by Barley A. R.
Nico stopped short a few feet from the parking lot. “How did you know I was wearing my work shoes?”
“I notice things.” The guard slipped a set of keys from his bag. He pressed a button and got a sharp honk from the far side of the lot. “Pretty nice work shoes. You’ve got a desk job somewhere in a pretty office?”
“I’m a waiter.”
Headwaiter at Travelli’s, the shining star in his family’s collection of restaurants, and well on his way to being the front-of-house manager. At least he had been, right up until he’d left Chicago in the middle of the night.
He didn’t need to juice up his cell phone to know exactly what he’d find: a dozen calls from his uncle Sal, text messages from his cousin, and a final decision from his grandfather: “Fired.”
Travelli’s might be a family restaurant, but that didn’t mean Tony Travelli cut his children and grandchildren any slack. Everyone started in the exact same place—the dishwashing pit at Luigi’s, the family-friendly pizza place on the South Side—and Nico had earned every single promotion through hard work and long hours. Getting the headwaiter job had been his proudest moment, and now he’d blown it by no-call no-showing to a Friday dinner service.
Nico shivered despite the hundred-plus degree heat. He wasn’t going to cry, but that didn’t stop the tears from forming. He squeezed his eyes shut, refusing to let them fall.
If he got in his car and started driving now, he might still be able to salvage things. He could crawl on his knees for Uncle Sal and beg his family for a job. Not the job he’d worked so hard for—an unreliable grandson could never be allowed at Travelli’s—but maybe a delivery gig at his aunt Maria’s pizzeria.
He could go back to the lonely bed in his cousin Gina’s spare bedroom. She was Erica’s best friend. If he asked for her help—if he begged—then she might convince his former girlfriend not to say anything… not to tell anyone the truth.
He could go back to living a lie.
Compared to that, allowing his fair-haired hero to take him to the clinic was practically an act of rebellion. His hand clenched into a fist. His stride lengthened. He left a trail of wet footprints on the asphalt.
They walked back three rows before the lifeguard stopped in front of an oversized pickup truck. The thing was about ten years newer than Nico’s busted-up Volvo and a whole lot nicer. He didn’t need to be a car expert to know some serious money had been put into the lifted frame and fog lights. The cherry-red paint practically glowed in the afternoon sun.
“Do you have a towel for me to sit on?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m pretty sure that thing has leather seats and I’m—” He tugged at his shirt and the waterlogged cotton tented, making his point for him. “Maybe we should take my car.”
“Becky’s a nice kid, but she’s not driving my car.” The lifeguard popped open the passenger-side door. “Get in. It’ll be fine.”
Nico had to wrap his fingers around the grab handle and pull up hard to swing himself into the tall vehicle. His bones ached as he settled down into the seat. His teeth slammed together. It was over a hundred degrees outside, but somehow he was still cold.
The door shut beside him, closing him in. A moment later, the guard was climbing up beside him in the driver’s seat. The cab was bigger than a studio apartment back in Chicago. It should have felt like there were miles between them, but each movement—every turn of the wheel or thrust of the manual shifter—brought them closer together until the only thing Nico could think about was the heat from the other man’s body.
Damn, he was screwed up.
He didn’t even know the man’s name. He should ask. He swallowed hard, trying to find his voice, but his throat was too dry. His head was spinning. They pulled out of the parking lot and down the coastal highway, past the cute little beach town he’d seen on his way in with its brightly colored flags and clearance bathing suits flapping in the wind.
At the first light, they turned inland. There was a fancy vacation resort on the left-hand side and a series of smaller shops on the right. The traffic was stop-and-go, right up until it was stop-and-stop.
“It’s the Friday afternoon crowd checking out” was the quick explanation. “Most rentals are Saturday to Saturday, but a bunch of people have been transitioning over to Friday to Friday. Spreads out the traffic.”
Long fingers drummed against the truck’s steering wheel in time to the classic rock and roll thrumming through the speakers. Nico didn’t know the words, but he recognized the tune.
