by Tessa Bailey
He was watching them.
What the fuck?
Knowing something important was at play, Jamie ignored the sudden layer of clammy sweat on his skin and returned his attention to Andrew. “What the hell is going on?”
Time ticked by and Jamie thought Andrew was going to keep the information to himself, but he eventually spoke. “I don’t know. He’s been hanging around the bar. Yesterday I saw him pass by the house.”
“And you’re only telling me this now?”
“It’s Sunday,” Andrew said, throwing Jamie’s words back in his face.
They traded a smirk.
“You think it’s because of Rory?” Jamie asked. “He’s been staying out of trouble.”
“I don’t think it’s Rory.” Andrew picked up his clipboard and consulted it, but Jamie didn’t think he was seeing it at all. “I think it’s—”
Jamie made a sound to cut him off. “It’s not.”
His brother only looked slightly reassured. He tucked the clipboard under his arm and circled around to face Marcus’s chair. “Please tell me I don’t have to worry about this thing between you and Marcus, Jamie.”
They weren’t talking about the cop anymore. That was obvious. “Relax. I’m helping Marcus achieve his dreams of entrepreneurial juicing.”
“Is that a sex thing?”
“Jesus Christ.” Jamie dipped his shoulder and nudged Andrew off balance. “He’s opening a juice shop called the Main Squeeze.”
“Which also sounds like a sex thing.”
“Good lord. You need to get laid, A.”
Andrew laughed, but there were shadows in his eyes. “Who has time for that?” He stabbed the air with a finger. “If you say Jiya, I’ll assign you and Marcus the same fucking chair for a month.”
“Oh…yeah.” Jamie cleared his throat. “Please, don’t. That would be torture.”
“Real convincing,” Andrew returned with a snort.
Jamie regarded his brother, taking note of the tension in his shoulders. It had been there when he arrived, but it was far more pronounced now. “Talk to Jiya. Tell her how you feel.”
Andrew was already shaking his head, his Adam’s apple coasting up and down. “These hands aren’t fit to touch that girl. And you know it.”
He didn’t give Jamie a chance to respond, but turned and walked back down the beach, once again ignoring his bevy of admirers and reluctantly giving in to a high five from Marcus as he passed his chair.
When Jamie climbed back into his chair a few minutes later, the cop on the boardwalk was gone.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Marcus finished his set of dead lifts and dropped the weighed down bar, immediately throwing himself into a set of fifty pushups. He’d been at the gym going on two hours. The strain in his muscles wasn’t enough to rid him of the constant sexual frustration, but it momentarily took the sting out of it. He finished the set of fifty and rolled over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling, rivers of sweat running down his temples.
“Way to be dedicated, bro!”
Marcus waved absently at the passing trainer, his lifeless arm flopping back down onto the mat. Hopefully he’d have enough energy to pick up a pen and sign the lease—it was happening in one hour. Jamie was meeting him at the building management office. Hence Marcus drilling his body with a two-hour workout.
Today was Wednesday. The last time he’d touched Jamie was in the wee hours of Sunday morning on the boardwalk—and he’d felt every fucking second of it. He’d finally caved and searched for the correct pornography, but even that hadn’t helped. He just kept comparing everyone on his laptop screen to Jamie. That guy is too blond. That one is too thin. Smiles too much. Moans too loud. Doesn’t wear glasses. Inevitably, Marcus would end up shutting the laptop and replaying the night Jamie came over on a continuous loop, stroking his dick and he erupted in his own hand with Jamie’s name on his lips.
Christ, he had it so bad.
His stomach was in a constant state of chaos.
I have to stay away from Jamie.
I can’t stay away from Jamie.
Marcus should be ashamed of himself. After that infuriating revelation about that evening on the beach, he should have no problem doing what was best for his friend. Jamie had been through some harrowing shit at the hands of someone who shared far too many similarities with Marcus. No wonder he’d tried to ditch Marcus so many times. Of course Jamie couldn’t have some secret relationship behind closed doors. It probably felt like déjà vu.
