica. “I know a little bit about you, Nate. It’s not hard to find the information that had been revealed during your court appearances. Your mother leaving was not on you. Nor was what your father did to himself after she left him.”
“Right, well, this was fun.” I slid out of my booth and hit the door at a dead run, the walls of that stupid café closing in on me. I got outside, sucked in huge gulps of air, and spun around in a wild circle, my sight locking onto Bran racing at me.
“Nate, please, I’m sorry for bringing it up.” I shook my head. Sharply, wishing my neck would snap and I could end the humiliation. He inched closer, hands dangling by his sides, his gaze on me, my face, my eyes. “I didn’t know that it was an off-limits topic. I just thought that since we’d been sharing childhood things…”
“I didn’t make her leave,” I told him, barely. My voice was thin and sickly. I tried again, saying it with more conviction. “I didn’t make her leave.”
“I know, of course not. You were just a little boy. Is that what she said?” Bran drew closer. The urge to run and forget was so strong.
I shrugged in reply. “Not sure. They said she said it. Can we not do this? I don’t want to do this. We’re supposed to be hanging out, having fun, maybe kissing on each other. This?” I waved a trembling hand between us. “This deep shit…no. Not here ever and not now. Can we not do this?”
“Of course. We’ll drop all talk of the bad parts of our pasts.” He held out his hand. It was big, strong, and stained by the good green earth he loved to work in. “Come back inside. We have chili dogs and tots coming.”
I slid my hand over his and he gently wrapped his fingers around mine. My feet were sort of stuck to the sidewalk. People walking past were staring at us. Bran began to look uneasy. I tightened my grip on his hand then pulled free of the hold the dark times had me in.
“Cool,” I said, voice a little croaky. “When I was a kid Jacob used to take me to this old hot dog shack after hockey practice.” Bran nodded and led me back to the door of the café and our awaiting dinner. We slid into our seats and pretended like the past five minutes hadn’t taken place. The food arrived, our server eyeing us as if we were aliens from Mars or something.
“Dude thinks I’m nuts,” I grumbled as I salted my tots.
“I told him you were stretching your legs before you ate because your coach said it helps convert food to energy more quickly,” he replied with a little twinkle of mirth. “So now he’ll probably dash outside before he eats in the hopes that he one day can be as utterly cool and awesome as Nate Zinkan.”
“Shit, poor slob.” I chuckled then popped a tot into my mouth. The tension in my chest was easing up. Maybe it was the tots which were phenomenal or maybe it was the man across from me. He’d totally saved my ass with that bullshit story. Imagine that dude telling everyone he knew—and adding pics from his phone—that Nate Zinkan had lost his shit. Not cool. Not cool at all. “Thanks for covering for me.”
“You’re welcome. I’m really trying my best not to make life any more difficult for you. I hope you see that.” He poked at his chili dog with his finger, the soft bun denting a bit. He looked up from his food to me. “I hated to remove you from the gardening program, but it might have been misconstrued if we continue to hang out.”
I nodded, grabbed up my dog, and took a bite. The zing of chili powder lit up my tongue. I groaned in pleasure.
“It’s cool,” I mumbled around the food in my mouth. “Well, not cool,” I added after swallowing. “But I get the reason why you did it.” He gave me a reedy sort of smile then poked his bun again. “You going to eat that?”
“Is it a good one? I’m leery of eating bad chili. Got sick as a dog once when I bought a chili dog at a gas station.”
“Dude, don’t ever buy chili or sushi at a gas station.” I nodded at my own wisdom. “Everyone knows that. This stuff here,” I waved my sloppy dog at him, “this is amazing. It’s super close to the chili dogs we used to get at this place called Cheeky Charlie’s Chili Dogs back in Norman Falls.”
He plucked a tater tot from the basket and ate that, his expression shifting from wary to delighted. “Great tot,” he exclaimed after he’d swallowed. “So, Cheeky Charlie’s sounds like a great chili dog palace.”
I snorted in amusement then took another bite, chewed, and swallowed. “It was a dump,” I replied with affection. Bran lifted his dog, bit into it, made a yummy noise, and chewed silently. “Probably had roaches but they served the best chili dogs in Ohio. Jacob always had extra cheese dribbled on his, so I had to as well. Every jersey I owned for like three years had chili and cheese stains on it from our stops at Cheeky Charlie’s.”