“Fucking summer people.”
After a while the cars started to move again, and they finished the drive to the clinic at a slow crawl. They must have passed some type of scenery on the way, but Nico didn’t see it. He could barely keep his eyes open, not with the cold dragging at his eyes and the shivers rolling down his spine. His teeth were chattering now.
“Shock,” the same deep voice explained. “It does funny things to people. Makes them sleepy. Fuzzy. Cold.”
What the hell was he saying? Nico blinked twice, trying to concentrate, but they must have parked, because the lifeguard was opening the passenger-side door and wrapping an oversized sweatshirt around him. He gave his shoulders a quick rub. “You still with me, Billy?”
“Nico.” He forced himself to take a deep breath, blinking twice against the sunlight. His voice was stronger this time. “My name is Nico.”
“And I’m Dale.”
“Like the chipmunk?”
“I’m a hell of a lot bigger than a chipmunk.” Dale proved it by wrapping an arm around Nico’s middle and lifting him down out of the truck. The door shut with a solid thud. The ground rolled under Nico’s bare feet, but he managed to steady himself against Dale’s shoulders.
Sunlight. Dale smelled like salt water and crisp clean sweat, but most of all he smelled like sunlight. Nico drank it in as they walked across the parking lot and through the automatic doors of a small emergency clinic.
Nico had been cold outside. When the clinic’s air-conditioning hit him, it was like being thrown into the industrial freezer back at Travelli’s. He let out a soft groan and tumbled backward—into muscular, sunshine-scented arms.
“I need a bed,” Dale shouted and everything got real loud, real fast. Nurses and doctors were calling across the room. A wheelchair materialized from somewhere, and Nico was rolled into a private room.
“Welcome to Warby Emergency. I’ll be your cruise director for the afternoon.” A middle-aged woman in a white jacket bent down to look Nico in the eyes. “My name’s Dr. Acers. You?”
“Not Billy.” Nico swallowed hard. “My name’s Nico. Nico Travelli.”
“Someone been calling you Billy?”
“Dale.”
“Dale’s an ass.” She pulled out a penlight. It danced back and forth in front of Nico’s eyes. She snapped her fingers twice, and he flinched. “Decent responses.” She glared over at Dale from under a thick fringe of salt-and-pepper bangs. “Friend of yours, Seward?”
Dale shrugged.
She sniffed. “I didn’t think you made friends with summer people.”
The shrug deepened. Dale’s gaze didn’t quite connect with the good doctor’s. “We met this afternoon.” His voice was low as he launched into the story. It was weird to hear it coming from someone else. Nico standing on the beach. Nico in the water. The riptide taking him away from shore. The rescue. All the elements were the same, but the perspective was different.
It was like an out-of-body experience, but without the religion… or the mind-blowing sex.
When he finished, the doctor seemed nonplussed. “Why didn’t you call for an EMT?”
“He was standing up and talking.”
“You’re an idiot.”
Nico’s head snapped up. He should probably say something to defend Dale, but Dr. Acers was already sticking a thermometer in his mouth and dragging over a blood pressure cuff. “Dale, get out.”
Finally, Nico
found his voice. “He can stay.”
Dr. Acers’s mouth curdled. “I’m going to need to take a medical history and ask you some questions. I think you’ll be more comfortable if—”
“No.” Nico clutched at his borrowed sweatshirt. If he dipped his head, he could still catch the faintest hint of sunlight and sex clinging to the thick cotton. He’d been numb since he left Chicago. The only time he’d felt anything like comfort was during the short walk from the truck to the clinic. “I want Dale to stay.”
“It’s your funeral.” Dr. Acers made him roll back his sleeve to take his blood pressure. “Do you have any history of heart disease?”
“My grandfather’s had two heart attacks. He’s ninety.”
“Stroke?”
“My uncle Victor.”
“Sounds about standard.” She lowered herself into a wheeled chair and rolled over to the room’s computer. The keys click-clacked as she started entering information.
