by Tessa Bailey
“Whatever,” Vaughn said. “Samantha rolls a strike on her first try and skips—skips—back to Duke and lays a big old smacker on his cheek. Meanwhile, me and River had to leave the immediate area we were laughing so hard.”
“Yeah, well…” Duke punched some buttons on the score machine. “Samantha got mad at you for laughing and spent the night making me feel better. So. Joke’s on you.”
“I really didn’t need to know that,” Renner muttered. “Please keep your marital rituals with my sister to yourself.” When Duke only smiled, like a man so content he couldn’t even bother hiding it, Renner added, “Although I don’t mind hearing about her kicking your ass.”
Duke’s smile grew wider. “Now there’s a shock.”
Milo fell into the chair beside Renner, bowling ball in his lap. “While we’re on the subject of potentially shocking things…” His right leg started to bounce. “I’m gay.”
Neither man moved. Except for their jaws, which seemed to unhinge. Actually make that three jaws, because someone could have sailed a ship through Renner’s mouth, too. And he’d already known. He’d just never expected Milo to come out to his friends with so…little fanfare. Nor did he expect to have the privilege of being there when it happened.
“I’m not making light of it,” Milo continued, his leg now moving in overtime. Fast enough that Renner had no choice but to reach over and lay a hand on Milo’s knee to stop the nervous action. Milo looked down and over at Renner—along with everyone else, though—so he retrieved his hand and forced himself to look bored. “I’m not saying it should be this easy for everyone. To say the words. But I’m making it easy for me, because it was hard enough for long enough keeping it in. All right?”
Pride. It jammed in Renner’s throat like a hockey puck. This man was growing more incredible by the moment in his utter refusal to be…in…now that he was out. He wanted to experience everything in the open and didn’t care who knew. Renner had been quick to let everyone in his life know about his sexuality, but he’d been defensive from the word go, almost hoping someone would react negatively. So he could leave that person behind. If that didn’t reiterate the differences between himself and Milo, nothing would.
“Well, congrats, man.” Vaughn pressed a button on the scorekeeper to call a waitress. “I guess this calls for a toast.”
“Samantha already knew,” Duke said, pulling off bored way better than Renner. “About you two.”
“Wait. Whoa.” Renner shook his head, mostly to dislodge the stupid flare of pleasure that someone had thought them a couple. “There’s no ‘you two.’”
Duke shrugged. “Whoops.”
Renner could feel Milo looking at him, but didn’t turn his head. Because what would he see? Embarrassment over being linked to him? Thoughtfulness, instead? Neither one would be good. He wants someone else. You’ve been here before. “Listen, let’s get this game started before the DNA in these shoes brings them to life and eats us alive.” Renner stood. “And I know this is probably the gayest bowling team in history, but if anyone cracks a balls joke, I’m leaving.”
Vaughn saluted him. “Fair enough.”
Feeling Milo’s gaze on his back, Renner went to go search for his own ball among the small leftover selection. On the way, the phone in his pocket vibrated with an incoming email.
He shouldn’t have checked it.
Chapter Ten
Milo spun the bowling ball against his palm and watched Renner’s back stiffen. To be fair, it was usually stiff over something. Those hockey goaltender shoulders would tighten up, shifting his suit jacket. Only tonight he wasn’t wearing the jacket, giving Milo a nice view of what hid beneath. It reminded Milo of a documentary he’d watched once about the continental shift, when huge masses of land had broken off and relocated. That is what the muscles moving under Renner’s dress shirt reminded him of. Shifting land mass.
What would they feel like under his tongue?
An image of himself seated on Renner’s ass, leaning forward to massage away the tension unfurled in his mind…and his blood rushed south. Wow. He’d just had the hand job of a lifetime less than an hour ago and already his cock was aching. Not typical at all. Except for the short time he’d dated Holly Burbank, he used to go months without women.
If the image were real and he were sitting on Renner’s backside, would they be naked? Hell yeah. Still wet from a shower so his dick would easily slide up and down the curves of Renner’s ass. Could he come like that? Milo thought so. Hell, he was close just thinking about it. How he would use Renner’s ass cheeks to stroke himself off. God, maybe Renner would growl an order over his shoulder for Milo to go faster. Until he’d be pumping and panting, his thighs aching from the effort.
