Friday Night Jamie

by Bren Christopher

  Friday Night Jamie

  Bren Christopher

  Friday Night Jamie

  Copyright © November 2010 by Bren Christopher

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Bren Christopher. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights.

  eISBN 978-1-60737-887-7

  Cover Artist: Vinnie Oliver

  Printed in the United States of America

  Published by

  Bren Christopher

  brenchristopher.com

  This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning. This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language.

  About Friday Night Jamie

  His carefully ordered life is about to fall apart.Jamie is an accountant who lives by a strict schedule. Every day is planned; the future is predictable. And that schedule includes one night a week when he allows himself to blow off steam at a gay dance club in the City.

  One Friday night he gets more than he bargains for when he meets Matt, an out of work stranger with long dark hair and rough hands. The attraction is undeniable but Matt does not fit Jamie’s idea of the perfect man to share his carefully ordered life.

  Instead Jamie longs for a date with his dream man – handsome, sophisticated Keith, a successful Vice President at his prestigious New York accounting firm, a man on his way up.

  But everything changes when Jamie discovers a suspicious error in one of his accounts. Suddenly he finds himself on the run from both the mob and the FBI—and the only man who can help him is the tall, dark haired stranger he rejected. Because Matt is not who he seems—and neither is Keith.

  Chapter One

  My phone beeped at precisely noon that Friday, when Art knew I’d take a break. He didn’t call me during work hours, having learned long ago that I wouldn’t answer. Loosening my tie, I pushed back from the computer and turned off my monitor. It was lunchtime, and the spreadsheets could wait.

  Digging the phone out of my jacket pocket, I looked at the text. SPARKLERS CM. I called him back. “Hey, Artie. I’m up for it.”

  “Excellent. Meet you there? Then I’ll give you a ride home. It’ll be late, and you’ll be drunk.”

  “You’ll be drunk too.”

  “No, I won’t. Well, maybe I will. But Jen will be there, and she’s not drinking tonight. She wants to dance, but she has to get up early to go visit her mom.”

  I usually went to lunch with Sheila and Ed, my two fellow junior accountants. Right on time, Sheila appeared at the door of my small, windowless office and motioned for me to come along. No doubt Ed had already made his way to the elevator.

  I stood and grabbed my jacket, still talking to Art. “Sounds good. Anyone else going?”

  “Not that I know of, but I’m sure we’ll run into the usual crowd once we get there.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. I’m getting cross-eyed from staring at this computer. I’m ready to hit the clubs.”

  He laughed. “So am I. See you tonight.”

  After ending the call, I looked at Sheila as we made our way down the hall. Ed held the elevator for us. She had her eyebrows raised into the bangs of her bright copper hair.

  I grinned at her. “What? A guy has to have a little fun on Friday nights, right?”

  She snorted. “That’s fine for a while, but you’re not going to find a nice man to settle down with at one of those clubs.”

  I grinned wider. “Who said I’m looking for a nice man?”

  She laughed and shook her head. She used to be a party girl herself as I recalled, but since she had gotten engaged and moved in with her fiancé, it had become her mission to see that everyone else experience the same domestic bliss.

  Ed, on the other hand… “Enjoy it while you can, buddy. While you’re out doing the town, I’ll be helping my wife with my daughter’s sixth birthday party. Nothing like feeding cake and ice cream to a dozen screaming kids.”

  But he smiled as he said it, and I knew that his wife and his two children meant everything to him. I knew because it was the topic of most of his lunchtime conversation: birthdays, anniversary gifts, holiday get-togethers, and family vacation plans. I often envied his kids their caring father and normal upbringing. I wondered if they knew how lucky they were to have that normal life.

  We left the second-floor offices of Brooks and Stillman Accounting Services and made our way down to the sandwich shop on the first floor of the office building in Midtown Manhattan.

  After we settled in with our lunch at a little table, the conversation thankfully turned away from my love life. Instead, they were busy discussing rumors that the firm would be getting some new accounts within the next couple of weeks.

  “Have you heard we’ve acquired the Lawrence Industries account?” Sheila asked. “I heard we were getting that one, along with a couple of others from the Stetson accounting firm, but I don’t understand why they’re switching. I thought they had been with Stetson for a long time.”

  Ed shrugged. “Who knows what’s going on behind the scenes? All that schmoozing Keith Brooks has been doing is paying off, I guess. Taking the clients out to dinner, making deals on the golf course, flattering the wives—it’s a tough job!”

  I defended him. “Well, he’s good at it, isn’t he? He’s been bringing in a lot of new accounts lately, and that’s a lot of work.”

  Sheila looked at me, eyebrows raised. “Oh, somebody’s got a little crush on our VP of marketing!”

  I looked away, a little embarrassed. “I do not. I just respect the job he’s doing. Anyway, he’s not even gay. I’ve seen him with women.”

  “So you do have a crush.” She laughed. “Well, I can’t blame you—he is one good-looking guy. Anyway”—she leaned forward conspiratorially—“I actually heard he’s bi. Swings both ways, you know.” As if I didn’t know what bi meant.

