by Jay Hogan
“Ugh. Don’t do that.” I held two hands up in front of his face, but when I peeked around, he’d added a pout for good measure. The bastard didn’t play fair. “Oh for fuck’s sake, all right. But how are you going to explain our friendship to your teammates and your dad?”
He shrugged. “I’ve no intention of telling my father anything, and as for the team, you’re Mathew’s brother. It’s natural we’d know each other, especially since Mathew’s bike got done in my brother’s shop. I’ll just say we know people in common. I’m not gonna lie, Cam—I’m insanely attracted to you. Christ, you’re the fucking bee’s knees as far as I’m concerned.”
I nearly choked on my water. The bee’s knees? Jesus Christ, the man was adorable. “Reuben—”
He held up a hand. “But I can’t have you, I get it. And if all I can have is a friendship, then hell yeah, I’ll take that.” He batted his eyelashes again.
I narrowed my gaze. “You’d better not use that sexy pout on your opposition, Taylor. For one, you suck at it.” He so didn’t. “And two, a certain equally closeted one-fifty-kilogram prop might just take you up on it and then you’ll get way more than you ever bargained for.”
His mouth dropped open. “No way…. You’re not telling me….”
I ran my fingers across my lips. “Just saying.”
His gaze narrowed as he tried to work out who I might be talking about.
I clicked my fingers in front of his face. “Focus, Reuben. And… I can’t believe I’m saying this, but yes, a coffee every now and then is fine. But beers after practice, popcorn-and-movie nights{MISSING SYMBOL}not happening. And I won’t lie to my brother for you either. He already knows I think you’re hot, so he probably won’t be happy with us hanging out.”
Reuben’s grin widened. “You told him I was hot?”
I scowled, but it lacked heat. “Don’t fish—it’s not attractive.” It so was. “And no, I did not tell him anything of the sort. He noticed, is all.”
“Oh….” He smiled, smug as anything.
I glared until he flushed and cleared his throat. Then I said, “I’ll tell him you’re sounding me out about Cory since I’m a nurse. He’ll be suspicious, so be ready for some questions.”
“Okay, fair enough. I trust you.”
“You shouldn’t,” I warned. “If you’re determined to do this closet shit for your nephew, you shouldn’t trust anyone. And two more things. First, when we are coffeeing, you will not dismiss me or condone any homophobic bullshit like you did in the car park that night—got it?”
He blushed scarlet and nodded furiously.
“And second, if for any reason I want out of this friendship, you let it go, no questions asked. Understand?”
Again with the nodding.
“Just so we’re clear.”
“Crystal.”
“Good to know.” I stood, and he snagged my hand… again. I glared. He lifted both hands in the air.
“I know, I know.” He groaned dramatically. “Third, don’t grab, right?”
I stifled a grin. “Right.”
He looked up at me through lowered lashes. “We should exchange numbers, though, right?”
I stared at him in silence, then passed him my phone. “All right, do it. But no random texting.”
He entered his cell, then sent himself a text. “Now you have me.” He grinned.
If only. “Lucky me.”
He handed my phone back and stood. “I’m parked that way.” He indicated behind him.
“I’m not,” I said. “I’ll see you around, Reuben.”
“I’ll text you,” he said.
I glared.
He smirked. “Just for a coffee.”
I rolled my eyes heavenward. “Of course you will.” I turned and left his gorgeous arse standing there, watching me go. And if I put a little more sway in that swish for the occasion, who could blame me? As if that didn’t say it all.
What the fuck have I just done?
Chapter Six
Cam
NEARLY A week since the not-a-date coffee, and my phone was irritatingly bereft of any contact from Reuben whatsoever. I should be pleased, right? Yeah, about that—I was surprised, sure. Surprised and… fucking disappointed.
I’d been smug in my certainty that I’d have to shut the guy down within the first twenty-four hours, fully expecting him to try to meet up again before the ink had even dried on our agreement. And… nothing. By the third day, I was checking my phone to see if I’d missed a call or text. And yesterday, during the Blues game against the Highlanders, I was so convinced I’d hear from him when they won that I actually turned down an invite to join friends at Downtown G’s biannual Boys’ Dance Off, a top-three event on my list of favourite ways to spend a Saturday night.
