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Backing away from the door, I craned my neck toward my Harley parked in the lot. Despite the almost vexing need to escape onto the dark road with nothing but the headlight as my vision, I turned back.
No matter how potent the vex, there was something infinitely more so. The tether tying me to my brother inside that stupid diner. A bond so strong not even my own outrageous inner turmoil could sever. I needed to be here right now.Heneeded me to be here.
A cloud of white exploded in front of me with the aggressive expel of my breath and hung there as though it could remind me of my volatile emotion. Resolved, I moved forward, cutting through that cold fog like it wasn’t even there, ignoring it in favor of the man inside.
The man who was my responsibility, my brother, and nothing more.
3
Wes
Five minutes.
No.Lessthan five.
That was how long I surrendered. Not long in terms of minutes. But in terms of my heart? It was far too long.
I would absolutely regret this. The second the high my entire body was riding from his touch waned, this euphoria would turn into a wound and then heal over into a scar no one would see but I would forever feel. Despite the consequences, the instant the delicious heat radiating from his fingertips melted through my clothes as he dragged me close, I became powerless.
So weak. I was so weak for Max. The gruff tone of his voice. The way he always smelled like leather and fresh air. The wash of calm I felt when his palm stroked over my hair. Even the unsettling way his dark eyes drilled into me, promising if I let him look long enough, he’d unearth all my secrets.
As much as I yearned to be an open book to someone, to be accepted for everything that I was, I could never let him look long enough to know.
So I settled instead for brief moments of what would hurt longer than they comforted, but like an addict, the high in the moment was better than even my self-destruction. Normally, I was more cautious about the moments I allowed myself to steal. They became fewer and further between, something I’d been proud of.
But those less than five minutes of his arms wrapped reassuringly around me destroyed years of progress. Now I was sitting in this booth, trembling because the fix left me near desperate for another.
I refused to admit it out loud, but yeah, maybe earlier at practice had reminded me of that night three years ago. Of coming out, being ambushed and beaten. Of being hated for something it never occurred to me to hate someone else for.
Don’t expect you from other people. Other people aren’t you.
I reminded myself tonight wasn’t nearly as bad as before, that only one person seemed to take issue with my sexual orientation, and it didn’t end in violence.
What if the rest of the team sides with Rinkin?
The thought made the waffle in my mouth turn to dust, the flavor unpleasant and dry.
Setting down what was left in my hand, I grabbed the water and chugged half of it down. Automatically, my eyes strayed beyond our booth, seeking Max. He was a grumpy asshole that liked to punch first and ask questions later, but he made me feel better.
For a moment, I wished Win was here. My brother always made me feel better, and his better never came with a hangover of self-loathing like Max.
But Win was in Sweden, and Max stepped back inside the diner, his cheeks red from the cold air outside and his black hair tousled like he’d jammed his fingers through it. The thought had my eyes straying to the hand fisted at his side, remembering the way it felt when he pulled me in.
His movement snapped my attention back, and I glanced up, our eyes colliding across the room. He stopped midstride, his stormy features pinching and causing some of that high coursing through my bloodstream to abate. Jaw like granite, he jerked away from me, wrenching with him all the oxygen in my lungs.
Exhausted, I drooped against the window, hoping the cold glass would somehow wake me up.
But I wasn’t asleep, and this was my reality.
Max was clearly agitated, something I’d learned to read long ago. The very air around him was restless, his shoulders tense, and the way his eyes flitted around the diner made my stomach coil with nerves.
Did that less-than-five hug disgust him so much?
He didn’t care that I was gay. He nor Win.
But what if he figured it out?The thought had me straightening.
“Wes?” I heard Ryan say my name, but he was on the outside of my universe just then, the ideas in my own head demanding absolute attention.
