by L. A. Witt
“The other guys coming?” Reggie asked.
Kasey shook his head. “Chandler was going to bring Mark, but they had to bail. And all the guys attached to the show, well, Carl wants ’em in early for that… whatever build they’re working on. With the custom Camaro.”
Reggie rolled his eyes. “Great. Well, I hope they enjoy it. God knows if we’ll even have this show much longer.”
“They’re really that serious about this? That they’ll kick us off Wrench Wars over it?”
“That’s what they say,” Reggie said into his beer bottle. “Well, not cancel the show, but kick our shop out.”
“Fuck.”
Yep, that about summed it up. Fuck.
They drank in silence for a few minutes. Reggie was most of the way through his beer, so he flagged down the bartender to get started on recharging it. The second this one was dry, he was diving into the next one, so he might as well have it handy.
The next beer came, and Reggie drained the first one. He handed off the empty bottle to the bartender and held on to the fresh one for dear life.
Beside him, Kasey did a double take. “Oh. Dude.”
Stomach suddenly roiling, Reggie lowered his beer. “What?”
Kasey pointed past him. “Isn’t that the suit who’s been hounding you the last couple of days?”
Reggie turned around. Sure enough, that was Wes hunched over a brown bottle at a table near the back. His jacket was draped over the back of the chair, and his tie was looser, but he still stood out in this place. Drinking in a room full of cowboys and rednecks, he blended in like he was wearing a tuxedo.
“Fuck,” Reggie whispered, facing forward again. He pressed his beer against his forehead.
“You could try to talk some sense into him,” Kasey said in a conspiratorial whisper. “Maybe he’s drunk enough.”
“Yeah, right,” Reggie grumbled. “He’s just the messenger. The ultimatum came from on high.”
“Well, damn.”
Seriously.
Now that he knew where Wes was, the mirror above the bar offered Reggie an unobstructed view, and he couldn’t resist watching him.
Wes was oblivious. He took a few heavy swigs off his beer—his fourth or fifth, judging by the scattered bottles on the table—but didn’t look around. He didn’t notice Reggie, Kasey, or really anyone else in the room. In between drinks, he rubbed his forehead like he had a killer headache.
Gnawing his lip, Reggie absently scratched at the edge of the label on his beer bottle. Something about Wes seemed off, and it wasn’t just the way he stood out like a Chevy at a Ford rally. He was usually so relaxed and quietly charismatic, but all of that was gone tonight. He didn’t engage anyone around him. Didn’t make eye contact, not even when a drunk pool player bumped him with a cue on the way to the tables. He didn’t even seem to notice that, though he did hold on to his beer like he thought he might drop it.
Was he just naturally more subdued when he was off the clock? Or was there more to it?
“Wonder what’s eating him,” Kasey mused into his drink.
“I don’t know.” Reggie glanced at Kasey. “I’m, uh, gonna make sure he’s okay.”
Kasey cocked his head. “Really?”
“Yeah.” Reggie got up off his bar stool. “Just gonna make sure.”
Kasey eyed him for a moment, then shrugged. “Go for it.”
Reggie took his beer and headed across the crowded room. The closer he got, the worse Wes looked. His hair was disheveled, and not in the way Reggie had fantasized about it.
He stopped beside the table. “Wes?”
The producer’s head snapped up, and he about jumped out of his skin. “Oh. Reggie. Hey.” He quickly straightened his tie—tried to, anyway—and ran a hand through his hair, taming a few of the dark strands. “Didn’t think I’d see you here.” The words were just slightly slurred.
Shifting his weight, Reggie said, “You mind if I join you?”
Wes’s eyes got even bigger. “Uh….” He glanced at the chair opposite him, on the other side of the tiny table and its row of empty bottles. Then he looked up at Reggie again. “Sure. Uh. Yeah, I guess.” He motioned at the chair, the gesture slightly clumsy. “Go for it.”
Reggie took a seat. “You doin’ all right?”
The producer let out a long breath, his shoulders dropping and the bottle almost tumbling out of his hand. “It’s been a rough week.”
