by BJ Blakely
“And bacon,” I blurt out. “Don’t forget the bacon. We made it extra crispy just for you.”
“And the bacon,” Jax echoes, releasing his grip on my hand. “See you at Tilly’s. I’ll be there at nine.”
“Sure, Jax. See ya then.”
I can barely speak or think or breathe when I return to the kitchen. Fuck the Truck n’ Munch mouth guy, I’m going on a date with Jax.
Life. Complete.
Jax
“Two vodka cranberries. Extra vodka, light on the cranberries.”
I’m at the bar early. Tilly, in her generosity, cleared a booth for Logan and I in the back, where it’s quiet.
My heart races as I give Tilly my drink orders. I feel like a giant bundle of nerves about to burst like an overinflated pufferfish.
If it’s this bad now, I can’t imagine how I’ll feel when Logan arrives.
Thankfully, Tilly calms my nerves with a playful grin and a wink. “Ooh la la. Jax got himself a date.”
I snort and try not to think of my date. I focus on Tilly, who won’t exacerbate my nerves or blue balls. “It depends, Tilly. I still have 2 more minutes for him not to show.”
Tilly ignores my insecure nervous energy and grins. “He’s gonna show and you know it. You’re a big teddy bear, Jax. No one would stand you up.”
“If he doesn’t, then I’m the luckiest man to ever live.”
Tilly refuses to let me go there. “Luck has nothing to do with it. You’re a catch. Logan is lucky you asked him out. I’m sure you have plenty of options. You certainly didn’t have to spend your Friday night with him.”
I roll my eyes. Tilly, though an excellent bartender, fails to realize that I can both luck out and be a catch at the same time. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.
But I’m certainly not going to contradict her if she says I’m a catch, though.
Even hung truckers like me need a shot of Tilly’s home-brewed self-esteem now and then.
“Thanks, but I did luck out,” I protest. “Plenty of catches ask their waiters out and get shot down. I happened to pick the one cute waiter interested in a guy like me. Fate set that up. I had nothing to do with it.”
Tilly shakes her head in dismay. “Don’t sell yourself short, honey. You’ve got exactly what he’s looking for. You won’t let him down.”
Suddenly, Tilly leans across the bar and stares into my soul. This woman gives me the heebie-jeebies. “If you want to make a good first impression, bring up Logan‘s art. All he does is paint and serve customers pancakes and bacon. Ask him about his painting. It’s the master key to his heart.”
I stare at Tilly in disbelief. Is she serious? Damn. If so, she’s helping me big time.
“Damn, Tilly,” I say with a snort. “I didn’t know you were in the matchmaking business. You make a great wingman.”
Tilly grins. “I’m a woman of many talents.” Suddenly, her expression changes, and she nearly drops the rag she’s cleaning the counter with. “Look out,” Tilly hisses. “Here he comes.”
I whip around right in time to see Logan.
He’s wearing a dark blue T-shirt and a faded pair of khakis that make his perky little ass pop.
My cock lurches in my jeans as Logan marches through the doors of the bar with the biggest grin I’ve ever seen plastered across his face, then waltzes to the booth and slides into the comfortable seat across from me.
“And I thought I was early,” Logan jokes, rolling up his sleeves.
It’s so damn cute, the way he’s avoiding making direct eye contact. It’s almost like he’s scared to get lost in my eyes.
Or maybe that’s how I feel about him.
“You can never get to Tilly’s too early,” I quip back with a warm comforting grin. “Thank God I got here when I did, because here she is, already coming over with our drinks.”
Tilly indeed is hobbling across the bustling bar floor with a tray of drinks balanced on her left arm. Her face lights up when she sees Logan.
“I knew this would happen,” Tilly says triumphantly. She sets our drinks on the table and crosses her arms in a very grandmotherly way. “I called it last week.”
Logan rolls his eyes. “You called nothing of the sort, Tilly. Jax is heading out tomorrow, and this is a farewell-slash-get-to-know-you-before-you-leave-forever round of drinks. It’s not even a date.”
