30. Ford

CHAPTER 30

FORD

I should have told Boston I loved him.

It was the only thought that replayed through my head as the car left JFK and drove me back home.

I should have told Boston I loved him.

Kicking my shoes off in the middle of my living room and swatting Milo's tail out of my face, I told my cat, "I should have told him I loved him."

After getting restless and heading to the kitchen for a drink, I knew in my bones I should have told Boston Sheffield I loved him. I was stupid to let him walk away and get on a plane, with no return flight booked, without making sure he understood without a shadow of a doubt how I felt for him.

It was going to be hours before he landed in California and longer still before he made it from the airport to his parents' farm. I had nothing to do but wait and brood and dwell. Milo wrapped himself around my ankles and mewed up at me, so I gave him some wet food from the fridge and went back to my whiskey. I dropped my phone onto the kitchen counter, tapping it awake in case Boston had logged on to the Wi-Fi and decided to text me.

That train of thought felt more than a little bit desperate, and I let the screen go black while I fought to call up memories of the man I'd been before him. Pre-Boston Ford would never be moping about being home alone. Pre-Boston Ford would have already had someone on their way over, ready to get naked and on their knees.

Pre-Boston Ford wasn't me anymore.

I grabbed my drink and my phone, padding unhappily back into the living room. My bedroom had Boston all over it already, and I hated to think about what kind of sniffling mess I would turn into once I laid my head against a pillow that smelled like his skin. The couch seemed like a safer bet, even though it was the exact place we'd been when we had that first kissing lesson.

There was no place in my home where I could escape him, so I narrowed as much of my attention onto my phone as I could manage. Pulling up the MLS app, I busied myself with applying filters that included acreage and farm properties in the tri-state area. I focused on upstate, finding more than a few pieces of land that I had a sneaking suspicion Boston would love. I didn't know the first thing about what would make a good farm and what wouldn't, so I bookmarked all of them for a discussion when he came back from his trip.

I'd take a weekend and drive him to all of them, let him look around and even get his hands in the dirt if he wanted. Maybe it would snow. Maybe we could kiss in the snow. It would be cold outside, but the thought of fucking Boston on a hay bale ignited a whole slew of rural fantasies I'd never even dreamed of before. Though, that was another thing for us to talk about when he got home…

First up, his brother.

Second, a farm.

Third…

I wanted to top.

It wasn't that sex with Boston was unfulfilling, because it could never be, but even though I'd found myself versatile for the first time in decades, I was much more aligned with the sexual preferences of a top. Letting Boston do the driving for his first couple of times felt like the right choice to make because, even with my experience, taking a dick up the ass had the potential to be emotionally—and physically—overwhelming. I'd walk the line for him, but I hoped he would at least be okay to try it.

With the to-do list out of the way, I finished off my drink and realized I still didn't know what to do with myself. Now that I was in love, was I going to have to find hobbies that didn't involve spanking strangers until their asses turned purple? That sounded horrible and wonderful all at the same time because that meant I had an ass at my beck and call and that ass was Boston's, and I just knew he would love that little dose of pain in the mix. He'd taken to every other part of our roles so perfectly, I wasn't worried about the pain. I'd seen him tweaking his nipples when I sucked his cock, and after all, it wasn't like I was a proper sadist.

Not like Alex.

Sighing, I set my empty glass down on the side table, thinking about Alex and the absolute one-eighty he'd pulled since Beamer hooked up with Dalton. I think it had been just as surprising for Kale, who'd been beyond caught off-guard at just how deep Beamer's submissive tendencies ran, but Alex…He'd gotten a taste of someone who could keep up with him for the first time in five years and then lost it in the blink of an eye.

I called him and, much to my surprise, he answered.

"Hi, Ford," he said after picking up on the third ring.

"Alex."

He laughed. "I bet you didn't think I'd answer."

"I didn't," I admitted, "but I was hoping you would."

There was a short silence.

"What's up? You all right?"

"I was just thinking about you. Wanted to check on you."

"I'm being herded out tomorrow night," he said. "Proof of life and all that."

"Kale is just worried about you."

"I feel a lot better now."

"That's good." Another pause, because I didn't think either of us knew what to say.

"Did you want to come over or get a drink or something?" Alex finally asked.

"I'm not really feeling being alone right now, so that sounds great."

"That sounds like there's a story," Alex teased.

"Not sure I can share it yet," I said.

"Is this about your mystery man?"

"How do you know about him?" I asked, before I realized the answer. "What did Brooks tell you?"

"That you were going to be the next to fall, but he didn't say much else."

I scrubbed a hand down my face, cursing Brooks under my breath .

"You'll find out sooner or later," I said, "might as well tell you the truth now. Would you rather go out or stay in?"

"Honestly." I could hear Alex stretching as he talked to me. "I would love to get out of the house."

"I'll hop in the shower," I told him. "Just text me where to meet you and I'll be there."

"Lazy Dom." He huffed out what sounded like it wanted to be a laugh, but fell short. "I'll see you in a bit, Ford."

The phone beeped in my ear, signaling the disconnect. Leaving it on the table, I headed upstairs to the bedroom, ready to face the memories of Boston so I could get ready to go. The shower was boring, getting dressed was boring…

How had one man changed me so fully in such a short amount of time?

When I made it back downstairs, I plugged the address of the bar Alex had picked into my maps, then decided it was too cold to walk. I didn't have to go far outside to find a cab, and twenty minutes later, we'd emerged from traffic to a neon-lit bar that looked entirely out of place for as close to Manhattan as it was. As soon as I met my friend on the sidewalk, I wrapped him in a hug so tight it threw both of us off-balance. My shoulder bumped into the brick wall to my left, and Alex shoved me off of him with a laugh.

