by Vicki Tharp
And, damn it, he craved the scrape of stubble against his skin.
The rebellious part of him wanted to take her home and fuck her. And as much as she was into him, that would be an dick move, especially when he’d be closing his eyes and wishing he was screwing Alex the whole time.
He broke the kiss.
What the fuck was he playing at?
“Your beer,” the bartender said as he slid the two pitchers onto the bar top.
Elijah reached into his wallet and threw cash on the bar. “Thanks, man.”
They each took a pitcher in hand. Before they left their spot at the bar, Shannon leaned in and whispered in his ear, “My offer stands. In case you ever change your mind. No pressure.”
“Thanks. You know, any other time,” he lied.
“Hey, I get it. No hard feelings.”
They turned, and almost doused Alex with their beer. Alex stripped the pitcher out of Elijah’s hand and handed it to Shannon. Alex had a scowl on his face, one Elijah had only seen on video clips when batters had given him lip from the batter’s box.
To Shannon, Alex said, “I need a word. You won’t mind taking these to the table, would you?”
“I mind,” Elijah said. “My friends are waiting.”
“Please?” Alex’s voice softened, making Elijah feel like an asshole. “This will only take a minute.”
Shannon gave Elijah a wink and left with the beer. Alex clamped a proprietary hand on Elijah’s shoulder and steered him toward the back hallway. Elijah shook off Alex’s hand.
A couple of women squeezed by them on their way to the restrooms, but otherwise, he and Alex were about as alone as they could be in public.
Alex crowded into Elijah’s personal space, and Elijah retreated until his back bumped against the ridges of the corrugated steel walls. Alex’s blue eyes had turned that dark, turbulent color that made seasoned sea captains head for a sheltered port. “What were you doing kissing her?”
If the baseball thing didn’t work out for Alex, he should get a job in comedy because he was hi-fucking-larious. “I never heard you call dibs. The only time you call me anymore is when you want to meet me at some sleazy motel to dip your dick in my ass.”
The mask of jealousy and possessiveness on Alex’s face dropped away, leaving only hurt. Guess Alex did have a heart buried in there after all.
“That’s not the only reason I call you. You know that.”
“Tell me why you call then? Go ahead. I’m listening.” Only Elijah wasn’t. He couldn’t. Not when the blood roared past his eardrums as if someone had cranked up the flow at Niagara Falls.
Alex swallowed hard, his mouth opening and closing before any words could tumble out.
Well, if Alex couldn’t find the words, Elijah had plenty to spare. “We’ve made no promises to each other. The one promise you made me, the one where you promised to find a way to fit me into your public life...”
Elijah’s voice cracked. God, he fucking hated it that Alex had the power to ripsaw his emotions. Elijah cleared his throat. “You’ve broken that. Don’t—”
Alex grabbed a handful of Elijah’s shirt and pressed him against the wall, the corrugation digging into Elijah’s shoulder blades. Alex’s mouth crashed down on Elijah’s, hard, hot, hungry.
Elijah wanted to kick himself for not putting up even a token resistance, but the kiss made his heart trip, his knees weak, and his head search for excuses, because as wounded and disappointed as Elijah was in Alex, Elijah knew there was so much more between them than just the physical.
Alex wouldn’t have the ability to strip him to his soul with one kiss if there wasn’t.
What made it worse, was that Elijah knew what he’d demanded of Alex had been too much, too soon. But he was asking because he’d finally come to a point in his life where he’d realized he was worth it.
Alex deepened the kiss, his erection pressing into Elijah’s hip when he shifted and all Elijah wanted to do was toss Alex into the back of his truck and haul him to the nearest anonymous pay-by-the-hour motel, crawl under his skin, and fuck some sense into him.
But in the long, sordid history of mankind, sex had never solved anything.
“Stop,” Elijah managed between kisses.
Alex must not have heard because all he did was shift his focus and start nipping at the scruff on Elijah’s chin.