“I know the feeling,” Reggie said.
Wes met his eyes, but only for a second. “Man, I am so sorry.” He ran a hand through his hair again, messing it up. “About the show. I really didn’t want to pitch it.”
“I figured it wasn’t your idea.”
Wes laughed humorlessly. “No. Definitely wasn’t my idea. I fucking hate those shows.”
“Me too.” Reggie found a spot on the bottle-littered table to set down his own drink. “That what you’re upset about?”
Wes stared into his beer bottle.
“Look, man,” Reggie said. “I know it’s the network, not you. None of this is personal.”
The producer still didn’t relax. “You don’t get it.”
“What am I missing, then?”
“The thing is, if the show—” He stopped abruptly, teeth snapping shut. Then he took a long swallow of beer. “It’s bullshit, man. That’s what it is.” Now he sounded drunk, like he’d pulled himself together when Reggie had approached, but only had a tenuous grasp on the appearance of sobriety.
Something in Reggie’s gut twisted into a knot. Guys at the network played things close to the vest as a rule—he’d learned from the get-go to be on his guard during any discussion about contracts and the show. Everything said and done was to be regarded with suspicion, and more often than not, that suspicion was close to the truth.
Reggie sipped his own beer but didn’t taste it. “There something you aren’t telling me, Wes?”
Laughing bitterly, Wes shook his head again. “Where do I even start?”
Oh, crap.
“At the beginning, maybe?” Reggie raised an eyebrow.
“It’s all just a fucked-up mess.” Wes raked a hand through his hair again. “The execs want to fucking ax you and your guys, but they can’t, so they’re trying to corner you with this shit, and… man, I am so sorry. It’s just such bullshit.”
Reggie’s blood turned cold. “They want to ax me from the show? Then why are they pitching another show to me?”
“Yeah, it’s….” Wes waved a hand. “If you don’t do the show, then you’re in breach of contract, and they can change Wrench Wars.”
Those sleazy motherfuckers. Reggie drained his beer.
“Long as you’re on it,” Wes continued, “they can’t just make changes and shit—or kick your shop off—because of your contract. You’re out, they can do whatever they want.”
“So they’re pitching me this bachelor show—”
“Because they know damn well you’ll never agree to it.” With another bitter laugh, Wes clumsily raised his mostly empty beer bottle. “They may be bastards, but they aren’t stupid.”
Reggie said nothing. He was stunned they’d be so underhanded, but at the same time, well, they’d never been the most scrupulous people he’d ever dealt with. Still, they’d managed to craftily back him into a corner, using his own firm negotiating hand against him to get what they wanted. Sons of bitches.
Wes watched him over the row of beer bottles. “Can’t blame ’em for thinking about doing that show, though.”
Reggie raised his eyebrows. “What?”
“Come on.” Wes shook his head and made an animated, drunken gesture at Reggie. “You’re fucking hot, man. The girls go nuts over you, so a show like that would get killer ratings.” He turned to Reggie and looked him up and down. “I hate those shows, but if you were on it, I’d fucking watch.” He laughed, and it came out a semihysterical, drunken laugh. “Hell, I’d be on it with you if they’d let me.”
Reggie sta
red at the slurring exec. Was he…. No, he was just drunk. Plenty of straight guys said stupid shit when they were trashed.
But he wasn’t so drunk he couldn’t make sense of the company’s strategy to trick Reggie into breaching his contract. Then again, he was drunk enough to spill that strategy to Reggie.
Reggie wrapped both hands around his beer bottle. “Wes, what’s—”
“Fuck, I’m sorry.” Wes’s cheeks colored slightly. “I’m rambling. I shouldn’t….” He exhaled, his shoulders slumping. As he turned to flag down a bartender, he said, “I need another beer. You want one?”
“No.” Reggie glanced at the bar. “In fact, I think you’ve probably had enough.”
Wes faced him again, eyebrows up. “What?”
“Listen.” Reggie cleared his throat. “We need to discuss a few things about the show tomorrow morning. You might”—he gestured at the collection of bottles—“want to call it a night.”
