Stay A Little Longer

by Jess Bryant

  “The first thing you need to know about Fate is that we protect our own.” Lemon argued, “Nobody is going to talk about you to anyone outside of this town. Oh, they’ll gossip about you behind your back but nobody’s gonna sell you out. I promise.”

  He thought about that. It was true that when Lemon had run away she’d hidden in Fate for a month and nobody had splashed her whereabouts all over the tabloids. The people of Fate were accustomed to having a celebrity in their midst. And he trusted Lemon. More than he trusted anyone maybe. But the last time he’d trusted someone he’d been burned and the flames were still bright in his rearview mirror.

  “I’m not one of you though. I’m an outsider.”

  “Not if you’re with me. If you’re my friend then you’re Shane’s friend and if you’re Shane’s friend, you have the entire Fate Sherriff’s department at your back and nobody’s gonna mess with you if that’s the case.”

  That sounded far too simplistic, “Lem…”

  “This is my fault, Trent. I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard to tell that bastard how you felt. Let me make it up to you by doing this.” Her voice softened again, “Please? I want to see for myself that you’re okay. At the very least, stop through and spend the night. We can talk in the morning and if you still want to keep moving, you can.”

  He rubbed a hand through his hair for the hundredth time and sighed, “Okay.”

  He found himself agreeing before his mind had truly processed it all. It was one night. He needed to get somewhere and sleep. It was getting late and he’d been driving most of the day. He could crash in Fate for one night and if, tomorrow, he still felt the urge to run he’d keep heading west until he hit the coast or the media circus died down or he figured out what he wanted to say to everyone that thought they had a right to know his personal business.

  “Seriously?”

  “Okay.” He repeated when Lemon skeptically asked if he was serious. “Yeah, I’ll come to Fate.”

  “Oh my God, I didn’t think you’d actually agree.” She gave a whoop of delight that almost made him smile, “I’m hanging up before you change your mind. I’ll send you a drop pin for the trailer and you can go straight there. I’ll swing by and make sure it’s made up for you. Crash and call me when you wake tomorrow. We’ll talk more then.”

  “Okay.” He repeated.

  “See you soon.”

  “See you soon.”

  The line went dead and silence filled the rental except for the sound of his tires on the highway. A few miles later a notification popped up on his phone giving him the location of the trailer, as promised. He programmed the GPS to take him there and listened as the robotic voice told him that he would arrive in Fate, Texas at approximately 9:57pm. Just in time to fall into a bed, get a few hours sleep and recharge his batteries.

  He’d spend one night in Fate and then he would come up with some life-changing decisions tomorrow. It seemed like as good a plan as any. After all, the place was called Fate. Maybe it held the answers he was looking for, even if he wasn’t sure yet what the questions even were.

  Chapter Two

  What a motherfuckin’ train wreck of a day.

  Lance Nichols cursed under his breath as he crawled back into his cruiser after writing a speeding ticket to one of his ex-girlfriends. It was actually the third one today. Not tickets. He’d written a handful of those. No, it was the third ex-girlfriend he’d had to face today and considering not a one of his relationships had ever ended on a positive note they hadn’t been pleasant reunions.

  He was a bastard. He knew that. He’d come to terms with that and a whole lot of other painful truths a while ago.

  He could be a cocky son of a bitch, a side effect of being born with good looks and plenty of charm. He’d been the popular prom king, football team type of guy in high school and in a small town like Fate that had earned him unending hero worship. Adding in the badge only drew more attention, particularly from women, and in his younger years he’d certainly reeled them in as fast as they threw themselves at him.

  He’d flipped and flopped and spiraled and ducked and leaped on new girl after new girl. He was embarrassed to say he’d cheated, more than once. At the time, he’d chalked it up to not being relationship material. He’d told himself that he wasn’t the settling down kind of guy.

  But somewhere, in the back of his mind, in the darkest parts of himself that he kept pushed down and hidden and reigned in on a tight leash, he’d known it was something else. That he needed something else not just someone else. It had taken him a long time, a lot of years, and using up pretty much every available woman in town for him to admit he wasn’t going to find that someone that satisfied his wants and needs.

  Not here. Not in Fate. Not in the arms of a woman at all.

  He shook the stray thought out of his head like he always did. He did not need that shit eating up what little brain power he had left tonight. He was exhausted. He was beaten up and bruised from the verbal insults he’d had hurled at him and all he wanted to do was go home, collapse into his bed and sleep through the next forty-eight hours of free time before his shift started all over again for a new week.

  Lance pulled the police radio to his mouth, “Base come in, this is Nichols.”

  “Base to Nichols, go ahead.” The familiar voice of Sheila, the office dispatcher, greeted him and if he wasn’t mistaken she snarled a little bit less when she said his name than she usually did.

  Maybe she was just having a good day, unlike him. Or maybe she was finally starting to get over the fact that he’d slept with her daughter and then bailed the next morning without so much as a promise to call. It had happened six, no seven years ago. Shannon was married now for god’s sake. But Sheila still snarled at him whenever he walked through the office and never missed a chance to point out that he was late or had forgotten to check a box on his paperwork. She hated him, just like every other woman in this godforsaken town.

