Clickbait

by E. J. Russell

  “Hey, Alex.” Dave saluted him with his coffee mug. “New guy on deck tonight.”

  “On our crew?” Alex frowned. Damn it, if Manny had enough work to hire additional crew, he could have given Alex more shifts.

  “Nah. Some contractor.” Dave chuckled. “The guy has no fucking clue. He tried to vacuum the floor underlayment—with a hand vac, no less—while the drywall guys were hanging the Sheetrock.”

  “Thought he’d have a stroke when he saw the dust on his fancy-ass loafers,” Tommy said.

  “You should check him out, Henning.” Cal grinned around his ever-present wad of gum. “You might get lucky.”

  Alex ignored him and unpacked his Makita, testing the battery with a couple of trigger-pulls before he stowed the drill in his tool belt loop. “You jokers think you know my type?”

  “Sure.” Bud planted one steel-toed work boot on an empty cable spool. “You do guys. He’s a guy, and he’s gotta play for your team.”

  “How do you know?” Alex did a slow pan around the circle of men. Cal, Bud, Tommy, Dave. “You guys been experimenting?”

  They all burst into identical guffaws.

  “Naw, man,” Bud said. “But, you know, he seems like someone who wouldn’t mind being the girl.”

  So many things wrong with that statement, but Alex refused to go there—or at least not all the way there. “Tell me this. You think the only reason I need to be attracted to someone is that he’s obviously gay?”

  Cal chomped on his gum, clearly having a tough time processing. “Well. Yeah.”

  “So you’d do any woman, doesn’t matter what she looks like?”

  Cal frowned. “Is this one of them trick questions?”

  “You’re assuming a woman who’d have him,” Dave drawled. “That narrows the field.”

  “Hey.” Cal punched Dave in the shoulder. “I got plenty of opportunities.”

  “So any woman. Appearance doesn’t matter?”

  “Nah,” Cal said with a last glare at Dave. “As long as she’s got a decent rack. And no facial hair.”

  “And teeth.” Tommy took a gulp of coffee and bared his own. “She’s gotta have those.”

  All the guys nodded. “Goes without saying,” Bud said.

  “See?” Alex shrugged. “Not any girl will do. You’ve got standards. So do I.”

  “Come on, man.” Bud slurped his coffee. “Not like you’ve got a lotta choice. I mean, there can’t be that many queers around.”

  “I’ve got as much choice as Cal does.”

  “Hey!” Cal scowled, and they all laughed again.

  This time, Alex joined them. “Later, guys.”

  He found Manny studying the plans and handed him the approved permits. “Here you go. Piece of cake.”

  “Flashed your smile at them, flexed a couple of times, and they were happy to stay open past closing time?”

  Alex grinned. “What can I say? They love me over there.”

  Manny snorted and checked his clipboard. “Haynes finally suckered some poor bastard into taking the contract IT job. Started tonight, so you oughta be able to get rolling on the cat-five wiring soon. Guy’s name is— Shit, where’d I put it?” Manny scrabbled through his notes. “Here it is. Wallace.”

  Wallace. Alex’s stomach dropped like a stone. Can’t be. Can it? “That his first name or his last?”

  “How the fuck should I know? Find him and ask him. And when you do, tell him to get you the network diagram yesterday.”

  “Sure.” I’ll get right on that. Or not, if the contractor really was Gideon. Alex didn’t need any more attitude on the jobsite than he got already.

  He picked up a spool of cat-five cable, nodded to Manny, and threaded his way through the forest of bare metal studs and exposed insulation. When he neared the spot in the far corner that’d be the server room someday, he heard a voice—the same voice that had threatened him this morning—and his nerve failed.

  Although the voice was clear, its owner was blocked from sight by a stack of Sheetrock. Alex hustled over and mounted a ladder under a gap in the drop ceiling. Masked from the waist up, he could pretend to work on the wiring while checking out the server space through a couple of missing ceiling tiles. His mom would have given him so much grief about eavesdropping, but screw it.

  Gideon—yep, it was definitely him—paced under the makeshift peephole, and Alex nearly fell off the ladder.

  Holy fucking shit. Gideon was wearing a tool belt. A leather one, slung low on his hips over tight, yellow jeans. The pants were decorated with a weird brown pattern, like battling bacteria, but even so he was still hotter than hell.

