Her assumption forces an odd chuckle from my mouth. Conner speaks for us. “A table, please. By the bar is fine. For just the two of us.” After reading her name badge, he looks her straight in the eyes. “Thank you very much, Lydia.”
Lydia’s face blushes a furious shade of red. “Oh, okay. Sure.” She stumbles over her words as she gathers a few menus. “Right this way.”
Conner glances over to me, a sly smile playing across his face. “It’s always fun to do that,” he says when we’re seated.
“What’s that? Confuse women who were eye-fucking you? Is that a favorite pastime of yours or something?”
“I have a lot of hobbies, but none of them involve playing with people’s emotions.” He takes a sip of his water. “It’s just not the first time I’ve shown up somewhere on a date only to have someone misread the situation, thinking that our girlfriends are running late.”
“They’re probably just mad that you’re not here with them,” I mumble around the lip of my glass.
“Maybe,” he admits oh-so-humbly. “I think it’s more that when people see two gay men out on a date, they expect one of them to be wearing glitter-covered rainbow pants or something like that. Some people can’t wrap their heads around the idea that being gay does not always mean being flamboyant. Besides,” he leans forward, pitching his voice lower, “maybe she was upset that she wasn’t here with you.”
Thankfully, the waiter interrupts us and takes our orders. It’s a steak house so there’s not much of a choice to make. Steak and something green with a side of potatoes and we’re both good to go.
“So how was work?” Conner asks.
I shoot him and his small-talk question a suspicious look across the small table. “Okay, nothing out of the ordinary. You?”
“Fine. Got a few new machines in. Things are really starting to pick up.”
The waiter drops off our drinks, and just as Conner is mid-sip, I interject, “What do you want? With me I mean?”
Conner takes a long sip of his iced-tea before answering. “See, this is a date, Dylan. I like you. I think you like me. We eat; get to know each other better and maybe make plans to do it all over again in a few days.”
Rolling my eyes is the only response I can come up with initially. “Thank you very much for that rather concise explanation, Conner.” I shoot him a pointed look and we both laugh.
“That’s better. You’re fun when you laugh.” Conner winks at me, satisfied that the tension is gone. “So, tell me about your family. Reid is your brother?”
“No, I’m an only child, actually. Reid’s my best friend, the only family I have locally, really. My parents just recently moved down to Florida, typical snow birds.”
The waiter interrupts us once more, placing our salads in front of us. Before I take my first bite, I ask, “What about you? Siblings? Parents?”
“Rachel, the receptionist at the gym, is my sister. We moved up here from New Jersey after my parents died.” Conner adds the last part quickly, painfully
“I’m sorry.” Reaching across the table, I lay my hand on top of his. Shocked by my own forwardness, I stare down at our joined hands. Lightly, I trace my thumb over the top of his wrist. Little jolts of electricity fly between us, as if the spots where our skin is touching are actual live wires, sparking wildly. He covers my hand with his, mirroring the same motion of my thumb.
“Thank you.” His voice is thick, heavy with emotion. “They died in a house fire. The house was old and something in the electric shorted out. The smoke detectors malfunctioned or the batteries were expired, so by the time my father knew what was going on, my mom was already unconscious from the smoke inhalation. He tried his best to save her, but he couldn’t. He made it halfway down the stairs before he couldn’t make it any further. Since it was just the two of us, Rachel and I moved out here after that to start over.”
Conner moves his hand to give the waiter his cleared salad plate. I do the same and take a long pull on my beer. “That’s some move, though. From New Jersey to a sleepy town in upstate New York.”
He rolls his shoulders and glances up at the television over the bar. “We just wanted a fresh start, I guess.” I can hear the “I don’t really want to talk about this” tone in his words. It’s one I’ve used all too frequently, so I know he’s not trying to play games. He really doesn’t want to talk about it.
When our food arrives, we eat in peaceful silence. Occasional discussion of the start of baseball season peppers our meal, which of course leads to me telling him about my fall softball league for The Bridge.
