by Sam Burns
“So, you wanted to ask me about my dad,” Keegan said, after their drinks had been delivered and there was nothing to do but talk.
Phil sighed. “That wasn’t all I wanted to ask about, Keegan. It’s been a long time. I wanted to reconnect. I know this must be hard for you.”
“Jesus Phil, he’s not dead yet.”
“I didn’t say he was! I’m sure everyone wants him to live a good, long time.” Phil played with the straw in his soda, pointedly not looking at Keegan. “But I know how you wanted to leave the family.”
For a moment, Keegan was stumped. “I wanted what?” The words had hardly left his mouth when he realized what Phil was talking about. The business; his father’s business. “I did leave, Phil. I’m out.”
Rolling his eyes like he was talking to a stubborn child, Phil enunciated each word. “Sure, for now.”
“No, for good.”
“And if your dad doesn’t get better, Keegan, what then?” Phil asked, apparently having run out of patience. “I get that you wanted out, but it’s not like there’s anyone else who’s going to take on the family legacy.”
Keegan was floored. The family legacy? A legacy of drugs, guns, and death? Did Phil really think Keegan was interested in furthering the family’s not-so-good name?
Phil seemed to take Keegan’s silence as agreement. “I’m sure your father wouldn’t want to burden you like that if he could avoid it, but it’s not like Owen could handle it.”
“No,” Keegan agreed. “Owen will never be a part of the business.”
It was strange how he could say it about Owen, but not himself. He wasn’t going back. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—not if he wanted to keep any shred of himself intact. But he couldn’t bring himself to say that out loud.
In some abstract way, he didn’t think he deserved to say it. He’d made that choice once, after all. What right did he have to unmake it? He supposed it was something to talk to his therapist about. Five years in, he sometimes thought she knew him better than he knew himself.
He hadn’t told her about Jon yet. What would she think about—
“Keegan?” Phil asked, motioning toward their waitress, who had arrived with their food.
“That was fast.”
“Not really, you’ve just been staring off into space for ages.” Phil didn’t sound annoyed, just amused. “I swear you haven’t changed at all, Keegan.”
But that wasn’t true. When they’d been dating, Keegan had been inattentive because he’d been working all the time, constantly expecting calls and leaving when he got them. He hadn’t paid attention to Phil because they were both shallow, and Keegan didn’t care about fashion, photographers, and annoying models the way Phil did. He guessed he hadn’t cared enough about Phil to fake it.
“I was a crappy boyfriend,” he told Phil, as though it were a revelation. He supposed it was, in a way. “I ignored you, and treated you like you were some kind of fashion accessory when I was paying attention. I’m sorry I did that.”
Phil looked stunned. “What? No, you—”
“You don’t have to make me feel better about it.” He leaned back in his chair and took a long sip of his tea. “I don’t remember a single conversation we had. We just went to parties, and I bought you stuff like you were some kind of trophy husband.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” Phil said weakly. “We were both kids. And I like going to parties.”
Keegan shook his head. “I have changed. I can see that now. I don’t like who I was then, and I don’t like how I treated people.”
“You’re not going to start calling up everyone you used to know and apologizing, are you?” Phil asked, looking dubious and amused at the same time.
“Nah. Looking back at it, I don’t like most of them, either.” Keegan offered him a grin before picking up his chopsticks and choosing a piece of tuna from his plate. “But I’m glad you came to see me, and I got to talk to you about it.”
Phil shook his head with a sigh, but didn’t respond. He just picked up his fork and started to work on his salad like it was a job. It was a few minutes before he spoke again. “So, I’m not allowed at your restaurant now?”
“You make Brigit uncomfortable.” Keegan thought that was a complete answer, but it didn’t look like Phil agreed, so he continued. “You’ve got my number, man. You want to have lunch, call me.”
“You haven’t been answering.”
Keegan put down his chopsticks and started patting down his pockets in a vain search for his phone. “Dammit. My phone died at the hospital, and I never recharged the damn thing. I must have left it at Jon’s this morning.”
