3. Brooks

CHAPTER 3

brOOKS

Life wasn’t what it used to be.

A year ago, Friday night would have found me and my group of friends out at The Black Door looking for trouble. Now, though…Ford was upstate fucking Boston on a farm, Kale was probably wearing a flannel pajama set and doing a crossword puzzle while Christian sucked his cock like a pacifier, and Alex…

Getting Alex to socialize since Beamer moved to Los Angeles had been worse than pulling teeth, but over the past handful of months, he’d started to show his face more. When I found him leaning against the bar at The Black Door, chatting with a bartender and wearing an actual smile on his face, I momentarily worried he’d been body-snatched. When he saw me, Alex raised his hand to wave, the smile actually widening instead of disappearing.

“You look like you’re in a good mood,” I said, sliding up beside him at the bar.

“My favorite bartender from my favorite bar just got a job here,” Alex said, gesturing toward whom I assumed to be the newest addition to the staff at The Black Door.

I gave the man a quick onceover, decidedly unimpressed with everything about him save for the way he made my closest friend smile.

“Great,” I said, grabbing Alex’s drink out of his hand and taking a swallow. It was the strongest martini I’d ever had in my life, and I was fairly certain it had far more liquor in it than it should have. “I’ll have one of these, Alex’s favorite bartender.”

The man’s mouth quirked up in the corner, but he made the drink with quiet and practiced ease.

“My name is Dylan,” he said, sliding the glass toward me.

“So it is.” I clinked the edge of my glass against Alex’s, then hauled him away from the bar. “Let’s get some air. It’s so nice out tonight.”

“It’s nice inside tonight,” he said, letting me drag him toward the elevators.

“The bartender is paid to be here,” I reminded him. “He’ll be here when we’re done.”

Alex huffed, but the smile hadn’t quite disappeared from his face, which I took as a good sign. We rode up the elevator together, getting smacked in the face with the scent of sex as soon as the doors slid open on the upper floor of the club. It was mostly enclosed, but there was a patio on the west side of the building for when weather allowed, and weather was definitely allowing.

“Tell me about your favorite bar,” I said, finding a table for us outside and settling into one of the upholstered patio chairs. It wasn’t as comfortable as inside, but the smell of cum and sweat was going to send me into a frenzy if I didn’t get a break from it. I hadn’t had sex in over a month, and I was practically chomping at the bit to get someone home and into bed. No matter how much my friends wanted to tease me about being easy, I was far more discerning with my partners than they ever gave me credit for. I liked to fuck hard and often, but it was a special kind of partner who could deliver the reactions and the responses I wanted.

I wasn’t cut to everyone’s tastes. I’d learned that by accident at a very young age.

Growing up with the internet had been a blessing and a curse because early internet porn had done far more harm than good to my sexual development. At least, that’s what I had grown up thinking. Now, as an adult, I understood there wasn’t anything wrong with me or the way I liked to get off. It simply wasn’t the way most people chose to get off.

My sexual tastes made relationships hard, but not impossible. I craved the established intimacy of a long-term partner because I’d found my brand of aftercare and attention made strangers far more uncomfortable than the rough sex on the front end. There was a certain kind of vulnerability that came with tenderness, and lots of people were terrified of it. I couldn’t blame them. It was terrifying to be known, but I’d long since committed to abandoning things that didn’t serve me, that fear included.

In the end, it was that brand of exposure that had sent my last long-term partner, Tyler, running for the hills. We’d split up two years earlier, and I had finally started to settle into what felt like a new normal for me. Things with us ended as amicably as a one-sided split could, and the day he gave me back the key to my penthouse was the last time I’d seen his face .

I owed him thanks, though. It was through the breakup with Tyler that I solidified my own relationship limits. The eighteen months he and I spent together helped me to find more comfort in my kinks and myself, and the solitude that came after our breakup had been welcome and easy. I knew what things I could compromise on and the things I never would. For that, I owed Tyler a debt of gratitude. Unfortunately, he wasn’t interested in me owing him anything. I imagined he’d learned some hard truths about himself as well.

“You’re not even listening,” Alex said, the first words I’d heard out of his mouth since we’d sat down.

I managed a small laugh, raising the martini to my lips and taking a small drink of it. “Guilty as charged, but I’m trying not to get alcohol poisoning here.”

My friends had been invaluable as I navigated life post-Tyler, and it hurt my heart that Alex hadn’t allowed us to give him the same level of care after Beamer left. It wasn’t like the two of them were anything serious, or even anything at all, but the newness between them had been secretive and beautiful, and as fast as it appeared, it was gone. Alex turned reclusive and had only just started to reappear in our weekly outings. He did better one on one, which I imagined was because, as a group, the lot of us could be very intense .

“I said it’s a bar named Tryst. Not far from here.”

Right.

We’d been talking about his mystery spot and his mystery man.

“And the bartender is from there?”

Alex nodded, eyes flashing. “I met him outside of the bar, though.”

“And then you followed him inside like a wounded dog?”

“God.” Alex rolled his eyes, half-smiling at me. “I almost forgot what an asshole you are.”

“I think you’ve confused me with one Kale Sheffield.”

He laughed, folding one leg over the other and resting his ankle on top his other knee. “He is a bit of a prick these days.”

“Ford did a number on him with the Boston thing,” I said.

“Kale did a number on himself,” Alex countered. “He got huffy about me and Beamer, even worse about Ford and Boston. He has more opinions than money and I don’t want either of them.”