Logan’s joking. But there’s an unmistakable hint of sadness in his words. He’s right, though. Tomorrow, I leave for God knows how long. I can’t focus on this now.
I take Logan’s hand in mine. “Let’s focus on tonight, Logan. Tomorrow will come when it comes. But I wanna get to know you tonight.”
My words hit home. Logan’s cheeks turn pink like he’s going to melt into a giant puddle. “That sounds like a plan.”
I let go of his hand and make a shooing gesture with my left hand. “Shoo, Tilly. We have some get-to-know-you-ing to do. It’s hard with you in the way.”
“You don’t need to tell me twice.” Tilly gestures to the packed bar. “These customers won’t serve themselves.”
Tilly pivots to head back behind the bar, and I turn to face Logan with warmth in my eyes. Leaving won’t be easy for either of us.
For God’s sake, the kid painted me a picture of bacon, which I will absolutely hang in my rig.
You don’t paint a picture for someone unless you feel something, and if Logan feels something, he’s inevitably going to get hurt. I will too.
But at least the hurt won’t be as bad as if we drag this out past the expiration date.
The best gift I can give Logan is to help him forget about tomorrow, and pretend that we have more than a couple more hours with each other tonight.
I’ll start by thanking him again for his amazing picture, because duh.
It’s freaking beautiful, and no one‘s ever painted me anything in my life.
“Thanks again for your bacon portrait. It’s amazing. I’m hanging it in my rig.”
Logan blushes and flits his gaze to the table. “Oh, stop. It’s nothing. I was going to paint my cat Tobias, but then I realized your favorite food is a helluva lot more photogenic than my cat.”
I snort. “So the truth comes out. Bacon before cats.”
“Damn right. Well, not unless you own a pet pig. Then I think you’d better stay away from bacon, as far away as you can.”
It’s the perfect opportunity to let him in on a slice of my life. “I had a pet pig growing up.”
Logan’s jaw drops. My words have hit home. “What?”
“You heard me,” I repeat, nodding. “I had a pet pig.”
“Okay, Jesus. You didn’t tell me you had such cool parents,” Logan quips, taking a sip of his cocktail. He savors the taste of vodka cranberry, before swallowing it down and turning his gaze back to mine.
My heart leaps in my chest as he directs his gaze to mine. Damn, he’s so cute. This is going to be harder than I thought to say goodbye.
I snort and make a shooing motion with my hand, to suppress those uncomfortable feelings. “It’s not what you think. I was a farm boy. We had every damn animal under the sun.” I clear my throat. “Of course, this was back before this current era of hyper-specialization. Farms produced multiple crops and raised livestock back then.”
Logan can’t stop staring at me. “How the hell did you get a pet pig?”
“Our Mama pig, Wilberta, had babies. We shipped four off to local farmers in Northern Michigan, where I grew up. But I kept little Wilbert Jr. as my own.”
“Oh my God. That’s adorable.”
“It’s not that adorable,” I admit. “My uncle slaughtered him on his sixth birthday. He didn’t care little Wilbert was my pet. It was heartbreaking, but that’s life on a farm.”
Logan bites his lip and sighs. “Dammit. I thought this was going to be a cute story like Charlotte’s Web.”
“Charlotte’s Web is a children’s story. You have to kill animals in real life.”
I clear
my throat. “It did jumpstart my vegan phase in my early 20s, though. But I quickly grew out of that.”
Logan’s jaw drops. “Oh bullshit. There’s no way Jax the trucker, lover of all things bacon-y and fried, went through a vegan phase.”
I shrug my shoulders. “You don’t have to believe me. But it’s true.”
Logan cocks an eyebrow. “What did you eat? Just a lot of kidney beans?”
I nod. “Yes. And tofu. God, I ate way too much fucking tofu. My inevitable hatred of tofu — this occurred at the end of the phase — is what morphed me back into the carnivore you see before you today.”
Logan can’t help but grin. “I don’t blame you. Tofu is nasty.”
“At least we agree on something.”