  Ed scoffed. “That’s water-cooler gossip, Sheila. You shouldn’t be spreading it around.”

  Sheila waved a hand dismissively and sat back. “Well, that’s what I heard.”

  Ed looked a little uneasy. “Doesn’t matter anyway. Jamie, you should stay away from him. If we’re talking gossip here, I hear it’s more than just his charm and his golf skills bringing in the new accounts. He throws some pretty wild parties, especially for some of the younger clients.”

  I shrugged. “It’s his job to show the clients a good time and make them happy. Doesn’t matter anyway. He’s management, not to mention the boss’s nephew. He won’t look twice at me.”

  Ed muttered, “That would be just as well,” and I wondered if there was more he wasn’t saying. I almost asked for clarification but didn’t want to demonstrate my interest. Recalling last year’s Christmas party, I didn’t feel completely certain about my declaration that Keith wouldn’t be interested in me. We’d been at the bar and had reached for a drink at the same time; our fingers brushed. Instead of moving back, Keith’s hand had lingered, and he had given me that radiant smile just before being pulled away to talk to a client. I often wondered what would have happened if that moment had not been interrupted. Probably nothing, but I would never know for sure.

  “It would be great to get one of those new accounts,” Sheila said. “They’re really high profile.”<
br />
  Ed seemed doubtful. “You know they won’t go to one of us. The senior staff will get them.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure you’re right. How are you supposed to get ahead around here, anyway?”

  “Somebody has to retire or die, I guess,” he answered.

  * * *

  I pulled up the latest spreadsheet for the Tapman account late that afternoon. I already had a little bit of a headache from focusing on the screen for too long without a break. Abruptly I stopped scrolling and stared at the numbers on the monitor.

  Digging through the papers on my desk, I pulled out the Tapman folder, then compared some of the printouts with the screen display. I had been auditing the account in preparation for the year-end statements. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly the problem, but there seemed to be something off in the interest calculations. I backtracked the account as far as I could and found nothing else that seemed incorrect. The most recent updates had come from a holding company a couple of days before.

  My stomach clenched as I worried about whether I had made a mistake. Had I missed something earlier in the week? Or was it some problem I had just inherited? I hadn’t had the account very long, but it seemed like I would have noticed something before now.

  I wanted to stay and investigate further, but it was well past quitting time, and Art would be looking for me. I decided to wait and tackle it on Monday with a fresh start. I would need to make a few phone calls, and it had grown too late to do that today anyway.

  I began the documentation used to track error investigations and took a few screenshots. Then I downloaded all of it, including the spreadsheets, to a flash drive so I could use my laptop to look at it over the weekend and make sure I hadn’t missed anything before talking to my supervisor about it. John Eckland was a good boss and a good guy, but if you brought him a problem, you had better be sure it was a problem.

  Even so, I felt much more comfortable with him than with Ethan Brooks, the owner of the firm. Brooks had started the business twenty years before along with his partner, but Stillman had long since passed away. I didn’t have much contact with Brooks. He seemed polite enough, but there was something in his cold gray eyes that made me a little uneasy. I just hoped the problem could be resolved before it ever came to his attention.

  * * *

  As I locked my apartment door on the way out, I heard the loud yipping down the hall as the elevator doors opened. Too late to slip back inside my apartment. Mrs. Carmichael spotted me, as did her three little Jack Russell terriers. Not that I really didn’t like them—the dogs were actually kind of cute, and even though I could sometimes hear their barking through our adjoining wall, they usually settled down at a decent hour.

  Mrs. Carmichael, though… I just hadn’t wanted her to see me in my going-dancing clothes. I knew she’d have something to say about it.

  “How’s your grandmother these days, James?”

  “Not bad at all, Mrs. Carmichael. I’ll be visiting her soon.”

  She nodded. “Give her my best, will you? Tell her I miss our pinochle games.”

  “I will.”

  “On your way out, then?” The little brown eyes nestled in wrinkles looked me up and down, taking in the tight jeans that showed off my ass and the black mesh T-shirt that allowed a glimpse of the small gold nipple ring I had gotten one memorable night in college. A frown of disapproval appeared, accentuating the wrinkles and causing the eyes to practically disappear.

  I reminded myself that she had been a good friend of my grandmother’s for many years and forced myself to be patient. I answered, “Yes, just out with some friends.”

  “You should let me introduce you to my niece.” She had made the same offer several times, even after I had told her I was gay. Apparently, she thought her niece could “convert” me. But at least she had a high enough opinion of me to want to fix me up with a member of her family.

  “I don’t think so, Mrs. Carmichael, but thank you,” I said politely.

  Instead of pressing the issue as usual, she looked around, seeming uneasy. I glanced around too, but I didn’t see anything. “What’s wrong?”

  “Be sure you lock your door, James.” She said it in a low, theatrical voice. “My cousin lives in the building right next door. She said several apartments have been broken into the last couple of nights.”