He smiled at me. “Jacob sounds like a good brother.”
“Yeah, he was.” I pulled away from that quickly, shoving the last bit of chili dog into my mouth. The fact that I’d spoken about Jacob and Cheeky Charlie’s with this man was confusing. I’d just lost my shit over discussing our pasts yet here I was talking about Jacob. I never discussed the past with anyone, no matter how hard the therapists at school had tried after Dad had done what he’d done. But maybe Jacob was a safe topic. He seemed to be. “You got any brothers or sisters?”
“No.” He sighed as he dabbed at his chin with a paper napkin. “I’m the only child born from the two Cavanaugh boys, remember?”
“Yeah, sorry, you did tell me that.” That information must have slipped out of my brain during my stupid escape attempt. The door opened, the sounds of the street following in the family of four.
“I’ve always wanted a sister, but it wasn’t meant to be. Aunt June is always surrounded with pug dogs, never fewer than four, and when I was younger she said that the dogs were my siblings which is just preposterous, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, I do.” We both had a light laugh over that. Talk then kind of drifted from topic to topic, his business, my career, music, and then, finally, films. We’d finished our food and were sipping our drinks, the third round of coffee and lemonade, when he asked who my favorite actor was.
“Kirk Douglas,” I replied and sat back to watch him gape at me. Everyone did when I mentioned my love of all things Kirk.
“Wait,” he said, lowering his mug of coffee to the table. “Kirk Douglas. As in the actor who played…”
“Spartacus. Yep, that Kirk Douglas.” Smirking, I folded my arms over my chest. He continued to gawk at me. I nudged his knee with mine under the table. “Lose the ability to speak?”
“I uh, no, I’m just incredibly surprised that a…man your age even knows who Kirk Douglas is, let alone saying he’s your favorite actor. To be honest, I thought you were going to say The Rock.”
“Dude, The Rock is a beast, I like him but there’s something about Kirk. Maybe it’s the chin, or those eyes, or maybe his fucking off-the-charts acting ability. Lust for Life is amazing. You ever see it?”
“No, I don’t think so. I remember watching 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea with my uncle.”
“Okay, we are so going to my place to watch it. I have all his stuff recorded.” I drank down the rest of my lemonade then slid from the booth. “I’ll get the check. Meet you outside.”
>
“Nate, no. you’re not paying for my meal.” He hurried to shimmy out from the table and stand in front of me. “Paying for me makes it feel…”
“Like a date?”
His nose wrinkled. “Yes, a little. We’re just hanging out, doing friend stuff.” I rolled my eyes and the crinkle lines on his face got deeper. The man was really too fucking cute, and far too repressed. He’d lighten up. I’d work on that. We had all summer. “Let’s do Dutch.”
“Whatever. But just so you know if anyone asks, I’m going to say we’re dating.” With that, I strolled to the cash register and waited for him to stop blushing and come cough up his eight bucks.
When the bill and tip were settled, we walked to my place, a quiet kind of comfortable silence falling over us as we rode up to my floor. He looked a little tight when I ushered him into my apartment.
“It’s nothing really fancy, but it’s home for now. I’m hoping the Mustangs pick me up during training camp and I’ll be living in Manhattan come October,” I said, kicking off my shoes and throwing my ass into the soft sofa cushion. He stood by the coffee table, eyes touching on everything but me. “If you sit down we can start watching the movie. Or, you know, you can stand there like a moron. Totally your call.”
“Can I be honest here?” He appeared ready to bolt. I wiped the smirk off my face and nodded. “I’m feeling really guilty for being here. I feel like I’m cheating on Jim. I know. I know. It’s stupid, but I’m just not…this is…I’m an idiot.”
“Nope, you’re not. Bran, seriously, you’re cool. I mean who was it that threw a freak during dinner and ran out on his date? Not you. I’m pretty sure your husband would not want you to rot away on the vine like an old ganky tomato.”
“That’s a lovely image, thank you. There’s nothing quite like being compared to a rotten vegetable to make a man feel good about himself.”