  Gideon dodged a spool of cable, his cell phone pressed to his ear, obviously pissed as all get-out.

  “Not everyone appreciates your sense of humor, Charles.” Ah. He must be talking to the other roommate. The insanely smart one. “When I asked you to bring me work clothes, I didn’t expect you to delve quite so far back in my closet. God, I should have burned these pants years ago as a crime against nature.”

  From this angle, Alex could see a smear of dirt arced across Gideon’s cheek. His dark hair was dimmed with drywall dust and stuck up in sweaty spikes.

  For some reason, that only made him hotter, and Alex licked his lips. He’d had daydreams of getting sweaty with Gideon, although there’d been less fiberglass and more skin in his fantasy. But they were working in the same place, right? This was Alex’s chance to get to know the guy, and it was too good to pass up. It wouldn’t be hard to engineer a few not-so-accidental meetings in the hall, or share a couple of jokes by the coffeepot. Suggest a post-shift get-together. Hey, what say we grab a beer? Maybe dinner? Or, you know, have sex?

  Alex’s jeans grew uncomfortably tight. Yikes. Not the thing when your lower half is on display at eye level. Gideon couldn’t see him behind the screen of drywall, but the other guys on the crew could wander by anytime. He forced himself to think about baseball. Didn’t help. Don’t think about balls. Sardines. Smurfs. GOP debates. Yeah, that did the trick.

  “Laugh all you want, you heartless woman, but wardrobe aside, I’m suffering. It’s not only that the room isn’t clean enough to house the servers. It doesn’t have fricking walls yet. Or a ceiling.” Gideon kicked at the seam between the sheets of plywood underlayment. “It almost doesn’t have a floor. I have no idea what equipment to expect or when to expect it, and I have to have it all done and ready to burn-in by two weeks from Wednesday for a Cyber Monday go-live.”

  He sank down on a bucket of drywall mud. “Lord, Charles. I’ve consigned myself to the blue-collar ghetto.”

  Alex’s jaw clenched as he climbed down the ladder, his X-rated daydreams fading to black. Out of your league, remember? And nobody knows that better than he does.

  Maybe it made him an asshole, but Alex couldn’t resist detouring into the server area to glare at Gideon on his bucket throne.

  Gideon’s mouth fell open and pink stained his cheeks as he let the hand with his cell phone in it drop to his side. He was wearing purple glasses today, and they made his eyes seem extra wide and shiny. “You.”

  “Surprise.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  Alex pointed to the Carter patch on his shirt. “I work here. Get used to it, since I’m the electrician you’ll have to convince to lay your network cable.”

  “I thought— Aren’t you a drywall guy?”

  “I’m versatile. You pick up all kinds of useful skills here in the ghetto.” He stalked off, leaving Gideon spluttering behind him.

  With shame fizzing in his veins over his unfortunate faux pas—no his second unfortunate faux pas—with the electrician, Gideon wandered the Escher’s maze of service hallways in search of an alleged supply room. His hand truck’s wobbly wheel made it weave like a drunken frat boy. If he had to spend any more time tracking down missing parts of the server racks, he’d still be putting the damn things together at Christmas.

  God. Between his lack of control over th
e schedule and equipment, and a construction site full of scowling men who could snap Gideon in half with their pinkies, everything about this job scraped his nerves like the shrieking violins from Psycho.

  The back of his neck prickled, and he glanced over his shoulder, down the length of the dim hallway. God. It seemed like whenever he turned around, Mega-Electrician was front and center. There should be a law—or at least a default restraining order—against men that large. Although at least he was on the floor instead of perched on high like an angel about to smite.

  Man up, Wallace. Might as well make use of the materials at hand. Gideon pivoted in a squeak of wheels and a susurrus of bunched plastic carpet runner.

  “Carter?” he called, his voice bouncing off the bare walls of the corridor.

  Carter didn’t pause, just kept walking toward the stairway access door with the patented Jock Strut—arms swinging and wide shoulders rolling under the chambray work shirt with each purposeful stride. Gideon mimicked the Jock Strut himself in clubs, but on him it was seductive (or so he hoped). On a guy this size?

