by Daisy Jane
“He’s friendly, I just never know if he’s going to jump up. We’re working on training but I’d hate for him to knock you over.”
“Grandma?” I question, wondering if I heard that right.
Bodhi snorts but stays focused on his sweet potatoes and I wonder now what in the world he’s going to make. He turns the oven on and pulls a baking sheet from above and I have to force myself to not look. Though all I want is to see those tattoos shift as he reaches up, muscles taut, man bun exposing the curve of his solid neck. Mmm, I am completely sexualizing these men in ways the girls and I hate when it’s done to us but in the words of Uncle Jesse, have mercy. I cannot help myself.
Keeping myself focused, I train my eyes on Bastian’s eyes. The cool blue I can see even through the shadows of his baseball cap. His—I narrow my gaze on the logo adorning the front—CrossFit hat. In an arch, the words ‘Oakcreek CrossFit’ sit on top of a stitched kettlebell. He does CrossFit, I should have known. I lick my lips.
“Yeah,” Bastian laughs, standing up as the dog trots around the corner. A moment later, water is voraciously slurped from a metal dish, which I know is metal because the dog’s tag clinks against it quickly as he laps. “When I got him, I couldn’t think of a witty name. You know, like how Katy Perry’s cat is Kitty Purry. And in the first few days I had him, he crapped on the floor a lot,” he scratches at the side of his face for a moment then turns to Bodhi.
Bodhi clears his throat. “It was pretty fucking funny to say Grandma crapped on the floor again,” he says with a controlled laugh.
“Is he yours, too?” I ask, thinking that if Bodhi helped name the dog that perhaps they own him together.
Bodhi wobbles his head side to side, as if the answer is tricky.
“I bought him but my work schedule can take me away from the house for long stretches so Bodhi and Eli help with him, too.”
“Eli?” I question, realizing that Bastian and Bodhi are roommates and there’s another one of them I haven’t met yet.
“Our other roommate,” Bodhi says, arranging the sweet potato slices on the baking sheet sprayed with coconut oil. He slides the tray into the oven before wiping his hands off, jumping himself onto the counter, heels knocking into the cupboard below. “I was telling your friend what a skinny little wuss you were when we met.”
Bastian tugs at the bill of his cap and chuckles, a laugh that I can feel in between my thighs. “I was skinny,” he says, bending down over the cake, lifting his hat for a safe smell. “Fuuck, have you smelled this or is this too animal-cruel for you?” Bastian says to Bodhi, who has his arms crossed over his chest.
Bodhi looks to me with those steely gray eyes that make my belly do a weird thing, and I flinch back.
“Sorry,” I say, “it’s not vegan, if that’s what he means.”
“That’s okay, I drank last night and I’m still trying to cleanse myself from all that shit today.” He waves his hands down his body as he says cleanse and it surprises me to learn this slab of ink and muscle is vegan.
“Why isn’t he named Grandpa?” I ask, as Grandma saunters through the kitchen, turning a corner and taking the stairs two by two. “I mean, he’s really a he, right?”
Bastian grimaces as he pulls his cap off, shoving his fingers through his messy but salon-messy hair. “It would make more sense,” he smiles at me, a smile so gorgeous that I am jarred by it. Eyeing the barstools lining the kitchen island, I motion to one, silently asking if I have permission to sit. Bastian races to the island and pulls a stool out, surprising me with his manners. He’s an alpha male, a born protector, I can tell in his stature and career choice. His manners shouldn’t surprise me but still, they kind of do.
He pushes me in and smooths his hair again. I feel Bodhi’s eyes on us but I am distracted when Bastian dips his pointer finger into the top of the cake, dragging it through the ganache slowly before pushing it onto his tongue, wrapping his lips around the sweetened digit.
“Dude, I think it’s rude to do that shit to a cake when the person who made it is right in front of you,” Bodhi says, stacking his arms over his chest again. “Get a knife and cut it like a normal human,” he chides.
After he’s ‘oh fuck’ed his way through the taste of ganache, Bastian puts his palms up to show he means no harm, then pulls a knife from the cutting block behind Bodhi. He slices the cake and I watch his forearm flex as he drives the knife down through the sweet.