  “Heading in for the night. Shaw called in yet?”

  “His shift started twelve minutes ago so yes, of course he has.”

  Lance rolled his eyes at the sarcasm oozing out of the older lady. Oh, she loved Shaw. He was her good boy. Always checked in early for his shifts, brought her breakfast when he was on days and the little shit had sent her flowers, fuckin’ flowers, on Administrative Professionals Day. Lance hadn’t even known there was such a thing.

  “Good.” He said evenly, “Signing off.”

  “Noted and relieved of duty.” Sheila paused, “Have a good weekend Deputy Nichols.”

  He snorted as he put the radio down. Yeah, she was having a good day. She only ever bothered with civilities when she was in a good mood. A wise man probably would have returned the gesture but nobody had ever accused Lance of being smart.

  Besides, he was having a shit day and he didn’t feel like pretending otherwise. All he wanted was to go home and fall face first into his bed. He wanted the voices in his head to stop taunting him and only getting drunk or passing out could manage that. Sometimes one and then the other. He was too tired to swing by the Quick Stop for a six-pack so it would just be sleep tonight which was fine by him.

  He was over this day.

  If it had just been Julie, his previous stop, berating him it wouldn’t have been so bad. She’d been one of the last women he’d dated before he stopped sleeping around. If anything, she’d known what she was getting from him. Nothing. But still she’d pissed a bitch fit about him being a lying SOB.

  Thing was, he lied about a lot of things but he’d never lied to Julie. He’d never promised her a damn thing. Even still, he’d let her snap and snarl at him while he wrote out her ticket, told her to slow down and have a nice weekend as he walked away.

  But her accusations lingered in his head along with all the others.

  He’d never lied to Britney Cox either. Hell, she’d all but jumped him, not the other way around. But he was still the one to blame for them not working out, which was true, so
he let her have her anger even though it had been nearly a decade since their on again off again on again off again relationship had resulted in her dumping him once and for all.

  Yeah, she’d dumped him but he was the bad guy.

  She’d said he wasn’t over his ex, that she didn’t feel like he was really with her, not even when they were having sex, especially not when they were having sex. And again, she hadn’t been wrong, not about a bit of it, so when he had to pull her over for running a stop sign he’d let her go with nothing but a warning. She’d flipped him off as she drove away.

  Julie and Britney he could have dealt with. It wasn’t like he didn’t run into women he’d slept with all over town. But it was Maddie that had ripped his chest wide open, just as she always did when she crossed his path.

  He hadn’t ticketed her. Of course not. Perfect little Maddie McBride… No, Maddie West, his mind corrected him. She was Maddie West now and had been for far longer than she’d ever been his but somehow he still couldn’t wrap his head around her marrying Devin West of all people. He’d simply run into her in the diner today when he grabbed lunch and just as it always did, seeing her broke his heart.

  Because he had loved her. She was the only woman he could say that about. He’d loved Maddie the way any teenage boy loved. Wholeheartedly, desperately, he’d loved Maddie with everything that he was. But it hadn’t been enough. Not nearly enough. And he’d hurt her. She was patient zero on his path of destruction and he would never get over that because Maddie represented everything he should have wanted.

  He’d loved her. He still did. But he hadn’t been in love with her and he never would be. He’d tried. Oh, how he’d tried. But it had never felt right being with her. He’d known that he was bound to ruin some part of her if he kept up the lie but instead of being a man and telling her the truth, he’d cheated. He’d strayed and let her catch him. Let himself become the bad guy.

  And then he’d just kept at it because so long as he was buried in a soft, curvy body he didn’t have to worry about anyone figuring out that what he fantasized about was hard muscles, sharp planes and angles and big hands gripping his body forcefully. He didn’t have to admit what he wanted was to feel a rough jawline beneath his lips, feel the friction of a five o’clock shadow against his own. He’d thought if he just ignored the urges and tried harder to want soft and sweet and feminine then it would go away.

  Denial was a powerful fuckin’ thing.

  He was a grown ass man now. Not some confused teenage boy or a young man with a chip on his shoulder. He was old enough to stop lying, at least to himself.

  He was gay.

  He’d come to terms with that truth and stopped trying to bury his urges in every female body he could get at. But he was still hiding. Still lying to everyone in his life, everyone that mattered to him. And that was why the voices taunted him at all hours and every single time he ran into one of those women, reminding him of his sad, lonely, pathetic existence.

  His work buddies thought he had a girl in the city or more likely a girl in every city. He’d built up a badass bachelor legend when the truth was he spent most of his nights at home jerking it to porn that would make his friends blush and stammer if they saw it on his computer. Occasionally he did trek out of town, all the way to Dallas, as far from anyone that might know him as he could get, to hook up at some bar where he could be a nobody in the dark. But those weekends were few and far between and being gay in a small town meant he was so deep in the closet he couldn’t even see daylight.

  Because there weren’t gay guys in places like Fate. Nope. No way. They were all born and bred alpha males. Cowboys and ranchers and farmers, football gods and book nerds alike. They were all just looking for that one sweet girl to make them a nice little wife, set up a home and pop out babies. At least that was the standard line everyone was selling, himself included.