Phil gave him a dubious look. “You stayed the night with the Boy Scout?”
He smiled and nodded. He didn’t see a reason to point out that they’d only slept, especially since they weren’t celibate. Keegan had just been too tired and stressed out to care about sex the night before.
“I can only imagine how exciting that would be,” Phil said dryly.
He was wrong, though. Keegan wasn’t going to say it, but Phil was the one who had bored him in bed. He’d wanted Keegan to be on top every single time. Testosterone-fueled, twenty-two-year-old Keegan hadn’t been able to tell Phil that he preferred bottoming. With Jon, all he’d had to do was hand over the reins, and Jon had taken them without question. He shivered, thinking about Jon’s long, lean body stretched out over him—
“You’re thinking about having sex with him right now, aren’t you?” Phil asked. He looked annoyed.
“No?” Keegan couldn’t keep the smile from his face. “Maybe.”
Phil made another face and went back to his salad. Keegan wondered if he’d ever be able to eat tuna sashimi again without thinking of sex with Jon. He wondered why he would want to.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jon Confesses His Crimes
Jon was starting to get used to Brigit being pleased to see him when he arrived at Wilde’s, and it was nice. She also seemed worried, though, which was not as reassuring.
“What’s up?” he asked, heading straight for where she was standing.
She frowned, and gave a half shrug. “Not exactly sure. Creeper ex came by and dragged Keegan out for lunch. He’s been quiet since he got back. Not sure what happened, but whatever it was, it’s got him bothered.”
“Would it be too ‘crazy jealous boyfriend’ if I threw a fit and said he had to stop talking to the guy?” Jon asked her, mostly joking.
Brigit snorted at that. “You wouldn’t do that even if I wanted you to.”
He supposed that was true. He didn’t like the guy, and wasn’t sure why Keegan wanted anything to do with him, but Keegan was a grown man who was capable of picking his own friends.
“He’s in the office,” she said, waving him off. “You can tell him I’m done for the night, and I’ll see him Monday. Do me a favor and make him happy? He’s got too much bad crap happening right now.”
He put a hand to his heart and bowed his head to her. “I shall do my level best, m’lady.”
When Jon arrived in the office, Keegan seemed happy to see him. His curly hair was messier than usual, but it suited him. He gave Jon an impish smile. “Your brother, man. He doesn’t need a job, does he?”
Jon laughed and threw up his hands in faux self-defense. “Don’t even suggest that. He might take you up on it, and then you’d have to put up with him every day.”
“One Brookfield in my life seems to be working out for me,” Keegan countered, crooking a finger to motion Jon over and giving him a lascivious smile.
“Oh, is that how it is?” Jon asked, but he followed the summons. He didn’t even consider refusing.
Leaning over where Keegan sat, he pressed their lips together. It felt forbidden, kissing in his office while Keegan was supposed to be working—like maybe the boss would bust in and demand to know what they were doing. Brigit had gone home, though, so no worry of that.
Before Jon knew what was happening, he was straddling K
eegan’s lap, and they were making out like a couple of teenagers.
“Where did this come from?” he asked when they separated for air. “Not that I’ve got a problem with it.”
Keegan smiled at him and bit his lower lip. “You wouldn’t believe me. And I shouldn’t say anyway.”
Jon frowned at that. “You shouldn’t?”
Leaning up to recapture Jon’s lips in another kiss, Keegan sighed and nodded. “Now that we’re making out, wouldn’t that be kissing and telling?”
“I think if you kiss me you’re allowed to tell me about it,” Jon reasoned.
That elicited a laugh. “I didn’t mean you.” When Jon curled up his nose, Keegan pulled him back in for another kiss. “I had lunch with Phil today. Couldn’t stop thinking about having sex with you.”
Jon’s eyes went wide. “You kept thinking about having sex with me while at lunch with your ex? Awkward.”
Keegan nodded. “He thought so too.”
That was enough for Jon. He collapsed against Keegan, laughing. “You told him?”
