Romancing Austin

by Riley Bancroft, Evelyn Berry, Cara Carnes, Jax Garren, Irene Preston, Rebecca Royce, Chandra Ryan

  “Eleven months.”

  “What?”

  “Eleven months. Not a year.”

  “That’s what you have to say?”

  “And I didn’t break up with you.”

  “The hell. Dylan, you took a job in New York City and left.”

  “But I didn’t break up with you. I asked you to come with me. So if we broke up, you broke up with me.”

  “If we broke up? We haven’t spoken to each other in a year.”

  “Eleven months.”

  “Jesus, I—“

  “Yes.” Dylan interrupted before the conversation could degenerate further. Because what was he thinking? Win wanted them to leave together and Dylan was arguing.

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, let’s get out of here. It’s good to see you again. This job blows. Let’s leave.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. What? You don’t want to now?”

  “No. God, you’re touchy. Let me go tell Jim I’m leaving.”

  “Yeah, Felix can kiss my ass, but I should tell Mark I’m ditching, at least. Come get me when you’re ready to go.”

  He did need to give Mark a heads-up, but also he didn’t want to watch any good-byes Win did with Jim. Mr. Like-You-Only-More. Like-You-Only-Better, Win meant. Because when Dylan left, Win had been wearing threadbare jeans and old concert tees. His hair had needed a proper stylist instead of Budget Cuts, and he sure as hell hadn’t been hanging out in penthouses with rock stars.

  If Dylan cared about Win at all, he would wish Win and Jim well and stay the fuck away from them both. Win deserved penthouse parties. But despite the fact Dylan in no way deserved Win, he intended to do everything he could to get his boyfriend back.

  2

  Dylan had walked a shift for him.

  Aston jiggled his keys nervously and tried not to read anything into Dylan’s actions. Joe Bob’s could only be a steaming pile of toxic waste on his resume. Aston didn’t understand why Dylan had taken the job in the first place. He also didn’t have the scoop on what had happened to make the job even worse, but something had been going down when he walked into the kitchen.

  Saying Dylan had walked the shift for him was definitely a stretch.

  Also, leaving with Dylan was probably a really, really bad idea. He had finally gotten used to Life After Dylan. Business was good. Courtesy of doing a few steampunk guitar mods for a local band who hit big, he had gone from starving artist to in-demand craftsman almost overnight. He had friends, a home in south Austin, and celebrities he had never dreamed of even meeting were tracking him down to invite him to swank parties. His life was better than he had ever expected it to be.

  Except for the big Dylan-sized hole no amount of work, friends, or celebrity cameos seemed to fill.

  So here he was, practically forcing a date with a guy who had walked out on him without a second glance. Who hadn’t called or texted since, not even to say he was back in town. Bad, bad idea.

  He couldn’t seem to help himself.

  Aston propped himself against the wall and waited for Dylan, deep in conversation with one of the other caterers, to finish up work so he could walk out. Had he imagined some big take this job and shove it, moment? Not Dylan. His work ethic was so fierce it would make a Puritan beg for mercy.

  “Win?”

  Aston blinked. Okay, so he’d zoned out a little.

  “You ready to go?” Aston pushed away from the wall and tried to pretend Dylan hadn’t caught him totally spaced. Probably easier to get his boyfriend back if he could manage to not be the same geeky loser Dylan had dumped the year before.

  “Yeah. You sure you don’t want to stay?”

  “Here? Why?”

  “Bunch of musicians here. It’s kind of exclusive.”

  Was he kidding? Stuck in a room with a bunch of people listening to, okay some admittedly killer vinyl, but still—a stereo? When there was so much live music out there? Bands who didn’t exist on vinyl. Bands who could be found only on a stage.

  “But I’m missing the good stuff,” he told Dylan. “I can play records at home, and I’ll see Dex next week. I only came here because Jim made me.”

  “Okay, then. We’re out of here. But I’m skipping out on an evening with Dex Reed, Colt Douglas, and God knows who else might show up. You better show me a good time, mister.”

  Aston, already weaving through people toward the door, stopped and turned to look at Dylan.

