Page 1 of His to Take

Chapter one

Dylan leaned against the grimy brick wall of the alley, the acrid taste of a cheap cigarette lingering on his lips. He flicked the ashes onto the cracked pavement, the distant clatter of dishes and the hum of the restaurant kitchen fading into the background.

Washing dishes in this shitty hole-in-the-wall restaurant? Sucked. His boss? Sucked. His life? Take a wild guess.

But sucking didn't always have to be a bad thing…

Dylan fished out his phone and opened an app, his thumb swiping across the screen with practiced ease. A cynical smile tugged at the corner of his lips as he examined the profiles that filled his screen. Shirtless torsos, pouty lips, and bad pick-up lines…

It didn't matter how cliche they were. Each one was a potential escape from his life — even if sometimes that did only turn out to be for a few minutes. He sighed. There should really be a tickbox on some profiles for 'will come the instant you touch me and leave in a rush, leaving you hanging'.

But tonight… as Dylan scrolled listlessly, moving through profiles on autopilot, everything on offer just seemed like cheap distractions and empty promises.

When his conservative parents had kicked him out and he'd left the crappy small town he'd been raised in, apps like this had made him lose his mind. Being able to find no-strings hookups with hot guys? After years of being in the closet, it had seemed like paradise. He'd thrown himself into them, living life from encounter to encounter.

But somewhere along the line, that paradise had lost its shine. Hot guys, hard abs, big dicks — somewhere, he'd stopped enjoying them the same way.

But he didn't know what else to replace them with.

A new message notification blinked on the screen, shaking Dylan from his thoughts. He squinted at the profile picture.

Cute guy, somewhere on a gorgeous mountain in Europe, smiling into the camera like he was having the best day of his life. Dylan couldn't relate. The closest he'd ever got to hiking was trudging through the woods behind his house to smoke weed and kick over dumped trash.

A man like that… His life seemed impossibly far away from Dylan's.

Dylan opened the picture fullscreen — and then groaned.

Above the fullscreen picture, he could now see a search bar… and the fact that the man messaging him had searched 'hot man selfie' and then screencapped the first photo that came up.

He looked at the message that came with it.hi ur hot. show hole?

Shakespeare, eat your heart out. Dylan thumped his head back against the wall, looking up at the starless city sky.

He wasn't asking for much.

Just something real.

But for a guy like him… maybe thatwastoo much.

Just as he was about to close the app, another message popped up.Hey. You're cute. Wanna party?

This time, the photo wasn't stolen straight from Google. Dylan scrutinized the profile like a detective.

This guy was hot enough. He kept his face out of his photos, and his profile was empty, but he was early 20s, hot, and muscular. A jock who wanted to fuck guys on the downlow, huh? Well, it wasn't the worst offer that Dylan had ever heard…

In that moment, the boring shitshow of his life weighed heavily on him. Dishwashing, cigarettes in grimy alleys, and going back to his crappy apartment and annoying roommates.

The promise of a high, even from an anonymous source, could be an escape.

Only just for now… But that would have to be enough.

A sharp, familiar voice cut through his conflict. Marcus, an older man with a permanent scowl, leaned out of the doorway. "Dylan, we got dishes backing up in here! What the hell do you think you're doing out here?"

Dylan clenched his fists. "It's my break," he shot back.

"You'll get your break when the dishes let up," Marcus snapped. "Get back in here! You want me to fire your sorry ass?"

Something hot and furious twisted inside of Dylan, but he swallowed it back down. He hated this job, but he couldn't afford to lose it. The only thing worse than a bad job was a hundred bad interviews that went nowhere, the interviewers visibly judging you before throwing your application into the bin…

Source: www.allfreenovel.com