In the Distance

by Eileen Griffin

  No matter where I looked in the club, no matter how much I tried to concentrate on the pounding bass in my chest, I couldn’t get Tyler’s shocked expression out of my mind. I slammed back the rest of my drink, only pausing to scan the dance floor again. The blond hottie was nowhere to be seen, but there was a cute twink in a pair of low-slung denim shorts and a cropped shirt dancing on the far corner. Or the ginger two tables over. At this point, either one would do.

  The waiter returned with my second drink but waved away the cash I held out to him, leaning in to shout over the music, “Already taken care of.” He gave me a parting wink, then disappeared back into the crowd.

  A techno beat about saving a horse by riding a cowboy swelled through the building. The hoots and hollers coming from the dance floor as the bodies rocked back and forth was entertaining, verging on vaudevillian as a few enterprising couples took the lyrics a little too seriously. Even over the volume and bass resonating through the club, I could feel a warm body behind me before I even turned around, his heat seeping through my shirt even though he hadn’t touched me yet. A soft breath rippled over my neck. “It’s against the rules to sit on the sidelines all night.”

  “Is it now? I guess I missed the list of dos and don’ts when I walked in.”

  My admirer remained behind me, one of his hands finding my lower back and tracing along the top of my jeans. His fingers left a trail of raised goose bumps as they worked their way up my spine. It felt good to be desired. It felt even better to be touched.

  “It’s right under the rule about the two-drink minimum. House rules also state you have to dance at least once or there’s an extra surcharge.”

  His fingers trailed higher, lightly teasing as they skimmed back and forth along my shoulder blades. I casually picked up my new drink and drained half of it with one gulp. The tension I’d felt earlier began to loosen as the warmth of the whiskey spread through me.

  “Lucky for me I brought enough to cover it.”

  With his hand still on my shoulder, he walked around to face me, a fake pout on his lips and his golden brown eyes glittering seductively. “That would be a waste of perfectly good money and a perfectly willing dance partner.”

  This close up, his bare chest was even more impressive than I’d thought when I’d glimpsed it across the crowded dance floor. In fact, the only thing he was lacking was the dance partner he’d been grinding against when he’d first crooked his finger at me. I let my eyes wander over his face and down his body, stopping to smirk at the already impressive bulge in his tight, black pants. He was the complete opposite of Tyler. Shorter by at least a few inches and stockier where Tyler was long and lean. There was nothing in him to remind me of the man I’d watched walk away earlier this evening.

  I drained the last of my whiskey and set the glass on the table. He slid his hand down my arm and looped his fingers in my belt loop, dragging me onto the dance floor without ever breaking eye contact.

  All at once we were surrounded by a mass of writhing bodies. His grip tightened on my jeans and he pulled me closer. His body against mine made me realize how starved I’d been for touch, any kind of touch. When our hips met, I closed my eyes and let the music wash over me. No more thoughts about Tyler. No more guilt about how I’d fucked tonight up. No more trying to justify my choices to Ethan and Jamie. There was nothing to think about except what was in front of me right here, right now.

  I shuddered with pleasure as his lips danced across my neck, and without another thought, I surrendered myself to the warm body grinding against me.

  * * *

  With my shades firmly in place, I entered the café and scanned the tables for the familiar shock of blond hair.

  My eight o’clock wake-up call had come too fucking soon on the heels of last night’s escapades. Derrick—at least I was pretty sure his name was Derrick—had kept a continuous round of drinks sent to us. After several shots and too many dances among the writhing sea of bodies, we found ourselves in one of the corners, lost to a different kind of beat. We’d gotten each other off, but as much as I’d wanted to drown out Tyler and everything else that preceded his frantic escape from my car, it was still there burning a hole in my head, no matter how hard Derrick stroked me. It was a poor excuse, since I’d still gotten off, but the thought of taking Derrick back to my hotel after the night I’d had with Tyler seemed cheap. Cheaper than what I’d wanted, anyway. I’d left the club in a cab, too drunk to even contemplate driving back to the hotel, and had passed out immediately upon entering my room. I probably would still be asleep if the wake-up call hadn’t jolted me awake an hour ago.

  Only Jamie could have fucked with my conscience enough for me to drag my hungover ass out of that bed and retrieve the damn rental car from the club, all in enough time to make our scheduled breakfast date. I finally spotted him at a table against the back wall, his head bent down over the menu, seemingly absorbed by what he found in it.

  I slid into the chair across from him and snagged his coffee, taking a sip and then immediately regretting my decision.

  “How you drink this crap, I’ll never know.”

  Jamie zeroed in on the coffee mug still in my hand.

  “Beggars can’t be choosers, you know.”

  I pushed the coffee back toward him and picked up his water glass instead. The cold water felt like heaven on my throat after the whiskey from last night. Or maybe from having to shout over the music at the club. Or the incessant groaning that came after we left the dance floor. I took another big swig before pushing that back toward him, too.

  “Trust me, I’d never beg for cream and sugar with just a hint of coffee.”

  “Okay, thieves can’t be choosers, and keep your hands off my coffee. I finally have it doctored just the way I like it.”