“I guess I wasn’t subtle about it,” Keegan said.
“And here Brigit was worried about what had happened. She thought you were being quiet because you were bothered.” Jon leaned in and pressed their foreheads together. “And you were just in here thinking about sex.”
Keegan’s smile faded, and Jon pulled back to look at him. “Yeah,” Keegan said, his voice softer than usual. “He just reminded me of some stuff I don’t think about too much anymore.”
“Anything in particular?”
“How I used to be an asshole,” Keegan said bluntly. “I treated him like crap.”
“He said that?” Jon asked, ready to jump to Keegan’s defense, but Keegan shook his head. “You said it?”
“Yeah. I just—the way I was with him is so different from the way I am now. I don’t like that guy. I don’t want to be him.” Keegan wasn’t looking him in the eye anymore, and it made Jon nervous.
He reached out and cupped Keegan’s cheek, running his thumb along the sensitive skin beneath his eye. “You’re not, Keegan. And you won’t be. You made that decision, and you’ve changed.”
Keegan glanced at him, but looked away again. “Did I? Or did I just do what I had to, to get by? Am I still that guy under all this civility?”
Jon blinked. “No.” He leaned down to force Keegan to meet his eyes. “Don’t you get it? If you were that guy, you wouldn’t have been able to become what you are. You wouldn’t be worried about this. You wouldn’t have someone like Brigit worrying about you being sad.”
“I apologized to him for the crappy stuff I did back then,” Keegan said. “I dunno if it makes up for anything, but I guess it was for me more than for him.”
“Apologies usually are,” Jon agreed. “And it’s not like he’s completely innocent.”
Jon was berating himself for saying it before it had even finished coming out of his mouth. Too late to fix it by then, though. Like Jones had told him, he was terrible at keeping secrets. Damned Max and his snooping.
Keegan didn’t even have to ask, he just raised an eyebrow.
Hanging his head, Jon sighed. “I’m sorry, Keegan. I just—I didn’t mean to—”
“How about you just tell me what you know about Phil, then we can talk about why you know it?” Keegan asked reasonably.
Jon nodded, and laid out the bare bones of the arrest record Max had read aloud—but only the bits that would be publicly available.
“Wait,” Keegan interrupted after a moment. “You’re saying that he beat up his boyfriend? That doesn’t make sense. It’s nothing like the Phil I know.”
“Maybe he’s changed,” Jon suggested. “Or maybe you just never saw that side of him.”
“Maybe,” Keegan agreed, but he looked like he didn’t believe it. He shook his head. “Drugs too. That’s not something I expected. Phil didn’t even used to drink. He was afraid it’d spoil his looks.”
Jon frowned at that. It did seem odd that a man would go from refusing to drink to doing all the drugs he could get his hands on. Unless he’d just been dealing, not using. Still, there was something wrong with that picture.
“So you learned this how?” Keegan asked, giving him a hard look.
There was something behind that look that unclenched the nerves in Jon’s stomach. Amusement. Keegan thought it was funny, the bastard. Jon gave his chest a shove, which only served to lean the chair they were sprawled on against the wall. “I was complaining to a coworker about your ex popping up. He pointed out that if he was related to the investigation even tangentially, we’d have a record on him in the computer. So he looked it up and read it to me.”
“You didn’t read it?” Keegan asked, amusement even more heavy in his tone.
“No, I did not. I shouldn’t have listened to him reading it. And I shouldn’t have told you about it, and—” Keegan pressed a finger to his lips.
Jon went still, and after a moment, Keegan pulled his finger away and replaced it with his lips for a soft, sweet kiss. “Have you told me anything I couldn’t have found out myself by searching public arrest records?”
Jon shook his head.
“And did you come tell me about it the minute you found out, to convince me to stop talking to him?” Keegan asked.
He shook his head again. “It’s not my place to tell you who I think your friends should be, even if I can’t stand them.” Especially, he thought to himself, if he mostly couldn’t stand them because he was jealous that they’d been part of Keegan’s life.