“What position do you play?” I don’t miss the hidden undertones of his question.
“Pitcher.” His eyes widen on my response. “Well, I used to pitch when I was in high school and college. Now, in my old age, I play second or third.”
“I pitch, too.”
His answer catches me off-guard. “I didn’t realize you played. I thought you just fought.”
Conner leans across the table, his large body eating up the space easily. The sand and leather scent of his cologne invades my senses and I want to drown in him, get lost there for some time and not think about how I’ll get out. “I wasn’t talking about baseball.” He winks.
His words make my cock strain in my pants. I could say it’s been too long, that I’m just in need of a good fuck, but it’s more than that. I want more than just sex. I want sex. With Conner. Now.
Simple enough, right?
He takes stock of my wide-eyed non-verbal response and places his hand back on top of mine. When my tongue shrinks back to its normal size, and the sip of water hydrates my turned to sawdust mouth, I ask about his fighting career.
“So about the fighting?” I pull my hand away, needing to regain a sense of my control. “You were favorite to be middle-weight champion of the world in 2013, and then you broke your contract and you were gone. What happened?”
“Someone did their research,” he quips with no added laughter. “What else did Google tell you?” He’s making no effort to cover up his anger.
“Nothing. Nothing at all, actually. Reid told me.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “For the record, I don’t care what Google would tell me. If it’s anything important, which I’m assuming it is, that’s for you to tell me when you’re ready.”
I only hope he’ll extend me the same sense of understanding when, and if, it comes time to talk to him about Shane.
He considers my words before softly saying, “Thank you.”
The waiter drops the check and we fight about who’s going to pay. My concession on his paying surprises even me. “Fine, you pay, but only if you let me make you coffee at my place.”
He’s all too quick to take me up on the offer. On the ride back to my office to pick up my car, I slide right up against him on the back of the bike. My legs cradle his and his ass fits perfectly in between. Rather than leaving my hands to the side, I coil them around his waist, inhaling his leather-scented masculinity the whole way there.
I mourn his warmth as I drive in my car back to my apartment. The rumble of his motorcycle following behind me is tied to my skin, vibrating there like the taut strings of a guitar.
I park in my spot and watch as he eases his bike into the visitor section of the lot. My cock stirs again as I watch him walk toward me. Even in the low light of the early evening, I can see his eyes, sparkling playfully as he approaches.
For a moment, fear washes over me. What have I gotten myself into? I shake my head at my internal question. Because when I feel the heat of Conner’s body behind me as I open the door to my apartment, I’m not so sure that coffee is the only thing on the menu.
I won’t lie; watching the fabric of his slacks hug his ass as he walks up the stairs in front of me is a thing of genius. The innuendo-laden dinnertime conversation bounces around in my head. Only the click of the lock opening breaks my stare. Dylan struts in front of me, holding the door open as I walk through.
“I’m more of a b
eer drinker than coffee, but I’m sure I could manage something,” Dylan explains as he walks into the kitchen. Opening and closing some cabinet doors, he looks a bit bewildered at what he finds – or doesn’t find, is more like it. “Actually,” he closes the final cabinet in the row, “I only have this old jar of instant coffee.”
I lean against the counter, crossing my ankles. “Sanka? What are you, sixty-five?” I laugh as he puts the jar back in the cabinet.
“No.” He closes the door and moves to the fridge where he pulls out two beers. He twists the top off one and hands it to me. “My parents stayed here for a week or so before they moved away. There was a screw-up with the closing dates and they needed some place to stay. And I’m twenty-six, not sixty-five.” He opens his beer, and then tips the long neck to me. “How old are you, anyway?”
“Twenty-nine. My birthday is August second, in case you were wondering.”
“Oh,” he drags out the word. “The big three-oh. How do you feel about that?” Dylan’s question precedes his outstretched arm, indicating we should move to the living room. I drop my jacket on the back of a chair on the way inside.
