by Max Walker
Yeah, no.
“You can dance, I’ll save your seat.”
The guy leaned back in the stool, his eyes narrowed to slits. “Really?”
“Yes…?”
“Ugh, I should have listened to Theo. Older guys really are fucking boring.”
He slid off the barstool and left, walking past the trio of high schoolers waving their hands in the air, throwing them all a judgmental glare as he passed.
Wow.
Well.
That really fuckin’ sucks.
The bartender, like a guardian alcohol angel, came over with another shot before I even asked. The Jäger went down smoother this time. I wondered if I should ask to take the entire bottle back to my flat.
No. That young twat didn’t deserve second-hand killing me through alcohol poisoning.
Fuck him. If I didn’t want to dance, I didn’t have to. And I could watch him dance away from the best damn lay of his life.
His loss.
The lights were practically out now. The only reason I could see my hands in front of me was from the rainbow-colored lasers flashing all over the place. The music pounded in my head. I grabbed the envelope in my lap, my fingers still (surprisingly) not catching fire. I moved to get up, done with today. A good bath and a good night’s sleep was what I needed.
Hell, maybe I’d treat myself and leave Love Island on the TV as I went to sleep. That’d be nice.
This had been a mistake. Why had I thought this was a good idea in the first place? Why did I even come back to London? I should have listened to my gut and left the past in the past.
Instead, I was holding the past in my damn hands.
I turned to leave, surprised at how big the crowd was, and how desperate they were to try and snag the barstool I had vacated. It was like I’d left behind a hundred-dollar bill.
This is exactly why I hate going out anymore.
Swimming through the crowd, I made it out unscathed, envelope now safely tucked in my back pocket, legs beginning to feel the effects of the back-to-back shots. I could see the exit right in front of me, like the light at the end of the tunnel. I was sure my bed tonight would feel like a cloud, and I was glad I wouldn’t be sharing it with a dumb chode, too.
Someone bumped into me. It was dark, and I quickly apologized, but the lights had hit in just the right way and bounced off the young man’s face, making his eyes glow like a prism against the sun.
And the smile. God damn, that smile on him. With the force I bumped into him with, he should have been pissed. Instead, he looked at me with a smile reserved for someone who had just won the lottery.
“Are you heaving?”
I arched a brow. “Huh?” The music was so loud. I had to lean in to hear what he said.
“Are you leaving?”
Leaning in had two effects. One, I could now clearly make out his question and no longer thought he was into some weird puke fetish. And two, the stranger’s cologne hit me like a bulldozer wrecking the bones of an abandoned building. It was a strong scent: flowery and fruity and entirely intoxicating.
“I was.”
His blond hair, short and styled, illuminated with colors from the lasers. That smile still holding strong. “Did you have somewhere to be?”
“No.” I grinned, wanting to match the expression on his face. “I just didn’t have a reason to be here.”
“Can I give you one?”
He was smooth. And he was getting closer to me. This was like a bolt of lightning, striking from nowhere and rooting me right to the spot.
“Sure, you can give me whatever you want.”
He cocked his head. Like a game of cat and mouse, except we were two cats—lions—both turned toward their prey, hunger and heat starting to fill me.
“Let’s start with a drink,” he said, nodding toward the packed bar.
Shit. If only you’d come sooner, I wouldn’t have given up my damn spot.
At least he hasn’t asked me to dance.
“What’s your name?” I asked him as we shuffled back toward the hellhole that was the bar.
“My name? It’s, uh, Jame…is…son.”
I gave him a look.
“Jamison!” he shouted over the loud music, a little more sure of himself this time. Maybe I hadn’t heard him right, although I wasn’t a private eye for shits and giggles. I was a good observer, and right then, I observed a whole lot of bullshit.
That was fine. Wasn’t the first time an American crossed oceans to make pretend they were someone completely new.
“Yours?” he asked.
“Beckham.”
“Like bend—”
“Don’t even go there.” I shot him a look with a smirk.
“Gotcha.”
We made it to the bar without losing a limb to the alcohol-ravaged zombie crowd. There wasn’t enough room for both of us, though, so I had to stand behind “Jamison” as he leaned over the sticky bar top to try and get a bartender’s attention.
He may not have been getting their attention, but I was focused all in on him and the way his ass was pushing back on me, rubbing over my crotch as he leaned. I had zero doubt the guy could feel my growing bulge against him. It drove me wild. An image of him flooded my brain. I pictured his jeans down to his ankles, ass up in the air, hands out on the bar, and me driving deep into him, the crowd none the wiser until our moans and thrusts became too primal, too loud. And then the crowd would give space and I’d ravage this sexy little thing for the entire club to watch.
What the hell? Why was this guy having such an effect on me? We just met literally minutes ago and I was already fantasizing ten different ways of fucking him silly.
Wow. I really need to get laid.
“You’re good with vodka soda?” the object of my sex dreams asked, looking back at me with a devilish glint in his blue eyes. I hadn’t even noticed the bartender had asked for our order.
“Perfect,” I said.
He turned back to the bar, and I turned back to imagining how good this guy would feel bouncing up and down on my lap.