Logan lets out an adorable laugh. He runs his fingers through his floppy brown hair and looks around the bar, but he’s not looking at the patrons. He’s imagining me on the farm.
And oh my God, I could stare at him like this for hours. Logan’s cheeks are pink and rosy, his eyes are wide and imaginative.
He has no idea I’m staring, which makes me want to stare all the more.
I want to kiss him. So fucking bad. But I can’t.
I can’t risk what will happen if I like what I find.
Instead of giving into my urges, I decide to finish the annotated version of my life. What I really want is to hear about him, but I have to finish my own story first.
I clear my throat. “Long story short, I volunteered to help with the family farm throughout my 20s. I received my bachelor’s in Animal Science and a master’s in Farm Management from the University of Michigan. But after a few disagreements with my family over ‘lifestyle choices,’ I knew I had to leave. Without the money to start my own operations, I chose a profession that was a little less difficult to enter. That’s how I got into trucking.”
Logan lets out a slow whistle. “Damn. I take it the ‘lifestyle choices’ disagreement wasn’t about you being a vegan?”
I shake my head. “Nope.”
“Okay, Alex. I’ll take ‘gay son in a homophobic family’ for five hundred dollars, please.”
Logan is obviously pleased I finally answered the elusive gay question. I hadn’t exactly told him this about myself in the diner, but I had a feeling he’d figured it out. Looks like I was right on the money.
“You got it.”
Logan shakes his head in amusement and stares down at the bar table. Something in my story has resonated with him, but I don’t know if he’s prepared to tell me.
Plenty of young men in small-town rural communities lack the accepting warmth of more open-minded families in the city.
I know Michael didn't have that, and I assume Logan has a similar story.
But Logan might not be ready to share this, especially with me. I’m still a stranger.
If Logan wants to keep this to himself, I won’t push it, and I’ll direct the conversation towards something else.
But it turns out that Logan is ready to share. “I have a similar story,” Logan admits after a moment.
His voice is soft and shy, and he’s clearly embarrassed about revealing such an intimate part of himself with me.
Maybe I should kiss him. That might take the embarrassment away.
Logan settles into the booth, takes a sip of his cocktail, and sighs. “I don’t talk about this much. But I have a similar story to yours.”
I nod. Go on.
“My parents kicked me out when I was sixteen,” Logan whispers, staring at the table. “It hurt more than anything, which is why I don’t discuss it. They came home early one afternoon and caught me doing super gay shit in my room. The worst part? I wasn’t doing anything wrong. But their harsh words stung, and they kicked me out the next morning. Apparently, if I was old enough to make such ‘lifestyle choices,’ I was mature enough to leave the house. So I moved in with Mary Beth to finish high school. She’s the dishwasher at Betty’s. She’s so sweet, and she helped me more than you could know. When I turned nineteen, I got an apartment with my best friend Forest, who you’ve met at Betty’s. It’s not easy, but at least I’m independent and free.”
“Jesus.” Logan’s story knocks the wind out of me. I feel my heart shattering in my chest. At least I was in my late 20s when I left the family home. But sixteen?
That’s fucked up.
I stare into Logan’s eyes. I can’t believe this adorable young waiter I’ve had the hots for has such a tragic backstory.
Though I don’t exactly know what he means by “gay shit,” I assume his parents probably caught him fooling around with a classmate and that’s why they kicked him out.
Parents don’t kick their straight kids out for fooling around with girls or guys.
Gay teens are subjected to sickening double standards. Talk about a fucked up situation.
But Logan’s story introduces me to another layer of his personality. Logan is brave. Strong. He might be young, but he has so much goddamn experience with the cruelty of the world, and he’s figured out how to live on his own.
The wisdom he’s accumulated over the past few years radiates out of him like a force field, pushing away the darkness and giving him the strength to go on.
I look into his blue eyes, and I know instantly that I want him more than I’ve admitted to myself.
I want to hold him, protect him, wrap him in my arms and cuddle all night. He’s so fucking sweet and adorable, and yet he’s strong as hell.