Wes’s gaze flicked back and forth from him to the bottles, and he gulped. “I… okay.”
“Stay right there.” Reggie got up. “My buddy and I will give you a lift.”
He didn’t wait for an answer and headed back up to the bar where Kasey was waiting. Pointing over his shoulder with his thumb, he said, “I need to get him back to his hotel. If you want to just drive my car in tomorrow, I’ll pay you for gas tonight.”
Kasey shook his head and dug Reggie’s keys out of his pocket. “Nah. I’ll get a cab. You haven’t had too much to drink. Right?”
“Yeah, I’m probably still okay to drive.”
“I figured.” Kasey gestured at Wes. “Besides, if he smells the inside of one of this town’s cabs, he’s liable to throw up all over you.”
Reggie wrinkled his nose. “Thanks for the image.”
Chuckling, Kasey stood. “You need a hand with him?”
“Nah, I’ve got him.”
Kasey raised an eyebrow.
“Not like that,” Reggie growled. And of course, right then, Wes’s drunken confession echoed through his mind, but he pushed it away. Thinking about that would just drive him insane, especially now that he was driving the guy back to a hotel room.
Kasey clapped his shoulder. “Good luck, boss. Don’t kill him if he pukes, ’kay?”
“No promises.”
Reggie took care of Wes’s tab and then returned to the table. “You ready to get out of here?”
Wes stared at him. “What?”
“I’m taking you back to your hotel.”
Wes’s mouth fell open.
“So you can sleep it off,” Reggie growled. “Don’t get any ideas.”
Not when you’re drunk.
“C’mon. Get your feet under you.” Reggie helped him to his feet.
Wes was definitely shit-faced, and it was a damned good thing he had someone helping him. Reggie tightened his arm around Wes’s waist and carefully guided him toward the car. The guy could barely stand even with Reggie’s support.
Reggie poured him into the front seat of his Mustang. As he carefully closed the door, he hoped Kasey hadn’t had a premonition or anything. He would seriously cry if he had to clean vomit out of this car.
Wes didn’t seem like he was on the verge of being sick, though. Wobbly, yes, and talking out his ass like only a drunk guy could, but he hadn’t hit the point of porcelain god worship yet.
And he could hit that point at any time, so Reggie started the car and booked it over to the hotel. He needed Wes—and the threat of reconstituted beer—out of his car, and he needed to be alone so he could process what Wes had told him.
About the show, damn it. Not about him being hot. Not Wes tipping his hand and maybe, just maybe, admitting he was gay and shared Reggie’s feelings.
The show.
Were they really trying to use the bachelor show to trick him into breaking his contract? Seriously? Though he supposed it wasn’t a surprise. Wes hadn’t been lying—there were plenty of other shops who wanted to get on the show. Reggie had heard they were all “easier to work with”—meaning they were willing to take whatever the network offered and not make waves—so it wasn’t like Wrench Wars would die without him. But then why would—
Is he really gay?
Reggie glanced at Wes, who was slumped against the door, watching the scenery go by.
Gay or not, is he really interested in me?
He gripped the wheel tighter and accelerated. He was ten over the speed limit already, but he needed to drop Wes off and get away from him and think. Think, damn it.
About. The. Show.
Christ, what was wrong with him? He was on the verge of losing the show that had kept his business thriving despite a shitty economy, with his entire crew depending on him to make the right choice, even if that meant compromising every principle he had, and what was he thinking about? Wes. The drunk producer sitting beside him with a loose, crooked tie.
Reggie sighed. Maybe his mom was right. Being part of a TV show really was going to send him into a bottle or a nuthouse.
They were both quiet until Reggie pulled the Mustang into the hotel—more like motel—parking lot. “You got your room key?”
“Yeah, it’s….” Wes unbuckled his seat belt and felt his pants pockets, then slid his hand into one and pulled out the card-sized envelope.
Reggie took it. He helped Wes out of the car and to his feet, and thanked God several times that Wes had an outside, ground-floor room. Stairs would have been hell right then.