  Lance knew of a few men in town that were at least bi-curious. He’d seen them give him more than a few long glances. But he’d never looked back. Never given even a hint to anyone that he might want to take them up on their offers. Because God only knew the shitshow his life would turn into if he was outed now. He was already a bastard with a line of exes ready to flay him alive. If they found out he preferred dick but had plowed through all of them in a bid to hide his sexuality, they’d string him up in town square.

  He cracked his neck and tried, again, to force those thoughts to the back of his mind. It was never easy but when he had a shit day like today it was a hell of a lot harder to ignore the hard truths. His life would be easier if he got out of Fate, for good.

  But no matter how many times he thought it, he’d never once considered pulling that trigger. Because this was home. Even if it was full of a bunch of small-minded people that would tell him he was going to go to hell if they ever found out who he really was.

  He pulled his truck into the small driveway between his trailer and the one next door. This was home, for better or worse or some shit like that. It was a sad and sorry excuse for it but it was his.

  His family had never had much and he’d scrimped and saved for this tiny trailer in the park on the edge of town. It was home though, his, and it was his safe place. He didn’t have to be anyone else inside that trailer. Just him. Gay porn and dildos and all. That’s what home was all about right?

  Lance crawled out of his truck and squinted at the SUV sitting on the street. It was out of place and he’d never seen it before. He glanced at the trailer on the other side of his driveway suspiciously. It had sat dark and empty for a few months now. Had Lowry rented it out again? God, Lance hoped not.

  The last tenants had let their four demon spawn run loose through the neighborhood at all hours, screaming at the top of theirs lungs like they were being murdered. They’d played in the street and bounced balls off his trailer when he was trying to sleep. He’d threatened to lock them up and throw away the key but nothing had ever deterred the little brats.

  He’d been thankful for the peace and quiet when they moved out and he didn’t like the idea of new neighbors. Right now, his was the only trailer on this particular section of the park that was filled. It gave him room to breathe, one less thing to worry about with no nosy neighbors next door poking their heads in or looking through his windows. He shot a glance at the other trailer again but it sat just as dark and empty looking as it had when he’d left for work in the morning.

  He made a mental note of the tag number. The SUV had out of state tags which was weird. They didn’t get too many new people in Fate and if someone was moving in, he would have heard about it.

  As a deputy with the FSD he should probably check into the strange vehicle but he just couldn’t make himself care. Not at this hour. If he wasn’t exhausted he might have given it more thought but as it was he was just happy whoever was over there was asleep, just like he intended to be shortly, so he wouldn’t have to make small talk.

  He’d check on it in the morning if it was still there.

  Lance pulled the door of his own trailer open and stumbled up the stairs into the darkness. He toed his boots off, leaning against the kitchen cabinets so he didn’t fall over as he threw his socks aside as well. He unclipped his utility belt and put it on the counter. Locking up his gun was protocol but that would mean turning on the lights to put the code into the safe in his closet and he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  His head ached. His body hurt. And he left a trail of clothes as he stumbled his way to his bedroom in the back. He was down to his boxers by the time his legs hit the edge of the bed and he simply collapsed…

  Right onto a big, hard, warm body.

  “What the FUCK?”

  Lance wasn’t sure if he’d said that or if the body in his bed had. Maybe they both had. They scrambled, arms and legs tangling as they struggled against each other. Lance caught a fist to his gut and wheezed out a breath. He managed to get a decent knock in on what he thought was the intruder’s jaw. There were more curses and shou
ts. Lance managed to get the upper hand and locked the struggling intruder beneath him with a forearm to the throat.

  “Don’t you fuckin’ move!”

  “What the…” The guy, it was a guy, he’d figured that much out in the struggle, groaned.

  “I said don’t move.” Lance pressed harder on the throat beneath his arm, “I don’t know what kind of moron breaks into the home of a police deputy but if you move, I’m gonna shoot your dumb ass.”

  “What? I didn’t… dude, get the fuck off me! Lemon told me I could stay here.”

  Lance blinked in the darkness, trying to get a gauge on the man beneath him, “Wait… what? Lemon Kelly?”

  “You know another Lemon, jackass?” The man surprised the hell out of him when he bucked his hips and spun, effectively pinning Lance to the bed in one smooth move that would have gotten his full attention even if he hadn’t felt the cock pressing against his thigh in this new position. He’d been upended. Easily. By a stranger in the dark. And his dick had decided to take notice. Fuckin’ fantastic. He struggled to control his response but the guy scrambled off of him before he could react further, “I didn’t break in. She left the door unlocked for me.”

  Lance was still struggling to piece together what the hell Lemon Kelly had to do with a strange man ending up in his bed when the light flicked on. He blinked, blinded by the sudden brightness. Or maybe he was just in shock.

  Because the man standing across the room from him, the man that had been sleeping in his bed and pinned him down with nothing but a flip of his hips, the man that was wearing nothing but a pair of white boxer briefs that showed off every goddamned inch of him in all it’s gorgeous glory… was none other than Trent Thorne, worldwide superstar.