7. Jesse

7

JESSE

"What the fuck?" Someone tugged on the neckline of my t-shirt.

I jumped a mile and bobbled my phone, nearly dropping it.

"Sorry." Isaac didn't sound the least bit sorry as he peered down the back of my shirt, his eyes alight with humor and surprise.

Fuck.

He'd seen the scratches Sebastian left on me after our little whatever the fuck that was in the woods.

"You really need to learn about boundaries," Asa, our coworker, said, looking up from his phone.

Isaac grinned at him. "I know all about boundaries, but Jess and me are copacetic."

"Copacetic?" The corner of Asa's mouth curled up in a smile.

"Did I use that right?" Isaac looked between us.

"No clue." I glanced at Asa. I'd never heard that word before.

He shook his head, his smile peeking through his attempts to hide it.

It wasn't a secret that people thought I had good control over my emotions and expressions, but I had nothing on Asa. He could teach a masterclass on how to only show people what he wanted them to see. Even after half a year as coworkers and friends, I still had trouble reading him when his defenses were up.

"Damn it." Isaac flopped onto the chair beside me and unzipped his coveralls. "Can you text Jamie and tell him I did? I'll owe you."

"Is this another one of your dares?" I put my phone on the table.

He nodded and shrugged his arms out of the sleeves. "One of the guys at his work gave him a word of the day calendar. We bet each other that we could use whatever the word of the day is in conversation. The only catch is we have to use it properly."

"So that's why you mentioned the plethora of choices at the café down the street yesterday." Asa put his phone on the table and twisted in his chair so he was facing us. "And why you asked if I'd ever done any sort of subterfuge the day before."

"And why you said Dev looked verklempt after he choked on his water the other day," I added.

"Did I use those right? I told Jamie I did." Isaac finished tying the arms of his coveralls around his waist and rested his ankle against his opposite knee, sprawling low in the chair.

"Mostly." Asa tapped the table. "Plethora was fine. Verklempt was a fail, but I'll give you a pass on subterfuge because you got the gist of the word."

He grinned. "But not copacetic? What about symbiotic? That's tomorrow's word. Would it have worked if I'd said Jess and me are symbiotic?"

"That sounds like something that happens in sci-fi movies." I tossed Asa a glance. "Verdict?"

"It works, but not really in the context that you're saying it in."

"Pass, yay or nay?" Isaac lifted one hand and gave Asa the thumbs up, then flipped it to a thumbs down.

Smirking, Asa gave him a thumbs down.

"Crap." Isaac rocked his leg back and forth and flicked his gaze to me. "You gonna do me a solid and tell Jamie I got today's word right?"

"Depends. What do you have to do if you lose?"

Isaac and his roommate Jamie were best friends and had the most insane Golden Retriever energy I'd ever seen. They were constantly daring each other to do stupid shit and turned everything into a competition.

The thing about them is that neither cared if they lost. They enjoyed doing the dares as much as they liked winning.

My neck heated. That was one major difference between Isaac and me. He was a good loser. I wasn't. Which was exactly why this crap with Sebastian kept happening.

"It's a cumulative thing." He clasped his hands behind his neck and leaned back even further in the chair. "Whoever gets more points at the end of the week wins and the loser has to do our laundry in whatever the winner chooses."

"What do you have picked out for Jamie?" I asked knowingly.

He grinned. "A sexy nurse costume."

"Do you know what he has planned for you?" Asa asked.

"He said something about a sequined wrestling onesie."

"I feel sorry for your neighbors." I tapped on the home button of my phone to check the time. "Aren't you off right now?" I asked Isaac.

"Yup. But I still haven't harassed you about those love scratches." He shot me a shit-eating grin. "I'm in no rush."

"Well, you'd better hurry up because I have to get back out there in less than ten minutes."

"Love scratches?" Asa asked. "Is that what you were peeking at down his back?"

Isaac unclasped his hands and grabbed the shoulder of my tee so he could yank it down and used the other to twist my upper body so the back of my shoulder was facing Asa. "Yup. Check these out. Was it a full moon? It looks like you hooked up with a werewolf."

"Damn." Asa shifted in his seat to get a better look. "Someone was enthusiastic."

Dipping my shoulder, I pulled my shirt out of Isaac's grasp and sat back in my seat. "It's nothing."

"Nothing?" Isaac arched his eyebrow. "Didn't take you for the type to be into marking."

Heat bloomed up from under my collar at the mention of marking.

I'd given Sebastian a hickey, and I hadn't thought twice about it.

I wasn't the type to mark my partners, not unless they asked for it. And I hadn't even protested, or really noticed, when Sebastian scratched the hell out of my back.

All I'd been aware of was how good he felt, how the little slices of pain amplified everything and made it that much better.

"Didn't realize I was," I said lamely. I could've denied it, but what was the point? Isaac and Asa weren't just my coworkers. They were my friends.

I started at the garage just over six months ago. Isaac had been working here for almost three years now, and Asa officially started as a full-time employee after he finished his apprenticeship three months ago.

