“Nope.” Aaron pointed at the clock on the dashboard.
Tyler cringed when he saw it read five past eight.
“Shit.” He hated being late, and made a point to be at least ten minutes early whenever he arranged to meet people, but for some reason he’d miscalculated tonight. Bad traffic had only exacerbated things.
Turning off the engine, Aaron glanced over at him, smiling. “Christ, relax. It’s only dinner with friends, not a bloody interview.”
“Feels like one,” Tyler muttered as he got out of the car and followed Aaron. Which was ridiculous. He was a grown man with a great job and his own house. Meeting a couple of new people shouldn’t be this terrifying. But try as he might, Tyler couldn’t shake the feeling that this was some sort of last stand in his search for a partner. “For fuck’s sake,” he whispered, horrified at himself for being so dramatic.
It’s not even a proper date!
With a huff of self-deprecating laughter, Tyler walked into the pub.
“What do you want to drink?” Aaron already had his wallet out, so Tyler gave the bar a quick scan to see what they had on tap.
“Um… a pint of Thatchers, please.” He turned and leaned against the bar, looking around the room to see if he could spot Jen. The pub wasn’t overly full, so it was easy enough to see she wasn’t in there. “I don’t see them. Is there a restaurant part?”
That was definitely her car parked outside, so she was inside somewhere. Maybe in the loo?
Aaron pointed to the right of the bar, where a small sign hung down from the ceiling. “Restaurant” spelt out in olde English writing. “Through there.”
Once they’d got their drinks, Aaron nodded over to the sign. “Shall we?” He laughed when Tyler grimaced automatically, and started walking, not bothering to wait for Tyler’s reply. “He might be the hottest man you’ve ever laid eyes on,” Aaron said, glancing back.
“Uh-huh.” Because that was just Tyler’s luck. He’d walk around the corner and find Bradley Cooper waiting for him. As nice as it would be for this Jack guy to be hot, Tyler had learnt the hard and painful way that looks weren’t everything. He realised as he ducked under the low doorway, even if they didn’t hit it off in that way, it would be nice to meet someone he could have a laugh with. He’d never say no to more friends.
Suddenly feeling better about the whole situation, he smiled and glanced up to find Aaron had stopped in front of a large round table tucked into the corner. Four people were already seated there. Jen sat next to a pretty petite blonde, and next to her were two guys.
Tyler stared at them, wondering which one was Jack.
They looked to be about the same age. The one seated next to the blonde girl had a bit of a receding hairline, and he’d cut what was left so short it was non-existent. It suited him. He had dark eyebrows and olive skin, and Tyler wouldn’t be disappointed if he turned out to be Jack. The other guy was half-turned around, fishing something out of his coat pocket, and Tyler couldn’t get a good look at him from the angle they were at.
All he could see was light brown hair with a smattering of silver running through it, the latter more concentrated at the temple. The guy’s shirt pulled taut over his shoulder and back where he stretched, and Tyler swallowed. That was some nicely toned muscle on display. Call him shallow, but he hoped that one was Jack.
The guy sat up as Jen called Tyler’s name, forcing him to look in her direction. “Hey.” He smiled at her and walked over to give her a kiss.
She winked at him and then turned to the girl next to her. “This is Tyler Freeman, and Aaron Smith.” Tyler said hello and smiled, and so did Aaron. “Guys, this is Zena Walters.”
Tyler’s eyebrows rose before he could hide his surprise. The girl now regarding him with a weary expression was about as far from a dark-haired Amazonian warrior princess as you could get.
She sighed. “Yes, I know. Not what you expect when you hear the name Zena. It’s spelt differently and I had it first, so get over it.”
Tyler opened his mouth, but closed it again, not sure there was anything he could say to that. Aaron laughed under his breath and muttered, “Great start.”
Groaning inwardly, Tyler wondered whether he should apologise but wasn’t sure he’d actually done anything wrong. Thankfully a voice cut into the silence, saving him.
