by Mary Calmes
He jolted and spun around, searching for me.
“I’m hungry now.”
He lifted one finger to get me to wait.
“Fuck that!” I snarled as I charged over to the three men, brows furrowed, reaching them and grabbing his bicep, my hand closing around it as I jerked him up against me. “I waited, I did what you wanted, now let’s go.”
He smiled sheepishly at the two men, muttered some half-assed apology and a promise to catch them later, and then yanked his arm out of my grip and stalked away.
I pivoted to face the fortune-teller. “You see him coming again, you walk the other way or I’ll hire some guy to stand behind you all night, every night, and warn off anyone that comes near your table.”
“Aww man, you don’t hafta—”
“I do,” I assured him darkly. “And I will.”
He put up both hands. “Hey, I’m sorry, all right, I had no idea the sweet little chef was spoken for.”
My eyes flicked to his friend who took a step back, shoving his hands down hard into the pockets of his jeans.
“Come on, man, just go already. I promise not to say another word to him.”
I returned my attention to the fortune-teller.
“Neither one of us,” he said flatly. “I swear. You don’t hafta tell me twice.”
I waited, like I always did, like I’d been taught, letting the silence stretch so they both understood beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was capable of more than they knew. Before I went legitimate and became first a construction contractor and then a gallery owner, I had moved and fenced all kinds of merchandise, starting in Tokyo when I was still in my teens. I wasn’t proud of it, but at the time, right after my mother died when I was all alone, I’d had two choices, and the other one was moving drugs. I didn’t want to do that; I’d already lost too many friends to a variety of illegal substances, so I went the other way. It was no more aboveboard, but as shatei—little brother—my options were to work or be an enforcer. The prostitution was just as hard to deal with as the drugs, so I put myself directly in the line of fire instead of in the shadows behind someone else. I wasn’t proud of it, but it had been, for me, the least of all evils.
Now, with those days long behind me except for the tattoos on my body, I no longer needed to carry a gun. The most important part for the two losers in front of me was that I still walked like I was packing, and that combined with my height and build gave them the message loud and clear.
“We get it, man, hands off your boy. He’s invisible from here on out.”
Excellent. “Okay,” I growled, then turned and strode away.
I caught up with Scott after he passed the Court of the Two Sisters, and I was glad that even though he was moving really fast, very obviously pissed, he was walking toward my place and not his.
“Sorry,” I said as I slipped into step beside him and threw my arm around his shoulders, “but they were assholes.”
“They’re just guys, Boone, and I need to get laid,” he explained as we crossed Toulouse.
I would take care of that for him whenever he wanted.
“And I know you don’t need it like I do.”
How could one person be so wrong?
“But me—I need it.”
Taking a breath, calming my pounding heart, I tightened my hold to bring him in closer so I could smell his cologne, the lavender and burnt wood, and then the spices from his restaurant, nutmeg, pepper, all swirled together with the musk that was him alone.
“So the next time I meet a guy—”
“He’s gotta be nice,” I insisted, leaning into him and nuzzling my face into his thick, silky blond hair.
“Fine,” he grumbled, giving up any and all irritation, content as he always was once we were alone.
I shoved him away gently before I was tempted to veer off the street and down an alley to take him right there up against the side of a building. There was no doubt in my mind that we would fit together perfectly; already his head notched easily under my chin. I was sure his legs would feel amazing wrapped around my hips. It was really a terrible waste that he didn’t notice me at all and that I couldn’t make him see me without the worry of losing him. He was in and out of relationships at the drop of a hat, and by the time he broke it off with one and I had talked myself into going for it, there was a new guy to wait out. The end was inevitable, but my timing was crappy. Unless….
“I’m sorry I got pissed. I know you’re just being a good guy and watching out for me. I don’t know what I’d do without you as my guardian angel.”
Ugh.
“You’re the only one who’s always on my side.”
With Scott, it was better to keep him as my best friend than to try and turn him into the dream in my head. A couple of weeks of having him in my bed wasn’t worth missing him for a lifetime after he bailed. At least, that was what I told myself.
“Okay,” he sighed, as we fell into step again, side by side. “Since I apparently can’t pick for crap, you need to find a good guy for me, all right?”
“I certainly will,” I promised.
Chapter 2
OF COURSE, since Eiyad and I were in the midst of moving the antique steel and iron Royal Windsor stove into a corner of the bungalow, Scott wanted to talk to me.
“It’s really beautiful,” my best friend gushed, drying his hands on a bar towel, trying to get my attention.
“Good,” I gasped out, because seriously, the appliance bought purely for show weighed a damn ton. I was big and strong, and Eiyad even more so, but even then, we were having trouble. And him trying to talk to me was not helping.
“The customers love it, but I love it most of all,” Scott said, beaming.
“Put it down,” Eiyad commanded, using his knees instead of his back to help place the stove gently in the middle of Scott’s now empty—since he had not yet opened for dinner—restaurant.
“This isn’t where it goes,” I argued, struggling to hold up my side of the stove even as Eiyad set his down.
“I know that,” he barked. “But I refuse to break my back while you stand here and try and do two things at once!”