“Jesus, Alex.” I scratched my chin and took a small drink of the martini. “Tell me how you really feel.”

He sighed, shrugging and setting his drink on the table between us.

“Sorry.” He traced his tongue across the front of his teeth. “That wasn’t fair.”

“It’s okay to have feelings about the things he’s done,” I said.

“He was horrible to Beamer when he found out that we’d started playing together, when he found out that I’d marked him.”

“The way you play is no surprise to anyone,” I reminded him, knowing what it was like to be on the outskirts of acceptability myself. “He was more caught off-guard because he didn’t understand the depths of Beamer’s submission.”

“If you say so.”

“I know so.” I curled my fingers around Alex’s wrist and lifted his glass toward his mouth. “I don’t want to talk about our overbearing counterpart right now. I want to enjoy the night with you and then see what happens. ”

“The bartender is what’s happening,” Alex said, grin turning feral.

“Don’t break him,” I teased.

“He didn’t complain the first time,” Alex said, “or the second.”

“Did you have a hand in getting him a job here?”

I leaned back and stretched my legs out, rolling both of my ankles to give them a little crack. It wasn’t like I was old, but when I wasn’t being active, my body showed more signs of wear than not. Outside of sex, the only exercise I got was from my morning runs. I’d never wanted to bother with weight training or anything like that. When I was in school, I’d been a swimmer, good enough to make the team but not good enough to win any awards or scholarships. My mind had always been more focused on things that were complicated, like financial review and contract negotiations and I excelled academically. My interest in extracurriculars didn’t manifest until college when I realized it was possible to have sex in real life that matched the sex I’d grown up jacking off to.

“I knew there was an opening,” Alex said. “I put in a good word and let him know about the posting.”

“The next great philanthropist,” I muttered.

“I’m a creature of convenience,” he said back. “I like it here.”

“How did you know there was an opening in the first place?” I asked. “You hardly come out anymore.”

Alex tilted his head to the side, a sad smile flitting across his face before he answered, “I don’t come here with you.”

“I want to be offended.”

“The royal you.” He gestured to the empty seats across from us .

I made a knowing sound in the back of my throat. “You have been doing better one on one lately, that’s the truth.”

“Less questions.”

“Is that why?” I arched a brow. “Or is it easier to hide when there are fewer eyes on you?”

Alex tipped the rest of his drink down his throat and thrust the empty glass at me. “Go get me another martini if you’re trying to be so serious tonight.”

I laughed, taking it and standing.

“I’m not being depressing. You’re my friend. I worry about you and I miss you.”

“I promise it’s not as bad as you think it’s been,” he said. “Maybe at first, but I’m really doing okay.”

“I believe you.”

“It’s nothing like when you and Tyler broke up.” Alex laughed, leaning back and switching the position of his crossed legs.

“Maybe Kale is fine,” I said, knocking the rest of my drink back. “Maybe you’re the prick.”

“You wouldn’t be the first to make the accusation. Get drinks from Dylan—they’re stronger.”

“I am not in the market for a two-drink limit,” I said, heading toward the door.

Alex was lucky the line for the upper level bar was enough to make me want to tear my hair out, so I rode the elevator down, stuck in the small space with a pink-haired little twink humping the thigh of a bear of a businessman. My cock twitched at the noises falling out of his mouth and the thick smell of precum that quickly filled the space. I dropped my head back and rubbed the bridge of my nose. The doors slid open and I stepped off the elevator. The doors closed behind me with the couple still inside.

For the first time in a long time, the air in the first floor was more breathable than the top, so I didn’t rush when I made my way through tables and around the dance floor toward the bar in the back of the space. The music was low, the bass heavy, and everyone seemed to be having an enjoyable night. I was still half-hard from the elevator ride, and I stopped against a pillar beside the bar to adjust myself before filling my hands up with drinks.

Alex’s little bartender leaned over the bar top, laughing at a slender man with a mess of brown hair that wasn’t short or long, but enough length to get my fist around. I hadn’t even seen his face, just the build of him from behind enough to spark my attention.

Discerning or not, I still had a type.

The bartender glanced up, still speaking to the man in front of him, but when he saw me with my hand on my dick, his nostrils flared with recognition. I was quick to unhand myself, coming up to the bar and setting the empty glasses down in front of me. The last thing I wanted was for him to get the idea I was rubbing myself off in public to him . Even if I found Dylan attractive—which I didn’t—Alex had good as claimed him already.

“Where’s your friend?” Dylan asked me, head cocked to the side like the coy little flirt he was.

“Upstairs waiting for you to get off work, I think.” I leaned my hip against the bar, half-facing the patron whose conversation I’d been rude enough to interrupt. “Who’s your friend?”

When the man turned to face me, the recognition flared up my spine like a bolt of lightning. I knew this man. I’d been inside of this man before. It had been months ago, but I’d remember the way he looked as he came for the rest of my life.

“Tate,” I said his name, licking my lips as a smile formed on my face.

“You know each other?” Dylan asked. Tate glared at him and Dylan’s eyes went wide like he knew a secret. Like he knew me …

“That might be an understatement,” I said, swallowing down the pleasure that came with seeing Tate’s face again.

He looked similar to the night I’d met him, but maybe a little more tired, his hair a little bit longer than before. That would explain my initial thoughts, though. I’d already had my hands in his hair; I knew how soft it was, how silky it felt against my palm. We’d had a great time together, and then he’d snuck out on me without a word, which had broken my heart because that breach of trust meant one thing and one thing only.

I was never going to sleep with Tate again.