“Do you think I do that? Live with regrets until they’ve made me afraid to accept happiness and accept you loving me?”
I knew to choose my words carefully. “I think you’ve been alone so long it’s colored your outlook on life. And considering you’re one of the most fearless men I’ve ever met, I think it’s made you afraid to move forward. Your mother’s death and your father’s treatment of you left emotional scars. You have a hard time letting people in to help you.”
Gideon stood up, and I missed him immediately; I sat up and watched him pace the floor, holding his wine as he formulated his thoughts. My heart broke for him as I watched his inner turmoil break him down until he collapsed in the chair opposite me.
“I love you, Jonah. Thinking about being without you scares the shit out of me. I don’t want to be alone; I can’t anymore. But it’s not the being alone part that scares me. I’ve been alone all my life. It’s the being without you. I don’t want to lose you. Today made me realize how I could easily hurt you and push you away.” He gulped his wine then wiped his mouth on his sleeve and shuddered.
“It won’t happen.” I swung my legs off the sofa to go sit on the coffee table and face him. “I won’t let it.”
“I’m telling you. I’m perfect at ruining a good thing.”
“I’m not a good thing. I’m the best damn thing to ever happen to you.”
“I know that. But I don’t ever want you feeling like you have to stay with me because you feel sorry for me.”
I plucked the glass out of his hand and placed it on the table then stood and pulled him into my arms. “I feel many, many things for you—desire, absolute lust, but most of all, love. I’m with you because I love you, Gideon, and that’s never going to change.”
The pain in his eyes slayed me. When would he realize he deserved to be loved?
A slight smile curved Gideon’s lips. “Absolute lust huh? I think I like the sound of that.”
It all started with a redheaded fireman he couldn’t get out of his mind.
Rico sat in a booth at an out-of-the-way bar in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, wondering what the hell he was doing. He didn’t do meet-ups and dates; that shit got too personal, too fast. Yet the fearlessness Adam Barton showed when he’d rushed into the smoke-filled building took his breath away. Not to mention Adam’s big shoulders and startling blue eyes were pretty damn fine to look at as well.
Anytime Adam showed up at the store, looking for lunch, dinner or “something to snack on at the firehouse,” Rico hid in his office, cursing his stupidity and cowardice. Sure, the guy was hotter than hell with that red hair, white skin, and blue-blue eyes, but that all-American freckled face had relationship and boyfriend written across it. Not his speed—yet when Adam cornered him earlier that morning, Rico surprised himself by being so tongue-tied, he was unable to do anything but nod in agreement when Adam asked if he wanted to meet later for a drink. And here he sat, waiting.
“Dumbass,” he muttered, then took a swig from his bottle of Bud. Adam Barton was a nice guy; Rico could tell by looking at him that he was like Gideon’s boyfriend Jonah. Adam would be the type who’d call during the day to say hi and want to have brunch on Sundays with friends. But Rico wasn’t into that; he never had been. He cared about three things: his family, his business, and his small circle of friends he rarely, if ever, expanded. Those were rock-solid and got his full attention; he had no time to spare for anyone, no matter how pretty the face or sweet their ass. And while Rico was thrilled his best friend, Gideon, had fallen madly in love with Jonah, Rico had never felt that need to settle down. What for? And why bother? Certainly not for anything he couldn’t get from the guys he met at clubs.
That didn’t explain his heart skipping a beat as he watched Adam enter the bar and gaze around with an expectant look. When their eyes met and Adam smiled in relief, words once again failed Rico. He took another gulp of liquid courage, unable to figure out what his problem was whenever he saw the man.
“Hi. I’m glad you came.”
Adam brought in with him the coolness of the night air, plus his own scent of freshly washed skin, and smiled at the waitress who appeared at their table.
“I’ll take one of those Buds too, please.”
“Sure. Anything to eat, guys?” She stood with her pen poised over her pad.
“You hungry?” At least he managed to get two words out.
“Yeah, definitely. We had a bunch of calls in six hours, and I didn’t have time.” It didn’t take Adam long to check out the short list of food the bar offered. “I’ll take a burger, no onion, and fries.”
Rico, who’d been fighting nerves all day, hadn’t eaten much either and discovered he was hungry as well. “I’ll take the roast beef on a roll with mustard and coleslaw. Sweet potato fries. Thanks.”
“Great, guys; I’ll put this in and be back with your beer in a sec.” She cocked her head at Rico. “You want me to bring you another with his?”
Rico glanced down; he hadn’t realized his bottle was almost empty. “Yes, please.”
She hurried off, leaving them alone.
“Busy day?” Rico picked at the beer bottle label to give his hands something to do.