“So, you two met when you came to get tattooed?” I ask, wanting to know more about these two and their seeming perfectly fitting friendship. Visually, while they’re both sexy as hell, I do notice that they’re very different. Bastian does look like a sexy cop you’d see in a law enforcement charity calendar and Bodhi looks like the main character of a Sons of Anarchy spin-off. If there was a vegan-version, perhaps.
Bastian nods and Bodhi outstretches an arm to him. “You tell it better, babe,” he says.
Bastian swallows his third bite of cake before wiping his mouth with a paper towel. “Alright babe,” he quips back to Bodhi playfully, turning his attention back on me. “I didn’t want to go through the Academy living at home because I knew I’d get shit from the other guys. You know, mom packing my lunch type of jokes.”
“Bottom of the barrel, low-hanging fruit type of shit, just what you’d expect from guys like that.” Bodhi adds his colorful details to Bastian’s story.
“I went in for my tattoos and Bodhi was telling some dude in the shop that his housing fell through.”
“My buddy was supposed to move in with me but decided instead to take my deposit and buy a bunch of heroin and take off,” Bodhi says, adding, “drugs are bad, you know?”
I nod but turn my focus back to Bastian. “I think the pain of the tattoo gun was making me delirious because I just flat out asked him to live with me.”
“He did,” Bodhi nods proudly, as if they’re retelling some magical surprise engagement story. Then he drapes a hand over his heart, “it was the sweetest thing.”
“We’ve lived together since.”
“And Eli?” I ask, dying to know the adorable little story that brought their third roommate to them.
“This cake is really fucking good, Sloane,” Bastian says, taking another bite. His first slice is nearly done and I feel so satisfied that he’s enjoying it. Again, not that I’m trying to get into his pants through his stomach. I’m not, I already said I’m not.
Bodhi gently clears his throat and hops down from the counter and leans across the island on his elbows. Bent over he still looks so big. I look between the two, wondering what in the world Eli could possibly look like.
“Eli and I go way back; we’ve known each other since we were just babies.”
“Not actual babies,” Bastian says, finishing his cake, taking his plate to the sink.
Bastian soaps a sponge and runs his hand under the water, testing the temperature. After he deems it warm enough, he begins rinsing and soaping the plate, slipping it into the drying rack next to the sink. He wipes his hands on the towel hanging off Bodhi’s shoulder, patting it flat down when he’s done. Bodhi has no reaction and seeing how close these two men are… it’s a strange aphrodisiac.
“Like, babies as in we knew nothing. Teenagers, I guess,” Bodhi corrects, eyeing the timer on the oven. It’s set to 475 degrees and I’m hoping that’s why I’m feeling so hot and flustered. My thighs stick to the barstool as I lift one leg over the other, crossing them.
“Anyway, he started as Bodhi’s friend but we share him now, don’t we?” he says, giving Bodhi a cheesy smile.
“We do,” Bodhi nods, raking a hand down his face, pinching his chin. He sighs, and Bastian comes to where I am at the island and sits next to me.
“Eli went through a really bad break up a few years ago,” Bodhi says, tone low and serious. I know I’m about to hear some sad, heart-breaking story about this Eli guy and his ex, but I can’t help that Bodhi’s tone makes my cheeks flush and my neck damp with swea
t.
Bastian’s scent drifts to me, aftershave and clean laundry and holy shit. Briefly I become jealous of the shower in this house, and the glorious things its seen.
“Anyway, the three of us have been living together since.” I am not given the backstory, and I don’t pry.
The question that ping pongs in my brain slips past my lips, before I can have a chance to Sloane-it, AKA overthink until it’s changed from a simple question into a psychiatric self-assessment. “Are you all single?”
Bastian chuckles and Bodhi turns to the stove, turning it off with the back of his knuckle before removing the baking sheet. The sweet potatoes are bubbled with dark patches and smell absolutely amazing.
Bastian eyes the tray and rubs his hands together furiously. “Are we having nachos?”
“Yes, darling, we’re having nachos,” Bodhi says, using a silicone coated spatula to flip the circles. “And if Eli doesn’t get home soon, we will be having lots of nachos.”