And then Renner would flip him over onto his stomach and…
Shit. Milo grabbed his bottle of beer off the score machine and swigged the cold liquid, forcing himself to calm down. Usually, when he witnessed Renner’s stress manifest itself, he would make a crack about him being a workaholic. Or tell him to switch to decaf. But now he knew it was more serious. If Renner stayed true to form, he would probably burn rubber back to the factory to fix everything. Now. Tonight.
Hard as it was to admit, Milo needed Renner to stay. Yeah, he knew how selfish that sounded, but he’d just kicked down the closet door. While his friends were being as awesome as he’d hoped they would, Renner had been the steady presence while it was going on. Still was. Maybe he’d underestimated how quickly it would start to feel okay for his friends to know? He was seriously feeling a little exposed here.
“Everything okay?” Vaughn called, walking back from taking his turn. “Or do we need to confiscate the boss’s cell phone?”
Milo laughed but it sounded forced to his own ears. “Yeah, maybe.”
Before the words were even out of his mouth, Renner was walking up the stairs, giving them the international signal for, sorry, I need to take this. And when Renner paused at the front counter to trade back in the bowling shoes for his wing tips, a misshapen anvil sank in Milo’s stomach. He didn’t know what was bothering him more. The fact that he could miss this chance to hold up his end of the bargain and force Renner to relax? Or being alone with his friends after basically peeling off a layer of skin? Which was ridiculous. Duke and Vaughn were already cracking jokes about each other’s bowling techniques and kicking around ideas for Vaughn’s new house. They weren’t acting any differently around him. It was just…Milo who felt different.
“Hey,” Duke called, lumbering back to the score machine and dropping into the chair. “You’re up, Bautista.”
“Right.” Milo scratched the back of his neck, watching as Renner disappeared through the bowling alley exit. “I think I need to go make sure the boss man doesn’t try to skip out on us.”
“Go ahead.” Vaughn and Duke were clearly trying their best to keep speculation out of their expressions. It was almost comical how hard they tried, making Milo like them even more. “We’ll take your turns,” Duke said. “You can jump right in when you get back.”
“Great.” Milo headed for the stairs, but stopped and turned when he was only halfway. “Hey, thanks for not being dicks.”
Duke and Vaughn threw him an identical salute.
Milo continued on his way through the bowling alley, recognizing more than half of the people in attendance as factory workers, or Hook residents he knew from frequenting the same stores and restaurants. It was kind of crazy how he’d started to belong in such a short space of time. Boston had always been his home, but when Vaughn had called and offered him the security job, he’d realized he’d been missing his army buddies. Guarding and dating a pop star had been interesting at first, until it turned tedious…and the confusion and guilt over wanting Travis had begun to set in. Coming to Hook for a while had been a good decision all around.
But now that he was no longer confused about Travis…would he go back to Boston permanently? What if he went down there for the visit this weekend, re
vealed the feelings he’d been harboring, and things actually worked out? Excitement trickled into his blood.
Not as much as usual, though, and the excitement had changed. It was less about sex and more about appreciation. Relief. The period he’d known Travis represented Milo’s recognizing who he’d been inside all along.
Milo pushed out of the building into the crisp night air, his heart picking up speed when he spied Renner at the rear of the parking lot. Why couldn’t the man keep to well-lit areas? Didn’t he realize his obvious wealth made him a target? Apparently he hadn’t learned a damn thing from the near-mugging. It would serve him right to get jumped again.
Chewing on his lower lip, Milo paced the concrete landing, growing more and more anxious as Renner moved far enough away that his voice began to fade.
“Shit,” Milo said under his breath, descending the stairs and striding in Renner’s direction. He passed two cars with fogged-up windows, one of them rocking rather violently, before finally reaching his boss. Renner didn’t see him at first, though, and Milo hung back, his brown furrowing at the other man’s tone. He sounded irritated, as usual. But there was a note of resignation Milo would never have associated with Renner in a million years.