“Mental health issues?”
“Not unless you count my cousin Gina’s taste in clothes.”
“And your parents? They still alive and kicking?”
“My father died in an accident. My mother’s fine.” The effort it took to lie made Nico’s head spin. He didn’t know what his mother was up to. He hadn’t seen her in years, not since he was twelve years old, covering his head with his arms as his mother rained fists down on him. “Deviant bastard. You’re no son of mine.”
Next came his age, blood type, and the proper spelling of his name. It didn’t stop there. Dr. Acers was determined to drag out the history of every sniffle he’d ever had. “And how will you be paying for your visit today?”
“I have—I had insurance.” It had probably been canceled when he didn’t show up for work. He patted down his pockets, but his wallet was gone—like his keys—in the surf.
“Put it on my tab.” Dale spoke for the first time in what felt like ages but had probably been closer to forty-five minutes.
The doctor blinked. Twice. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
There was something beneath the exchange—something Nico couldn’t hope to understand—but when it was over, some of the tension eased in Dr. Acers’s shoulders. She even managed a smile. “Okay, Mr. Travelli, it doesn’t seem like there’s been any head damage. The shock seems to be dissipating. You haven’t broken any bones. You’re going to be sore for a while, but there’s not much we can do about that.”
Her fingers drummed against the desk. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I need you to be honest with me. Understand?”
Nico shrugged.
“Did something happen to you in the last few days?”
Erica smiling at him on the bank of Lake Michigan, her eyes gleaming in the sunlight as he got down on his knees. Then the laughter, harsh and clanging. Her full lips pressed together in a cruel line. “You’re joking.”
He hadn’t been joking.
They’d been dating for almost a year with regular Friday night dinners out and roses on special occasions. She’d been his date to two different weddings and a funeral. When he looked into her eyes, his throat went dry, and his insides turned to Jell-O.
That had to mean something.
Right?
Bile rose to fill Nico’s mouth. He wanted to cry out or run away, but the doctor was still waiting patiently for an answer. He swallowed hard. Then he swallowed again. The acrid taste receded. “Nothing happened.”
“Were you injured?” Dr. Acers asked.
“Nothing happened,” he repeated. “I’m not hurt. Nothing happened. I want to go—” Not home. He couldn’t go home. “I want to get out of here.”
“You’re not hurt, nothing happened, but you walked fully clothed into the ocean?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I’d like to send you over to the hospital—put you on a twenty-four hour hold—but those assholes are out of beds, and you haven’t done anything violent. You can come home with—”
“Me,” Dale interrupted. “He can come home with me.”
“Because you have a history of dependability? I wouldn’t leave you in charge of a cat.”
“I’ve got a cat.”
“Does he have a name yet?”
Dale stuck his hands in his pockets sheepishly. Underneath his tan, his cheeks were flushed. A lock of golden hair tumbled down between his eyes. “He doesn’t need a name. He answers to Cat.”
Then he grinned.
Nico’s heart startled. His breath caught in his throat. His head was suddenly empty, except for one devastating thought: Dale was gorgeous.
Oh, Nico had known he was good-looking: tall and blond with drool-worthy muscles in all the right places.
But he’d been so caught up in his own pain, he’d missed out on a square jaw, brilliant blue eyes, and cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass… and if Dale’s nose was crooked from where it had been broken in the past and there was an asymmetry to his dimples? Those small imperfections only made him more real.
More desirable.
Excitement pricked up and down Nico’s spine. Blood surged downward. His cock twitched and danced against his salt-rough boxer shorts. The tiny twist of pain put a harsh edge on his need.
He’d never felt anything like it before.
“Dale,” he said. “I want to go home with Dale.”
The doctor’s disapproval was palpable in the air. “Fine.” She stood up and prowled across the room. A bony finger poked Dale squarely in the chest. “You can take him home, but he’s not a stray cat. You can’t feed him a can of tuna fish whenever you feel like it. And I will be checking in on you.”