The shop we worked at was a small, family-run business. Asa, Isaac, and I mostly worked daytime shifts and occasionally filled in an evening or weekend one when needed. Zander and Luka worked evenings and weekends together, and our bosses were around whenever they needed to be and didn't work on any sort of set schedule.

Both Devon and his older brother Nate were mechanics by trade, but Nate was the business guy and spent most of his time in the back office handling that side of things, while Dev split his time doing shifts on the floor when we were short a mechanic and helping Nate in the office.

I loved working here. The atmosphere was chill. Our bosses treated us like adults, and they'd built a safe environment where we could be ourselves.

In the mechanic world, that was rare. Not every shop was staffed with homophobic assholes, but there were enough in the trade that I'd spent most of the last four years bouncing from shop to shop, trying to find a place where I could be open about my sexuality without having to deal with daily harassment or microaggressions.

I'd found that here. Most of the staff wasn't even queer. Asa and I were the only out guys, but Nate and Dev were loud and proud allies, especially since Nate's best friend owned a gay bar and worked closely with an LGBT youth shelter in town.

It was exactly the kind of workplace I'd hoped to find when I became a mechanic, and a part of me was terrified I'd lose it all if my secret got out.

The guys were chill as fuck. Isaac wouldn't have an issue with my past, and I didn't think Asa would either. Zander was a toss-up because he was so quiet and kept his opinions to himself, so I had no idea what he thought about sex workers. I didn't know Luka well enough to even guess what his reaction would be, but from everything I'd assessed, he could go either way.

Dev and Nate were the wildcards. I couldn't see either of them having issues with it coming from a moral standpoint. They knew my stepbrother was a retired porn star who still sold solo content and moonlighted as a stripper on top of running his contracting business, and they never once made any indication that they didn't agree with his side jobs.

But porn and stripping weren't the same as escorting. For one, they were legal. And while porn was still iffy for some people, it was becoming more normalized and accepted as a form of sex work.

Escorting wasn't. Most people in my life probably wouldn't care, but enough would that I needed to keep that secret close to my chest.

But I could talk to them about whatever the fuck was going on with Sebastian.

The three of us had grown close. And I'd heard enough about Isaac's sex life that some scratches were downright vanilla compared to his adventures. Asa was much more tight-lipped about his dating and sex life, but he enjoyed hearing about Isaac's adventures as much as I did.

If there was anyone in my life I could talk to about this, it was them.

"You going to see him again?" Isaac asked. "It looks like he was a good time."

"Definitely not," I said before I could find a better way to phrase that. One that wouldn't lead to any follow-up questions.

"Why not?" Asa asked.

"Was he all talons and no talent?" Isaac asked. "And by talent, I mean dick talent."

"I figured." I shot him a smirk. "It's not that. He's just not someone I need to see again."

"The one-and-done life." Isaac held up his fist for me to bump. "I respect that."

"Yeah."

"Liar." Asa's stare was piercing. "You liked it. There's another reason he's on your nope list."

"How do you know I liked it?"

"Because your neck went red when Isaac was teasing you about your love scratches."

"You're annoyingly observant."

"It's a gift." He smirked. "So why's he on your nope list?"

"He's a friend of the family," I said, not quite lying. I couldn't tell them it was Sebastian without outing him.

And he technically was a family friend. My parents and brothers loved him.

"Do you like him?" Isaac asked.

"Not like that." I couldn't stop my huff of laughter.

"What do you mean?" Asa folded his hands and studied me.

"This, that night… It was a mistake." I didn't bother bringing up our first mistake, the one that happened outside his cabin. "We got carried away."

"Carried away?" Isaac slid a little lower in his chair.

"How is that comfortable?" I asked. "My back would be screaming at me."

He grinned and slumped lower. "You know me. I can't sit still to save my life. But back to what you were saying about your family friend and his talons."

"There's not much else to tell. Him and I… It's complicated."

"So uncomplicate it for us," Isaac said.

I looked between them.

"Or you can just clam up and pretend everything is fine, like usual." Isaac's tone was teasing, but he wasn't wrong.

I'd never been the type to open up to people. Maybe it was a control thing or a way to protect myself, but I wasn't a talker. I could hold conversations and chat about pointless shit, and I was really good at listening to other people's problems, but talking stuff out didn't come naturally to me.

"There's just not much to say. We don't get along. Never have. He doesn't like me, and I don't like him. The other night we were arguing about something stupid, and shit got physical."

"Hate sex is the best." Isaac grinned at me. "Nothing beats an angry O."

"It didn't go that far. We just got each other off." I shrugged. Hopefully Asa couldn't see that my neck was hot again. "It was a mistake. We already agreed it can't happen again."

Asa's brow knitted.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing. I've never seen you blush before. Not once in the six months we've known each other. You've blushed four times in the last ten minutes. All while thinking about a guy you don't like."

"Maybe because I still can't believe any of it happened."

"Or because it was different, and you don't know what to do with that." He leaned back in his chair and spun his phone on the table. "You don't like feeling out of control, and I'm guessing that"—he waved toward my shoulder—"happened because you were both a little out of control."

"You're annoyingly perceptive," I grumbled.