Reuben had played an amazing game, acing two tries and seventeen kicking points. Mathew had mentioned how off form he’d been at training one day, but there’d been no sign of it on the field against the Highlanders. He’d been a dream to watch, even with my limited understanding of rugby. Don’t get me wrong, I know my way around the basics thanks to Mathew, but I went to the games mostly to support my brother and to enjoy the ample eye candy.
But when Reuben was given man of the match, I couldn’t help the bubble of pride that burst in my chest, and I found myself joining everyone else in cheering him off. Seated in the area designated for the players’ families, I half expected him to try to catch my eye before he disappeared down the tunnel to the change rooms, but he never once even looked in my direction. I should have found that reassuring but instead I felt oddly stung. The fact he never texted or called afterwards only added to that vague, absurd sense of rejection beginning to gnaw at me. I know, I know. Contrary didn’t even begin to cover it but crushing hard came close. Dammit.
I headed home to stew and spent most of the evening mentally slapping myself for being ridiculous. Reuben was doing exactly what I’d asked of him. Don’t pester me. Keep it light and friendly. Nothing more. So why was I pissed? Don’t answer that. Fuck. I knew this was a bad, bad idea.
The unease left me perched on my couch the morning after the game, eyeballing my phone with an unsent text staring back at me, my finger hovering over the send button, my mind angsting away.
Hey. Good game yesterday. Want a coffee to celebrate?
Friendly? Tick. Casual? Tick. No flirting? Tick. It was as if I needed to kill some time and he’d just popped into my head as a reasonable way to do that. Besides, I had a legitimate reason—an idea I wanted to run by him. Convenient, right?
Reuben’s concern for his nephew had consumed a fair amount of my thinking the last week for reasons I wasn’t prepared to dwell on too much. And so, on the first slow afternoon in the ER, I dragged Michael into my office and grilled him on ASD, Autistic Spectrum Disorder—the latest research, what support was available in Auckland, and useful shit like that. Just back from his honeymoon in South Africa, the guy was tanned, gorgeous, and sickeningly in love.
For a formerly unrepentant man-whore it was a stunning turnaround and only served to add salt to the wound regarding the sorry state of my own love life. He made a couple of offhand invitations regarding getting me over for dinner to show me their photos, but I wanted in on that nausea-inducing slideshow like I wanted a freaking colonoscopy. I was however, running out of excuses.
Getting him off the marriage-is-great rant and onto child behavioural stuff, I asked him to bring me up to speed on ASD since my nursing training wasn’t going to cut it. Reuben’s concern for his nephew had been both inspiring and heartbreaking, sparking a desire in me to help. Admittedly, my first impulse had been to rub up and down his body like a cat and have sex all over him, but once that calmed, I realised I’d settle for putting a genuine smile on that adorable face. If I couldn’t have the man himself, I could at least be the guy who helped him out. But when he still hadn’t contacted me by last night, I was beginning to wonder why I’d even bothered.
He’d been t
he one to push for this whole friendship crap, after all—not me. Had I been too much of an arsehole? Like I was just humouring him? Which I was, wasn’t I? He and I weren’t going anywhere, and he needed to know that, right? Right.
I glanced again at my phone. Ugh. Enough. I deleted the text, shoved the evil device back in my pocket, and began gathering the graveyard of empty cups and shot glasses littering the coffee table from the night before. After loading them in the dishwasher, I threw an armful of clothes in the washing machine for good measure and set about sorting another.
I was halfway through that when Jake hauled his sorry six-foot arse into the lounge, looking decidedly the worse for wear. Dark curls smooshed up in all directions, a nice shade of magenta rimmed his hazel eyes, and the stale smell of booze sat ripe on his skin. I’d heard them come in about midnight, but they’d kept the noise to a minimum for a change—at least Brenda had. Jake’s voice was usually too low to bug me anyway. I’d pretty much fallen straight back to sleep.