  Overkill.

  “‘Stand aside. I take large steps,’” Gideon muttered. “Carter.” Nothing. “Carter!” The guy kept walking. Gideon whistled, loud and shrill. “Yo. Electrician dude!”

  The guy halted, and Gideon swore he got even huger, shoulders expanding with a deep breath, emphasizing the almost indecent vee of shoulders into narrow hips.

  He pivoted slowly. Whoa. If Merriam-Webster ever needed an illustration for the word glower, the expression on that face nailed it. “You talking to me?”

  “Yes. Carter, where is—”

  “My name’s not Carter.”

  Gideon heaved a sigh and did not roll his eyes “Your shirt says Carter.”

  “Everybody’s shirt says Carter. It’s Carter Construction.”

  Gah! Talk about stupid. Heat infused his cheeks—again. “Sorry. Um . . . do you know where the supply room is?”

  “Yeah. That way. First right, second left. First door on the left.” He turned around and moved on.

  “Thank you.”

  Gideon wasn’t sure but thought he heard a grunt in response.

  He tried to follow those terse directions, he really did. But this construction zone was like the freaking Bermuda Triangle. If the final floor plan was this confusing, clients and employees would vanish whenever they tried to find the toilets.

  “I give up,” he muttered. “Tomorrow I’ll bring a ball of twine or a bag of freaking bread crumbs so I can retrace my steps.” Gideon wrestled his phone out of the front pocket of his hideous paisley jeans. Nine thirty. Surely no one would be on the client side of the offices by now. Who’d ever know if he took a shortcut back to the server room? He’d clean up any traces of drywall detritus with the hand vac later.

  He opened the door into the elevator lobby and backed in with his squeaky, wobbly, empty hand truck. Half the server rack components were MIA in the incredible invisible supply room. Whoever this clueless consultant was, his head was so far up his ass that—

  Well, hello.

  By Gideon’s practiced triangulation method, the man standing outside the elevator doors measured slightly under six feet. Not as tall or as wide-shouldered as that gigantic electrician, thank God. Nicely inside Gideon’s optimal-size parameters and totally his type, whatever Charlie would have claimed. Deconstructed suit, no tie, shirt in #CCFFCC—a pale green that no straight man would touch with a wire hanger. Interesting arrangement of facial hair, like a synthesis of soul patch and goatee.

  He recognized the man’s narrow face, ink-dark eyes, and patrician nose from the picture in the company’s annual report.

  Jared Haynes Jr., CEO, in the designer-covered flesh.

  Suddenly this crap-hell job was looking way, way up.

  Gideon donned his best smile. “Mr. Haynes. How do you do? Gideon Wallace. I’m handling your system and website upgrade.” Jared raised one swoon-worthy eyebrow at Gideon’s outstretched hand, and Gideon realized his fingers were as grimy as if he’d been bathing in dust. Which he had been, given the state of the server room and the miles of hallways to nowhere.

  “This area is for staff and clients only.”

  Gideon raised his besmirched hands in faux-surrender. “Oops. Busted. No fear, though. I’ll clear away all the evidence. No client shall know of my midnight ride.”

  Jared laughed, a low sound that created a wicked harmonic convergence between Gideon’s upper and lower heads. “Especially since it’s only nine thirty.” He stepped into the elevator and Gideon stared at him until the doors slid closed.

  “Oh.” He pressed one hand on his sternum and the back of his other wrist to his forehead, even though nobody was there to appreciate his theatrics. He wrinkled his nose at his dirty hands and sped off for the men’s room, pushing the wonky hand truck to its limits. He scrubbed his hands with the foam soap, and as he stuck his hands in the Dyson hand dryer, he caught sight of himself in the mirror.

  “Shit.” He could double for Viggo Mortensen in the first part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, before he’d discovered the magic of manicures and Rivendell shampoo. Personal grooming fails aside, Gideon was wearing these heinous man-repelling jeans. Somehow, he needed to find the money to dress up his dress-down clothes, because against all odds, he’d run into the man of his dreams at a fricking construction site.

  Geekspeak: Backlink

  Definition: Any inbound link received by a web node (web page, directory, website, or top-level domain) from another web node.