"Am I wrong?" he asked knowingly.

I didn't answer.

Asa smirked. "I'm just saying that anyone who can make you step outside of your comfort zone might be worth spending more time with."

"Not this guy. This…thing between us is over. It was a mistake."

Asa and Isaac exchanged a look.

"I've got to get back out there." Pushing back my chair, I stood and untied the arms of my coveralls from around my waist. "How much time do you have left?" I asked Asa.

He tipped his phone toward him to check the time. "About seven minutes."

"Oh," Isaac said, snapping his fingers. "Nate wants to know if either of you wants to stay for an extra hour tonight?"

"I'll stay," Asa said quickly.

"Can you tell him?" Isaac asked me. "I was supposed to get back to him before I got changed." He looked down at his coveralls. "And can you tell him that I didn't get changed yet, so I didn't forget, I was just waiting until the right moment to ask."

"Sure." I finished zipping my coveralls. "I got you."

"Thanks, bro. See ya in the a.m.."

"See ya tomorrow."

I left Isaac and Asa in the break room and made my way back out into the car bays.

Luka was busy. The car he was working on was up on the lift, and the door to the office was open. Nate would be in there.

"Hey, boss?" I knocked on the doorframe.

Nate looked up from the mess of papers on his giant desk.

The brothers both had monstrous wooden desks in their office that took up the majority of the space and left little room to move around. No one knew why they'd chosen such huge desks, but according to Zander, who'd worked here since they opened the shop five years ago, they'd always been there.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Isaac told me to tell you that he hasn't changed yet, so he didn't forget to ask if we wanted to stay."

He smiled and put his pen down. "I'm surprised he remembered at all."

"Asa's going to take this one. Do you need anything before I head back?"

I'd taken my break late today and only had an hour left of my shift. I was looking forward to today being over.

Not because of work or anything, but I'd been out of sorts since Friday night and had been on edge all day. Thankfully no one had noticed. Well, Asa noticed, but he noticed everything. I'd managed to hide it from everyone else.

What happened at the party was a mistake. I couldn't take it back, but I could make sure it never happened again.

Sebastian and I were bad news, and we would always be bad news. He might have helped me discover a side of myself I hadn't known was there, but that didn't mean anything.

And it definitely didn't mean I had to explore these newfound kinks.

As hot as it had been, the whole fighting kink thing was unnerving. That wasn't me. I didn't like arguing with people, and I certainly didn't like putting hands on them. I could fight, but that didn't mean I liked to do it.

Unless it was with Sebastian, apparently.

The fact that it was him who triggered this discovery was pissing me off almost as much as him winning and making me come first. I hated feeling out of control, and I'd spent my entire life making sure I always stayed in control.

But all that disappeared the moment Sebastian started snarking me, and I couldn't even blame booze for any of it. One beer wasn't enough to get me drunk, not even if I chugged it. I didn't think he'd been drunk at all. I hadn't smelled anything on him, and he'd seemed sober.

Even if he was drunk, it didn't matter because I was the one who started things. Who escalated them.

I sought him out. I kept needling him about stupid shit like always, and I kissed him first.

He might have gotten on his knees for me, but he gave me the chance to say no. He paused long enough for me to tell him to stop.

But I didn't, because I didn't want him to stop.

I wanted to feel his mouth on me. To see him glare up at me with those hazel eyes that shifted from sea green to chocolate brown, depending on his mood. The brown really came out when he was pissed, but the green was most prominent when he was happy or turned on.

The fact that I knew that about him was as much of a mindfuck as the blowjob he'd given me. I shouldn't know these little things about him. I shouldn't know that he preferred imported beer and drank his coffee black. I didn't need to know that he could drive a stick shift or that he loved cats and hated chocolate.

All these details I'd picked up on over the years were irrelevant and unnecessary for me to remember, but I did.

"Jesse?"

"Sorry?" I blinked, focusing on Nate. I'd zoned out there for a second.

"Everything good?" He looked concerned now.

"Yeah. Just tired today. It was a weird weekend."

"Not used to having all that free time?" he joked.

"Nope. Forgot what it's like to have a life."

"A life? What's that?" Nate waved at his paperwork. "Between work and the kids, I've long since forgotten what having a life feels like."

"That's the price you pay when you're old." I clucked my tongue at him.

Nate was only forty, but he was a good sport about us teasing him for being the oldest guy in the shop.

"Brat." He pointed at the door. "Back to work."

"Yes, sir." I snapped a sloppy salute at him.

He laughed. "You and Isaac are going to be the death of me."

I beamed a big smile at him just to be cheeky, then slipped away from the door to head back to my station.

I paused at the door to the front of the shop. "Hey, Cass?" I asked our front-end clerk, who was also Nate's oldest daughter. "Do I have anything on my schedule?"

She checked the computer. "One more tonight. An oil change." She spun her stool around so she faced me. "I figured I'd toss you a softball for your last appointment."

"You're the best."

"I know." She grinned and spun back around.

One more hour and an easy job, then I could go home and spend the evening trying to forget all about Sebastian and my new kink.