Fuckin’ hell.
2 Oliver Brightly
Oh, honey.
Honey, honey, honey, honnnnney.
What a mess I’d gotten myself into. Here I was, thousands of miles away from home, flirting with a complete and total silver fox of a stranger who had managed to twist my briefs into a bunch with a single smoldering stare.
Now say that sixty-nine times fast.
I didn’t even tell him my real name! That part was a little exciting, not gonna lie. It wasn’t my idea. It was William’s, the best friend who’d dragged me to the other side of the globe with him. And I say dragged in the most loving of ways. If it weren’t for him, I would have been holed up in my apartment binging on old seasons of Star Trek and Veronica Mars while I counted down with increasing dread the days for my summer break to be over.
So thank you, Will, and thank you, random silver fox who sauntered right out of my wildest dreams. Because wow… Wow. This man was hot. Like leagues above anything else I’d ever seen. He had a head of silver hair, thick enough to run my hands through and styled impeccably. He owned a pair of eyes that held me prisoner: green and dusted with golden flecks. His face was strong, his shoulders held high and confident. But he wasn’t intimidating. Not to me at least. I could see the wrinkles that came from smiling often and laughing freely. And there was a warmth in his smile that made me feel all kinds of comfortable. Like I’d just stepped into a friend’s cozy home and that friend happened to be a star baker who had ovens filled with rising dough.
Yeah, that’s how he made me feel.
“Beckham,” he had said when he introduced himself, offering a hand that I wanted to grab and lick. Weird, sure. But would it get the point across?
Definitely.
Instead of licking, I managed to shake, miraculously keeping my tongue from lolling out of my gaping mouth. Beckham was tall, and he had arms that looked like they could spin me aroun
d and around until I dug a hole down to the center of the earth.
And I was currently rubbing my ass up on him like my grandma’s twelve-year-old terrier who’s constantly in heat.
I was in heat, that was for sure. I fully felt like I’d been placed in a scorching hot oven, the heat burning me from the outside in. Sweat started to bead on my forehead, which came from both the flickers of flame that were running through my body and the rising anxiety inside me, competing with the flames.
I turned before I dropped my pants right then and there. Feeling this man against me turned my brain into a slushie.
“Here you go, Beckham.”
“Thank you… Jamison.”
Ugh, that’s right. One future tip for faking a name when you’re overseas: have that name prepared ahead of time. Hell, have the entire backstory prepared before the plane even touches down. Then you won’t be caught looking like a fool when all you can think about is the name of a liquor bottle sitting on a nearby shelf.
At least I didn’t choose Merlot.
We moved through the crowd, toward an outdoor patio area. I threw a glance toward the dance floor, which was packed with sweaty bodies grinding up against each other like they were all trying to make fire on a deserted island.
I spotted William, the tallest one in the crowd, dancing with one of the girls we had met at another bar before this one. She liked him so much, she decided to tag along with us. William seemed entertained by her, but with the way his gaze was staring out a window as though he were picturing himself anywhere else, I realized the entertainment may have been waning.
I waved over the heads of all the dancing people, grabbing his attention. I pointed out toward the patio. He said something to his date, but she didn’t seem to like what he proposed. She shook her head, pouted, and started moving her hips in an even wilder fashion than before.
For a second, I thought she was trying to suck William up into her hoo-hah and never let him go.
He waved me off and went back to focusing on the girl. I shrugged and turned my attention back to Beckham, who was waiting for me by the door to the outside patio, holding it open for me like some kind of prince in a well-fitting black button-up.
Speaking of black, he sure was wearing a lot of it. From head to toe, there was zero color. It looked good on him, almost like he was some kind of secret agent.
“It’s too stuffy in there, ain’t it?”
I nodded, thanking him as I walked past him and into a much less crowded outdoor area, with a large trellis covered in ivy and brightened by rows and rows of small white lights. There were a few raised tables that were already claimed by chatting groups of friends, but there was an open spot on the far end of the patio, next to an impressively realistic stone statue of a lion, its jaw gaping and a fountain running down from it into a vase underneath.
“Cheers,” I said, lifting my glass, looking up into the eyes owned by a man straight out of my gayest dreams.
“Cheers.”
I almost melted. What was it about the chill attitude and the slanted smile that was making me feel all kinds of fuzzy in the head?
And of course, there was the fact that he was packing major heat down between those thick thighs. I had felt it firsthand against me at the bar, and let me just tell you, I was still shaking. I wasn’t really expecting to get down and dirty tonight, but Beckham made me want to toss all care to the wind.
“So, where are you from, Jamison?”
Ugh. That name. I winced internally. “I’m from America.” I paused, wondering if he knew any states. I’d been in Europe for a week and a half, and I learned pretty quickly that saying I’m from America was a lot simpler than saying I was from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
“What part?”
“Florida.”
His eyes went wide for a moment. “What part of Florida?”
“Uhm, well I’m going to school in Fort Lauderdale, but most of my family lives down in Miami.”
“You’re taking the piss.”
“Taking the huh?”