  “Burglars? Was anyone hurt?” Alert but not alarmed, I knew better than to get too excited about the occasional apartment break-in. I lived in the city; it happened.

  She shook her head. “No. The thieves seem to know when people are out, and they’re very quiet. That’s what I heard. Maybe you’d better not stay out too late.”

  “I won’t. Thanks for letting me know. I’ll be sure to lock up tight. You do the same, okay? Be extra careful.”

  She smiled at me. “Oh, I’ll be all right. My babies will protect me, won’t you?” She reached down to pet her little dogs. They set up a renewed refrain of yapping as I escaped down the hall.

  I took the subway down to the club just off Broadway. Not a bad commute from the West Side apartment, it didn’t take long to get there. The warmth of an early fall in New York made a jacket unnecessary.

  Good-looking guys on the hunt filled the club wall to wall. Ladies too, gay and straight, everyone just out for a good time. The bass thumped through my chest, and colored lights strobed from the dance floor. Everyone knew the gay clubs had the best dance music.

  I met up with Art and Jen at the bar, and we started on the drinks. A few other friends were there, staff from the restaurant and some acquaintances from the club.

  I knew Art from college. He worked as a manager at an uptown restaurant, and he liked to party as much as I did. He worked most Saturdays and some Fridays, switching off with his assistant manager. I would hate the irregular schedule, but he would hate my desk job. He was a thin, active guy, his light brown hair combed neatly while at work but spiked straight up when we went out. I thought it looked kind of hedgehog, but I didn’t want to be the one to tell him that.

  We were never lovers, just good buddies, sharing our disappointments and accomplishments, talking about our life goals and dreams—nah, that’s bullshit. We just liked to party and didn’t want to do it alone. But he was fun, and being in the restaurant business, he always seemed to know about the latest great restaurant or club before it got so popular that we couldn’t get in.

  Jen worked with Art at the restaurant. I had to grin at her. “Love the hair, Jenny. Do you dye the hair to match your boots, or do you hunt for boots to match your hair?”

  This week, both her hair and her go-go boots were neon pink; last week, a shocking yellow. I always looked forward to seeing the variation.

  She laughed. “You’ll never know, sweetie, and sadly you’ll never know whether I’ve dyed all my hair the same color.”

  “Oh, yuck!” Art and I yelled it in unison. “We don’t want to know.”

  The bass pounded with a vibration I could feel in the pit of my stomach. After the second rum and Coke, I was ready to hit the dance floor.

  I was dancing with Art and Jen when the dark-haired man came right up and cut in front of me. I had to look up a bit—he stood just a little taller than my own average height. I liked that. Definitely more buff than me, filling out a simple black T-shirt and jeans. I liked that too. He moved like he was no stranger to the dance floor, athletic and graceful.

  I raised my eyebrows at the way he just moved in, blocking me off from my group. I felt like a deer that had been cut out of the herd by a wolf.

  “You’re not with anyone,” he said. “I’ve been watching you since you came in. He’s not your boyfriend?” Nodding at Art.

  “No, just a friend. What’s it to you? And what do you mean, you’ve been watching me? You some kind of stalker?” He was hot, maybe not my usual type, but I wasn’t looking for a long-term relationship here. I had very strict ideas regarding the kind of man I needed to share my carefully ordered life, and I knew I wouldn’t find
him by picking up some guy in a bar. On the other hand, that ideal man was nowhere in sight, and I needed… I just needed to know that someone wanted me, even if only for a little while. Even if only for one thing…

  He seemed amused at my challenging tone—he knew I was interested. And a bit drunk. He put his hands on my hips, and we moved together. I could feel the strength and warmth of his hands right through the fabric of my jeans, and it started a slow burn in my lower belly.

  “I think you don’t mind guys looking at you. You must be used to it. And something about the way you’re shaking that sweet ass in those tight jeans tells me you might be interested in more than just looking.” His hand stroked up my abdomen, then back down to slide under my shirt. His hands felt rough, calloused, the wrists thick with muscle. He smiled when he felt the little ring in my right nipple. “Nice. I’d like to take a closer look at that.” He rubbed it with his thumb, tugged on it lightly. “Taste it too.”

  The warmth in my belly flared into a full-blown fire. He could see it in my eyes because he put his hands back on my hips and pulled me in tight.

  His face closer to mine now, I could see his eyes were a dark, warm brown, the irises flecked with gold and framed by long lashes the same dark brown as the wavy hair flowing to his shoulders. I felt his breath, whiskey and warmth, as he brushed his lips lightly against my earlobe and down to that sensitive spot just under my ear. I shivered involuntarily, and he smiled. It annoyed me that he looked so smug. “Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

  “Well, if you’re not interested…” He took those warm hands off my hips, and I missed them immediately. He started to back away, and I grabbed his arm.

  “Bastard tease! I didn’t say that!”

  He grinned, came back, and slipped his hands around my waist. Then he tucked them into my back pockets and pulled me close again, close enough to brush against the bulge in the front of my jeans. I was getting harder by the second, and now I could tell that he was too.