  Once our waiter had left with our orders, Jamie looked me up and down, narrowing his eyes as he zeroed in on the left side of my neck. Instinctively, I reached up to brush away whatever was there, but he leaned forward and caught my hand, not so subtly peeling the neck of my turtleneck down.

  In a low voice, Jamie asked, “Wanna tell me how your night went before I make any assumptions and leave right now?”

  I leaned away from his hand, and reached to flip my turtleneck back up. “It’s not what you think.”

  He lifted his eyes from my neck, but his expression hadn’t changed. “Really, Trev? Because what I think I saw was a big-ass hickey on your neck. You promised you wouldn’t make any moves on him.”

  Him? Tyler. Neither of us had to say his name, because we both knew who Jamie thought the mark had come from. I scrubbed my hand down my face and snatched his coffee again, wincing as the syrupy sweetness invaded every taste bud I had left after last night.

  When I’d drained half the cup, I set it down and sighed. “Again. It’s not what you think. We went to Dizzy’s and had some kick-ass Cajun food, ate some dessert—” And I could still remember Tyler’s face when I fed it to him, dammit, “—listened to some jazz, and then I took Tyler home, like the Boy Scout I am. This—” I waved my hand near the vicinity of the mark, “—came later. Much later.”

  He sat back against the wall. “Do I want to know the details?”

  I wasn’t in the mood to dish all the details about how badly I’d fucked up with Tyler, or how much I’d needed to distract myself afterward. Deep down I trusted Jamie to understand, but I needed to wrap my own head around what I wanted to do about Tyler before rambling on to Jamie about him.

  So I did what I always did when shit got too intense. I plastered on my trademark smirk and went with my best defense. Diversion. “Well, that depends. Would you rather hear about how I worked up a sweat dancing at the club after I dropped Tyler off, or the sweat I worked up after I left the dance floor?”

  When I saw him grimace and shake his head, I knew I was off the hook. “Yeah, no. I’d r
ather you keep those details to yourself, thank you very much.”

  “You sure? I could describe the waiters’ skimpy, silver boy shorts to you, instead. I can even give you the address in case you want to check the club out for yourself.”

  Jamie raised his hands in surrender. “Positive. Ethan wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like that, cute boy shorts or not. So yeah, I’m sure.”

  “Speaking of waiters.” I leaned back as our food was set on the table. Jamie’s vegetable hash looked good, but I wasn’t a fan of ricotta so I’d given it a pass when I’d looked over the menu. I’d settled on the breakfast panini with a side of sliced avocado. My stomach grumbled just looking at it. Whether it was from the drinking, the dancing or the after-hours extracurricular activities, I couldn’t stuff my face fast enough. I looked up briefly when I heard Jamie’s chuckle, then flipped him off without ever taking my hands off the sandwich in front of me.

  It took almost no time at all for me to make short work of the sandwich. I reached across the table and snagged a piece of bacon off Jamie’s plate.

  “Hey! Leave my bacon alone!”

  I smirked as I popped the piece of crispy fried goodness into my mouth. “That’s definitely not what he said.”

  Jamie groaned at my awful joke and slid his plate farther from me. “Again, so not interested in the details of your night, Trev.”

  I held my hands up in mock surrender, watching as he made his way through the monstrously large skillet of hash he was working on. With about half left, he pushed it aside and leaned back in his chair. “Damn, that was good. I’ll have to see if E can make that for me sometime. He’s always been much better than me at recreating dishes we come across.”

  “I may have my own issues with your husband, but even I can admit he can cook his ass off.”

  “It will make his whole week to know you actually said something nice to him.”

  I snorted. “No, it won’t.”

  Jamie gave up, a look of resignation on his face. “No, it won’t, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like hearing it. He’s worked his ass off to get where he is. It’s just nice to hear other people appreciate all his hard work.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t read too much into it, J. He’s still got miles to go to make up for that sparkly personality of his. Which begs the question, where is your other half today? I can’t imagine even my presence would keep him from a meal like this.”

  “Ethan’s with Tyler.”

  The food I’d been so happy gorging on earlier felt like lead in my stomach at the mention of Tyler’s name. Why hadn’t he told me he was meeting up with Ethan this morning? Or had there been no plans and Ethan had suddenly created some, wanting to make sure Tyler escaped the evening alone with me unscathed?

  “Come again?”

  “I know that look, Trev, so calm down before you blow up and regret it. You and Ethan may hate each other but I swear you react to shit the same way.”

  I bristled at the suggestion Ethan and I were anything alike, but waved my hand as nonthreateningly as possible to get him to answer my question. “Well?”

  “They’re at the shelter over on Fifteenth.”

  He paused a moment, then added, “The youth shelter.”

  I sat there, not stunned by where they were, but by the fact Tyler hadn’t thought he could share that with me. “He never said a word about it. I mean, he’s talked about volunteering at the homeless shelter, but he didn’t tell me he was going with Ethan today.”

  “Ethan could have ended up on the streets, alone, just like Tyler did, but he didn’t. And even though Tyler’s been through shit neither you nor I can fathom, he survived. They both did. But neither one of them wants to be pitied for what they went through. To them, it sucked, but it’s life and they’ve moved on. So, every Sunday, they pay it forward. They don’t do it to have someone pat them on the back, they do it because it’s what they feel they have to do.”

