Getting Lucky

by Daryl Banner

  If Lady Luck was really a thing, I was certain that Lonely Loser was her bitchy gay brother, and he was damned determined not to let me enjoy the rest of my weekend.

  That night was a blur of slot machines, sweet unassuming cocktails, and no sexy young men in sight—and yes, I looked. After every sip of my drink, after every joke Quinton blurted out over the smoke of Lewis’s cigarettes, after every frustrated smack of Duncan’s palm against the table when he lost, I twisted my neck left, craned my neck right, and saw no sign of him.

  He was gone. My brain knew it, but my heart wouldn’t listen.

  After wasting even more of our hard-earned money at every table in the four casinos—and winning nothing—everyone still somehow managed to look like we had fun as we dragged our half-drunken asses back to our adjoining rooms and ate pizza until two in the morning. Quinton fell asleep on the floor with a pizza box in his lap. Lewis’s night ended with him sprawled over the wrong bed on his stomach, snoring. Trusty Duncan slept propped up by all the pillows from both his bed and mine and his mouth hanging open, the TV remote resting in his palm.

  And I couldn’t be farther from asleep. Instead, I stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows staring down at the street and counting my last hours of freedom as they dwindled. Seven stories up, I felt so weirdly detached from the masses of people still ambling about on a Saturday night. Well, two in the morning, more accurately. It looked like a fairly substantial amount of people, to be fair. Come tomorrow, we’d be packing our bags and driving home with mild headaches and an impending nightmare of what miserable work would find us Monday. I was sure the others were already fast dreaming of our next adventure to the casinos.

  But it wouldn’t be for two more weeks. Fourteen days of the grind stood between us and the casinos, the only place we all seemed to feel alive.

  Maybe Duncan was right. The process of urinating together granted him timely wisdom. Maybe we were all just biding our time, sleepwalking through life, and waiting for that golden bolt of fortune to cast down from the sky and shatter our lives apart in the best way possible.

  I blinked, then leaned forward. Wait a minute …

  Was that him?

  I leaned forward more. My forehead bumped the glass and I hardly noticed, staring down at the street, wide-eyed.

  That’s him, I realized with a jerk of excitement to my heart. Even seven stories up, I knew that was his shape leaning against the wall of the Italian restaurant across the street. That has to be him. That totally fucking has to be the guy.

  No, I wasn’t sure.

  No, I didn’t care.

  Then in an instant, a boom of distant thunder shook the glass, and the sky began to flash with spiderwebs of lightning. Shit. The pit-pat of raindrops began slapping the window right away, and I realized that my guy wasn’t going to be down there on the street in the oncoming rain for much longer.

  I had to go.

  And I had to go now.

  My three comrades snoring, grunting, and breathing deeply, I swiped my wallet and phone, stuffed them into my pockets, and slipped out of the door. The elevator came so fast, it might as well have been waiting for me. Down I went. I mashed my thumb into the lobby button thirteen times, as if that’d hurry it up.

  Another boom of thunder caused the elevator to shudder.

  I clenched shut my eyes.

  Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.

  The second the doors slid open, I burst out from them like a liberated cat from a pet taxi. I cut across the lobby as casually as I could manage while keeping my pace brisk. I didn’t want to full-on run, but still needed to be fast. I wasn’t going to lose him.

  Not again-again-again.

  Am I crazy? Have I lost my damned mind?

  When I pushed through the front glass doors, a blast of cool wind slapped me in the face as the rain poured down. I peered across the street at the Italian restaurant.

  The wall was vacant.

  Damn it.

  Did I imagine him? Were Lady Luck and Lonely Loser laughing their asses off at my expense right now? Was it a smudge on the hotel window that, through the lens of my own crippling lack, manifested itself into what I wanted it to be?

  The rain thrashed around me, the wind howling as it pushed and squeezed its way through the narrow streets and alleyways. Now and then, everything flashed like a photographer’s bulb as the sky erupted with bursts of lightning that cracked and boomed.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep, deep breath.