  Alex was so pissed off at Gideon—and at himself for being stupid enough to care—that he couldn’t risk going straight home after his shift. With the new meds, his dad would probably be awake, and even though he wasn’t firing on all cylinders, he was supersensitive to moods. So Alex decided to take Landon up on his offer and stopped by the restaurant.

  He rang the back door buzzer of Downstairs Downtown, and a couple of minutes later Landon opened the door—tall, lanky, and dressed in civvies instead of his chef’s whites or the black-tie monkey suit he wore when he was hosting.

  “Thank God. Come in and distract me before I choke on all this paperwork.” Landon pushed the door aside and held it open, his forehead gleaming like a beacon in the corridor’s harsh fluorescent light.

  “Jesus, man. Could you be more fish-belly white? Get out in the sun, for God’s sake,” Alex grumbled as he stomped inside.

  “It’s November in Portland. There is no sun.” Landon shut the door with an extra jerk, and the latch clicked into place. “What’s up your ass tonight?” He led Alex into the restaurant’s office. “Or is that the problem? Nothing up your ass?”

  “Fuck off. You know I don’t bottom.”

  Landon held up one square hand. “Stop. The less I know about your sex life, the happier I am.” He scrunched his face. “Shit. Now I know something about your sex life. I need a drink.” He pulled a bottle of Patrón out of his credenza, poured two shots, and pushed them both across the desk. When Alex raised his eyebrows, Landon shrugged. “Seems like you need ’em more than I do. I figure if you drink two shots, your shitty mood will decrease by half and I’ll be able stand being in the same room with you.”

  “What the hell is that? Bartender’s math?” Alex nudged a glass back toward Landon. “Thanks, but I’ll stick with one.”

  Landon settled into his worn leather chair. “Okay, let’s hear it. Spill those guts, dude.”

  Alex knocked back his shot and grimaced against the burn. “Nothing to spill.”

  “Like shit there’s not. You probably don’t need an air compressor to spit nails right now.”

  “It’s stupid.” Alex tilted his shot glass, watching the dregs of the tequila coat the inside. “I ran into a guy I had a thing for, and not only does he not remember me, but he looks at me like I’m an ax murderer.”

  “Sounds like a douche bag. Forget him.”

  “Not so easy. You haven’t seen his ass.”


  Landon slapped a hand over his eyes. “Aauugh! No sex details!”

  “Deal with it. Besides, he’s not a douche bag. Not to everyone anyway. He’s one of my sister’s roommates. When that asshole, Will Tuckett, dumped Lin, he helped her get through it.” Alex chuckled. “He texted her these obscene limericks—”

  “He wrote those? Those were awesome.”

  “I know, right? Lin said Gideon claimed it was Tuckett’s fault for having such a limerick-able name.”

  “Your sister was okay with them? I mean, I’ve never heard her say anything spicier than ‘darn,’ and even then she apologized for it.”

  “That’s because our mom disapproves of swearing. But I think Lin liked the limericks, or at least she found them comforting. Enough to save them all.” And to give Alex the chance to copy them off her phone.

  Landon leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “How’s your dad doing? I’ve been meaning to stop by and visit, but we’ve been slammed lately with our sous-chef on maternity leave.”

  “Not good. His health coverage is for shit.” Alex’s throat closed, and the corners of his eyes prickled. Must be the tequila’s fault. Yeah, right. “It’s not fair, man. I mean, my folks. They’re good people. Hard-working. They deserved a couple of breaks, but instead, this shit happened. I think about some of the assholes we went to high school with. Didn’t have any worries except which car to choose for a graduation present. Which frat to pledge. How many classes they could cut without losing their tuition meal ticket.”

  “Yeah, well, life ain’t fair. If it was, would I be in partnership with my sisters?”

  “Probably.”

  Landon opened his mouth. Shut it. Cocked one eyebrow. “Yeah. You’re right. But we’re not talking about me. What gives?”

  The encounter with Gideon had overshadowed his earlier worries, but they came roaring back now. He was tempted to down the second tequila shot after all. “We may have to sell the house on Pettygrove. Property taxes are a bitch.”

  “Isn’t it cut up into apartments? Raise the rent.”

  “Lin and her roommates live on the second floor. I’m not gonna raise their rent.”