  Who was this kid? Not many people survived life on the streets, but Tyler had not only survived it, he worked his ass off at both work and school to ensure he’d never be back on the streets again. Apparently, I didn’t know jack shit about Tyler. The crazy part was, I wanted to.

  Before the words tumbled out of my mouth, I knew this was a bad idea. I knew, with every fiber of my being, not to ask. But like always, I charged right past what I should have done to what I wanted.

  Throwing caution to the wind, I looked Jamie directly in the eyes and said, “I need to ask a huge favor.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Tyler

  “Stay on the line. I’ll bus today.”

  One look told me Ethan would rather be doing anything else than bussing tables right now. He was dragging today.

  “Nah, I’ve got it. Go ahead and stay here. Donna looks like she’s on the warpath again and I’d rather be on the other side of the room.” I tossed my hand towel to the side and walked over to the closest table, collecting trash and trying to clean up as much as possible to free up a few more seats.

  The truth was I hadn’t wanted to come today. In fact, this was the first time in two years I’d ever thought about skipping out of a shift here. I’d pulled doubles, stayed up late studying, even had a bad case of bronchitis once, but none of those had kept me from showing up on Sunday morning to volunteer.

  When I looked over at Ethan, I felt even more like a shit. He looked dead on his feet, and still he was here, working the line at a shelter to make sure the fifty or so homeless kids had a hot meal in their bellies before they spent their day on the street. Most of the shelters around town served a quick breakfast seven days a week, but Margaret’s Mission made sure to have a larger, more substantial offering on Sundays for anyone who needed a warm meal. Officially, it was an LGBTQ-friendly shelter, but I’d never seen them turn away a hungry kid, regardless of where they fell on the spectrum.

  I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself about last night. This was more important than making an ass out of myself in front of Trevor. I groaned just thinking about it.

  “Hey, Tyler.”

  The voice over my shoulder startled me, and I dropped the tray I’d been holding in the trash can.

  “Oops. Sorry, Ty. I shouldn’t have snuck up on you.”

  When I turned around, Avery was trying but failing to hold in her laughter.

  There was a guy with Avery. I hadn’t seen him before, but I’d been volunteering less and less since classes started in August. The only downside to the queer community becoming more vocal was the shitty fact that more and more parents were kicking their kids out of their houses for being who they were instead of continuing to a lie. A swatch of blond hair peeked under the black skullcap the new guy had on. His clothes were relatively clean, but not nearly warm enough for December in Seattle. He looked about eighteen, but the way he took in everything around him without letting his gaze rest too long on any one thing told me he’d been on the streets long enough not to trust people, even the ones at the shelter who were here to help him.

  I shifted my attention back to Avery and winked. “Yeah, oops, my ass. I don’t believe your innocent face for a minute. So, besides your not-so-innocent face, what’s up?”

  She nodded in the direction of her mystery companion. “I wanted to ask for a favor. Nick’s looking for a job. He just passed his GED, but he needs more than the hours he’ll get at the fast-food place down the street, and we both know no one will hire him for a higher paying job without experience. I figured you could ask around to see if there was anything at Bistro 30.”

  She looked over her shoulder in Ethan’s direction and I swear she paled a little. “I would have asked Ethan myself, but dude, he looks like shit today. Even I’m not stupid enough to brave that.”

  Ethan couldn’t have heard us talking about him, but damn if he didn’t glance over in
our direction, quirking an eyebrow when he caught my eye. I sighed and smiled, shaking my head to let him know everything was okay. Ethan had been here the one time an older kid had cornered me and made some shitty remark about the food. I hadn’t been in any real danger and Donna was on the kid before it had gotten out of hand, but none of it mattered to Ethan. He’d come barreling over to put himself between me and the kid, demanding the director either get the kid some help getting clean or some manners, preferably both. As annoying as it was, at least I had someone watching my back. From the look of it, Nick had Avery. And just Avery.

  I looked back at them and smiled. “Ethan’s just tired. We’ve been slammed ever since Thanksgiving and everyone’s been pulling doubles to keep up with it all. Trust me, he wouldn’t have bitten your head off for asking about a job.”

  Avery’s expression told me she believed that as much as she believed we were all going to wake up tomorrow and suddenly become straight.

  “Okay, so he’s a little gruff, but he’s okay. He won’t bite.”

  Neither one looked convinced. I laughed and put the empty tray I’d been holding on the nearest table. “How about we go over together and I’ll introduce you to him? I need to get back on the line anyway, and it will give you a chance to see he’s not a bad guy.” Just pathologically overprotective.

  After some coaxing from Avery, we finally convinced Nick to meet Ethan. When we reached the table, Ethan put down the new tray of hash browns and smiled at Avery.

  “Hey, Avery. Still in the dental program at the community college?”

  “Yeah. It’s good. Hard, but good. I almost have enough credits for the full-time program, which will get me a job in the campus clinic. The coffee shop’s been great, but I’ll be happy to have a regular income that doesn’t include me smelling like coffee beans no matter how much I shower.”