“Stop,” Elijah said again, with more conviction and a hand on Alex’s chest.
Alex took a step back, a deep grove formed between his brows, and a growing uncertainty showed in his eyes. “You really mean that?”
Elijah didn’t.
Though he should.
He really, really should.
But did Alex think that he was that easy? That too far gone that all Alex had to do was get Elijah hot and horny and he’d fall into bed with him, their argument forgotten?
Fuck that.
And fuck Alex.
Or rather, not fuck Alex.
Elijah gave Alex a shove, with all of his frustration and anger and bruised feelings behind it. It knocked Alex back into the opposite wall, the shock and surprise gave Elijah time to close the gap and get into Alex’s face.
Elijah drilled his finger into Alex’s sternum as he spoke. “I’m done with this game. I’m not interested in being your shameful, secret piece on the side. I refuse to stay tucked away in your pathetic little closet. There’s not enough room in there for the both of us.”
The women came out of the restroom and passed behind him, giving them both the side eye.
“Eli—”
Elijah wasn’t finished giving Alex what he had coming. “You’re not fooling anyone. The proof is on that viral video. Yet you deny who you are.”
“I’m not denying anything.”
“Oh no, that’s right. You’re not denying anything because you don’t have to. Because you refuse to be seen alone with me in public. Which is the same fucking thing. Deny me all you want.” Elijah pointed toward the rest of the bar. “Everyone out there already knows the score except you.”
“It’s not like that.”
Elijah got right in Alex’s face again, their noses nearly touching. “Prove it.” He took Alex’s hand in his and started tugging him toward the tables. “Go back out there and kiss me in front of everyone.”
Elijah came up short when Alex couldn’t be budged.
Conflict cut harsh lines in Alex’s expression. As much as he might want to do as Elijah asked, he couldn’t make himself take that first step.
“Yeah.” Elijah dropped Alex’s hand. “That’s what I thought. One of these days you’re gonna want to stop living a lie and live your life with some fucking integrity. Live your truth. Just don’t call me when you do.”
Elijah turned on his heel. A sound escaped the back of Alex’s throat, but Elijah refused to look back because if he did, he’d try to take back every word he’d said, even if he’d spoken nothing but the truth.
As Elijah walked back to his table of friends, he knew another truth: It was time to move on with his life.
Demetri sat alone at their table. Elijah glanced around. The other guys had spread out. Some were playing darts. Some were crowded around a pool table with a giggly pack of co-eds.
“Everything all right?” Demetri asked when Elijah picked up his warm beer and slugged the whole thing back.
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
Shannon sidled up against Elijah. “There you are. I was about to send in a SEAL team to come to your rescue.”
Elijah needed a rescue all right. He put his arm around Shannon’s waist and said, “I think it’s time for me to leave.”
He shook Demetri’s hand. “I appreciate you coming.”
“Sure thing.”
He squeezed Shannon’s hip. “You want to come with?”
Shannon was a grown woman who knew the score. He wouldn’t be using her any more than she’d be using him.
“I’d like that,” she said.
Elijah
took her by the hand, noticing the way his hand engulfed hers instead of how Alex’s hand engulfed his. And she didn’t have those callouses on her fingers from throwing baseballs.
He pushed those unsettling differences out of his mind and said goodbye to Trevor and the rest of the guys and thanked them for coming.
As they pushed through the front door, Shannon squeezed up against him, settling under his arm, her giggles sweet and high pitched—not that low grumble of Alex’s that always seemed to hit Elijah low in his gut making the blood rush south and making him want to pin Alex down and do nasty, lascivious things to him.
At his truck, she pressed Elijah against his door and straddled one of his legs, her hands snaking beneath his shirt and fanning across his lower abdomen. He waited for the flutter of his abdominal muscles beneath her touch, a flutter that never came.