Logan’s a fighter.
It fucking sucks I’m leaving tomorrow and can’t fight for him.
“That fucking sucks, dude.” I wish I could say more, but I can’t.
If I start talking, I’m going to end by asking him to move in with me, because there’s no fucking way I can keep this up without going all the way.
He’s so fucking perfect, so goddamn strong, and yet he needs a protector. I want to protect him.
But I can’t do this, so I grit my teeth and remind myself this is a one-night thing, and I’m leaving tomorrow.
Under no circumstances can I develop feelings.
I can't let this turn into another Michael.
But it’s tough as hell.
Logan sighs. “It is what it is.”
“I imagine the ‘super gay shit’ you mentioned was what threw them over the edge, right?”
Logan nods. “Yup. Apparently painting pictures of myself and a senior boy riding off into the sunset was too much for them to take. They threw away my pictures and forced me to move out the next morning.”
My jaw drops. His words hit me like an atom bomb. I assumed he was hooking up with a school boy. Why is he talking about pictures? “Wait. What?”
“I said I was painting suggestive pictures that had overt homosexual overtones.”
“You didn’t have a boy over?”
Logan shakes his head. “No.”
“You weren’t sucking his dick and your parents walked in?”
“Nope.”
“You weren’t jerking to a Bodybuilders Monthly pin-up shoot you’d taped over your bed?” This was from my own personal playbook. Maybe Logan did the same.
“No way, José. I’m not into bodybuilders. Way too much muscle. Often to compensate for their baby dicks.”
Logan’s words make me laugh out loud. “So your parents kicked you for painting gay pictures? Jesus Christ.” I wipe tears of laughter from my eyes. “That might be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“You can’t blame them. There’s not exactly a section for ‘teenage son painting Fabio-esque pictures of himself and slightly older crush’ in the adolescent male parenting handbook. They were shocked and horrified, and their gut reaction was to disown me and kick me out. Totally understandable.”
“Oh, totally.”
I clear my throat. “You can be honest with me, ya know.”
Logan sighs. “Fine. It hurts like hell.”
Logan says nothing. We share a moment of silence.
&n
bsp; At last, Logan opens his mouth to speak. “This is why I don’t talk about it. It’s too painful, Jax. I always start crying.”
Logan sighs and hits me with the most kicked-puppy expression I’d ever seen. “Tonight, I don’t wanna cry.”
Fuck. This is bad. So fucking bad.
Logan is the sweetest, kindest, most adorable young man on the planet, and he’s breaking my heart.
I want to throw my drink across the room — preferably at a picture of his parents — and take Logan into my arms.
I want to squeeze him so fucking close, hold him tighter than hell to let him know I care.
I want to protect him. Guide him. Help him get through life.
Shit, if he wants to enroll in a visual arts program at a local community college, I want to pay for it.
He can take all my money, all of it.
Logan has gone through hell, and if he consents, I want to be his guiding light.
But I have a commitment to SUCME Trucking.
I have a freight load of plastic toys I need to deliver to a warehouse in Michigan by tomorrow afternoon.
If I want to keep my job and keep my promises to deliver these toys, I can’t let him into my life.
And yet I’m tempted to call Jonah and tell him to suck it, to turn in my resignation, to drive my rig back to the warehouse in Wisconsin and start a new fucking life in Bear Springs.
I have savings. If I want to nuke my current life and start a brand new one with a server I met in a diner, what’s stopping me?
I shake my head in resignation.
I made commitments to my company, and it’s the middle of summer.
I’d be fucking my co-workers over during the biggest time of year, and they’d have to pick up the slack if I quit.
Jonah would blacklist me from the trucking industry, and I’d probably have to go back to farming, which I absolutely don’t want to do.
Also, I've already uprooted my life once for a waiter at a diner, and after the shit I went through with Michael, I'm not ready to do it again no matter how strong my feelings are for Logan.
I fucking wish life was simpler. But it’s not.
But suddenly, an idea flashes across my mind.