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I don’t need the distraction right now. I know it has to be Drake, trying to figure out if anything happened after he left last night.
What we did in the shower was the best thing that has ever happened to me. It was a new experience that was somehow tainted mere hours later by waking up to his text warning about the guys in the SUV spotting him.
I know my luck at not being confronted about what’s been going on between the bartender and myself has run completely out. Three times, we’ve messed around. Three times, we’ve been caught. Three times, we haven’t been questioned.
There’s no way a fourth time will bring the same results. I started thinking I was going to have to call it all off, ignore him completely for good, but as the sun gets higher in the sky, I find myself smiling, wondering what it would be like to do all the things to him that he did to me.
When the workday is over, I’m exhausted, my muscles aching in a way only a hard day’s work can manage, but the smile is still on my face.
The fear I felt earlier is nowhere to be seen.
As I shower and redress, I know I’m making plans that may land me in more trouble than I’d like.
Chapter 24
Drake
I shouldn’t be as sad as I am.
I should be ecstatic for the fun we had instead of considering all the things we could’ve had but never had the chance to experience.
Boomer—I have to think of him this way. Alex is just too intimate and personal. He isn’t the man for me. Closeted men, in my experience, are easily angered. They get frustrated that they can’t find the courage or strength to come out. And God does it take courage and strength for most of us. Being anything other than what the majority of society considers normal is fucking hard.
The last thing I need is for him to grow frustrated with me because of his own failures. His beliefs keep him shrouded in darkness, and there’s nothing I can say or do to change that for him. There’s no magical wand I can wave over his head and make him accept who he is.
For most of us, the worry is being accepted by others.
I can’t imagine what he’s going through with his internal struggle.
For the first time in a very long time, I hate that I’m stuck at the bar. Jake’s is normally the place I consider home. The folks that come in during the day are almost always familiar faces. I know their orders before they even sit down. I don’t feel the need to put on an act or a performance like I sometimes do during my evening shifts, but today everything is an annoyance.
Add to it the fact that I’ve texted Boomer twice to find out what happened last night and once again, he’s fucking ignoring me.
Childish behavior bugs the shit out of me.
I hate that there’s something special about the man that makes him nearly impossible to just cast aside. I know for a fact I wouldn’t put up with this shit in any other situation I’ve been in after the number my ex did to me.
Despite knowing I’m barreling down a dead-end road, knowing I should pump the fucking brakes, I can’t help but keep pressing my foot on the damn gas. The crash is inevitable, but hell, it’ll be something I suffer alone. Boomer doesn’t seem like a man with the balls to actually tell me it’s over… whatever it was we had in the first fucking place.
“Gonna scrub a hole in it,” Maude mutters. “Maybe go clean down there instead of right in front of me.”
I pull my rag from the bar top, tilting my head to the side.
“Everything okay?” I ask her. The woman is prone to a couple of bad days every now and then, but she normally spends those keeping to herself.
“Same shit, different day,” she grumbles.
I leave her to whatever demon she’s fighting and head to the other end of the bar.
I have less than an hour until I get off. Rochelle showed up fifteen minutes ago for the one hour overlap I write into the schedule.
“Looks great,” she says, after coming back out from the kitchen. “I think that new guy back there is going to work out. The burger he made me yesterday was amazing.”
I’d have to disagree, but I don’t feel like getting into just how much of a mess the kitchen was this morning. “Stay away from him.”
“What?” she asks, humor in her tone and a sparkle in her eye.
“He’s not a toy, Rochelle. He needs this job.”
“Everyone needs their job,” she says, her smile falling when I don’t return it.
“He’s here on work release.”
“Jail?”
“Prison.”
Her eyes widen. “You didn’t think to tell me a criminal was cooking the food?”