Instead, he couldn’t get Alex’s expression out of his head when he’d told Alex not to call him if he ever got his shit together—regret, defeat, rejection, betrayal, all warred for prominence, but it had been what Elijah could only describe as anguish that had won out at the end.
Elijah must have interpreted that wrong. He didn’t have that kind of power over a guy like Alex. His gut twisted, and it wasn’t with desire from the way Shannon expertly licked and sucked her way up his neck.
Fuck. He couldn’t do this.
Because you’re hopelessly stuck on Alex, no matter what you’d said to him in the bar.
No. Because it wouldn’t be fair to Shannon.
He’d already led her on enough and treating a woman that way, no matter how conflicted he was, was a shitty thing to do. And he had to stop it before he wrecked their friendship.
He placed his hands on her hips and pushed her back until her crotch wasn’t rubbing up against his thigh and her teeth weren’t nibbling on his earlobe.
“Not gonna happen, is it?” she asked. He couldn’t detect any frustration or animosity mixed with the wistfulness.
“I’m sorry, I—”
“Don’t be sorry. I hope one day I can find someone who feels about me the same way you feel about him.” His hands dropped as she stepped back. She stuck her hand out for him to shake. “Friends?”
He accepted her hand. “Friends.”
As she backed away, she added, “Don’t lock and barricade that door.” She tilted her head toward the bar, indicating Alex. “Leave it open a crack. At least for now. He strikes me as a smart guy. Maybe he’ll come around.”
Elijah didn’t dare hope. “Drive safe.”
He opened his driver’s side door, watching Shannon walk away, making sure she made it to her car safely before he left. Shannon beeped her car unlocked as the front door of the bar flew open and banged against the wall behind it, spitting Alex out. “Elijah, wait!”
One of these days you’re gonna want to stop living a lie.
Just don’t call me when you do.
Elijah’s words echoed in Alex’s head as he watched an amazing man walk out of his life.
...stop living a lie...
...stop living a lie...
Just don’t call me when you do.
Alex leaned over, bracing his hands on his knees, the wall behind him keeping him from falling.
If he’d had any doubts before, he didn’t have any now. It was over.
He tried to straighten, but there was a dull pain in his chest, his heart bruised. He couldn’t catch his breath. It was as if a bat had slammed into his chest. Dark spots danced in the corner of his vision, and he stared down the hall to the bar’s entrance where he could have sworn that he’d seen Elijah dragging Shannon out by her hand.
It was better this way.
Bullshit.
He could concentrate on his career without the constant attention and pressure from the media.
You’re such a scrote.
Alex leaned his head back against the wall and ran his hands down his face. He would get through this.
Someone clapped him on the shoulder. Alex opened his eyes. Demetri stood before him, a sour scowl of disapproval—or was that disdain?—on his face.
“I get that love can be messy, complicated, and brutal, but you’re an idiot if you let that man get away.”
Love? “No one said anything about love.”
Demetri laughed in his face. “You wouldn’t be standing here looking like someone had reached in and yanked your insides out if watching him walk out that door with a woman hadn’t gutted you.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Demetri held his hands up and backed down the hallway towards the men’s room, the pity caked thickly on his face like some sort of mask.
Alex glanced back at the door where Elijah had walked out. If this was love, he didn’t want any part of it. It hurt like hell.
Go get him.
His feet started walking of their own volition. By the time he’d made it down the hallway, he’d broken into a jog. He could make this right. It wasn’t too late.
Please don’t let it be too late.
Alex burst outside, the door banging off the wall, and slapping him in his pitching shoulder, but he didn’t care.
He skidded to a stop and scanned the dark parking lot. A car alarm beeped, and he watched Shannon climb into the driver’s seat of her car. Three aisles over, he spotted Elijah getting into his truck.
“Elijah, wait!”
Elijah froze. From that distance in the dark, Alex couldn’t read Elijah’s expression. What remained of Alex’s heart kicked and punched at his sternum as they stared at each other across the parking lot.
