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“Hey, Harlan,” the other guy said. “Been too long.”
“It’s only been a week,” Harlan said. “But I agree. Too long.”
Damn. Harlan was usually the resident grump of Jade Brewery, staying over by the big tanks of beer and only coming out to the front of the bar when the place got too busy. I’d never seen Harlan greet anyone as warmly as this.
He looked at me now. “Charlie, this is my friend, Sawyer,” Harlan said, squeezing the guy on the shoulder.
“That’s the introduction you give me?” Sawyer teased Harlan, the hint of a southern drawl coming out in his voice. He gave Harlan a cheeky grin.
“And what’s wrong with that?” Harlan protested, lifting an eyebrow.
“Friend? How about best friend?” Sawyer teased. “How about your lifelong best friend? Your partner in many, many crimes? Your BFF ‘til death?”
“You little shit. You’re about to get demoted to an acquaintance if you expect me to say the phrase BFF,” Harlan told him.
“We’ve been friends since we were three,” Sawyer said, turning to me again. “Worked on Red Pinecone together all through our teen years—peaches, apples, corn, and about a dozen other things, here and there. Then Harlan here decided to become a brewery whiz.”
“I didn’t know you used to work on a farm,” I told Harlan.
“Sure did,” Harlan said. “Sawyer’s still out on Red Pinecone Farm.”
“Yeah, well, I’m good at it,” Sawyer said, his eyes twinkling as he turned back to Harlan. “I couldn’t imagine doing anything with my life but working the farm.”
“Other than sitting around the bar playing Cupid for my regulars?” Miraculously, Harlan smiled again. I’d never seen him so naturally at ease with anyone. I’d gotten used to the idea that Harlan was just a stone-faced, serious kind of guy, but around Sawyer, things were different. It was clear how deep the roots of their friendship were.
“I sure as hell didn’t even need to play Cupid tonight,” Sawyer said. “Trust me, Charlie, that bartender has already been struck with about a dozen Cupid arrows for you. He’d suck your dick in two seconds flat.”
I grimaced, clutching my hand to my chest like I was wounded. “Listen. I just got a breakup text and a message from my ex all in one day. The last thing I need is to think about a straight guy. I mean, sure, Jax is hotter than fucking hell, but he doesn’t want my cock in his mouth—”
I cut my sentence off as I saw Jax emerge from the back hallway again, his arms full with a case of beer bottles. His eyes were downcast, and he was clearly trying to seem like he was fully focused on the task, but I watched as his cheeks blushed a deep red.
He’d heard me.
The mottled slashes made his cheekbones pop even more than usual. He busied about behind the bar and Harlan and his friend broke off into their own conversation, and I found myself looking at Jax in a way I’d never looked at him before. A few moments later, he glanced up and caught my gaze, and there was an intensity to the look on his face that I’d never seen before. It sent a little crackle of excitement through my veins, seeing him look at me in that way.
There was no way Sawyer could be right.
Jax just looked at everyone like that, right?
2
JAX
“Please,” I whispered, bolting upward, my mind syrupy with sleep as I woke up from a dream. Where the hell was I?
Why was I outdoors?
And why the fuck was my cock so hard it was making a goddamn wet spot at the front of my shorts?
It came back to me in a flash, adrenaline hitting my blood. The last thing I remembered was lying back on the bench, looking up at the canopy of red autumn leaves and evergreens above me. I definitely hadn’t been planning on napping, and I’d only had a few minutes to burn on campus before going to a soccer game I coached once a week. Now I was very awake, drenched in sweat and reeling from my dream.
My heart thunked in my chest as the dream reappeared in my mind’s eye.
Charlie had been in the dream.
And I’d been really, really turned on.
Charlie Benson, who’d always just been one of the regulars we had at Jade Brewery. A person I’d known for months, and someone that I sure as hell had never had any purely sexual thoughts about.
For fuck’s sake, I’d never had any sexual thoughts about any man. In the dream, Charlie had been sitting across the bar like he usually did, but when I made my way into the back hallway at the brewery, he’d stopped me and pushed me up against the wall. I could still remember the sound of his velvety whisper: hey, frat boy. As he was leaning in to kiss me, his lips hovering so close to mine, I woke up, with my traitor of a dick already rock hard.