“Ignore her. She’s just pissy the hostess smiled at her when she showed us to our table.” The guy next to her grinned and put his arm around her, then planted a kiss on her forehead.
Zena glared at him. “She sniggered!” She frowned then and glanced back up at Tyler, her expression turning sheepish. “God, I’m sorry. I’m not normally so rude.” Muffled laughter sounded to her right, and Tyler turned to look as she introduced the two men. “Tyler, Aaron, this is my husband, Mark.” She gestured to the guy seated next to her. “And the idiot laughing at me is Jack Bowman.”
Now he could get a good look, Tyler saw that Jack was about his age, maybe a little older judging by the flecks of silver in his thick short hair, but then, that didn’t mean anything. He had stubble as opposed to be being clean shaven, and his blue eyes looked a little tired, but they focused on Tyler in a way that made him flush, much to his embarrassment.
“Hi.” Tyler smiled and shook the hands both Jack and Mark held out to him.
Jack smiled back at him, a genuine one that reached all the way to his eyes, and Tyler took the seat next to him without thinking.
Only when Aaron sat down and a hush fell over the table when introductions were over, did Tyler start to feel awkward. This was why he hated blind dates—feeling forced to keep conversation going. Not that he usually had trouble talking to people; he did it all the time at work, but times like this when the silence wasn’t comfortable, words eluded him. Christ, the night was going to be long, drawn-out, and excruciating if this was any indication.
As he glanced down at his menu with a sigh, glad for something to focus on, he felt a soft nudge on his arm. When he looked up, Jack smiled at him, and it had the same impact on him as it had before—the tension left him in a flash and he felt himself smiling back.
“Have you been here before?” Jack kept eye contact as he spoke. “If not, I can suggest a few things.”
“No.” Tyler shook his head. His pulse increased; a small thrill rushed through him at the directness of Jack’s gaze. He might be talking about food, but Tyler’s mind was sinking into the gutter, fast. “What’s good?”
His voice came out rougher than he’d been expecting, and he shot a glance around the table to check if anyone was listening. Thankfully the rest of them seemed to be involved in their own conversations as they discussed things on the menu.
“Well,” Jack said, capturing Tyler’s attention again, “I almost always go for something off the specials board.” He gestured to a chalkboard on the wall next to the bar, where several dishes of the day were listed in brightly coloured chalk.
Tyler pushed his glasses up his nose from where they’d slipped a little, and immediately felt self-conscious. Damn it, he’d meant to put his contacts in, but they’d been running late and he’d forgotten. Dropping his hand quickly, Tyler scanned through the delicious-sounding names on the board and felt his stomach rumble. “They all sound good to me.”
“I can recommend the sea bass.” Jack’s warm breath tickled the side of Tyler’s neck as he leaned in close to talk to him.
Tyler shivered. When he turned to answer, Jack had shifted back into his own space and Tyler felt a twinge of disappointment. He caught Aaron smirking out of the corner of his eye. “What are you having, Aaron?”
He turned to face his friend and raised an eyebrow.
Aaron grinned back at him, winked, and then laughed softly when Tyler glared at him.
Aaron moved in close, pretending to show Tyler something on his menu. “Not as much fun as you, by the looks of it.”
Tyler immediately looked at Jack, but thankfully, Jack had turned to talk to Mark and Zena. “I
’m just making conversation,” he hissed back at Aaron.
“Mm-hmm.”
Whatever that meant, Tyler refused to engage him further, and pointedly ignored him while he reached for his pint and took a long drink.
After they’d decided on food, Mark offered to go up to the bar and order. Tyler watched him go and then asked the question he’d been meaning to ask ever since Jen had first mentioned this whole thing. “So”—he gestured between Jen and Zena—“how do you two know each other?”
Tyler knew Jen reasonably well, she’d been Charlie’s girlfriend for about four years now, but they’d never talked about her other friends much.
Jen smiled and set her glass down on the table. “Oh, me and Zena go way back. We worked together at this small accounting firm for about six years.” She glanced at Zena and frowned. “God, that place was awful. I can’t believe we stayed there that long.”