The room is cozy, but not small or crowded. It feels like home, much more so than my place, which sits mostly in boxes. “Eh, it’s not a big deal, I guess,” I deflect as we sit down on the couch, turning to face one another.
“It doesn’t sound like it’s not a big deal.” Dylan kicks his legs up and rests his crossed ankles on the coffee table set in front of us.
Though the desire to avoid this whole conversation is present, I push it away in favor of wanting to be honest. Lies and deceit will get you nowhere in the end, anyway. There’s something about Dylan that makes me think he feels the same way. “You want the truth?” I ask just to be sure, but it’s also more of a warning. Dylan nods as he takes another swig of his beer. “It’s not like a mid-life crisis or anything like that, but I guess you can say that I’m not really where I’d like to be right now.”
“How’s that?”
“You said it yourself earlier. I was supposed to be a world champion MMA fighter. And now,” I pause, swallowing back my beer, letting the difference between reality and what was supposed to be reality settle in. “I’m just a small business owner.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘just.’ Owning your own gym is a huge thing. Was it a lifelong goal?” Dylan leans back comfortably against the arm of the chair, tucking one leg under his body. Everything about his body language is relaxed and calm. Where I initially thought there was anger and angst, I’m now seeing interest and concern. It’s enough not only to put me at ease around him, but to trust him as well. That’s something I haven’t been able to do since before Austin.
“Not really. It was more of a what’s-the-best-option-now kind of thing.” Okay, fine. It’s an honest response, but not necessarily the whole story. The crooked look Dylan shoots me from across the sofa lets me know he’s thinking the same thing. “You really don’t know why I don’t fight anymore?”
Dylan shakes his head. He stretches his arm across the back of the sofa where my arm is resting. Gently, but surely, he squeezes my forearm. Our eyes meet and the soft golden flecks in his sapphire eyes let me know that I can tell him. “Even if you would have looked on Google, you wouldn’t have found anything.” My admission makes his hand freeze on my arm. The tender strokes stop as he keeps his eyes locked on mine.
Not giving him any time to ask for any clarification, I continue when his face softens and his hand returns to its movements. “My agent, who I paid a good deal of money, covered everything up.”
“What exactly did he cover up?” Dylan asks skeptically, but not fearfully.
“It was after a late night training session. My bike was parked in the back of the gym, but you had to walk down a short alley in order to get there. I still had my headphones in, so I was slow in reacting.” Having kicked myself so many times for that stupid error on my part, I’d like to say that I’m finally okay with it, but then I’d be lying. Mimicking his position, I fold a leg under my body and lean back on the arm of the sofa. After one last chug of my beer, I set the empty bottle down on a magazine on the coffee table.
“Reacting to what?” Dylan’s voice is different from a moment ago. There’s more tension there.
“Rachel’s asshole boyfriend. He’d gotten a little rough with her a few times. She kept telling me that everything was okay – you know, the standard excuses, but after she showed up at my apartment with a red welt on her face, I’d had enough. He wasn’t all that pleased when I showed up to his office to pay him a visit. Since he was some high powered sales exec he thought it made him look bad.” A flippant laugh slides out of my tightly clenched jaw. “As far as I’m concerned, he would have looked a lot worse if I was less restrained.”
“You lost your contract, didn’t you? After you beat him up?”
“I didn’t lay a finger on him. I’ve never used my strength anywhere outside of the gym or the octagon,” I clarify, giving him a pointed look. “Let’s just say I had a few choice words about what I would do if he ever came near Rachel again. I must’ve scared him enough, because for a few weeks he left her alone, lulled us both into a false sense of everything being over and done with. And when I wasn’t looking, he and a few of his friends took me out in that back alley behind the gym. All because I had my stupid headphones on and didn’t hear them.” Dylan squeezes my arm and silently prompts me to continue. This is heavy shit for a first date, but part of me is relieved to have it off my chest. “His friends pinned me down. Took three of them to do the job. Caleb, Rachel’s ex, got in one-too-many punches to my head. The final straw was when he slammed my skull against the concrete.”