He was right; the second I had opened my mouth to answer Scott, I stopped moving. It wasn’t really fair to the guy holding the other half of the thousand-pound stove.
I settled my side on the concrete floor, feeling the burn in my biceps and triceps as I did so. We really needed a dolly; we were both only minutes from hernias.
“What the hell is he talking about?” Eiyad asked, bringing me back from thoughts of my rapidly deteriorating health.
Eiyad Sawalha sold antiques; I sold art. We had become fast friends the second I moved in across the street from him. Having a gallery on Royal Street, where everyone went to buy both the old and the new in the French Quarter, was a dream come true for both of us. At the moment he didn’t look like the sleek, sophisticated, stunningly handsome man who lured women and men into his shop—people spied either him or the antiques he sold and tumbled through his door. In his shredded paint-covered jeans, T-shirt, and steel-toed work boots, he wasn’t about to be luring anyone in. He looked like me—hired help.
“Boone?”
I turned my chin to acknowledge him.
“What is your boy talking about?”
“I’m not his boy,” Scott argued.
Eiyad grunted and eyed me, waiting.
“I put a butterfly garden in the courtyard,” I explained.
Instantaneous scowl before I opened my mouth to defend myself.
“Don’t,” Eiyad ordered.
“No, listen—” I began.
“Seriously, don’t even try.” He squatted again. “Let’s move this, Boone. You owe me oysters and beer.”
I gave up, mirrored his motion, and, heaving and straining, we got the stove shoved into a corner where other decorative fixtures were on exhibit: an antique lobster trap; a gorgeous rod and reel; vintage tin signs for fresh seafood, coffee, and bread; as well a
s black and white photographs of the French Quarter from the turn of the century. It was all about ambiance, and I was always adding to the décor.
The stove looked amazing in the restaurant, and Scott’s dazzling smile was worth the hassle of moving it from Eiyad’s gallery. I had told my friend what I needed, and he had tracked it down for me. It had been neither a quick search—nor a cheap one.
“You’re an idiot,” Eiyad mumbled under his breath before announcing that he was using the bathroom and halfway there calling back over his shoulder that I’d better be ready to go when he came out.
“Is he pissed at me?” Scott asked, his hand on my bicep, squeezing gently.
“No, he’s fine.”
“Okay,” he sighed and then met my gaze. “Thank you so much, Boone. You always do the best, most thoughtful things for me before I even know I need or want them. It’s like you know me better than I know myself.”
Obviously.
“The renovation you did in here, the garden outside that everyone loves, with the snapdragons and the red phlox, replacing the wall with the glass doors for the courtyard, and fixing the sign out front… that was all just miraculous.”
“It’s not a big deal,” I assured him, squeezing his shoulder instead of putting my hand on his cheek like I wanted to.
An hour later, as I sat across from Eiyad and my friend Sergio Mata and his wife, Elaine, at the noisy and bustling Acme Oyster House, he was shaking his head as he repeated the same list for me.
“What?” I asked. Half of it was I could barely hear him, but the rest was that what he had said was confusing.
“He’s using you,” Sergio chimed in, and Eiyad gestured at the lawyer in our midst like, yeah, listen to the man.
“No,” I assured him.
“Yes,” Elaine agreed with her husband, passing me the tabasco sauce so I could eat some more chargrilled oysters. “No one’s that clueless.”
“You guys are missing it,” I told them. “He appreciates what I do for him.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” Eiyad patronized me. “But does he see it for what it really is?”
He’d lost me. “What are you talking about?”
“Love!” Elaine said, throwing up her hands. “Jesus, Boone, you’re not clueless, too, are you? I mean, you at least know why you do what you do?”
I sat there, eating, waiting for her to explain what the hell she was talking about.
They were all staring at me.
“Ohmygod,” she groaned, turning to her husband.
He leaned forward and fixed me with a stare. “You’re in love with Scott, you stupid prick.”
“What? No,” I snapped. “I mean, yes, I’m not gonna sit here and lie and say I don’t wanna sleep with him, because, yeah, I wanna sleep with him, but not at the risk of our friendship, so that’s never gonna happen.”
“Are you kidding?” Sergio deadpanned.
“No. I mean, I don’t love him any more than I do any of you.”
I had apparently stunned them all to silence because when the waitress came and checked on us, no one spoke, leaving me to order another round of Abita Amber, oyster rémoulade for Elaine, and another dozen chargrilled oysters.
“Are you guys all goin’ mute?”
“Oh dear God!” Elaine exploded.
I threw up my hands.
“You actually believe that,” she huffed, looking to Eiyad for help. “He actually believes that he’s not madly in love with Scott.”
My friend squinted at me. “I thought you were fucking with me.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You do everything for him,” Sergio explained.
“Why are you all ganging up on me?”
“Because even though you never come out and say, ‘Scott, I love you,’” Sergio went on, “you show him you do with every wall you paint and every floor you strip and polish, every shelf you put up—”
“Every table you sand, every antique you buy, every picture you hang,” Elaine continued, having jumped on the bandwagon. “Every garden you plant—”
“And every player you warn off,” Eiyad concluded. “You’re a fuckin’ idiot if you don’t see that all for what it really is.”