And the worst part? Hooking up with Marcus and keeping it quiet made Jamie feel used and dirty. Like there was something wrong with him—and Marcus couldn’t abide that.
Yet he continued to be drawn to Jamie like a bee to the most beautiful flower in the garden, taking advantage of the nectar, the nourishment he got from being close to Jamie. He was like an addict who couldn’t resist the pull of one more hit. One more hit.
“Get up, bitch.” The toe of someone’s sneaker caught him in the ribs and Marcus looked up to find two gym regulars standing above him, laughing. Marcus had trained these guys when they first started CrossFit and the three of them had become friends. They’d gone out drinking a few times and even had a barbeque together on the beach last summer, but Marcus had started ducking their texts of late. “Look at this lazy ass. Maybe you should switch to girly pushups.”
And this was why.
Marcus’s laugh lacked spirit as he sat up. “Just taking a rest. What’s good, men?”
“Summertime is good,” said Mark, rubbing his stomach and looking at himself in the mirror out of the corner of his eye. “Out-of-town girls. Enough said. Shit, you must know all about it. You probably get first pick of the Down For Summers with that whistle around your neck.”
“Yeah, women go crazy for whistles. I can’t peel them off.” They didn’t pick up on his sarcasm, responding with eager nods—and for once, Marcus felt like the smartest person in the room. “Anyway, I have an appointment—”
“Hold up. Any cute lifeguards you can introduce us to? Maybe a little blondie or something?” Mark elbowed the other guy, whose name Marcus couldn’t remember, despite their numerous hang sessions. “Or have you banged them all already?”
The other guy snorted “Who cares if he’s banged them?”
Nausea rolled in Marcus’s middle. What would happen if he said out loud right now that he did know a cute lifeguard, his name was Jamie, and they’d be introduced to him over Marcus’s dead fucking body? They’d likely back away slowly and next time Marcus came to the gym, no one would act the same around him. They’d all know he was gay. Right now, in this moment, getting rid of these assholes didn’t seem like a bad thing. At all. But it would be a massive life shift. His comforts would be gone. He’d walk around feeling exposed, the way he’d felt the afternoon Joey almost caught him meeting Jamie at the train station. Everyone he knew would think they couldn’t relate to Marcus anymore, even though he was still the same man.
He was just fucked up beyond all recognition over a man named Jamie.
“I have to go. Good luck with the ladies,” Marcus muttered, peeling himself up off the mat and lumbering on jelly legs to the locker room. He showered and yanked a brush through his hair, donning a pair of black mesh workout pants and a gray T-shirt. After a quick check of the clock, he realized the lease signing was set to begin in ten minutes, so he shoved his feet into a pair of size fourteen Chucks and jogged out of the gym with his duffel bag thrown over his shoulder.
Thankfully he didn’t have far to go. The man who owned the building where the juice shop was located also owned two of the neighboring buildings, and the management office was in the ground floor of one of them. As soon as Marcus stepped out of the gym, he saw Jamie leaning against the building across the street, thumbing through his phone. The gym and everyone inside faded away and all he could do was stare. God, Jamie looked so good. They’d both gotten their shifts at the beach covered today so they could make the lease si
gning, and while Marcus had gone fitness casual, Jamie was wearing a bright white polo shirt and dark olive green khakis. Something he would wear to teach, maybe?
Marcus was so entranced, he almost walked into oncoming traffic.
A car barreled past blaring its horn and the next time Marcus looked up, Jamie was watching him with raised eyebrows. “Christ, Diesel,” he called. “Try not to die.”
The tips of Marcus’s ears were on fire and probably fire engine red, but he put his head down and trundled the rest of the way across the street, anyway. “Hi Jamie. The office is locked?”
Jamie sighed and nodded, glancing over at the glass storefront with the words Han Management written across it in white script. “Yeah, there’s a back in fifteen minutes sign hanging in the door.”
“I guess we wait,” Marcus said, nodding at Jamie. “You dressed up.”
He looked down. “Not really, you’re just used to seeing me at the bar or on the beach.”