Zena gave an exaggerated shudder then laughed. “Me neither.”
“Anyway.” Jen waved her hand about as though dismissing all the bad memories. “We kept in touch after we both left.”
“By ‘kept in touch,’ she means we went out most weekends and even shared a flat for eighteen months before I met Mark,” Zena added with an eye-roll.
“Ah.” Well, that explained why Jen was so eager about tonight. Tyler easily imagined them cooking up this idea between them. He shifted in his seat to include Jack in the conversation. “Do you work with Zena too?”
Tyler couldn’t help it, his gaze wandered over Jack’s broad shoulders and chest, and down the thick muscled biceps that his shirt clung to so nicely. He didn’t look like Tyler’s idea of an accountant.
“God forbid.” Jack laughed loudly and leaned over to give Zena a quick hug when she huffed at him. “No, we don’t work together.”
He sat back in his chair and spread his arms wide. Laid out like that, his chest and shoulders seemed even broader. Tyler licked his lips without even realising. When he looked back up, Jack’s gaze was focused on his mouth.
“No. You don’t look the office type.”
Jack grinned, and the tiredness clinging to him earlier seemed to lift. His bright blue eyes shone and he looked younger, somehow, as though he’d shrugged off his weariness and now felt more alive. Jack’s must be some job to get that reaction. Or maybe it was the way Tyler was still openly ogling his upper body, but he couldn’t help himself.
Jack ran his fingers through his short hair, and tugged at the grey around his temples. “I’m a landscape architect. Don’t let the title fool you, though. I don’t get my hands dirty often. Probably just as well, since I’m not as young as I used to be. But I am out on site a lot.”
Tyler smiled back at him, and the words tumbled out of his mouth before he remembered they had an audience. “You can’t be that old. You look in great shape.” A muffled cough from his right informed him Aaron had heard every word and was mortified on his behalf, but Tyler pointedly ignored him. “I mean….” He gestured at Jack, not sure exactly what he was trying to convey, and left the sentence hanging.
“Thanks.”
Jack glanced away as Mark came back to the table, and Aaron took the opportunity to kick Tyler under the table.
Tyler turned to look at him and slid his leg back, out of the way. “What was that for?” He spoke quietly, but the noise level in the pub had risen considerably in the last ten minutes, easily covering his voice anyway. As Tyler glanced around, he saw nearly all the tables were full.
Popular place.
Aaron stared back at him. “Like you don’t know.” He stole a quick glance at Jack over Tyler’s shoulder. “You might as well skip dinner and take him back to your house.”
Despite knowing Aaron was teasing—well, mostly teasing—Tyler felt his hackles rise. “I wasn’t—”
Okay, maybe he had been a bit obvious in his appreciation of Jack’s muscles, but he was so far from what Tyler had expected that he forgot to rein in his eagerness. The excited, nervous feeling from moments before turned sour in his belly. That was what he did, what he always did—he jumped in too soon and got ahead of himself. Was he that desperate to be in a relationship?
He knew the answer to that all too well.
Tyler sighed. Jack was nice to look at, and on the surface, he appeared to be a good guy. But what did Tyler know about him? Nothing. He trusted his friends not to set him up with a complete arsehole, but if he didn’t want a repeat of his last failed relationship, there were a few things he needed to find out up front, and that wasn’t something he could do with an audience of four other people.
“Fine.” He kicked Aaron for payback and then started up a conversation with Jen and Zena about what they’d got up to when they lived together.
The food came, and more drinks were bought. Conversation flowed around the table as a whole, and although Tyler and Jack chatted, it didn’t have the same feeling of intimacy as their talk at the start of the evening.
The night flew by. Jack and his friends were funny, and Tyler relaxed into the easy back and forth as they ate and drank. His last boyfriend hadn’t been keen to go out with Tyler’s friends, and Tyler had always felt awful about having to choose between them. Since Jack’s friends and his already knew each other, maybe—
He froze with his pint glass halfway to his mouth.
For fuck’s sake, Tyler. Stop racing ahead.