  I spun around to head back inside.

  My body crashed into what I could only describe as a brick wall made of flesh and warm breath, then I toppled backwards. The pavement rushed up to meet me, and I landed hard on my ass and elbow. A groan of anguish shot out of me while pain lanced its way up and down my arm.

  When I opened my eyes, I found it wasn’t a wall at all that I’d crashed into.

  It was him.

  “The fuck?” he mumbled from his full, plush, wet lips.

  Jesus. I just ran into the guy, fell hard on my ass, might have just broken my elbow, and the first thing I noticed were how pretty his lips were?

  But that was the closest I’d ever been to him. In an instant, I was aware of nothing at all except for the chiseled, handsome face staring down at me—the face of a cocky, messy-haired young man. His eyes, brown and muddy like the puddle of God-knows-what I just fell into, shimmered through the tears of rain that blasted all around us. Just looking at him, my pain became nothing but little pinches of invisible fingers that tested whether I was back up in my hotel room dreaming or not. Dreamy … If I had to reduce this gorgeous young man to one word, it would be dreamy.

  Then, in an authoritative tone ignited with young and cocky masculinity, he said, “Watch where you’re walkin’.”

  I blinked up at him, my wound forgotten. My heart jumped at the sound of his command. “E-Excuse me?”

  He was still clad in blue jeans and a tight white tank top, but now he wore a tight-fitting hoodie over it, which seemed to glue itself skintight to every single round ripple of his toned, sinewy body underneath.

  It was very distracting. And inviting.

  Even if he was being a rude little shit to me.

  His eyebrows furrowed, and in that same dominant tone, he spat back, “I said to watch where you’re walkin’.”

  I stumbled clumsily back to my feet, aware instantly of the cold wetness that now dressed my back and side. I didn’t even feel the pain in my elbow yet—at least, not truly.

  For some reason, my reaction to this strong-willed, puffed-up piece of meat wasn’t the same as it was in my fantasies. Instead, I felt a need to connect to him. A persuasive, unshakeable need.

  “I was watching,” I insisted, my voice light. “It started to—”

  “Obviously not,” he spat back.

  Quite suddenly, the throbbing in my arm was replaced with something else entirely: a surge of indignance. “I was walking just fine,” I retorted, stiffening my spine. “Your ass ran into me.”

  He gave me a quick once-over, sizing me up. Then he met my eyes, and his gaze turned as hard as granite.

  I had never been looked at in that way. Not once. Not ever.

  The look he gave me was all animal. It made my heart jerk in my chest. It was a particularly … hungry sort of look. The whites of his eyes flashed against the backdrop of rain falling all around us.

  I had his full attention, his full aggression, his full everything.

  Why was he staring at me like that? I couldn’t tell whether he wanted to kick my ass, fuck me, or devour me whole.

  Is that crazy? To see all of that with just a single glare?

  You’re imagining it all, James. You’re reading way too much into it. You’re projecting your own horny desires onto him. This young punk who is literally dripping with sex couldn’t possibly want you.

  “Oh yeah?” he finally challenged me, after far, far too long of a staring contest that had my heart thrashing against my ribcage.
“You think I ran into you? Really?”

  The more he went at me, the harder I went at him. It was like we were having sex with words. The rough kind. “It’s … It’s raining freaking—fucking cats and dogs out here.” I puffed up my chest. “Maybe instead of bursting out onto the street and yelling at—”

  “I have just as much a right to be here on this street as you do.” He took a step toward me. I took a step back. “You better step down unless you want the other side of your face bruised, too.”

  The words startled me. The other side of my face? I brought a hand up to my cheek, then flinched when it smarted. I must have hit my face too when I landed—and it must have been a hard landing.

  Real talk. This kid was gorgeous, there was no doubt. But he was clearly also a total dick. I couldn’t believe I wasted my whole weekend pining after this indignant little—“Punk,” I finally spat out, turning my thoughts into words. “You’re just a punk asshole.”