“It was airtight. They should have accepted it.” His boss paced, yanking at the collar around his neck. “I can’t make the cost of production any lower without it eating into profits and pissing off investors…” He cursed. “Yes, I know that’s why the proposal was rejected. I can’t exactly do anything about it, can I?” A pause. “I realize this contract would have funded the other Jersey project. I realize that, dammit.”
Milo shuffled closer without thinking. His intent was to knock the goddamn cell phone out of Renner’s hand before the man had a heart attack. Whatever the conversation was about, it had caused Renner to look disheveled in record time. His tie was sideways; his hair had lost its perfect style. And Milo really didn’t like it.
Renner’s head whipped around at Milo’s approach, his annoyance only amplifying. Whoever was on the other end of the line had raised their voice and Milo didn’t think, he simply reached for the cell, intending to tell the guy to eat shit, but Renner pulled it out of his reach at the last second. “I’ll call you back,” he barked into the cell, then hung up. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Good question. Was he overstepping his bounds? Yes. Yesterday, he wouldn’t have been this ballsy. Maybe when a man jerked you off in a dressing room, you stopped giving a shit about propriety. “Who is that?”
Renner did a double take, as if to say, can you believe this guy? “Hudson. My business partner.” He stowed the cell in his front pocket. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“I beg to differ. My end of the bargain was to show you how to relax.” Milo gestured in the general direction of Renner’s pocket. “That was having the opposite effect.”
His boss regarded him through narrowed eyes. “So…what? I just stop working because you decided to make me a part of your little experiment?”
Hurt struck Milo, and he fell back a step. “Experiment?”
“I didn’t mean that.” Renner dragged a hand down his face. “Jesus, I didn’t mean that, all right? I’m in the middle of a work crisis and you don’t…this doesn’t fit into the picture.”
“Too bad.” Man, his balls were made of solid brass tonight. But it was either go back inside and brood into a beer because Renner had called his major life event an experiment, or he could push the guy into admitting why he was trying to deflect. Because that’s what was happening. Maybe that was what had been happening all along. Renner treated everyone like garbage so they wouldn’t look too closely and see he wasn’t perfect after all.
“Did you just say ‘too bad’?” Renner took a few steps closer, his head tilted in that condescending way. “This is where I remind you I sign your paycheck, Bautista.”
Burn. “There. You played the card. Now we can move on.”
Renner laughed without humor. “I sign everyone’s check. In order to do that, my job can’t end at five o’clock. Bad news comes in at all hours, whenever it feels like it.”
There it was. With some pushing, he was in. Meager though the information was, he’d never gotten anything significant out of Renner. Until now. “Bad news. Is that what the phone call was about?”
“You tell me,” Renner near-shouted. “You were standing there listening the whole time like a nosy washwoman.”
“You knew I was there.” The realization dawned on Milo slowly. “You wanted me to hear it.”
Renner scoffed and yanked the phone back out of his pocket, that big thumb scrolling so fast it was a blur. “You’re hilarious.”
Milo swallowed and eliminated the distance between them, noticing the way Renner’s thumb slowed down. And slowed further. Milo lifted a hand and closed it over the phone, surprised when Renner didn’t protest. Didn’t look at him, either, but they were fighting one battle at a time. “Tell me about the bad news.”
A muscle slid up and down in Renner’s throat. “No.”
“If you get it off your chest,” Milo said, “maybe you can come back inside and forget about it for a while.”
“Forget it how? By being surrounded by the countless employees I failed?” The stress was back, putting strain around Renner’s mouth and eyes. “There is exactly zero chance of that.”
“Failed?” Never expecting his pragmatic boss to admit something so extreme. And wrong. Milo shook his head. “What are you talking about?”
“Look.” Renner replaced the phone in his pocket once more, but Milo could hear it buzzing. “Go back inside and enjoy your night. You can harass me about my caffeine intake bright and early tomorrow morning.”