“Sure thing, Doc.” His easygoing smile was back.
“Or I might send your aunt Shirley over.”
Dale’s face went white. His mouth fell open. Clearly Aunt Shirley was the Delaware equivalent of his grandfather—a force of nature to be feared and obeyed.
Nico giggled. It turned out he had more in common with the golden god than he’d thought.
Good.
Chapter Three.
“IT’S GOING to be okay.” Dale didn’t know what had happened to Nico, but nothing in his life could be bad enough to make him want to commit suicide. Right?
He gunned the truck’s engine, shooting them down the last long bend in the road to get to his house.
To the west there was a wonderland of lush greenery and the sharp buzz of a hundred million mosquitos ready to descend out of the swamp. Seagulls croaked and cried in the shadows, while high overhead a bird of prey made smooth circles against the sun. The swamp was full of red-tailed hawks and falcons, but more eagles were coming back every year.
To the east there was nothing but asphalt and row after row of fancy vacation houses all painted the dusky gray color of the Regency Resorts Homeowner’s Association. He turned a corner, and his heart thudded twice. His house might be only 900 square feet, with a dumpy little addition off the back and a broken AC unit, but he wouldn’t trade it for any of Regency’s fair-weather mansions.
“Home sweet home.”
“It’s pink,” Nico said.
“Flamingo.” He’d painted it in a drunken stupor after an encounter with Regency’s HOA president. The dumbass had called his peeling white paint a blight on the horizon.
The paint wasn’t peeling anymore, and even when he was sober, it provided Dale with a never-ending source of delight to think of all the stuffy Regency summer people in their fine houses staring out at his little piece of paradise.
He parked in front of his place and hustled his guest inside the old frame house. It was only a little before seven o’clock, but it felt closer to midnight. He was both amped and exhausted at the same time, and he couldn’t begin to imagine how Nico felt.
He still didn’t have any shoes on. His clothes were covered in salt and grime. His eyes were barely open. Cleaning up was definitely on the agenda, but Dale didn’t know whether he wanted to leave him alone in the bathroom.
In hi
s state, he might hurt himself by accident… or on purpose.
“There’s an outdoor shower in the back,” he finally said. “So you don’t get sand in the drains.”
And so he could keep an eye on his new guest. He still didn’t know what had compelled him to bring Nico home. Maybe he’d just felt sorry for the poor bastard. He wouldn’t leave anyone to Dr. Acers’s ministrations. The woman might be a medical expert, but her bedside manner could use some work.
Of course that still didn’t explain the little surge of excitement he felt when Nico put a hand on his arm and allowed himself to be led outside.
Fuck. He swallowed back a groan as he shoved Nico into the shower and shut the door.
There was a moment’s silence, and then he heard the slip-flop of Nico’s shirt being peeled off his body and the wet thud of his pants hitting the ground. Pipes rattled. The water sputtered for a moment, then started gushing outward over the ground.
Behind the rough wooden door of the outside shower, Nico let out a little moan.
Forget excitement. That little sound was Dale’s ticket on the fast train to Bonerville.
At least that’s the way the teenage assholes he managed would put it.
Dale really needed to get some friends his own age.
He left the sliding door to the deck open as he went inside to grab a navy blue towel, a pair of comfy black sweatpants, and a plain gray T-shirt. Nico would be swimming in his clothes, but at least they were clean. When he was done, he walked back outside.
There was a two-foot gap between the faded deck boards and the shower door, plenty of room for clouds of fluffy white suds to float out. Nico’s bare feet were visible. The day’s dirt had been washed away to reveal high arches and clean nails. Dark hair coated his lower legs. His skin was pink from the heat.
“Open up.” Dale knocked twice before popping the door open a few inches and thrusting the stack of clothes inside. A good man would have shut his eyes. He enjoyed the little bit of view he got—pale skin and more of that thick hair.
Thank God, and a strong Italian heritage, for small favors.