Tracing my finger over the scar that starts at my temple and travels around the curve of my head, I turn slightly allowing him to see where it ends at the base of my neck. “They told me I wouldn’t be able to walk again, let alone fight. I didn’t want Rachel to have to deal with the fallout or to feel guilty over what had happened, so I covered it up.”
Dylan sits up straighter, runs a hand over his hard, scruff-covered jawline and shoots me a disbelieving look. “But what about the cops and all the legal stuff? You’re gonna tell me that everything just ‘went away’ simply because your agent waved his magic wand over it all.” Disbelief hangs all around us.
The last part rouses a laugh out of me. “I know it all sounds kind of crazy, and this next part is going to make it sound worse, but I was beaten so badly that I didn’t wake up for a few days and when I did, I couldn’t remember exactly what had happened. There was only one barely operational camera focused on that alley, so all we could surmise was that I had been jumped. By the time my memory came back, I worked it out with my publicist and my agent to leave it as was – MMA fighter jumped, left too injured to fight any more.”
“But what about Rachel? Did you at least tell her?” His tone is angry for her, for the lies he thinks I told.
“Of course I did. She helped me through rehab, cut my food for me when I couldn’t. She told me about my parents being dead and buried when I asked for them, my turned-to-mush brain having forgotten the memory of their joint funeral.” Pinching the bridge of my nose, I stare up at the textured ceiling. Focusing on the light brown water spot in the corner helps me remain in control of my rising emotions. Only the shifting on the couch next to me brings my attention away from its upward gaze.
He’s close, his leg less than an inch away from mine. The heat of his body radiates in pulses against mine, like the distorted waves of heat that rise from the asphalt on a hot summer day. It’s a physical thing, but ethereal and intangible. If I reach for it, for him, I’m certain my hand will simply slice through the mirage.
Dylan moves his arm from mine, placing a hand on each of my thighs, drawing my attention back to his face. “So, in the last two years, you buried your parents, defended your sister’s honor, and got beaten so badly you almost didn’t survive, had to be reminded of your tragic lo
ss, moved away from your only home, started all over again, and opened what’s already a rather successful gym?” One side of his mouth pulls into a playfully lopsided grin. I’m thankful for it as the tension eases.
“Well, when you put it like that,” I laugh
“Put it like what? That’s exactly what happened.” His palms feel like melted silk against my legs; the texture of my jeans feels heavy and gritty against my own skin as he brushes his hand against them. “Don’t give me that look. It is. And to say you’re not where you want to be, well, that’s just, I don’t even know what to say about that. I’d be damn proud of where you’re at if I were you.”
I drop my hand on top of his. “I didn’t think I’d be alone.” A pregnant silence blooms between us before I add, “Since we’re into all the heavy stuff, which is real fun for a first date,” I slide that sarcastic remark in there smoothly, eliciting a laugh from both of us as I do. “I’m not a one-night stand kind of guy. Part of my plan was being married or at least settled down with someone by the time I was thirty. I want what my parents had – house, kids, maybe even a mini-van. People always saw Conner Michelson the MMA fighter. Rough and tough, big talker and all that shit. But at the end of the day, what good is it all if I had no one to share it with?”
Another bubble of silence threatens to consume us before a deep breath puffs out of my lungs. “That’s a lot to take in, huh?”
Dylan laughs and scrubs a hand over his face. “Yeah, I’ll say.” He stands from the couch and walks into the kitchen. Without even asking if I want another one, he grabs two beers from the fridge, twisting the caps off as he returns to his seat on the couch. As he hands me mine, our fingers brush together, the cold sweat on the outside of the bottle serves as the perfect contrast to the heat of our skin. “Thank you for telling me, for trusting me enough, I mean.”
Let Love Live Page 19