Winter's Gamble

by Armstrong, Mechele

  When they called his name from the stage, Neo went down the aisle, slowly. Moving his hips and getting into the rhythm. Dancing had always been his calling. If he’d been shorter, he would have stuck with ballet. His teacher would be shocked to see him strutting right now and might even have fainted if she saw him take off his shirt and pants. She’d always had a yardstick up her ass.

  He shimmied onstage, faced the audience, preparing to strip, and stumbled. Probably only a few people noticed. They were still cheering him on.

  Had Phil noticed?

  And what the hell was the bastard doing here? On a Sunday, no less.

  His hungry gaze bore into Neo like a weevil gnawed into plants. Those needy blue eyes captivated him and made him stop. Phil’s brown hair was longer than it had been five years ago, but still was short. His tanned body radiated power from heavy arms to thick thighs.

  And an even thicker cock. He might not be able to see it, but Neo still remembered.

  He’d been fun five years ago. He’d made Neo laugh. There was a rawness about him that had attracted Neo beyond reason.

  He still had that, damn him. Neo couldn’t be in a room with him without being hyperaware of his presence. Like now.

  He fucked you beyond consciousness. The best lay to be had. And then he left you high and dry without a word.

  The bastard watched him without smiling. His gaze threatened to consume Neo whole.

  Neo had stopped dancing for a second. Dammit. Why did Phil always have to put him off his game? He started moving again but remained conscious of the man in front of the stage. When Phil was bartending, it was easier to ignore him, as he was off to the side. Right up in front would take a little doing.

  Neo slowly tore off the already ripped tank top to reveal his chest. He’d oiled down backstage, so his skin shone in the bouncing colored lights. The music thump-thumped in his chest.

  He thrust his pecs out, giving a sexy look. Yeah, see what you passed up by leaving.

  He drew attention to his hands and rolled them down his body before undoing the snap to his leather pants. He’d learned early on not to wear tight leather, because it was harder to get off. Loose leather worked fine for this but wasn’t anything he would go clubbing in. Not that he went much anymore.

  He slipped the pants off, not losing his balance in the process, and revealed a thong. He couldn’t go any further, nor could any of the patrons stuff his clothing with dollars. They had to hand them to him.

  He wouldn’t be accepting any dollars from the man up front who still watched him without a cheer or a word.

  Rose came up in front of him. “Neo, ladies and gentlemen. He sure knows his way around a stage. Wouldn’t you like to get up there and dance with him?” She offered her hand out to Phil. “Come on.”

  Phil froze, looking like a squirrel about to be flattened by an oncoming semi. He shook his head.

  Rose arched a brow. No one said no to Rose Winter. “Get up here.” She reached forward and grabbed his hand. She had to pull hard, but it was either wrench his hand from her tight grip or go. Phil resisted, but he went.

  So that’s what the bitch had in mind. Neo stood, not moving. Fuck this shit. He’d always been told the show must go on, but he wasn’t about to finish this number. He took a step toward the front of the stage, intending to go over the wall. To bail on this stupid mission and probably his future with this job.

  Phil grasped his hand.

  “Let go of me.” Neo bit out the words, beyond caring.

  “I know you hate me. Don’t toss this away. Not over me.” Phil then looked away. He wouldn’t meet Neo’s eyes.

  That was true. Neo couldn’t afford to lose this gig. Not over a man of any sort, especially this one.

  He started to dance again.

  Rose let out a breath that she’d apparently been holding. “Neo. He’s too sexy for the whole damn stage.”

  Neo shot her glare and tried to tell her with his expression, this wasn’t over. He and Ms. Winter would be having a chat later.

  * * * *

  Neo paced the dressing area. Damn them both to hell. What a crock of shit. He didn’t even bother putting on his shirt, though he had slipped his jeans back on. Everyone else had gone home, but he was waiting.

  Rose sashayed in. “You wanted to see me?” She gave him a look that said it better be good.

  It was. “What are you trying to pull?”

  “What do you mean?” She stared into his eyes without blinking.