  “You would really rather stay here?” God, Aston didn’t want to, but…don’t be a loser, don’t be a loser. He supposed Dylan was right. Some people, maybe a lot of people, would want to be at this party instead of the hole-in-the-wall bar he was about to drag Dylan to.

  “No, Winbaby.” Dylan’s voice was gentle. “I want out of here worse than you do. Let’s go.”

  Winbaby. Aston turned and headed for the door so Dylan couldn’t see how the endearment affected him. For a while everyone had called him Win, but Winbaby was just between the two of them. He hadn’t been anyone’s baby for a year, and he certainly wasn’t Dylan’s anymore. It was just a word. If Aston were smart, he would remember that. But he had never been smart around Dylan.

  The noise and crush of people meant he didn’t have to think of anything else to say. They finally made it to the elevator just as it disgorged a giggling knot of women in skin-tight scraps of clothing and improbable footwear. It seemed he and Dylan were the only people uncool enough to be going down, away from the stars, the free booze, and the killer view.

  Did Dylan really not mind?

  He hesitated before pressing the button for the lobby. Maybe he should double-check.

  “Y’all. I’ve got to go down and get my phone.” The woman who stumbled backwards into the elevator was still giggling. “I’ve got to have my phone. From the car. I’ll be right back.”

  Dylan reached around her and punched the lobby button, closing the door before anyone else could decide to ride along.

  “Oh!” Blonde and Tipsy finally hipped to the fact that she wasn’t alone. Her head swiveled around, past Dylan. And then she turned completely around and did The Look. She was about 5’3” thanks to her heels, which put her eyes somewhere in the middle of Aston’s torso. She cocked her head and stared at the buttons on his jacket for a minute. Then her head tilted up, up, up.

  “Oh!” She said again, eyes wide.

  The elevator began its descent with an almost imperceptible bump, and she stumbled in her heels. Aston reached out, and she grabbed his arm to steady herself. She didn’t let go after regaining her balance, but continued to stare up at him.

  “You’re tall.”

  Aston sighed. He hated this.

  “Yep.” Maybe she would let it go.

  “Really tall.”

  “Yep.”

  Behind him, Dylan made a sound something like a growl. If anyone hated the stares more than he did, it was Dylan. Blondie didn’t seem to notice. Aston shifted a little so Dylan was mostly behind him.

  Blondie’s gaze finally left his face and traveled back down. Down. Lingered. Up again.

  Shit. Why tonight? The last thing he needed was a gawker pointing out what a fucking freak he was. In case Dylan had forgotten. Or didn’t have eyes.

  “Seriously? Did you know you are really tall?”

  Did he know? Did she expect an answer? He heard Dylan move and took a half step so he was still in between the two of them.

  Blondie gave his arm a little squeeze and let her gaze wander again before craning back up at him. “Are you, um, tall, all over?”

  “Holy fuck. Are you stupid all over?” Dylan shoved his way forward and glared at Blondie. “Get your hands off him, you dumb bitch. This isn’t a petting zoo.”

  “Oh!” Blondie had obviously forgotten the third person. She took a too-hasty, too-tipsy step back in her heels and wobbled precariously. Aston reached for her again, but Dylan moved faster, blocking his arm.

  After a few drunken stumbles, Blo
ndie fetched up against the wall, safe and relatively stable. “Oh! I never.”

  “Stupid and a liar.”

  “Dylan. Stop it.” Loser. Yes, he was a freak show. Being mean about it only made it worse.

  “Rude, stupid, liar. Why should I stop? She started it.”

  “Dylan.”

  Blondie stared at both of them, mouth open, too drunk to come back with any insults of her own. Or maybe she really was stupid.

  “I’m sorry?” She finally managed. Now she looked close to tears. Great.

  “It’s okay.” Aston gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “I am really tall.”

  She sniffled.

  Dylan reached out and punched a button. The elevator slid to a stop and the doors opened.

  “We’re here,” Dylan said, “Ladies first.”

  “Oh! Thank you!”

  The doors slid shut with Blondie tottering off down the hallway. Aston wondered how long it would take her to figure out her car wasn’t in any of the fifth floor apartments.