Milo was losing him. Losing his chance to see what lay underneath this hard man’s exterior. Maybe he’d already lost it. But giving him some kind of relief was suddenly so important, Milo was balancing on the balls of his feet. Renner wasn’t going to make the move, like he’d done back in the store, and frankly, Milo had grown accustomed to the woman being the aggressor. Neither was happening in this case, though. Not with Renner’s mind traveling further and further away. His own initiative was required, but that meant he could be rejected. And the fabric of his new reality was still so fragile, he worried a refusal might tear it straight down the center.
No guts, no glory, though. If coming out to his friends hadn’t solidified that belief, nothing would. Milo ran his sweaty palms down the legs of his jeans, then lifted his right hand, curling it in the front of Renner’s dress shirt. The wind seemed to stop blowing while Milo’s heart thudded in his throat. Although the boss’s eyes were narrowed to slits, he allowed Milo to pull him closer. Closer. Until they were breathing right up against each other’s mouth.
“Getting brave, are you?” Renner murmured.
God. A single graze of their lips and Milo’s cock was already at half mast. “Maybe. Yeah.”
Renner nodded down at Milo’s fisted hand. “I told you I’m the one who decides when this happens. And how.”
“Well, you were taking too fucking long.” A flash of something blew through Renner’s expression. Like a cross between arousal and affection, but Milo might have imagined the second part. “I figured since you refuse to talk to me, I could find another way to chill you out.”
“And you think touching you is going to accomplish that?” Renner untangled Milo’s hand from his shirt and pressed it firmly up against his fly. Sweet Christ. Milo was winded at a moment’s notice, his lungs gathering oxygen in huge pulls. He was touching Renner’s dick. It was the first man he’d touched like this at all, which was crazy all by itself. But the thick curve of it…the sturdy root…felt so insanely good in his hand, he had to squeeze. To rake his palm up and down. And there was no more satisfying sound than his experienced boss gritting a shaky curse. “That feel chilled out to you? In any way?”
“No.” Milo swallowed a protest when Renner circled his wrist and
tugged it away. Don’t sound desperate. Don’t sound desperate. “Why don’t we try for taking your mind off the phone call instead?”
Their faces were only a breath apart, but he could still see Renner’s eyes light with challenge. “Let’s see what you got.”
Milo might have lost his nerve if it weren’t for the note of need in that dare. And hell, hadn’t he just felt undeniable proof in his hand? He wasn’t the only hungry one here. “All right, boss man.” He walked Renner backward until his back hit the chain-link fence marking the perimeter of the parking lot. “You asked for it.”
Their hard cocks wedged together between dipping and shuddering stomachs. Milo couldn’t stop himself from giving a hard roll of his hips, listening to the answering drag of the fence on the asphalt, Renner’s bit-off groan. On one side of them, freeway traffic rushed by in the distance. On the other, car doors slammed and bowling alley patrons laughed their way up and down the steps leading inside. But their racing breath drowned everything else out after a few seconds, becoming the only thing Milo could hear.
“You don’t seem very worried about being caught,” Renner murmured, his gaze locked on Milo’s mouth. “I wish you would stop surprising me.”
“Yeah?” He hooked his fingers in Renner’s belt loops and ground their lower bodies together. “Sorry to inform you that ain’t happening tonight.”
And then he just went for it.
Shit, it was glorious.
Renner clearly didn’t know what hit him when the kiss started, making Milo’s mouth curve as it slanted over his first set of hard, male lips. Milo could kiss like nobody’s fucking business—true fact. It was one thing in his life that he was a little arrogant about. When he’d dated Holly, she’d gotten drunk and laid one on him, right before passing out in the backseat of her tinted black SUV. The following morning, she’d had no recollection of anything from the previous evening. Except for the kiss. She’d asked Milo out on a date and promptly begged for another.
At the moment, however, the pop star was the furthest thing from Milo’s mind, because Renner was no slump in the kiss department, either. In fact, his initial shock had passed and now…oh God, the boss man had beat him to introducing tongue action. Damn, he was smooth with it, too. A lot like he’d stroked Milo’s cock earlier, he didn’t take any prisoners. The stubble was a new sensation for Milo, and he wanted more, wanted closer, and Renner gave it to him. He sank his fingers into Milo’s hair and angled his head, delivering sweeping drives of his tongue, abrasive brushes of his chin and cheeks.