He hadn’t dated anyone in over eight months, too wary of getting burned again. And if he was honest, a little ashamed of what had happened the last time he’d trusted someone. It hadn’t been his fault, he hadn’t known—that was what Aaron had told him from day one. But he still felt like shit.
A hand on his shoulder startled him into spilling a bit of his cider. Aaron had his car keys in hand when Tyler looked up at him.
“Ready to go?” Aaron swung his keys around his finger, barely missing Tyler’s ear. “I’ve got to be out early in the morning. Sorry.”
Tyler glanced around the table to see both Jen and Zena had their coats on already. “Oh, yeah. I guess.” He looked at Jack, wondering what would be the least awkward way of asking him out. With everyone watching. God, he wished they’d disappear for a minute so he could do it in private.
Jack smiled at him, then pointed at Tyler’s half-full pint glass. “It’s still early. I can give you a lift home if you want to stay and finish that?”
“Oh, didn’t you all come together?” In hindsight, Tyler wondered why he’d assumed that.
“No. Mark’s on call tonight, so I drove myself, just in case.”
“Well, if you’re sure.” He flushed at the thought of being alone with Jack. As alone as a he could be in a pub full of people. “That’d be great, thanks.”
Chapter Three
Everyone said their goodbyes, and Jack tried not to notice the blatant, knowing looks being passed around. He had no doubt he’d be getting some nosy texts later. On the plus side, at least he wouldn’t be the only one.
When it was just the two of them, they wandered into the bar area and snagged a small table by the fireplace. It wasn’t lit—the late-April weather had been far too mild to warrant an open fire. The Saturday-night crowd from earlier had clearly moved on to somewhere else, and the room had quietened considerably.
“Thanks for offering me a lift.” Tyler smiled and took a sip of his drink. “I wasn’t ready to leave yet.”
“Me neither.” Jack had bought another Coke, and he ran his finger down through the condensation on the outside of the glass. “I have to admit I was a bit—a lot sceptical about whether or not this was a good idea.”
Tyler glanced up and met his gaze. “Meeting me?”
Jack’s smile was wry. “I was talking about the whole blind date thing, but yeah… I guess it was meeting you in general.” He cringed as he said it, perhaps not the best thing to say to someone whom you were hoping to go out with again. And despite Jack’s misgivings and preconceptions, he liked Tyler.
Tyler cocked his
head to one side and frowned, as though he wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
Jack had probably offended him, because no one liked to hear that sort of thing. But then, he’d offered to drive Tyler home so they could spend more time together—alone—Tyler must realise Jack wanted to get to know him better. Or maybe not. If Jack had learnt one thing from his break-up with Simon, it was that communication was key. Never assume someone knew what you meant or what you were thinking.
“I know that sounds bad, and it’s nothing personal. Christ, I’m pulling out all the clichés tonight, but it really was a case of it being me and not you.” Jack laughed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Shit. Just when it was going so well. I’ve managed to fuck it up, haven’t I?”
Tyler smiled but still had a wary look about him.
Jack needed to take his own advice and be clear.
He sighed and sat forward with his forearms resting on the small table between them. “I separated from my long-term partner eight months ago. The split wasn’t exactly amicable, and let’s just say the months since then haven’t been the best.” He glanced down at his drink, not willing to look Tyler in the eye while he attempted to explain without revealing how awful it had been. No way was he ready to share that yet. “I didn’t cope well, and quite frankly the last thing I felt like doing was meeting someone new.” He looked up then, and the earnest way Tyler stared back—no pity or judgement—made him smile a little. “Especially when they were described as geeky and young-looking, and I feel old and tired most of the time.”
There, he’d said it. Maybe a little too much disclosure for a first date, or whatever this was, but Jack found he didn’t actually care. His patience for small talk and beating around the bush seemed to have left with Simon.
Tyler looked at him for a second longer, then slumped in his chair, letting out a harsh breath. “Okay, then.” He clasped his hands together and put them on his knees, then on the table, unable to sit still.
Always Another Side Page 2