“Oh.” He startled at the sight of me bum up, head down in the laundry basket. “I thought you’d be long gone.” He threw a glance back to his room, and I’d almost swear he blushed, except Jake never blushed. He shuffled off to the kitchen, where I heard the tap running. Huh. My cousin didn’t have a shy bone in his body.
I instantly dropped the laundry and joined him in the kitchen, parking myself against the breakfast bar. “Good night?” I eyeballed him.
He choked on a swallow of water and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
Gotcha.
“Ah, yeah. Not bad. You?” He glanced over my shoulder into the lounge with a nervous twitch. Twice in two minutes. Curiouser and curiouser.
“You all right?” I cocked a brow. “You seem a bit… off.”
He frowned. “I’m fine. A bit hungover. You know how it goes.”
Yeah, right. I wasn’t buying it. He was as guilty as sin about something and I wasn’t moving until I nailed why. I folded my arms across my chest and pulled out my best you’re-pissing-me-off-arsehole voice that I used with the orthopaedic surgeons who regularly tried to wield their power shit around my ER. Not. Happening. “Jake….”
“Not now, Cam.” He put his glass in the sink before I could interrogate him further but not before I caught a second crimson wave washing over his face. I launched myself across the kitchen, grabbed his shoulder to haul him around to face me, then cupped his cheeks. “Jake Colton Miller, you are blushing. What the fuck, man?”
His gaze slid over my shoulder once again. “I told you, it’s noth….”
“Hey, babe, you wanna grab me a glass too?” someone called from the vicinity of Jake’s bedroom—a decidedly male voice.
What the hell?
Jake groaned, and his eyes slid shut with a whispered, “Fuck.”
Male? Babe? My mind flipped into overdrive as my gaze zeroed in on my cousin’s still-closed eyes, no doubt an effort to pretend I wasn’t there. Good luck with that, cuz.
I pried one of his eyes open with my fingers and leaned close. “Jake?” Whispering now. “Who the fuck is that?”
He pulled back and shook me off. “Cam, please….” His eyes begged me to leave it alone as he made to push past me.
Like that was ever going to happen. I stepped to block him.
He sighed. “Really, Cam? Are we twelve now?”
“No. When we were twelve, you were all about Anna Fabish’s huge knockers and your chances of feeling them up in gym class.” I took a step back and sighed. “Jake… my man, my favourite cousin, my favourite, heteronormative, straight cousin. A guy—and let me just say that again in case you missed it—a guy just called you babe from your bedroom. One of those things doesn’t belong in that sentence.”
His eyes slid off mine guiltily. “Yeah… about that.”
I threw up my hands. “I don’t believe it. I don’t fucking believe it.” My cousin had spent the better part of the last fifteen of his thirty-two years trying to fuck anything in a skirt that moved, and sometimes even if it didn’t. He was a fucking poster boy for straight and horny. Not a bigoted bone in his body, God love him, but straight as a damn die.
Which reminded me. “And Brenda?”
A shadow passed over his eyes. “We broke up.”
Thank God. At least he wasn’t cheating. Still…. “Jake, come on, this is me here. What the hell?”
He blushed bright red and pulled himself to his full height, an impressive six two. “Don’t,” he said softly, hands up. “Just not now, Cam. Later. I promise.”
Something moved behind me, and Jake’s eyes sprang wide. Then a body brushed past me into the kitchen. A very tall, very hot, very masculine body in a rather small set of bright red briefs that did little to hide an impressive package. Said body leaned in and planted a soft kiss against Jake’s neck, causing me to nearly choke on my tongue, and my cousin to turn an even deeper shade of red than I’d thought was humanly possible.
Keeping his back to me, the guy threw open the fridge, grabbed a jug of chilled water, and poured himself a glass before downing it with a satisfied hum. This was all accompanied by a symphony of silence as Jake and I watched—him with something akin to worship and me with sheer gobsmacked astonishment.
I picked my jaw up off the floor, but no words found their way out of it. The blond hunk finally turned, and his face lit up in a huge grin. He thrust a hand my way and somehow mine found its way to meet him and we shook.
“Trent,” he introduced himself. “Cam, right?”
