Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 79781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Maks is grinning.
“That is my order, actually,” I admit. “Other than the vodka. You know I like Cognac more, anyway.”
Once we order, our food is out within minutes.
As we eat, we explain everything to Maks for the next half hour.
I order a second refill of coffee, then another, as I bring Maks to speed on the name Lucian Farina. Maks has contacts in the city who can discreetly gather information for us.
The diner is nearly empty the whole time we’re there.
Thank fuck.
It’s long after lunch, but not dinner time yet, and by the time we’ve explained everything, the only other customer in the place is an old woman doing crossword puzzles in a booth across the restaurant.
After we get the check, Tate stands up to go use the restroom.
As he walks off, I turn my head to watch him walk over, staring at the exposed sides of his torso and the way his pants hug his ass.
Finally he disappears into the bathroom.
“You are fucking him,” Maks tells me the moment I turn back toward the table.
He’s looking at me like he just told me something obvious.
The sky is blue.
Pigs can’t fly.
You’re fucking Tate Landrey.
“No,” I say, reaching down to stir my coffee even though there’s absolutely nothing to stir. I pause for a long while, and pressure grows inside me, then suddenly blooms, cracking open in my chest. “I have not fucked him yet.”
“Yet,” Maks says.
“And when I do fuck him, it will be my business, not yours.”
Maks is fully smiling now, leaning back on the booth and putting his arms up on the top edge. “I knew it when I saw him sitting in the front of your car. Weeks ago.”
“There was nothing to know.”
He clicks his tongue, shaking his head. “I’ve fucked enough cute jocks to know you wouldn’t be able to resist. Those tank tops, Romik…”
I reach over the table to shove him as he laughs.
“I’m not like you,” I tell him.
“I’m aware of that. If it were me bodyguarding for Tate Landrey, I would have fucked that perfect ass the moment I knew he wanted it. You had to be convinced by that greedy cock of yours...”
“Quiet. You’re a dog.”
“I know. It’s different with a man, isn’t it?” Maks says, looking very pleased with himself.
“It is.”
“Better?”
I take a slow sip from my mug. “No one is like Tate.”
Better.
Of course he’s better.
It doesn’t even have anything to do with him being a man, although it’s less and less possible for me to care that I thought I was straight until him.
Tate just seems to have direct access to everything on Earth that turns me on.
End of story.
He’s a better person than the others I’ve been with, too.
“Enjoy,” Maks says with an encouraging nod. “Careful he doesn’t fall in love with you, putting that monster inside him.”
I shake my head. “He will fall in love with my cock. But he knows who I am, and that we don’t fit.”
The words feel like a lie as they leave my mouth.
We do fucking fit, when it’s just us.
But then there is everything else.
The world I was born into.
The life I would never bring him into.
When Tate returns to the table, I don’t bother hiding it from Maks anymore when I touch him. I run my hand over the back of his neck, massaging it softly, then let my arm rest on his shoulders.
When Maks leaves, and it’s just me and Tate in my car, he’s acting strange.
He’s looking at his phone, tapping away at it, and at first he looks happy, then his expression starts to fall.
“Say what you’re thinking,” I tell him, not starting the ignition in my car.
He tilts his phone over so I can look at it. “I got a message while we were in there. It’s from Kian, the guy in my French class. You think I can trust him?”
Kian
Meet up with me at the festival tomorrow?
Tate
I’ll be there!
Fuck yes. I’ll win you a prize. What’s your favorite animal?
I don’t know… a wolf?
If they have a wolf plushie, it’ll be yours. I can get us drinks, too.
My friend Ollie is bringing some liquor.
Even better. It’s a date.
Bitterness swirls in my chest as I read each message.
“You like this guy?”
Tate nods. “He’s nice. Everyone here has been really nice to me.”
“And this is the boy who told you he was gay?”
“He’s definitely gay.”
I lift an eyebrow. “Why do you say it like that?”
He runs a hand through his hair. “He, uh… he asked me to walk with him to the pool after class yesterday. I did, because it’s all out in the open, on campus, around other people—”
“Tate, it’s okay,” I say quickly. “You are allowed to live your life.”
He swallows. “Well, before he went to start swimming laps, he asked if I wanted to fuck in the bathroom.”