“Sure seemed interested from here.”
“Dawson.” Justin said it easy, no weight behind it, leaving room. “He was definitely interested, just not in the tractors.”
Dawson didn’t answer. He started packing up the pit, and Justin let him.
It would’ve been easier if Leo had stayed behind the fence. Easier if he’d asked stupid questions or treated the rig like a sideshow or done any of the things Dawson had been ready for. Instead, he’d leaned in and askedhow, and compared Dawson’s hands to his own instincts on the ice, like the two things belonged in the same sentence. And then he’d grabbed Dawson’s arm during the pull like it was the most natural thing in the world, and Dawson hadn’t pulled away.
He closed the tailgate harder than necessary.
CHAPTER FIVE
The guy’s hand was on Leo’s thigh, his thumb tracing slow circles through the denim, and Leo was thinking about engine grease under someone else’s fingernails.
He didn’t even know the guy’s name. Tyler, maybe. Taylor. Something with a T. Dark hair, good jaw, arms that said he knew his way around a gym. He’d been talking for ten minutes, and Leo had stopped tracking the conversation about eight minutes ago.
“So I told him, if you’re not going to commit to the bit, don’t even show up,” Tyler-or-Taylor said, laughing at his own story.
“Totally,” Leo said. He took a drink and looked anywhere else.
Kruz was good. Not Orlando good, not the spot on Mills Ave where the bartender knew his order and the DJ played house music that vibrated through the floor. But it was decent. Dark, crowded, an hour’s drive from Port Haven, and full of men who looked at him the way men used to look at him before he’d been shipped to a town where the closest thing to a gay bar was a dive with framed hockey jerseys run by a gay couple.
He’d spent forty-five minutes getting ready, which was actually pretty quick for him. The Balmains that had gotten him a phone number every time he’d worn them to a bar in Orlando. Put six hundred dollars of denim on a hockey player’s ass, and men always noticed. The YSL button-down with the collar that sat open just right showed enough throat and collarbone to be an invitation. He’d styled his hair twice because the humidity up here did something different from Florida, then hit it with finishing spray until it behaved.
Cologne last. Tom Ford on his wrists and neck, the one a guy in Orlando had once followed him across a dance floor to ask about. He’d checked himself in the mirror before walking out and stood there longer than he needed to. Shoulders pulled back, jaw set like he was walking into a game instead of a bar.
Collar open wide enough to show his collarbone and the top of his chest, all the hours in the weight room on display exactly the way he wanted them. He’d looked like someone who got what he wanted, and for the first time since his former coach sat him down to break the news about the trade, he’d felt like it too.
The second he’d walked in, a guy at the end of the bar had looked up from his drink and hadn’t stopped staring since. Another one had shifted closer while Leo waited for his vodka soda, close enough that their arms brushed when Leo reached for his glass. A third had caught his eye in the mirror behind the bottles and held it. Leo had options. He could’ve gone home with any of them, or to a restroom, or even a dark corner in the parking lot, and fucked until his brain shut off.
Except his brain wouldn’t shut off. Because his brain was in Port Haven with a mechanic who acted like Leo was wasting his time by existing in the same room.
Tyler-or-Taylor’s fingers found the back of Leo’s neck. Warm. Deliberate.
The hands Leo wanted on him were rougher, wider, and permanently grease-stained.
Leo took another drink and scanned the bar. Two guys had tried to catch his eye in the last twenty minutes. The one by the pool table was still flashing him fuck-me eyes. Any other night, Leo would’ve walked over and introduced himself. Tonight, he finished his drink and set the glass on the bar.
His damned brain had been infiltrated by the mechanic all week. Dawson crouching beside the pulling rig with his shirt off. Dawson’s arm under his hand during the full pull. Dawson’s flat “hey” at The Penalty Box, like Leo wasn’t worth the effort of a full sentence. The guy barely gave him the time of day, and yet his libido hadn’t gotten the memo that it was never going to happen.
“I should go,” he said to nobody in particular, and walked out before he could change his mind.
The air outside was warm and the street was loud with groups out partying. Leo sat in his Audi with the engine off, his forehead pressed against the steering wheel. He’d driven an hour to get laid and couldn’t close because a guy who worked on trucks for a living wouldn’t get out of his head.
He started the car and headed north.
The county roadbetween Milwaukee and Port Haven had no streetlights, spotty cell signal, and corn on both sides that was tall enough to make Leo feel like he was driving through a tunnel. Leo had the windows cracked, the music low, and his jaw clenched tight enough to ache.
He kept replaying his pathetic behavior at the bar. The whole night had been right there in front of him, and he couldn’t take it because his brain was stuck on Dawson’s hands, Dawson’s arms, Dawson’s complete indifference.
He saw a flash of brown in the headlights and slammed on the brakes. The hood crumpled. The airbag exploded into his face and chest and slammed him back against the seat. Every time he tried drawing in a breath, he tasted the white powder. His ears were ringing, and his hands were locked on the wheel so tightly that his fingers ached. When he opened his eyes, the windshield was spidered, one headlight was pointing at the ditch, and the deflated airbag hung off the steering column like a spent balloon.
The engine ticked. Something hissed under the hood. He didn’t look at the shape on the road in front of him.
His phone had landed in the footwell. When he reached for it, his hands shook hard enough he dropped the phone twice before finally grabbing it.
The screen had a new crack across the corner. He called roadside assistance, hoping like hell they’d come out to the middle of fucking nowhere. The hold music was the same mechanical smooth jazz every other company seemed to use.
Leo slumped back in the seat and shoved the deflated airbag out of his way. When a woman finally picked up and asked for his location, he said, “Somewhere between Milwaukee and Port Haven. I don’t know the road.”