  “And who the hell are you?” he came right back with.

  “A soaking wet man,” I answered, “who needs to get the hell out of this rain and back up to his hotel room where—”

  “Perfect,” he cut me off, his flushed face mere inches from mine. “That just makes my day perfect. Yet another entitled rich dude with a big fancy hotel room and three meals a day, telling me how rude I am after he runs into me.”

  His words stopped me. Or maybe it was the red in his cheeks I noticed, how boyish it made his face look even with the beard. Or maybe it was the way his breath came out in tufts of mist before his young, plush lips that were so frustratingly kissable and perfect, it was almost an effort to hate him. Or maybe it was how beautiful his eyes looked when they gleamed with anger.

  “R-Rich dude?” I sputtered. “You think I’m—?”

  “Everyone’s richer than me.” He got right up in my face. This time, I stood my ground and let him. “It’s all just a matter of which side of the street you’re standing on, isn’t it?”

  I won’t lie. Standing there with that gorgeous young man spitting words that close to my face was more erotic to me than anything that had happened in the privacy of my bedroom for the past ten years, solid.

  And those words of his also cut deep. All the steam I thought I had was knocked right out of my chest in that moment.

  “Is it so much to ask,” he went on, his voice low, “to get just a scrap of fucking compassion in this city? Or is everyone really so consumed with shoving their weight around and pissing all over my day? As if I haven’t been through enough.”

  My words were stuck in my throat. I had so many questions that all wanted answering at once. Was it an apology I was trying to form? Or a declaration of sympathy?

  Or did I just want to kiss him?

  “Guys like you,” he then said, “have been trying to control guys like me my whole life. And I’m done with it.” He leaned toward me so close, I could’ve kissed him right then—my lips to his gorgeous, pouty, perfect ones. “So how about you take your entitled, comfy, fortunate hotel-room self and get the fuck out of my pathetic, dirty, street-rat face?”

  I fed on his intensity like a vampire—and felt his pain. Maybe it was the look in his eyes that so mirrored the real wound inside me, the one that no amount of trips to these casinos could heal.

  We couldn’t be more different, yet in this small moment of time, I felt like we were the same person.

  Maybe that’s where my words came from. “You … don’t seem pathetic and … and dirty to me at all.”

  The hardness in his eyes softened at once. I think he was taken aback by my words. Genuinely.

  I doubt that in a hundred thousand years he would have expected the response I just gave him.

  Then, as quickly as a flash of lightning above our heads, he turned hard again. “Just leave me alone, man,” he grunted, his mouth so close to my face that his mere words stirred the tangled, wet bangs on my forehead.

  And with that, the beauty I’d emotionally chased all weekend turned away and drew his hood up, tightening it. Then I watched his gorgeous, muscled, tapered backside as he disappeared down the road and around the corner of the hotel, his unlaced high-top Converse slapping in the puddles as he trudged away.

  I couldn’t stop staring. I didn’t move, feeling the ghosts of his words as they passed through me over and over again. They drew circles around my body like the wisps of rain that spat in my face with every errant gust of wind.

  Holy shit.

  What just happened?

  Even long after that moment ended and I was back up in my lofty, air-conditioned hotel room in the Spades Tower, my elbow bandaged up and throbbing as I was curled up on my huge bed without pillows, I still felt the heat of his intense stare on me as if he never walked away.

  Whenever I blinked, I saw his gorgeous, muddy brown eyes.

  Whenever my heart beat, I felt his body slam against mine all over again.

  I felt like my body had memorized the feel of his the instant we crashed into each other.

  His pecs.

  His abs.

  His shoulders and big arms … and almost his face.

  Almost his face.

  Something in me knew for a fact that it wasn’t going to be the last time I saw him.

  Chapter 2

  JAMES

  Yeah, I thought about the fucker all week.

  I’d be lying if I said I went home, felt dandy, and slipped right back into my desk at the bank like I do every time the four of us returned from a weekend on the town.