Keegan surged up beneath him and pushed their lips together. “Stand up,” he ordered. Jon shuddered, but complied. “You still jealous of a guy I’m not sleeping with?”
“A little.” There was no reason to lie about it. “Why, are you going to teach me a lesson?”
“Maybe.” Keegan pushed him back against the desk, running his hands down Jon’s body, landing on his fly and slowly unbuttoning and unzipping him. He glanced at Jon’s tie. “Red briefs?”
“B-boxers. Don’t have any red briefs.”
“Gonna have to buy you some,” Keegan whispered against his lips. “You look fucking hot in those tiny briefs.”
“Keegan, what are you doing?” Jon asked. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what Keegan was doing, really, more that he had no idea why it was happening. His cock was completely on board, though, stiffening at record speed and ready to spring free of his boxers without any outside help.
Keegan gave him a wicked smile. “I’m giving you something Phil’s never had.”
He continued rubbing Jon’s cock through his boxers with his left hand while he pulled out his wallet and rifled through it with just his right. He found a condom and slipped it out, then put the wallet back into his pocket, all one handed. It was a nearly impossible display of dexterity, and watching it made Jon even harder. The man had to practice that kind of thing, and Jon wondered what else he could do with that hand.
Keegan seemed to notice Jon’s distraction, and leaned in to kiss him breathless again. Then, satisfied all attention was on him, he slid down to his knees. He pulled the soft red material of the boxers down to free Jon’s cock, and leaned forward to give it a tiny lick. Pulling back to lock their eyes again, he ripped open the condom and rolled it, excruciatingly slowly, down Jon’s length.
By the time he actually leaned forward and took Jon into his mouth, Jon was already about to blow. “K—Keegan, I don’t think I’m learning the right lesson here.”
Keegan made a humming noise around his cock, and his eyes sparkled with amusement. Jon thought he might be laughing at him. He let his hand fall to tangle in Keegan’s hair. He couldn’t look away from those beautiful blue eyes.
“Not, ah, not going to las—” Jon tried to choke out a warning. It seemed like good etiquette regardless of the condom, but he was seized with a sudden inability to think of etiquette, or anything other than Keegan, his beautiful eyes, and the feeling of his mouth on Jon
’s cock.
Jon moaned loudly as he came, throwing his head back and clutching the desk so hard that he could hear the wood creaking. By the time his brain reconnected to the real world, Keegan had already gotten rid of the condom, cleaned him up, and was tucking him back into his pants.
“Where the hell did that come from?” Jon asked. “And why? I did a bad thing.”
“You were jealous of Phil,” Keegan said with a shrug. “Now you’ve had a piece of me he never got. And you didn’t do anything bad.”
“I didn’t?”
“Did you tell me I can’t be friends with him?” Keegan asked.
Jon rolled his eyes at that. “Like that would work, even if I wanted to tell you what you were allowed to do.”
Keegan leaned forward and gave him a swift kiss. “Exactly. And don’t worry. I’ll be careful with Phil.”
Jon smiled at that. “Thank you. Not just for, um—you know, for everything.”
“You’re welcome, for everything,” Keegan answered, tugging Jon forward by his tie. “Now we should go eat, and see if we’ve traumatized my staff.”
“Traumatized,” Jon scoffed. “Given them a free show, more like. They’re probably thrilled, if they noticed. If Brigit hadn’t gone home, she’d be calling for an encore.”
“Later,” Keegan agreed with the notion of an encore. “At your place.”
Given the amused smiles and thumbs-up they received when they emerged from the office, rumpled but none the worse-for-wear, the staff had indeed noticed. Keegan just grinned at the nearest server, took Jon’s hand, and led him over to his table.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Keegan and the Black Bean Burger
Keegan spent the next few days feeling queasy.
He tried to put what Phil had said out of his mind, but it kept coming back. What was Keegan going to do about the family business if his dad didn’t get better? Owen was never going to be involved with that stuff, and Keegan would do whatever he had to do to make sure of that.