They all nodded.
“You guys are supposed to be my friends.”
“I am your friend, brother,” Eiyad said flatly. “It’s why I want you to either grow a pair and tell the man how you feel or stop and go get laid.”
Before I met Scott, there’d been a new guy every night. Nowadays I went for long stretches without anyone.
“We just want you to be happy,” Elaine assured me. “Maybe it’s time, huh?”
It only took me a moment. “Yeah,” I agreed. Maybe it was.
THE FOLLOWING night I put on my black jeans, boots, and a white Henley and headed over to Scott’s restaurant to see if I could get him to go for a drink and a late dinner with me. I was surprised when I got there and found him out on his front steps, the two that went up from the sidewalk to the stone hallway you went through to reach the front door of his place. Normally, when the restaurant was closed, he waited right outside on one of the benches in his tiny courtyard—now filled with the butterfly garden I had created. But tonight he was out at the front, on the steps, beneath the now closed painted shutters, the gate to the hallway locked behind him as he sat reclined, talking to some guy I’d never seen before.
Scott was talking about food; I could hear my best friend as I closed in on them. “No, no, to caramelize scallops you just go like ninety seconds per side. It sounds like you’re overcooking them. That’s why nobody wanted to eat them.”
“Well, that makes sense,” the man said, laughing softly. “You’ll have to come over to my place sometime and show me.”
“Hey,” I greeted as I strode forward, hoping I was interrupting.
Scott’s smile was lazy and bright, and my stomach did a fast roll before I focused on the stranger, who stood immediately and extended his hand.
“Hi there. You must be the wonderful Boone I’ve been hearing about for the last two hours.”
Two hours?
“I need to find a buddy like you.”
Buddy?
I glared at the stranger, releasing the hand I’d shaken.
“I’m Daniel Fonseca.”
Nodding, I glanced over at Scott only to find his full attention on Daniel, whose smile was warm; he was an inch taller than me, leanly muscled with thick black hair, sincere deep-set dark blue eyes with sexy laugh lines at the corners. I glimpsed it then—the desire, the mooning, and the hunger already starting. I was too late; I’d have to wait until it ended to talk to my friend again. He would disappear with the man, unless this Daniel was just trying to use him….
“And what is it you do, Daniel?” I asked because he had to pass muster first.
“I’m a cardiovascular surgeon over at the university medical center.”
Doctor. Well… crap. He didn’t need to use Scott for anything but sex, and from the way he was eying my friend, that was definitely on the menu.
“You two just meet tonight?” I asked Daniel since Scott was gone, checked out, already planning their ten-year anniversary party.
“Yes. I came in with friends to try out a new place, but I stayed when they left and had a seat at the bar,” he said, smiling at Scott. “I knew what I wanted to try.”
God, who talked like that?
Scott’s flush was gorgeous and Daniel swallowed hard. It was perfectly obvious that they were into each other already. Time for me to go.
“Well, you guys have a good night,” I said softly. “It was nice meeting you, Daniel.”
“Oh no,” he said quickly, lifting his hand to stop me from leaving. “We were waiting on you to have a late dinner.”
“No, I’m good,” I assured them. “You guys go. I’ll see you around.”
Daniel gave me a flashing grin, and Scott lifted his head, mouthed a thank you, and went back to c
oncentrating on the new love of his life.
As I walked away, I realized I was mad for no good reason. It was my own fault for being a gutless coward, for not diving into the deep end to find out what would happen. I was finally ready to try again, my heart stitched up just enough to try one more leap, and Scott was busy and had forgotten to fill the pool. At the same time, what kind of friend would I be if I wasn’t happy for him?
The problem was I was tired of being his buddy. I’d hoped to be more. By the same token, what if I made my move on Scott and he very nicely, very kindly, turned me down? It was possible. I wasn’t perfect, and I was definitely not a doctor. Maybe this was actually fate lending a hand, because, really, since interest and attraction went both ways, if Scott was crazy about me, couldn’t keep his hands off me, wouldn’t I know?
That question stayed with me all the way home.
Chapter 3
I WAS at Anvil & Forge on Frenchmen Street three weeks later dancing with Elaine because Sergio was running late, as usual. Lawyers kept shitty hours—I had told him that many a time. We were dancing to Louis Prima standards performed by a local jazz band I really liked. It was still early, a little after ten, and we were having as much fun dancing as we were watching Eiyad graciously say no to women.
He had just broken it off with a flight attendant and had decided to take a break from dating. Where he was having a slight issue was that between his sleek, dark tanned skin smoothing over hard, thick muscles, his jet black hair, and deep chocolate brown eyes, none of the available women in the club were leaving him alone. When we finally came off the dance floor and joined him, we were met by a very dark scowl.
“What?” I teased.
“You’re both assholes,” he said, pointing at us.
Elaine spit up her drink and I bit my lip and nodded so I wouldn’t laugh.
“You guys know I’ve sworn off women.”
It lasted another whole hour until a gorgeous woman walked over to the table and instead of offering him a drink, told him she would love to take him for homemade sweet potato pie at a little place she knew.
