by KC Burn
Plaid versus Paisley
By KC Burn
A Fabric Hearts Story
Two years after his life fell apart, Will Dawson moved to Florida to start over. His job in the tech department of Idyll Fling, a gay porn studio, is ideal for him. When his boss forces him to take on a new hire, the last person he expects is Dallas Greene—the man who cost him his job and his boyfriend back in Connecticut. He doesn’t know what’s on Dallas’s agenda, but he won’t be blindsided by a wolf masquerading as a runway model. Not again.
Dallas might have thrown himself on his brother’s mercy, but his skills are needed at Idyll Fling. Working with Will is a bonus, since Dallas has never forgotten the man. A good working relationship is only the beginning of what Dallas wants with Will.
But Dallas doesn’t realize how deep Will’s distrust runs, and Will doesn’t know that the man he’s torn between loving and hating is the boss’s brother. When all truths are revealed, how can a relationship built on lies still stand?
Table of Contents
Blurb
Acknowledgments
Chapter ONE
Chapter TWO
Chapter THREE
Chapter FOUR
Chapter FIVE
Chapter SIX
Chapter SEVEN
Chapter EIGHT
Chapter NINE
Chapter TEN
Chapter ELEVEN
Chapter TWELVE
Chapter THIRTEEN
Epilogue
More from KC Burns
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By KC Burn
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Copyright
Acknowledgments
THANKS SO much to my hubby, Alex, who beta’d for me lightning fast, and also for support from Dottie, Chudney, Tara Lain, ZA Maxfield, Lex Valentine, Dolorianne, my awesome book club, and my fantastic street team. Special thanks to Chad, a coworker from the day job who helped me with some of the tech aspects. Since he’s a smart cookie, if anything’s wrong, it’s because I screwed up.
Chapter ONE
DALLAS GREENE turned off the car and slumped over the steering wheel. This wasn’t how life was supposed to be. He’d been on the road for twenty-four hours, including a couple of naps at rest stops. Please don’t let this be a mistake. All he’d done recently was make mistakes like they were his greatest skill, compounding each error with another bad decision. But sitting in the car would only delay the inevitable.
With trembling fingers, he pulled the keys from the ignition and got out. A couple of joints popped, and his muscles protested. Surely other twenty-four-year-old guys didn’t feel like they’d been run over by an eighteen-wheeler, but then, he hadn’t been at his best for two years now.
He stared at the house. It wasn’t what he expected. Bigger. Nicer. Then again, he knew for a fact his parents had been lying when they’d told him his half brother, Stefan, was destitute, diseased, depraved, and at death’s door. It had been a surprisingly lyrical rant, what with all the alliteration, but this house wasn’t any different than any of the others he’d passed on his journey from the interstate. No pickets or protestors. No slanderous graffiti. No junkies or thugs. Just a house like any other in an affluent suburb, although not nearly as affluent as his parents’ community.
After locking the car—it and its contents comprised the entirety of his possessions—he trudged up the drive. Each step made his stomach twist and roil. If he’d eaten anything in the past… oh… day or so, he’d be worried about puking.
The bright midafternoon sun beat down on him, the humidity almost brutally oppressive after the chill of the A/C in the car. It had been months since he’d felt warm all the way to his toes, though, so he wasn’t going to complain. Maybe he should have rethought wearing a suit for his impromptu drive to Florida in September. Who would have thought it would be this hot, when part of his drive down had been through fall foliage?
Most of his wardrobe consisted of business professional, and he wanted to make a good impression. And also because he’d left Connecticut yesterday wearing one, not having realized when he woke up that he’d be making an eighteen-hour drive plus stops because his life had taken yet another turn toward the shitter.
He rang the doorbell. There was a wide window to the left of the door, with decorative and functional bars curling throughout the glass. Opaque white fabric sheathed the window from the inside, and Dallas suspected that under no circumstances would anyone be able to even spot shadows of people moving within.