"You're clingy," he said with a smile.

I couldn't argue because it was just so nice to see him smile again.

"You're a recluse," I said, tipping my head back to search for a business name or a sign on the wall. "Where is this place?"

"Just a new spot I found."

"What's it called?" I asked .

Alex gave me a shove toward the front door. " Tryst ."

I snorted, rolling my eyes and undoing the buttons on my coat as I followed him inside. The bar, Tryst, was dimly lit with swaths of neon light coming out from behind cut-outs in the walls. The entire room was cast in a bright purple and blue neon that would have given the place a pretty seedy vibe were it located in any other part of town. Beyond the questionable lighting, it looked safe enough, with a mixture of high-top tables and low level seating arrangements with comfortable chairs and some couches in the mix. On the far wall was what looked to be a glass bar top, though I imagined, for safety sake, it was probably acrylic, and it also offered up some of that moody neon glow.

"Respectfully, Alex…how did you find this place?"

"Do you want the truth?"

"Of course."

We reached the bar, taking the last two stools down the entire length, all the way at the far end by the little tray where they kept the cherries and the lime slices.

"I met a kid on an app after Beamer moved," he said, raising his hand to flag down the bartender.

"A kid?"

"Obviously not a kid, you prick." He slapped my chest with the back of his hand. "He was legal, but young. He knew what he was doing with me."

Before I could open my mouth to question that comment, the bartender was there, a warm smile on her face for my friend as she greeted him by name.

"Back so soon, Alex?" she asked, tucking a bleached dreadlock behind one of her ears .

"Brought a friend." He pointed at me with a grin. "This is Ford."

"Like the car?" she asked.

"Like the…" I clenched my jaw together, deciding to not even waste my time correcting her.

"I'll have the usual," Alex said, thankfully making it so I didn't have to speak again. "And he'll have the same as me."

"What's the usual?" I asked after the bartender walked away. She looked like her name would be something like Flora or Fauna. I bet she smelled like patchouli, and I was suddenly glad Brooks had taken the initiative to arrange a trip to The Black Door tomorrow, because if this was where Alex had been spending his time, God help us all.

"Marigold makes a great dirty martini," he said.

Marigold was close enough to Flora for my tastes.

I wanted to get up and leave and drag Alex out of that place with me, but it was honestly so nice to see him again, I decided I could endure the ambiance—or lack thereof—for at least one round before I started to try and talk him into going somewhere else.

"Anyway, back to our earlier conversation. What do you mean he knew what he was doing with you? That feels like a weird thing to say about a hook-up."

Alex gave me a deadpan look that I wanted to smack off his face. "It was his job, Ford."

My eyes had to have gone a little wide at that, one of them twitching in the corner. But Marigold was back with our drinks and a casual smile for Alex that had me wondering if she was a prostitute too. I pulled a fifty out of my billfold and dropped it on the bar for her.

I leaned in closer to him, lowering my voice before asking, "Are you saying he was a sex worker?"

"Don't make it sound like it's not a respectable profession," Alex snapped, rolling his eyes and swirling an olive skewer around his glass.

I'd never been a judgmental man, and I was definitely not going to start with Alex. Though it was easy to judge his new choice of hangout, I'd never knock him down as a person. I understood as much as the next man in our friend group what it meant to have unique preferences and tastes in the bedroom, but I'd never imagined Alex so desperate for that kind of connection that he would have to resort to paying someone to play them out.

"I'm just surprised," I said, popping one of the stuffed olives into my mouth so I didn't say something regrettable.

"Anyway, this was where he wanted to meet up before we…"

"I can figure it out," I said.

"I know this place isn't our usual vibe, but the change of scenery has been nice," Alex said, taking a sip from his martini. The way his mouth twisted into a sour pucker led me to believe there was a reason a dirty martini at a neon dive bar on the outskirts of Manhattan had become his new favorite hangout.

"Are you still seeing that guy?"

"No. It was good while it lasted, but it wasn't a long-term thing for me."

"Not interested in playing for keeps?" I asked.

"I just needed to get some pent-up energy out of my system," he said. "But I'm looking forward to tomorrow."

"Back on the market, then? "

"I'm always down for a good time, Ford. You know that."

He had always been down for a good time, at least until things went south with Beamer. But I was happy to see him again, and even though Alex had a little bit more of an edge about him than he used to, I was fairly sure he was ready to come back around.

"Now." He bit into one of his olives, smiling at me with the green orb between his teeth. "What's been up with you?"

Days before, I never would have offered him the truth, but Boston and I had agreed that once he was home, we were going to tell Kale about us, we were going to find a way to have our relationship in the open. Hell, I had four properties bookmarked that I'd be ready to buy him at the drop of a hat if that was what he wanted. I'd have honestly bought him a plane if he didn't want to fly commercial anymore, would have bought him a house to get him out of his apartment. I knew he had his own money, but the edge of my obsession with Boston was far from wearing off. I wanted to own him in every way possible, and I was not above using my money to endear myself to him.

Anything to make him love me back.

"Well, if I tell you, you have to keep it between us."

"Brooks has already told me you're seeing someone," he interrupted, looking like he'd gotten the best of me.

"I know, but he didn't say who, did he?"

Alex shook his head.

"It's a secret," I said.

"Tell me."

"It won't be a secret forever," I tried to explain, my nerves suddenly getting the best of me. But if I couldn't tell my friend, someone who had no skin in the game, that Boston and I were involved, there was absolutely no way in hell I'd ever be able to tell Kale the truth about us.

"Out with it, Ford."

I took a healthy swallow of the strongest martini of my life, hoping the vodka and olive juice would offer enough lubrication for the truth to get out.

"I'm sleeping with Boston Sheffield."