Then whatever had kept Elijah rooted in place, broke. Instead of moving toward Alex, Elijah calmly climbed into his truck, closed the door, and drove off without so much as a tap of his brakes.
Alex had fucked up. Big time.
14
The media room at Fink Field, home of the Hawks’ Double-A baseball team, buzzed with activity. Alex sat in the middle of a long table with the Hawks’ coach, Declan King on one side and Fernando Gomez on the other.
Under normal circumstances, re-signing a Double-A pitcher before spring training wouldn’t garner much attention, but after all of Alex’s time in the spotlight recently, Coach King knew that there would have to be a press conference to handle all the media questions at once.
Alex sipped at his bottle of water, scanning the gathering crowd. Most were media, but former teammates stood against the back wall, offering their support. He nodded at them.
And, of course, Trevor was in amongst them, grinning like a fool.
But the one guy Alex wanted there most, wasn’t.
This was the day Alex had worked so hard for. All those hours in rehab, in the gym, with his pitching coach in the cages, it all culminated at this moment.
The moment he re-signed with the Grizzlies’ Minor League affiliate, the Hawks.
One step closer to a spring training invite. And hopefully, one step closer to another shot at the big leagues.
And all Alex wanted to do was duck out the back door and hightail it to Black Stallion where Demetri had let it slip that Elijah was doing another brand ambassador photo shoot for King Dong.
Luckily, he had a plan and Demetri had agreed to help.
He’d wanted to be there for Elijah, even though Elijah had wanted no contact since the night the month before when Alex had let him walk out of the bar without him.
He’d tried calling. Texting. Emailing. But the calls and texts went unanswered. His emails bounced. Knocking on Elijah’s apartment door when Elijah’s truck was in the parking lot, proved fruitless.
A couple of days ago, he’d waited outside Demetri’s classroom hoping to catch Elijah as he came out after a life drawing class. Alex had been leaning against the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows, the sunlight streaming in, when Elijah came through the door and turned in his direction, his focus on his phone.
Then Elijah glanced up, saw Alex standing there and changed his directi
on. Alex hadn’t chased after him.
Alex would have wholly given up if it hadn’t been for Demetri telling Alex how grumpy and out of sorts Elijah had been since their fight.
But there was only so much Alex could do if Elijah refused to talk to him. If Alex kept it up, Elijah might get sick and tired of seeing his face everywhere he turned and drive to the nearest police station to file a restraining order.
Tonight was his last shot.
As long as Demetri didn’t let him down.
“Why are you turning in at Fink Field?” Elijah asked Demetri.
They were on their way back from Elijah’s photo shoot with King Dong where they’d used one of the sets at Black Stallion Studios.
The New York skyline set.
The whole time they’d been shooting, Elijah kept eyeing the fake office window, remembering how the cold glass on his back felt as Alex had pressed him up against it and got down on his knees and sucked him off.
Probably one of his most memorable blow jobs, and it had nothing to do with him having downloaded and watched it over and over again while he’d jacked off.
At the studio, everywhere he’d looked reminded him of Alex, of that first thrill of attraction, the electric nerves, the spine-tingling orgasms.
He wouldn’t give up those two weekends at Black Stallion for the world.
He also wished they’d never happened.
He’d been financially broke, but he hadn’t been miserable. Or sleepless. Or second guessing everything he’d done or said in the past few months. Poor Cat had to work her makeup magic to cover the bags under his eyes.
And if he didn’t get his shit together and concentrate on his classes, he’d be lucky to graduate come May.
“Demetri.”
Demetri pulled into a parking space behind one of the local news crew vans and cut the engine. He turned in his seat. “Look—”
“You had this planned all along, didn’t you?”
At least the bastard had the decency to look chagrined.
“That story you spun about us carpooling to Black Stallion because you had a meeting with Niko anyway, was that all a lie?”