Antsy and anxious, he smoothed his hands down the sleeves of his gray suit jacket before he glanced down at himself. His suit was as wrinkly as a bulldog’s face.
If he had the energy, he’d sprint for his car and drive away, change into less wrinkled clothing, but odds were against him getting to the car before someone answered the door. Hell, he might just faint first.
After a minute or two, he rang the doorbell again. Then he frowned.
Shit. It was Thursday. Stefan had a job, unlike Dallas himself. Not that Dallas had a lot of details about Stefan’s business, but it stood to reason he wouldn’t be at home right now.
Fuck. Dallas leaned against the window with its protective iron curlicues and slid to the concrete. What was he supposed to do now? Go to a coffee shop and haunt it like a ghoul until evening? And what if Stefan was out of town or on vacation or something? He was so fucking stupid.
Dallas stared out at the bright afternoon. Florida was too fucking cheerful for his state of mind. His eyes started stinging, and he scrubbed at them with the back of his hands. He looked rough enough without adding red eyes to the mix; if he was going to haunt a café, he didn’t think a drugged-out meth head look would encourage anyone to let him loiter for the price of a cup of coffee.
Beside him, the door swung open, and a dark-haired man stuck his head out.
Dallas froze. Double shit. How had he fucked up enough to end up at the wrong house? Perhaps if he didn’t move, the guy would close the door and Dallas could escape this fresh humiliation with no one the wiser.
Someone from inside the house called out, “Who is it?”
“Don’t know, darling, but they left a fully packed piece-of-shit car in the driveway.”
Although his cheeks flamed in embarrassment, Dallas couldn’t bring himself to say anything. But he must have made a sound or something, because the guy glanced down and raised his eyebrows.
“Hello there.”
“Uh, hi.” Not the most stellar response Dallas could have given, but how exactly did one extricate oneself gracefully from a situation like this? If his mother had ever mentioned the appropriate etiquette, he hadn’t been paying attention.
“If you’re here for a job interview, this isn’t a good time. You really need to go to the office.” The man paused, giving him a more intense perusal. “And I’m not sure you’ll have enough stamina for this job, honey.”
Dallas’s cheeks got hotter; he knew he looked like hell. As for the other part of the man’s statement, well, it hardly mattered. The judgment in the guy’s tone gave him enough energy to get to his feet.
“Who is it?” The voice inside was closer, but muffled. “What job interview?”
Another man, wrestling a T-shirt over his head, stumbled across the threshold.
Dallas cleared his throat. “Sorry. I’m going.”
The second man’s head cleared the neck of the shirt, and despite the sandy hair swirled into bedhead and freckled skin sporting serious beard burn, he was clearly recognizable.
“Stefan?” Dallas asked.
Stefan blinked. “Dallas? What are you doing here?”
Dallas opened his mouth, but there were no word
s to be found. One small hiccup broke the dam. Between the relief at having found the right place and the sheer hopelessness of his life, he lost control over the tears he’d been suppressing for hours.
“Oh, jeez.” Stefan just grabbed him and wrapped him in a tight hug, letting him cry soundlessly.
The other man retreated into the house, leaving them to whatever privacy could be had on the front porch of Stefan’s house in the middle of the day.
WHEN DALLAS had finally cried himself out, Stefan pulled back. “Come inside.”
Dallas glanced back at his car, an eyesore in the upscale neighborhood.
“Your stuff will be fine. Don’t worry about it.” Stefan guided him inside, like he was infirm. The assumption wasn’t far off the mark, and Dallas was content to let someone help him. He’d been balancing on a tightrope over a moat filled with alligators for far too long.
In a modern, airy kitchen, Stefan guided him to a chair at the table. “Sit down. It’ll be okay.”
The dark-haired man was nowhere to be seen, for which Dallas was unendingly grateful. He had to look even worse now, and he wasn’t up to making small talk with a stranger. Bad enough that he barely knew Stefan.
Dazed and exhausted, Dallas obeyed, too tired to argue that it couldn’t possibly be okay. Once he mustered enough nerve to explain, Stefan would agree.