“Hell, yeah. One false alarm, one smell of gas, a small trash fire in the back of a building, and another, bigger fire in a brownstone. No one was hurt, and we dealt with them pretty quickly, but it’s the rush of adrenaline, never knowing if someone’s trapped, or if it can go to more alarms.”
Fascinated, Rico watched Adam come alive as he spoke.
“You love it, don’t you?”
“The job?” A fierce light burned in Adam’s eyes, rendering Rico weak with a throb of desire. “Yeah. From the time I was a little kid, all I ever wanted was to be a fireman. My old man used to take me to the station, and the guys there would sit me on the truck and let me pretend I worked there. Once I even got to ring the bell. I fell in love with it and never looked back.”
The waitress returned with their beers, and Rico finished the dregs of his first and took a hefty swig of the second. This was how it always went with him and a guy. Meet, drink enough to lose his inhibitions, and then some fast and hot sex wherever they could get it. He couldn’t remember the last time he had sex lying down in a bed instead of up against the wall. This wasn’t the life his parents wanted for him. His mother, who had passed away, had been the Miami-Dade State Attorney, and his father, a Miami County Commissioner, was on his way up in politics. Election to governor or a US Senate seat was not outside the realm of possibility for him in the future. A true power couple.
“At least you got to follow your dream.”
For the first time since they met, darkness shadowed Adam’s bright blue eyes.
“Yeah? Not sure I’m remembering a whole lot of what that dream was anymore.”
Thinking of his own family issues, Rico assumed Adam’s family didn’t accept him, and sympathized to an extent. From the time he was little, he’d known what was expected of him: go to the best schools; get the best education. Be the best American. His parents were born in Florida, each raised by Cuban immigrants. His father’s family made their fortune in a string of successful restaurants, his mother’s in real estate development. That lifestyle had enabled them to send him to WASPY private schools, grooming him, Rico knew, to follow in their path as a lawyer. They’d insisted on English-only in the house, wanting him to stand shoulder to shoulder with everyone else in their upscale community. Complete and total assimilation.
But Rico had other dreams. Dreams of being a chef and running his own restaurant, so he’d talked to his pipo, his grandfather, who agreed to let him work in his uncle’s diner to learn what would be necessary to run his own business, even though it went against what his parents wanted. Pipo was also the only one to speak in Spanish and who taught him what little he remembered. One night after they sat drinking coffee, he’d stood to leave, and Pipo grasped his shoulder, gazing fondly at him from beneath bushy, gray brows.
“Mi corazon. My heart. We followed our dream to America. Now you make your own life. Your way.”
He might’ve never told his staunch, conservative father he was gay, but Rico knew his family would never abandon him. At least he didn’t think so. Their motto had always been Family First, and he had to believe they meant it. But better that his father knew nothing of Rico’s personal life. Besides, whenever they spoke, it was always the business that his father was concerned with, whether they were making money or if they could afford their rent. It was how it had always been.
Stealing a quick look at Adam’s troubled face, Rico hurt for him. He didn’t like to see Adam sad. Those blue eyes should always be bright with laughter, and that mouth…damn. Rico shifted in the booth, his dick stiffening at the thought of Adam’s full lips on his.
“Well, you’re doing a great job here. I mean, the way you ran into the synagogue even though it was full of smoke? Shit. You must see some crazy-ass stuff.”
Adam cut his gaze away to the table for a second before returning to meet his eyes. “Yeah. I still get scared, though, whenever I go in; I’m sure the others do too. It’s not something we ever talk about. But I could never imagine doing anything else.”
The waitress appeared with their food, the meaty aroma of his roast beef and Adam’s burger triggering some major stomach rumbling on his part. He doused his fries with ketchup and took a big bite of the sandwich.
“Damn, I’m hungry. We’ve been so busy, I haven’t had any time to sit down and eat. We grab a bite here and there of whatever someone’s cooking in the kitchen at the moment. This tastes like heaven, but I don’t know if it’s because I’m so hungry or it’s really good.”
“My burger is good.” Adam’s voice came out garbled as he had a mouth full of food.
They sat and ate in companionable silence, and it didn’t take long for Rico to polish off his sandwich and fries; when Adam took a drink, Rico swiped a few fries from his plate.
“Hey.”
Adam caught his gaze, and the air stilled between them. Rico took another one and dipped it in ketchup, then slowly put it into his mouth. He had no fucking clue what he was doing, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Adam. Everything about the man was so damn attractive, from his red hair to his strong jaw dusted with red-gold scruff to those full pink lips.
“Mmm. Good.” He licked his lips, watching the heat of lust darken Adam’s blue eyes to an almost inky black. Rico’s body lit up; his blood burned and his dick throbbed.
Adam stood and threw three twenties and a ten on the table. “Let’s get out of here.”