“Sloane, would you like to stay and have some sweet potato nachos with us?” Bastian asks, so naturally, as if I too am one of their old friends. I don’t know if it’s my resolve to live life without fear and anxiety or it’s the spell all this testosterone and muscle has me under but I like being with them. I feel good and fuck if it doesn’t feel extra good because it’s been so long.
Sure, girls’ night was fun. I’d had some laughs in the last year or so. But migraines had stolen the easy fun that people take for granted and being at the corner house, it felt so easy. So good.
“Sure,” I nod, knowing I should check my phone, set an alarm so I don’t stay too long and arrive to the salon late for my afternoon appointment.
But I just want to be here on this stool, between those two hunks for as long as I can. With no reminders of reality.
Chapter 5
Even though Brynn is health-conscious (my polite way of saying she often annoyed the bejesus out of me with her “helpful suggestions”), she isn’t a vegan so I am pretty clueless as to how a deliciously salty and cheesy dish like nachos is going to be vegan.
I mean, while chips make up the base of nachos, we all know cheese is the star. Without the cheese, the toppings don’t stick and then you’re just smashing weird things onto a chip. It’s the cheese that makes the ‘chos.
Bodhi, however, put all of my unease to rest when he pulled two saucepans from the stove, resting them both on potholders rather than straight onto the counter. First, he was cooking, Bastian was washing dishes, now Bodhi was being careful.
The list of ordinary things proving to be aphrodisiacs was growing while around these guys.
“Vegan cheese,” Bodhi says proudly, waving his arms over the sauce pans. He set out four plates and carefully arranges a dense layer of sweet potatoes on them, ready to be made into something.
Bastian jumps up from the stool, where we sat and chatted with Bodhi while he prepared literally everything. He refused my repeated attempts to help, Bastian’s one half-hearted offer to help and now after twenty minutes, we are all going to eat. It smells amazing.
And while I get to sit between Clark Kent and Thor, we get to the basics about each other.
I tell them how I got into doing hair when I was in high school and worked in a salon to earn money for clothes and makeup. Sweeping led to answer the phones, phones led to washes and then, six months after I started, I was doing work opportunity the last two periods to work on my cosmetologist’s license. The money was good, I made my own schedule for the most parts (Saturdays are a must when you’re a stylist), and it got me out of my parents’ house. The ideas of doing something else seemed to fade away as I became more and more financially stable. I tell them my parents live close, I am renting a house a block away and that in the last year or so, my migraines (which only started a year before they got bad) have kind of taken control of me. Dramatically, I admit that they have “kept me from living” but that I recently realized that I can live in between them or hide in between them, and I didn’t want to hide anymore.
Bodhi tells me his parents live in Northern California and that he moved to Oakcreek when he got his first tattoo apprenticeship. Now, eight years later, he’s starting to wonder if he should discover the world beyond his shop. Bastian’s backstory had been backfilled by Bodhi before he got home earlier, but he adds a few things, like the fact that he recently gained a step-sister when his mother remarried a month ago. Her new husband had a daughter and was recently divorced—as well as a new mom. She was moving in with Bastian’s mom and her new husband in a few months.
It is nice doing that small of chatting. It may just be the basic’s but they are both attentive and engaging. I really feel comfortable.
Bastian stirs one of the saucepans before dipping his finger into the other quickly, hastily shoving the vegan cheese coated fingertip into his mouth. Then he presses his fingers to his lips and shakes his head, silently asking me to keep his secret.
“I saw that, dude,” Bodhi says, ladling cheese from one pan over all four of the plates. “Sloane doesn’t want your grubby fingers in the cheese,” he says, slapping the top of Bastian’s hand. He pulls it away, rubbing the top of his hand as if he were injured.
“Are they grubby?” he asks, forced hurt in his tone. “Sloane,” he says, holding his hands out in front of Bodhi, palms facing me. “Are these grubby hands?”
The tattoos on his arms looked darker the way he is holding them out, and a thrill runs up my spine when I see that one of his fingers is tattooed over the palm side, too. This man knows no pain.
I don’t think his fingers looked grubby.
I think they look like an orgasm waiting to happen.
“Umm,” I respond, wanting to win with both of them. “Really wonderful hands but yeah, cheese is better without knuckle hair.”