Beckham tilted his head. I wondered what his lips tasted like. Probably like heaven and sex and magical cotton candy. “You’re joking. Miami? That’s where I live.”
“No kidding!” I shook my head, sipping more of the drink. “What a small world. What are you doing out here?”
“Ah, got some family things to handle.”
I nodded, feeling like that was all I would get on the topic.
“And you?” he asked.
“I’m, uh…” I wanted to impress him. I really, really did. The last thing I wanted to say was that I was still a student, this Eurotrip of mine celebrating the fact that I only had one year of vet school left. Beckham was older—I could tell in the way he carried himself, in the sexy silver of his hair and the wisdom in his eyes. I felt myself suddenly becoming self-conscious of my age and inexperience. “I’m… an exotic-animal vet, actually.” Not that far off from the truth…. right? “The London Zoo asked me to come and treat one of their Bengals.”
Okay, that was waaaay far off from the truth. Then again, he thought my real name was Jamison, sooo what damage was I really doing? As badly as I felt myself wanting to see Beckham for longer than one night, I knew that one night was the only thing in the cards for us. So what if we lived in the same state? So did twenty-one million other people.
What were the chances I’d see this handsome European Prince Charming ever again?
“Bengal tigers,” I clarified, as if he wouldn’t know.
“I know.”
See, there you go.
He looked me up and down, almost like he was scanning me. I narrowed my eyes when our gazes locked. “What?” I took a sip of my drink, sucking through the straw.
“Nothing. I’m just impressed, is all.” He grinned. “I didn’t know I’d meet a tiger whisperer tonight.”
“What do you do?” I didn’t want to stay too long on my tiger-wrangling ways. It was already starting to gnaw at me like a Bengal would on a big, juicy thigh bone. I began feeling guilty.
“I don’t save endangered species, unfortunately. I’m a—”
“Ugh, I’m sorry.” I couldn’t. Something about Beckham was making me feel bad about lying to him. Even if this was just a one-night thing, I didn’t want to feel like some kind of pathological liar. “I’m not actually a vet. Well, not yet. I wanted to impress you, annnnd I went a tad too far. I’m actually about to start my last year of vet school. You just have this look, this stare. I don’t know. It makes me want to simultaneously lie my ass off and also tell you my deepest, darkest, most juiciest secrets.”
To my immense relief, Beckham laughed. “I figured as much. I was actually at the zoo yesterday. Loved going there as a kid, decided to visit again. Was reminded that they only have the Sumatran tigers there, commonly confused with Bengals. But, well, I didn’t think you’d confuse them.”
“Wow, and you were going to let me go on digging my grave, huh?”
“You were the one shoveling, mate.”
I smiled and leaned back on a wood railing.
“I’m glad you came clean about that, Jamison.”
“Actually…”
I didn’t get a chance to make myself look like even more of a crazy liar. William came up beside me, nudging me with a shoulder and nodding at Beckham. His white T-shirt was splotched with sweat, two big, round marks on his chest that looked suspiciously like breasts.
“Hey, Will, you done getting down and jiggy in there?”
“Yeah, were you getting ‘down and jiggy’ out here?” He smiled at Beckham, who offered his hand and introduced himself quickly before leaning back on the bar, leaving me and Will to our own conversation.
“Kind of,” I said, suddenly feeling bashful.
Will gave me a very obvious wink. “All right, I’ll head to the hotel, then.”
“What? No, you don’t have to end your night. Go find whatever girl you were dancing with. Take her back to the room.”
Thank God the club was dark because my cheeks had turned cherry red. “Maybe,” I answered, knowing Beckham was sipping on his drink and pretending not to hear even though Will was speaking louder than the music.
“All right, I’ll see who I bring back, then.” I went to give him a hug goodbye, but Will was already gone, most likely on the hunt for whatever girl he had been dancing with.
“Was that your boyfriend?” Beckham asked when I leaned back on the bar. Maybe he hadn’t been paying attention, then.
“What? No, no. That’s my best friend. We came together on this trip. It was his idea actually.”
“Ah, got it. Didn’t know if you were in an open relationship or not. Not too rare these days.”
“Nope, I’m just in a nonexistent relationship with Ricky Martin. That’s about it. And I guess he wants it to be open, so I’m just going with it.” I mustered a smile and lifted my glass. “Livin’ the vida loca, eh?”
That got Beckham to crack up. When he was able to get his breath back, he looked at me kind of funny. He looked at me in a way that made the oxygen in my lungs instantly burn up.
“You’re a special one.”
“Oh really? How so?”
Beckham just smiled and drank from his glass. I knew I wasn’t getting an answer to my question, but that was all right.
His smile was all the answer I needed.
3 Beckham Noble
Well… this was new. Time was blurring by. I was laughing and smiling and having a grand fuckin’ time, even with the envelope holding my father’s letter burning a hole through my back pocket. I had watched his casket being lowered into the ground hours before. And even though I held zero emotions toward him—zero—I still half expected to go to sleep in a dark mood. I didn’t expect to be chatting about my immensely strong dislike of Taco Bell after a particular harrowing incident with someone who I was sure was lying to me about his name.