  “Oh!” Dylan did a passable imitation of Blondie.

  “That wasn’t nice.”

  “She wasn’t nice. Why do you let people do shit like that to you, Win?”

  “She didn’t mean anything by it. She was just drunk. She’ll be embarrassed in the morning.”

  “I doubt she’ll remember in the morning. She was embarrassing you just now. It’s okay to put your needs ahead of rude, drunken strangers.”

  Aston stuck his hands in his pockets and hunched back against the elevator wall, wishing he were smaller. Not short, but normal-sized, like Dylan so these types of interactions weren’t an issue.

  “Win?”

  Dylan was the perfect size. 5’11”, not too thin, not too bulky. Average. If someone stared at Dylan, it was because he was hot and beautiful, not because he was a human giraffe.

  “Win? Shit, I’m sorry, okay? I should have been nicer to her. I hate it when people treat you that way. You’re a person, not a fucking tourist attraction.”

  Aston pushed his back against the elevator, wishing he could melt into the smooth metal and disappear. There was a soft chime and the elevator slid to a stop. Aston followed Dylan out into the lobby.

  You’re a person. Yes, he had always been a person to Dylan, from the first day they met. They had both worked at Ophelia’s back then. Aston was the newest waiter, and God, he’d been a horrible waiter. Dylan was already head chef and the furthest thing from horrible.

  “What the hell is this?” Dylan’s voice carried over the noise of the line. “Who sent me this? A Win? Is this a joke?” Aston hunched in on himself, sure the guests could hear clear out in the dining room. A Win was how his name, Aston Winkler, got shortened on the tickets spitting out of the POS printer. Day one on the floor and the head chef, the hot head chef, was yelling at him.

  “Hey, you! New guy! Is this you?” New guy. Not tall guy, or beanstalk, or any of the other things people normally yelled when they didn’t know his name.

  Aston turned back to the line, managing to knock over a stack of plastic tea glasses with his tray as he did so. He scrambled to pick them all up, miserably aware of the kitchen crew and Dylan staring at him over the counter.

  “Leave them for a sec and come here.”

  “Yes sir?” Manners seemed called for. He needed the job.

  “Win, huh?”

  “Um, Aston. Aston Winkler.”

  “Okay, Win, so smolies, what does smolies mean?”

  “I, um. Lemme see?”

  Dylan had turned the ticket around and held it across the counter.

  2 Ch Shrt Stck

  Smolies

  Shit. So not only was he an awful waiter, he couldn’t type.

  “Sorry.” He mumbled. “Should be smilies.”

  “Okay. Win? Darlin’? Are you flirting with me? ‘Cause you could just smile, maybe slip me your number. You don’t have to put it on a ticket.”

  The kitchen erupted in laughter.

  Aston hunched in as tight as he could, trying to make himself a smaller target.

  “No, no, I would never. I mean…” Shit. Maybe he should just quit. There had to be a better way to make money than this.

  “Hey, now.” Gentle. Dylan’s voice cut through the panic and embarrassment. “I’m just messing with you. Calm down and tell me what you need.”

  What he needed? He needed to be a foot shorter and about a million times more coordinated. He needed drinks at table seven, a ramekin of vinaigrette at table fifteen, and a cappuccino at table twenty. He needed to stop dropping things off trays and start remembering what the hell table eight had asked him for. He needed to pay his electric bill by the end of the week. And he really, really needed to stop being so tongue-tied around hot guys.

  He stared at Dylan, petrified and mute.

  “Smilies, Win.” Dylan’s voice got even softer. “What smilies does this table want?”

  Oh. God. He was an idiot.

  “Pancakes? For the kids?” Aston finally managed.

  “Umm-hmm. Kid’s short stack. Got it.” Dylan waited patiently.

  “With, ummm, smiley faces?”

  “I’m going to need a little more, Winbaby.”

  “You know, on the pancakes? Didn’t your mom ever…I mean my mom used to make me pancakes with little faces. So I thought, you know, for the kids…?” He trailed off. It had seemed like a good idea at the table. After he had forgotten which juices the kids wanted, spilled coffee over half the table, and almost brained mom with his tray, a little extra something had seemed mandatory to retain even the smallest tip.