“Oohhh!” Bodhi wails, slapping Bastian across the chest. “See, we don’t want your knuckle hair in our cheese.”
Bastian playfully wipes away a phony tear. “I’m shaving my knuckles tomorrow. You guys hurt my feelings.”
Bodhi side hugs him as he ladles cheese from the other saucepan, then sprinkles toppings over all four plates. Black beans, jalapenos, fresh corn, cilantro, radishes sliced and diced. It looks amazing but I still don’t know how that’s cheese.
“So, tell me how this is cheese,” I say, trying not to get wet at the sight of the two of them working in the kitchen, side by side, Bastian washing dishes that Bodhi empties as he prepares.
“Carrots, nutritional yeast, spices, potatoes,” he says, “and one is spicy with extra jalapenos.”
I scrunch my nose. “Nutritional yeast?” I question, thinking it sounds quite clinical and not delicious at all.
“Yeast grown on molasses, then deactivated, harvested, washed, dried and crumbled.”
“Grown on molasses but it isn’t sweet?” I ask, thoroughly confused, not knowing cheese had this entire other world where it existed without actually being cheese.
He shakes his head and holds a finger up to me. “That’s what you’d think. But the flavor of the yeast comingles nicely with the molasses breeding ground and somehow you get a really cheesy flavor.”
“Kind of nutty, too,” Bastian adds, taking the last dirty dish from Bodhi.
“Are you vegan, too?” I ask. Shit, I’d be a vegan just to share a meal with these guys.
But Bastian shakes his head, exhaling heartily. “No fucking way. I need meat. But Bodhi feeds me,” he shrugs, “and I’m that easy.”
I laugh as Bodhi nods in acknowledgement. “He’s very easy.”
Fuck, I hope so.
As I’m about to mention the cuteness for the fact that Bodhi was making a plate for Eli, despite the fact he’d not yet come home, I hear the mechanical opening of the garage door.
Bastian comes around the corner of the island, setting my plate and a napkin down in front of me.
“Thank you,” I reply, the smell of the loaded sweet potatoes making my mouth water. Ja
lapenos. There’d be no kissing or fooling around like I’d maybe foolishly hoped, but this is good, too. Even if I never spend time with them again after this day, I have enough mental images to get me through some lonely nights.
What? I’m not ashamed to admit that the images of both of these men are already burned into my brain for ammo later when I will inevitably be feeling a bit horny. I’d like to see you keep them out of your mind. It’s damn near impossible.
“You almost missed nachos!” Bodhi shouts as the back door slams shut, an out of breath man still unseen making his way inside.
He comes around the corner but Bastian’s profile is blocking him. Eli goes to Bodhi and pulls him into a big, chest to chest hug, patting his back. “You made me a plate,” he comments lightheartedly.
“I’m a good human,” Bodhi replies, lifting one of the plates up to Eli who takes it easily.
He turns, facing me, the two of us seeing each other for the first time.
I can’t believe what I was seeing.
“Eli,” Bastian says, nudging my arm with his elbow, “this is Sloane. The girl from the crash the other day that I told you about.”
My head is officially taking tickets for rides because it’s spinning so fast. Bastian told them about me? And Eli is… fucking hot. A lot happening at once after lots of nothing happening for too long.
“Hi,” I hold my hand out to him and then Bastian makes me go cherry-red.
“See, she likes handshakes. Very formal.”
My head whips to his as if we’re old friends and he’s just let free a valuable and embarrassing morsel from my past. He grins so wide and so adorable that my core tightens under my blue dress. I look to Eli, who takes my hand and grips it firmly, shaking it twice before promptly letting go. His grip is so electric, I guess it had to be short. If he’d have shaken my hand any longer, I may have melted off the barstool onto the floor. Seriously.
Eli is a build somewhere between the other two, an inch or so taller than six-foot-plus Bastian but a hair shorter than the towering Bodhi. Lined up next to each other, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much muscle and ink and oh the hair. Bastian’s shove-styled hair, Bodhi’s fuck-worthy man-bun, and Eli. Eli’s hair is natural blonde, as his eyebrows are a dark blonde. It’s styled in that dorky but sexy way, a lot like… Captain freaking America.