“Ah, yeah.” If I sounded surprised, it’s because I so fucking was. Jake’s one-nighters were lucky if they knew his name, let alone mine. Meanwhile I was fighting a losing battle to keep my eyes above the man’s chest and off those sinful red briefs. Glancing at my cousin, I saw his hand drift to the small of Trent’s back and take residence there, as if in apology. This was no fuck-and-duck one-nighter, that was for sure.
“Jake’s talked a lot about you,” Trent added.
“Really?” My gaze slipped to my cousin, brows peaked pointedly.
He blanched under the scrutiny and the clear message it sent. How long has this been going on and why the hell haven’t you said anything to your—hello—gay cousin?
Red Briefs—sorry, Trent—hesitated as he glanced between the two of us, then cleared his throat. “Well, it’s been nice meeting you, Cam.”
Turning to Jake, he cupped my cousin’s cheeks and drained all the attention in the room. “Come back to bed, babe.” He pressed a soft kiss to Jake’s lips and my cousin all but puddled on the floor.
What the fuck? I’d officially entered the sexual alphabet twilight zone. Jake didn’t puddle in a romantic heap for anyone—he barely exchanged two-syllable words with his dates.
Trent and his gorgeous red briefs headed out of the kitchen, and Jake moved to follow. I let him think he was avoiding me for a second, then snagged his arm halfway out the door. “This conversation is so not over, cuz,” I hissed in his ear. “But I’ll say one thing for you—you’ve got excellent taste.”
He gave me a weak grin, and I planted a wet kiss on his forehead to let him know I loved him before letting him go and slapping his butt on the way out.
Holy fucking balls. I face-planted on the granite benchtop and banged my forehead up and down a couple of times for good measure before parking my butt on a bar stool. Could this day get any weirder? Even my straight cousin had a better gay love life than me. Not that I didn’t get laid on a regular basis, but that shit barely kept the wolves at bay.
Between my job in the ER and my self-imposed “don’t shit where you eat” rule that included patients and their families, all work colleagues—including paramedics, hospital staff, social workers, and police—my potential dating pool of intelligent, available gay men was shrinking by the year. Two failed relationships—one a doctor, one a physiotherapist—had proved to be cautionary tales. Long hours, shift work, stress, and bearing witness to family trauma and tragedy day in and day
out made less-than-satisfactory bedfellows. So who was left?
A certain young—too damn young for me—gorgeous rugby player immediately sprang to mind. Fuck it. I ferreted my phone out of my pocket, retyped the deleted text from earlier, and sent it before I could change my mind.
It was only a coffee, after all.
Chapter Seven
Reuben
“…THE BLUES must be delighted with Reuben Taylor’s development in his second season on the team. The young fullback delivered a commanding performance in the game against the Highlanders at Eden Park yesterday, revealing his increasing maturity in the position. The southerners did their best to shut him down and reduce his time on the ball, but he remained calm and unflappable. He played his way out of trouble, showing his dominance on the field, and stamping his authority on the game. We look forward to great things from this young man as the season progresses and can’t help but wonder when he will get that coveted AB call-up that he so richly deserves….”
Lee Thomas—New Zealand News
IT DIDN’T matter how many times I reread the message, I still couldn’t believe Cam had texted first. The realisation sent a thrill racing through me, and it took all my resolve not to leap in with a Hell yeah seconds later. After our coffee, I’d determined I wasn’t gonna be that needy guy, damn near chewing my fingers off in the process.
Before Cam, no one had piqued my interest enough for me to risk my breakfast, let alone my career and family. Was I lonely? Yeah. But occasional sex with strangers wasn’t entirely without benefits, and my hand did just fine in between. Wasn’t like I had a lot of spare time to dwell over shit anyway, and I was physically exhausted 80 percent of the time.
I slumped on my couch, rolling the phone around in my hand with Cory cross-legged at my feet, glued to his umpteenth rerun of Fantasia. He was obsessed with the mind-numbing movie, but I wasn’t above a little TV babysitting on occasion. Especially when I had wildly hot and inappropriate imagery to consider involving a certain ER charge nurse who had just goddamn texted me… first. Did I mention first?