  Here in the kitchen, during a busy Sunday brunch, it occurred to him tacking on extra steps for the cooks might not be the brilliant move he had thought.

  “I. Ummm. If you can’t do it—“

  “Okay, Mo? You got that? Kids pancakes with smiley faces.” Dylan hung the ticket in the queue with the others.

  “Aw, cabron, really?”

  “I want to see some happy pancakes, Mo.” Dylan never turned around, completely confident his orders would be obeyed. “And Win? I wouldn’t mind if you want to flirt with me, either.” Dylan winked at him before moving down the line to peel the next round of orders off the printer.

  By the end of the day, the nickname had stuck and he was ‘Win’ to everyone at Ophelia’s. He was also a little in danger of falling in love with the head chef.

  “Win?” Dylan’s voice cut into his thoughts. “Where are we headed?”

  Somehow they had made it all the way across the lobby and out onto the street. Aston looked around, orienting himself. Focus. Don’t be a loser.

  “I’m parked around the corner. You?”

  “I rode in on the Joe Bob’s van. We can’t walk?”

  “No. Nothing good downtown tonight. You can ride with me. I’ll drop you off wherever your car is later.”

  “You still driving Izzie?”

  Oh. Shit.

  “Yeah, sorry.” Belatedly, Aston remembered Dylan had never seen the charm in the 1958 Isetta. They turned the corner and there was his baby.

  “Wow.” There was an odd note in Dylan’s voice. “You finally got it painted.”

  Aston unlocked the front door, not looking at Dylan. Dylan had always considered a 6’7” Aston in a micro-car a ridiculous spectacle. What if he didn’t want to come if it meant taking Izzie?

  But Dylan was already climbing in, scooching as far over on the bench seat as he could. Izzie was actually pretty wide and neither of them were fat. The extra space was for knees and elbows. Aston folded himself into the tiny car, carefully leaving room for the steering column as he swung the single front-opening door closed.

  “Sorry.” He said again.

  “Stop apologizing. What have you got to be sorry for?” Dylan sounded annoyed.

  “Izzie. You want to pick up your ride, instead?”

  “Izzie’s fine. Let’s go.”

  “Really? Because my last boyfriend called her a
clown car.”

  “Your last boyfriend was a jerk,” Dylan said. “You should forget everything that asshole said.”

  Aston pondered the idea. His last boyfriend had also called him Winbaby and told him he loved him. Sorry. Amnesia not an option.

  He used the excuse of checking traffic to look over at Dylan. Until the moment they climbed into the car, nothing about this night had seemed quite real. Dylan hadn’t actually shown up out of the blue. Aston hadn’t hijacked him away from a job. It was all a dream, and he would wake up alone again.

  Cocooned together in Izzie’s cab, the dynamic reversed as the hint of warm spice he always associated with Dylan settled around him. The city streetlights filtered through Izzie’s sunroof across Dylan’s face, erasing time. Dylan’s knee, inches away from his own. Dylan’s hand, resting on the seat between them. Everything was too familiar. All he could think about was the last time they tried to make out in Izzie, laughing and making jokes about the lack of a back seat. It had started with them sitting just like this, until Dylan’s hand slid over Aston’s knee, up his thigh, and then places more interesting.

  Aston tried to wrestle his thoughts away from Dylan’s hand and where he wanted it to go. He shifted in his seat. Trying not to think about something never worked.

  Focus on something else.

  The shirt finally saved him.

  Aston made an executive decision and detoured into the next alley.

  “Uh, Win?”

  “Hang out, I’ll be right back.”

  A year before, Dylan would never have been caught dead looking anything less than stylish. And really, Aston couldn’t subject him to a night out in Austin looking like a tourist on a dude ranch.

  Getting in the front door of any of the clubs would take some finesse, but there was almost always someone smoking in the alley. A few hand-shakes later, and he was in and out with what he needed.

  He tossed the shirt at Dylan, who caught it and started changing without a word. As soon as he stripped off the Joe Bob’s shirt, Aston grabbed it and made for the Dumpster, not giving himself a chance to ogle Dylan’s naked chest.