Marcus dropped his bag and posted up beside Jamie, his back resting on the wall of the building. “So this is the kind of getup you wear teaching?”
“No, I…” Jamie hesitated, his mouth twitching. “There might be a sweater vest or two in the mix. The occasional sport coat. It is a private school.”
“They call you Mr. Prince?”
“They better.”
Marcus grinned. “You pretend to be mean, don’t you? You give a lot of homework and make the tests hard, but when someone fucks up or fails I bet you give them an extra credit assignment. Huh?” He elbowed Jamie in the side. “I bet you say, ‘this is a one-time thing, Randall Jennings the Third’ and give them bored eyes, but you would probably give them the chance again, because you hate giving bad grades.”
It took Marcus a moment to realize Jamie was staring at him with his jaw on the ground. “That was all just a guess?”
“How close am I to the truth?”
“Eerily close.”
“Well, I don’t know much.” Marcus tapped his temple with his index finger. “But I know Jamie Prince.”
Jamie continued to look at him and Marcus could almost sense the racing of his thoughts. He opened his mouth to respond to Marcus, but the sound of flip-flops slapping the sidewalk interrupted whatever it was.
“Hello, hello, I’m Mr. Han.” Marcus and Jamie bumped shoulders as they turned to find a Korean man carrying a to-go bag closing the distance between them. “I went out to get some lunch. You don’t mind if I eat while we sign.”
Apparently it wasn’t a question.
They waited for Mr. Han to unlock the door and flip on the lights, before following him into the air-conditioned office. He ushered them into a conference room and got busy spreading out his Subway sandwich, potato chips and cookie. Then he sat down, took a bite and stood back up. “My empty stomach made me forget the lease agreement.”
Jamie and Marcus traded an amused look and waited for Mr. Han to return. Within seconds, he was back in the conference room with two copies of the rental agreement. He slid one across the table toward Marcus.
Without missing a beat, Marcus passed it to Jamie, who adjusted his glasses and leaned back in his chair—and Marcus could suddenly picture him in thirty years, wearing a sweater vest and reading something smart beside a roaring fire. Would there be someone there with him? A man who wasn’t afraid to acknowledge who he was and embrace it, consequences be damned?
The image made Marcus want to karate chop the table in half.
Mr. Han took another bite of his sandwich, pointing the six-inch sub at Jamie. “Is this your business partner?”
“I’m just here in an advisory capacity,” Jamie said without looking up from the lease.
With an effort, Marcus shook himself free of the jealousy and nodded. “What he said.”
“This says his working hours mustn’t begin before nine o’clock in the morning, but our clientele will be freakishly motivated fitness enthusiasts, so we’ll need that amended to six.”
The landlord stopped chewing and started again. “I can do that.”
“Why are you requiring a four-month security deposit?”
He shrugged. “I like security.”
Jamie’s eyes ticked to Marcus. “Was that stated in the advertisement or agreed to over the phone?”
“No.”
Back to Mr. Han. “We can do two months.”
Marcus watched with fascination as Jamie and Mr. Han eyeballed each other across the table, Mr. Han chewing slowly, Jamie seemingly bored with the proceedings. “Three months.”
Jamie shrugged. “As long as we can write in a ten-day grace period on the rent.”
“I suppose that’s fair.”
“Extermination services are included in the rent, I assume?”
Mr. Han took an extremely large bite of his sandwich, then shoved the remainder of it away. “Half the cost.”
“Fine. But let’s knock two percent off these yearly rent increases. The Castle Gate’s rent goes up in smaller increments and we’re on the busier end of the boardwalk.”
“Oh, the Castle Gate, hmm?” Mr. Han looked impression. “You have good sandwiches.”
Jamie grinned. “The best.”
Marcus pointed at Mr. Han’s lunch. “Are you going to finish that?”
Half an hour later, Marcus and Jamie walked out of the management office with two shiny sets of keys and a rental agreement tucked into a manila envelope. They walked in silence down to the vacant space Marcus had leased and stopped, their reflections staring back at them from the glass window.