  If he hadn’t known the situation, he would have believed that innocent look. “You know what I mean.”

  She folded her arms in front of her fake bosom. “Enlighten me.”

  “Pulling fucking Phil up onstage to dance with me.” Neo bit out the words, hating having to explain this.

  “So fucking what?” Rose waved a hand. “You have a problem with Phil? Work it out. I don’t have time for drama.”

  The bitch. “You know we have issues. I talked to you about it. I told you what happened.”

  “You may have. But I deal with lots of dancers, Neo. Some of them have problems with staff, each other, other workers, audience members. I can’t keep them all straight.” She pursed her red-lipsticked lips together. “I can’t keep shit straight, much less who isn’t talking to whom.”

  He blew out a breath. Unbelievable. “Then what was all that about explanations before I went on?”

  Both bare shoulders rose and fell. “Motivation.” She cocked her head to the side, a familiar lecture look. “Truth is, I don’t care what your problem is with Phil. Work it out. Today.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you almost stopped the number. You almost took down the show. Whatever happened, you need to move on, baby. Or you’re never going to come to terms with anything. Your life is too short to waste on shit like this.”

  “He fucking walked out on me.”

  “And you almost walked out on my show. That makes this little feud my business. And I say…work. It. Out. Before it does come to bite you in the ass more than it did today.”

  “Rose.”

  The subject of their discussion stood in the doorway. Phil looked as if he didn’t know whether to run or stay.

  “Ally said you wanted to see me.”

  “And she took her own sweet time passing along that message.” Rose huffed a little. “You two have issues with each other. You both are employed here. You need to figure this out.”

  It was Neo’s turn to fold his arms over his chest. “It’s been working up until now. I don’t think anything needs to be fixed.”

  “It does when you almost leave in the middle of a dance number.” Rose pointed at him, shaking her finger. “Don’t make me handcuff you two together. Do it on your own.” She walked to Phil and shoved him in the room. “Talk it out.” She slammed the door behind her.

  Great. Fucking great.

  PHIL LOOKED AT the angry dancer in front of him. Everything about Neo screamed closed off. “I never told her or anyone what happened between us. Or asked her to do this.” Neo wouldn’t believe it, but it needed to be said. What was Rose’s angle? She’d had dancers fighting before and hadn’t tried this hard to get them to settle the situation.

  “And that’s supposed to make feel better?” Neo snapped his shirt up and yanked it on. It was a wonder he hadn’t ripped it in the process.

  “No. I’m just saying.” Phil couldn’t help his gaze moving over the lithe man’s body. He hadn’t buttoned his shirt, and the gap revealed a muscular chest. Neo was probably still wearing the bright orange thong he’d worn onstage under his jeans. Phil felt his cock rise just thinking about it. Neo best not notice it, or he’d get more pissed off than he was right now.

  “Whoop de doo. That changes nothing.”

  “Look, we can keep avoiding each other. I’ll tell Rose we talked, and it’s all okay. That’ll keep her happy.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. They’d go back to status quo. It was all he deserved.

&nbs
p; “Unless you’re a better liar than you were back then, she’ll never buy it. I doubt you’ve improved.”

  Phil chuckled. Maybe it would lighten the mood. Neo glared at him, and he sobered up. Maybe not. “I’m not any better at it.” When they’d first met a couple of weeks before their evening together, he’d told Neo that he’d been doing a research paper, and that was why he’d needed to talk to Neo. Neo had seen through that from the beginning.

  “I figured as much.” Neo looked at him from over long, dark lashes. “Rose isn’t dumb. You’ll never fool her. Not even with those puppy-dog eyes.”

  Phil wasn’t sure he’d defused the situation, but Neo didn’t sound so angry, even if he was still shooting dagger looks at Phil. “Maybe you should tell her.”

  “Maybe.” Neo didn’t look at him. “You could quit, you know.” He snapped the words.

  Phil’s heart stopped beating, and he couldn’t breathe for a second. Neo hated him that much. “I could.”