He keyed them into the room. Arm around Wes’s waist, he guided him inside, doing his damnedest to ignore that bed. That huge, unrumpled bed just waiting to—
Don’t go there.
He carefully let go of Wes, making sure he was steady on his feet. “I, uh, you okay for the night?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” Wes scrubbed a hand over his face. “Thanks for the lift. I owe you.”
Technically he owed him for the bar tab, but hashing that out could wait until Wes was sober and the air between them wasn’t quite so awkwardly supercharged.
He cleared his throat. “I should go.”
“Right. Thanks.”
Reggie started toward the door, but Wes stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“I mean it,” he said. “Thanks. After today, wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d ditched me.”
Forcing a smile, Reggie shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”
Their eyes met. Locked.
Jesus.
Reggie’s heart was going fast now, and it wasn’t the awkwardness that was doing it. He’d been itching for a way to feel Wes out, figure out if he was gay and interested, but he’d always known it was a bad idea. Wes was one of the producers of his show. They… couldn’t.
And now Wes had gone and tipped his hand, and it was impossible to look at him with anything other than sex on his mind.
But he was drunk. And their relationship was professional. Supposed to be, anyway. And—
Before Reggie knew what was happening, Wes grabbed the front of his shirt and kissed him.
For as drunk as he was, the man was still a fucking awesome kisser. There was nothing clumsy about the way he pulled Reggie to him and slid his tongue between his lips. Nothing at all. He kissed like he knew what he was doing. Like he meant it.
Like this wasn’t going to end without that bed getting more than a little rumpled.
“Wes.” Breathing hard, Reggie shoved him back. “You need… you need to sleep this off.”
“Stay with me,” Wes slurred, sliding a hand up Reggie’s thigh. Yeah, he was drunk.
Hands firmly on Wes’s shoulders, Reggie pushed them farther apart. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Wes grinned up at him. “You betcha you will.”
“I have to go.”
Wes’s grin fell. “Reggie, please.”
How many times have I wanted to hear you beg? You son of a bitch….
Damn him for having any scruples. If he could’ve turned all that shit off f
or one night, he could have Wes. Fuck him senseless, then wake up tomorrow and have an awkward morning-after when Wes sobered up and remembered he was actually straight.
No, he couldn’t do that. In his fantasies, he could fuck Wes all he wanted, but he didn’t take advantage of drunken straight guys. He never slept with anyone who’d had more than one or two beers. No matter how many times he’d jerked himself off thinking about the guy who was pawing at him and begging him to come to bed.
“I have to go,” Reggie said again and gently pried Wes’s hands off his shirt. “Get some sleep, all right?”
Then he got the fuck out of there. He pulled the motel room door shut behind him, exhaled hard, and then hurried across the pavement to his car.
He started the engine, but he didn’t back out of the space right away. Staring at Wes’s door, he held on to the wheel with both hands and tried to catch his breath.
Yeah, Wes had said plenty while he was drunk, but that kiss was…. That wasn’t the kiss of a drunk straight guy who didn’t know which way was up. It was way too deliberate. And forceful. And…. God, amazing.
Closing his eyes, Reggie reached down to adjust himself because, goddamn, his jeans had suddenly become incredibly uncomfortable. He needed to get as far from this place—from that man—as possible so he could fucking think.
He squealed the tires on the way out of the parking lot and broke more than a few laws on the way through the city. His house was tucked back into a gated community on the outskirts of town—one of the perks of the network’s paychecks—but today, that was more of a curse than a blessing. Even driving like a bat out of hell, it was almost forty-five minutes before he made it to the gate, and another five before he was pulling into his own garage.
As soon as he’d killed the engine, he got out of the car and retreated upstairs, peeling off his shirt as he went. In the bedroom, he stripped out of the rest of his clothes. He was painfully hard now and desperate for some relief, so he poured some lube on his hand and lay back on his bed to relieve this insane tension.
And he thought about Wes.
Wes, with the buttons torn off his suit and his cock sticking out of his pants. Wes, with his hair messed up and some sweat on his brow. Wes, kissing him like he’d kissed him tonight.