  But that wasn’t the case. I felt like I was missing something. All damned week. There was a hole in my chest. There was a knot in my stomach. There was a pressure at the front of my eyes. I kept making stupid typos at my computer. I was clumsy, walking into things and spilling my coffee absentmindedly.

  I had left something at that casino.

  Something that didn’t have a shape.

  Maybe not even a name.

  I might as well have been beaten up for real, dragged through the marshes of misery, and hung by my hands to dry. Which was almost true, considering that I took such a hard fall and felt the incessant throbbing in my elbow nonstop.

  I should have probably seen a doctor.

  At least while I was at work, I could distract myself. When I got home, however, it became less easy. My house felt especially empty that week. Most evenings, I caught myself staring out the screen of my sliding back doors at the overgrown grass in my backyard, mourning my lack of motivation to do anything nice or special for my house or its pitiful landscaping. Anything green my hands touched died. Even the pecan tree by the fence didn’t want to drop any nuts anymore.

  But my worries had nothing to do with pecan nuts. They had to do with my own. And the fact that I didn’t have any.

  I should have said something back to him.

  Like: “Whatever you’re going through, buddy, I’m sorry. I’m also going through stuff.”

  Then maybe he would have apologized for running into me.

  Because he totally did.

  It was on Thursday night that I sprawled out on my big bed, exhausted from a particularly uneventful, boring day at the bank, and stared up at my crazy-tall vaulted ceiling. I had so much space in my house, it was a wonder I didn’t host parties with all the guys here more often instead of wasting our money on slot machines and poker tables every other weekend.

  Despite all my efforts to let go of the past weekend, my mind went right back to that damned casino. Specifically, the street outside my hotel.

  I could still see his piercing, powerful glare. The memory of it didn’t fade one bit.

  It was so intense, how he stared me down like a predator and made me feel half an inch tall.

  I was ashamed to admit it, but he reminded me so much of the authoritative young bastard who dominated me in my dreams that for a second, I couldn’t tell the two apart.

  Did I dream him into existence?

  “Watch where you’re walkin’.�
��

  His words thundered through my mind, the memory so fresh, my heart raced the second I heard his voice.

  “I said to watch where you’re walkin’.”

  He was so forceful, so strong, so demanding.

  “Yes, sir,” I mumbled out loud, those two tiny words filling my whole bedroom and bouncing off the vaulted ceiling above.

  Yeah, I was hard the next instant. Like, rock hard.

  Something about addressing this young bastard as “sir”. The way it made me feel small. The way it made me tremble all over with excitement. The way it made me feel like an object for his complete and total entertainment.

  “You like calling me sir, don’t you?” fantasy-him asked.

  “Y-Yes,” I blurted aloud, again.

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get down on your knees, you little bitch.”

  The command had me hopping right off my bed, dropping to my knees for real, and unzipping my pants. With a yank of my underwear, my cock was freed, and I slowly began to stroke.

  Fantasy-him was unzipping his pants, too. “You want to make me happy, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir,” I breathed, my eyes closed so I could see him more vividly from my memory—his tight white tank top, his loose, low-hanging jeans, even his body-hugging hoodie and his backpack, as they were part of his whole street-kid muscle-boy skater thing he had going on.

  His messy bangs of hair that crept out from under his cocked black cap.

  His thick, chocolate brown eyes that seemed so infinite, you could fall into them like a well and be lost forever.

  His high cheekbones. His flushed cheeks. His pouty, defiant lips. His squared jaw. His strong, chiseled nose. Even his flared nostrils were sexy, like he was pissed at something.

  Pissed at me.

  And ready to take it all out on my kneeling, lowly self.

  “Fuck,” I hissed, my heart racing so fast as I jerked my cock. I was already seeing stars behind my eyelids, I was so close.

  I couldn’t control my thoughts. I wanted to put my hands on him so badly. If I had no restraint, I would have gripped him right there in the rain, pulled his soft, tough-guy lips against mine, and kissed him so hard it’d make our teeth ache. I could have crushed my body against his ravenously.