  “But that would leave the owners in a lurch. They talk about how dependable you are. Much more so than any other bartender they’ve had. Pity.” His voice was brusque, as though he were discussing something simple.

  “I’ll quit if you want.” This was the best gig he’d had since graduating bartending academy. It wasn’t only Neo’s presence. He made more up front without having to depend on tips and had a better schedule. But again, it was what he deserved for what he’d done to Neo, so he’d not fight it.

  Neo still didn’t look at him. “Nah. That wouldn’t be fair to the bar. And I guess you gotta make a living.”

  Phil’s breathing resumed. Not to mention he did like working where he could at least watch Neo. “Thank you.”

  They stood in silence for a minute. Phil couldn’t stop looking over Neo’s body. And that’s when he noticed the rise to Neo’s jeans. Even denim couldn’t disguise his thick erection. Phil swallowed, trying now to look anywhere but Neo’s crotch. The idea that the man had a boner wasn’t an easy one to walk away from. It’s probably adrenaline. There was no way it had to do with Phil’s presence, even if it would be a shot in the arm to find out it did.

  “Why the hell did you walk away?” Neo finally looked him in the face as he asked the question, as if searching for the answer there.

  Phil’s laugh this time was anything but good-natured. It was the first time Neo had ever asked the question. Probably because it was the first time they’d been in the same room for this long without a bar or a stage between them. “I was a fool.” He’d reacted instead of thinking it through, and it would be a regret he had until his dying day.

  “Well, that’s a given.” Neo sat on a stool facing Phil. “But it explains nothing about what happened.”

  Phil nodded. “It doesn’t.” How did he put this? Could he ever make Neo understand? Neo had been out of the closet so long, would he understand someone who hadn’t been? “It’s a long story.”

  “Tell me. I got time apparently, according to Rose.” Neo settled down, drawing even more attention to the evident erection that still poked up. “And I’ll know if you lie. I can always tell.”

  “All right.” Phil took his hands from his pockets and put them together in front of his face. “I grew up in the sticks. The country. Redneck central. Where football is king, and if you don’t hunt, you’re a wussy.” Probably a place Neo had never even gone to visit. But it had been all Phil had known until college.

  “Sounds hellacious to this dark-skinned queer boy. But go on.” Neo tapped his hand on his leg.

  “Being gay? It wasn’t even thought of. Or talked about. Everyone assumed you were hetero. I knew I was…different? I wasn’t sure how. I didn’t know anyone who was gay until college. Then I met you. I knew why I was different then.”

  Neo leaned forward so quickly, he looked like he might fall over. “Wait a fucking minute. I was your first?”

  “Kind of. Yeah. No. I’d had…a one-night thing in college, but it…wasn’t…it was experimenting only… I mean, in the morning he acted like he didn’t even know me. Like I said, being gay wasn’t on the radar. It was something for the big-city folk and movie stars. Not regular people like where I was from. Like me.”

  He could still remember the coldness from the college boy he’d had the encounter with. The way the young man hadn’t even wanted to be around him after that. It wasn’t like Phil had made him. Or raped him. Phil had figured it out a few years later. The college student had been afraid Phil would talk. This guy was so fully in the closet, the moths couldn’t visit. Phil had been almost as bad. Even after college, he hadn’t known he was gay, just thought it was a onetime thing.

  “I wasn’t just in the closet—I was in the back corner with miles and miles of room around me to the door. And then I met…you.”

  “I do have that effect on people.” Neo motioned a hand as if to say, “Go on.” Was he believing Phil, or did he have doubts?

  “You were open and honest about what you were. I was attracted to you. And I realized something about myself. That I like men. I always had, but I had no prior reference point.” Phil ran a hand through his well-gelled hair. “I came to the edge of the closet. I was on the brink of the threshold the night we had sex. I was ready to storm out.” He’d been so idealistic, thinking if he were happy in a relationship, that people who loved him would have to accept him.

  “But you got shoved back in? Because you never came out. And you left me fucking high and dry in the process.” Bitterness laced the words.