Stefan sat in the chair next to him, placed a bottle of water on the table, and handed him a cool, damp cloth.
Blinking heavy, swollen eyelids, Dallas couldn’t quite decide which one he wanted to use first. At the moment, he didn’t have the coordination to do both. Stefan took pity on him and took the cloth back.
“Drink half that bottle.”
As soon as he did, Stefan slapped the cloth back into his hand. Dallas didn’t need any instruction for that and covered his aching eyes. If he had enough moisture left in his body, he might have started crying again. Instead, he let the chill ease the swelling, and like a kid, pretended that if he couldn’t see anyone, then no one could see him either.
Unfortunately, his reprieve lasted only until the cloth became room temperature. With a sigh, he dropped it onto the table and dared a look at his brother. He drank some more water, because even in what had to be the humidity capital of the world, the pressure in his head indicated impending dehydration.
“You look like shit.”
Dallas half laughed, half winced at the blunt assessment. “I know.” His voice didn’t sound like his own, scratchy with disuse. He cleared his throat before he tried again. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
It had been close to three years since he’d seen his brother in person, and at least six months since he’d even spoken to him on the phone. He’d been so stupid, afraid of letting anyone know how badly his life had devolved into a shitstorm. Now he didn’t have a choice about explaining, unless he wanted to sleep in his car tonight.
“I… I….” Dallas didn’t even know where to begin, but Stefan shook his head.
“Don’t, Dallas. I can guess at some of it, but when I said you looked like shit, I meant it. You look like you’re ill, and although I wish you’d let me know before things got this bad, I’m glad you’re here.”
Dallas frowned. Glad? He had to have misheard. “But I… don’t have a job.”
Stefan smiled gently. “I figured. No apartment, either, judging from what I saw in the back of your car.”
“Uh. No.”
“Boyfriend?”
“No.” Not anymore, and he wasn’t about to explain his failed relationship with Hugh on top of everything else.
“Sorry about that. What about Mom?”
Dallas shook his head. “I was supposed to move back home. Then Dad found out I was gay too.”
Stefan’s expression darkened. He had to be biting back sour words about the stepfather who’d kicked him out for the same reason when he was sixteen and Dallas was nine. At the time, no one had explained to Dallas why his older brother was no longer around. Dallas had been too young and too scared by the whole thing to ask questions. When he’d later found out the truth—right around the time he started wondering about his own sexuality—he’d prudently decided to stay in the closet, but deep in his heart he’d assumed that his dad would give him a pass that Stefan never earned, since Stefan was the child of their mom’s previous marriage. But the genetic connection hadn’t been enough, and Dallas hadn’t seen the catastrophe coming.
He should have, though. Everything else in his life had gone down the shitter; getting kicked out was the metaphorical last straw.
Instead of losing his temper, though, Stefan squeezed his arm. “We’ll unpack your car tomorrow, but for now, go grab whatever’s got your toiletries in it, and a change of clothes, while I set up the spare room.”
Crying must have fucked up his ears, because no way was this going to be that simple. A few questions and Stefan was giving him access to his house?
“Unpack? Are you sure?”
Stefan adopted a stern expression and stared into his eyes. “You know I’m still running Idyll Fling, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Starting up a porn studio had been the breaking point for the Greenes. Stefan had been disowned as officially as it was possible to get. Five years later, and starting to question why boys were more appealing than girls, Dallas had cowered even farther back in the closet; his father had been in a black temper for months as he tried to prevent Stefan from using his grandmother’s inheritance to start up Idyll Fling. Dallas hadn’t even had the courage to check out any of the videos Idyll Fling produced, partly because he didn’t know if his brother performed in any of them, and that would have been cause for substantial mental scarring.
“I’d like to pretend porn is a profession just like any other,” Stefan said. “But I can’t deny I’ve seen more than my fair share of guys who turn to it because they’ve simply run out of other options if they want to keep themselves fed and sheltered. With some of them, it’s easy to tell all they need is a hand to get back on their feet, and I’ve let those guys stay in our spare room. If I’d do that for employees, why wouldn’t I do that for my little brother?”
