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“Cooper!” The booming voice startles us both. “Long time no see, kid. I see you’ve met my boy, here.” Rusty comes up alongside Beck, pulling him into a one-armed hug that even from here looks like it hurts.
“This is your son?” I ask.
“Home from deployment,” says Rusty, looking so proud he could burst.
“Knock it off, Dad,” says Beck, not without affection.
“Thank you for your service,” I say, not sure how else to respond. I haven’t met many members of the military. There’s no base around here, and if anybody I grew up with signed up, it would be news to me.
Beck nods in reply, excusing himself to wait on a handful of middle-aged women at the other end of the bar. Rusty watches him go.
“They look like they might eat him alive,” I say. He laughs, a broad, wide-open sound that makes half the people in the bar turn our way.
“Good for business, he is,” says Rusty.
“You must be glad to have him home.” Rusty colors up, and I avert my gaze when I see the start of tears in his eyes.
“More than I can say,” he says gruffly. “Been home three weeks now, and every couple hours I catch myself checking the news like he’s still over there.” Rusty pours me my usual, and we chat about pub business for a bit before he heads back to check on the kitchen.
My own parents hit the road as soon as I was done with school and haven’t been back since. I can’t imagine them worrying about me the way Rusty’s clearly been doing for Beck. Then again, what the hell have I been doing with my life? Nothing nearly as dangerous or important as fighting for my country.
The thought is depressing and reminds me why I needed to get out of the apartment in the first place.
My phone chimes in my pocket and I muffle a groan. Not that I don’t enjoy my work—I do—but it’d be nice to switch off now and then.
Not a helpful attitude, considering how I make my living.
My followers have been pretty supportive, still checking in and engaging with the photos and posts I scheduled a few weeks ago so I could focus all my attention on the competition this week, but it’s nothing like the kind of traffic I usually get. New and novel is the nature of the business, I get that; I expected the lower numbers. But earlier one of my superfans tipped me off that a competitor’s blog was actively poaching traffic from the comments on my posts. On an average day, that kind of behavior gets frowned on, but since I haven’t been around much online they’ve been getting away with it, siphoning traffic to their own sites.
Whatever. I built up my audience from the ground up; I can do it again. Right now I’ve got bigger things to worry about.
Like how I’m going to keep my shit together locked away on some mountain for the next week with Drew and Bailey in close proximity. My contract with Sizzle has a very clear morality clause. If the wrong person caught wind of the things we got up to this week—or worse, if they caught us at it—that contract would be terminated immediately. Definitely no hope of signing on with them again for another show. So it would be in my best interest to steer clear of any trouble, keep things squeaky-clean and above-board between me and… anybody else this week.
Only, I get sidetracked thinking about “squeaky-clean” and between us—all three of us—and the unbidden fantasy those words bring to mind takes my breath away.
This is nuts. I’m too goddamn old to be confusing life with porn, even in my fantasy life. Then again, that’s the whole point of fantasy.
“Something on your mind?” Beck’s leaning against the bar a few feet away, polishing glassware and grinning like he can see inside my head. I clear my throat.
“Work stuff,” I say, tossing back the rest of my drink and nodding when he points to ask if I want a refill.
“You work for Sizzle?” he asks. I know it’s just bartender talk. Rusty’s a natural at it; wouldn’t surprise me one bit if his son is the same way. But it gets my mind out of the porno gutter I keep falling into the last few days, so I accept my drink and answer him.
“Sort of. I’m a contractor,” I tell him.
“What kind of work?” he asks. It’s the kind of small talk that makes it easy to pay attention to other things, like the repetitive way Beck wipes the glass in his hands, then duplicates the action for every mug he picks up. I think he’s counting the number of times he wipes them, and I wonder if that’s military training or a compulsion of some kind.
“Hosting for a live, televised event,” I answer. “Plus some online media stuff.”
Beck nods, interested but not invasive about it.
“Did I hear Dad say you have the second floor here?”
I nod, and remember I’d recently heard noise on the third floor for the first time since I’d lived there. “Are you the one who moved in upstairs?”
Beck nods.
“Then we’re neighbors,” I say. “You need any help getting things moved in or anything, just let me know.”