  This was where things got less simple and murkier. “The morning after we…well, you know…we…”

  “Fucked.”

  “Yeah, fucked.” Phil would have put it in less crude terms, but that was what had happened. He couldn’t deny that. “I got a call from my brother. My mother had passed out.”

  “While you were with me?”

  “You were dead to the world snoozing.” Phil had been watching him sleep. He’d been so close to having what he wanted. He’d made so many plans as he’d watched his lover sleep. The call had shattered that. “You didn’t even hear the phone ring.”

  “So you booked to the hospital but couldn’t leave me a note about your mother? Really?” Neo arched a brow. “Like I wouldn’t understand family and how you needed to go to them?”

  Phil leaned heavily on his hand. “My brother didn’t only tell me she passed out. He told me what she’d kept from the family until they got to the ER.” His voice caught, but he kept going. “Inoperable brain tumor. Big. She was dying. He laid it all out on me on the phone that morning.” He took a deep breath. “And he knew where I was. A friend of his had seen me with you. He told me it would kill our mother, so unless I wanted her funeral tomorrow, to grow some balls and hide it.”

  “Oh wow.” Neo sounded horrified. His mouth drew up into a pucker. “I can’t imagine.”

  “Yeah. Neo, I couldn’t… I knew it would devastate my family if I admitted what I knew I was now that my mother was dying.”

  “They wouldn’t have been able to handle it.”

  “No. They wouldn’t have been. And I wasn’t ready to take a stand to lose them over this, especially with my mother’s condition.”

  Neo looked thoughtful but didn’t say anything.

  “And I didn’t tell you, which probably was another mistake. I mean I’d found out this terrible news. I didn’t know how to handle that myself. I bottled it up inside. I didn’t tell anyone.”

  “You went through this alone?”

  “Yeah.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t know you well enough to know how you’d react, and I couldn’t figure out how to handle things. I’d only recently accepted what I was. I knew if I told you, we’d continue to see each other, and my mother would eventually find out. I’m not that good at hiding things.”

  “So you ran away from me?”

  “Yeah. Not one of my better moments, I know.” Phil looked up at the ceiling for a brief second. If he could go back and change i
t, he would. He would tell Neo everything from the start. “By the time I’d come to grips with what was happening to my family, you weren’t ready to hear any explanations, and I thought…my mother would pass on, and then I’d get to lead my life. Maybe even come back to you and explain what had happened. I thought if I were patient, I’d get what I wanted in the end and not hurt my mother.”

  “But you never did that.”

  “My mother died a year ago.” His voice didn’t break. It wanted to, and he almost heard the crack. By the end, he’d been ready to lose her because of all the pain and the changes the tumor had caused. It didn’t make it hurt any less. “She hung on, even when they thought it was the last time she’d pull through. The doctors were amazed. And…I was stuck. Knowing I was gay would have killed her. She was old-school. She wanted grandchildren and a white picket fence for me.” Once he’d started living the lie with her, he hadn’t known how to stop. His brother had reinforced it, threatening Neo with the worst possible outcomes like his mother’s imminent death if he ever told his secret. Well, not really threatening him, but he’d preached doom and gloom should Phil ever come clean before their mother died. “I kept thinking if I held on, I’d get…but it didn’t happen.” Life would never be the way he wanted, because Neo wasn’t an option anymore. Maybe in the months immediately after Phil had walked, but not five years later. Phil didn’t blame him on that.

  “Are you out now? Out of the rear end of the closet?” The chair creaked as Neo leaned back.

  Now Phil was proud of what he’d done with that. “Yeah. About a month after my mom passed, I came out to my family.” It had been hard. They’d accused him of grieving and not knowing his mind. They’d wanted him to wait before doing anything and acting on his urges. “My father disowned me. But my brother accepted it for the most part. He and his wife. I have a good friendship with them. I’m living my life the way I want to now. I’ve even had a relationship. But it ended.”

  “Good for you.” There was sarcasm laced all through that comment. Phil couldn’t blame him for that.