“Half brother.”
Stefan rolled his eyes. “You know I’ve never cared about that.”
“Me neither,” Dallas whispered. “Are you sure?” Relief made his eyelids droop, and he wondered if he was going to fall asleep right here at the table.
“Of course I’m sure. I’d like you to tell me the whole story sometime, but right now you need sleep more than anything else. C’mon.”
Stefan helped him to his feet and led him to the stairs. “What about my stuff? A change of clothes?”
“We’ll worry about that when you’re conscious again. I’ll leave some of my clothes for you—when you get up you can shower or come down and eat.”
Each stair seemed higher than the one before, and when he reached the top, Stefan right on his heels, Dallas’s breath was already labored, like he’d run a marathon.
The dark-haired man who’d opened the front door emerged from one of the rooms, a sympathetic smile on his face. “I’ve put fresh towels on the dresser.”
Stefan gave the man a quick kiss. “Thanks, Paul. I was just coming to set up the room.”
Paul. Of course. Stefan had mentioned him, briefly, but the past two years had been mostly a blur for Dallas, and he could—hopefully—be forgiven for forgetting Stefan had a boyfriend. Husband, maybe? He didn’t think Stefan would have gotten married without telling him, but he’d been so isolated lately, he couldn’t even be sure of that.
“It was pretty obvious he was another of your foundlings, I just didn’t realize at first he was your brother.”
Dallas didn’t much care for being called a foundling, despite the truth of it, but at least Paul didn’t sound upset or disparaging. Nevertheless, he held out a hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Paul.”
Paul ignored his hand and hauled him in for a hug. “I’m glad to meet Stefan�
�s brother. You’re welcome here as long as you need.”
Like Stefan, he sounded completely serious, and despite Dallas’s earlier waterworks, his eyes started burning again.
“Hey, babe, let him go. He’s dead on his feet. You guys can get to know each other better after he’s had some sleep.” Stefan extricated him and turned him toward the spare room.
Dallas only hoped sleep wouldn’t elude him like it had for weeks now. He heard Paul murmur something to Stefan before he ran down the stairs, but Dallas was more interested in the bed. He wasn’t sure if it was a queen or a king, but the pillowy bedding drew him like a superpowered magnet. Crisp white sheets—freshly laundered, judging by the scent of fabric softener—gleamed in the sunshine streaming through the window. Stefan bustled into the room and drew blackout curtains across the two wide windows. They weren’t exactly plunged into darkness, but once the door was shut, it would be damned close.
“There’s a bathroom down the hall, next door on the right. I’ll just go grab you a change of clothes.”
As soon as Stefan left the room, Dallas kicked off his shoes, then stripped off his sad excuse for a suit, letting it drop to the floor beside the bed. He crawled under the covers and let the plushy comfort do its job. His eyelids dropped shut immediately, like sleep had only been waiting for him to drive to Florida to find it.
DALLAS AWOKE to silence, a headache throbbing at his temples. He didn’t know if he’d been asleep for an hour or eight; the light seeping around the curtains wasn’t enough to tell him. If he was going to stay in this room for any length of time, he’d have to get an alarm clock or remember to set the alarm on his phone. At least he felt a little better, although given his recent state of health, that didn’t mean a whole lot.
He stretched a bit, shifting on the comfortable mattress. Falling back asleep for several days sounded both awesome and easily accomplished, but he wasn’t about to abuse his brother’s hospitality like that. Stefan’s warm welcome had been wonderful, but Dallas had to… explain. Or something. Preferably without breaking down into a sobbing mess like he’d done yesterday. Stefan couldn’t have been serious about Dallas staying as long as he liked; that was just ridiculous. Dallas had every intention of getting a job and getting his own place. Letting Stefan and Paul know that he’d be out of their hair as soon as possible would relieve their minds.