“I want you to have a set,” Marcus said, pressing the ring of keys into Jamie’s hand, electricity zipping up his arm when their fingers brushed. “That was really something, Jamie. You’re just…really something, you know? I wouldn’t have thought to ask about the grace period or any of that stuff.”
Jamie looked down at the keys in his palm. “Andrew or Rory could have done the same. When our father—” He broke off for a beat. “When he left, we had to go over every line of the Castle Gate lease and figure out what wasn’t working. Getting a leg up on the landlord is kind of second nature now.”
“Yeah, but they didn’t do it. You did.” Marcus swallowed. “Thanks.”
They traded fleeting eye contact. “You don’t have to give me a set of keys.”
“Please take them?”
Jamie nodded once and stowed them in his pocket. “Should we go inside?”
Marcus shook himself out of the satisfaction-induced haze that had descended when Jamie accepted the keys and unlocked the door. “Hell yeah we should. The sooner we start planning the better. I—” As soon as he stepped over the threshold, he ran smack into a wall of heat. “Christ, the AC hasn’t been running. I didn’t think of that.”
“Is there a back door we can open?” Jamie asked, coming in behind Marcus and wincing. “This reminds me of the first and last time I went to Florida.”
They managed to prop open both doors and get some air flow, but considering Long Beach was hovering at a strict eighty-five degrees, the crosswind didn’t help much. “I’ll call the electric company and get the power turned on. I won’t have you working in here and getting baked, Jamie.”
The words had flowed naturally off Marcus’s tongue, but when he glanced over, Jamie was frowning at him. “You, Rory, Andrew.” He shook his head. “What is it about me that brings out everyone’s protective side?”
“Probably the fear of being without you,” Marcus said without hesitation.
Jamie started. “I’m not sure friends say things like that to each other, Diesel.”
“Maybe this friend does,” he said, his stomach suddenly full of helium. “Maybe it means I’m your best friend.”
The untrained eye wouldn’t have noticed Jamie softening, but Marcus saw the strain lessen around his eyes, his lips parting just a hint. “Maybe it does.”
Remember you could hurt him. Marcus transferred his attention to the ground as fast as he could. Why cou
ldn’t Marcus stop swimming to the deep end with Jamie when he knew he’d only swim back to the shallows afterward and leave Jamie feeling shitty? “So, uh…” He cleared his throat. “What do you think of the place?”
Jamie, who’d been watching Marcus steadily as if he could read his thoughts, took a walk around the small commercial space. Marcus turned in a circle, trying to see it through Jamie’s eyes at the same time. There was an exposed brick wall on one side and that’s where he envisioned the high tops. A long partition and counter was already in place from when it was a smoothie shop and it took up most of the space, leaving only a small area to order and wait. But Marcus’s absolute favorite part was the ceiling. The original tin ceilings made the place modern and old fashioned all at once.
“It’s great, Marcus,” Jamie said from behind the counter. “Not so big that you’re going to be overwhelmed—and what’s here is quality.” He ducked out of sight. “This must be a custom-fitted refrigeration system, because I can’t imagine the last owners leaving it behind otherwise. It’s a damn good one. Andrew is going to be jealous.”
“I could go for some refrigeration right now,” Marcus said, swiping at the perspiration rapidly forming on his brow, and gestured to his shirt. “Do you mind if I…?”
There was only a small hesitation from Jamie before he nodded. “I might have to do the same.”
If Marcus thought the air was swampy and thick before, the heat tripled when both Jamie and Marcus drew their shirts off over their heads. They tossed them onto the counter at the same time, staring at each other across the store. A bead of sweat ran down the center of Jamie’s chest, traveling over ridges of muscle and Marcus’s shaft thickened.
You’re going to hurt him.
“I was thinking, um…” Marcus forced himself to turn away. “I was thinking we’d have a refrigerator out here with energy drinks, water. Quick grab stuff for lunch.”
“Yeah, I like that idea.” Jamie’s voice sounded gruff. “You should hang a mirror on the wall. Mirrors tend to attract your fitness brethren, don’t they?”
