Tartan Candy

by KC Burn

  “Hey. The Scottish kilt fits into the right damn time period. Sixteenth century, smack dab in the middle of the Renaissance. It’s allowed.” The emphatic words and fanatical gleam in Will’s eyes told Raven he’d schooled more than one person on the issue.

  Raven laughed. “Oh. Dorky. Now I get it.”

  Will huffed and punched him on the shoulder. Raven only laughed harder, pleased beyond anything when Will joined him.

  “Seriously, though, you should have told me. I’d have come to see you.”

  Will rolled his eyes. “Whatever. The point is, I own a kilt.”

  “What color?”

  “It’s the Stewart Black. Same colors as the Royal Stewart you like, but more black than red.”

  “So we’d match. That would be awesome. So you’ll do it?”

  “I guess.” Will’s tone was more enthusiastic than the words themselves, but Raven could see he was warming to the idea.

  “Good. We can be tartan candy together. Hey, who knows? Maybe we’ll even get a few more gigs out of this. It could be fun.”

  “That something you want? A few more gigs?”

  Raven shrugged. “Don’t know. I need a way to bring some money in.” His settlement had provided a decent nest egg, but at his age, it sure as shit wasn’t going to last him the rest of his life. Not even close. Will was well aware that Raven didn’t want to direct anything for Idyll Fling.

  “You know, Tartan Candy is a pretty good name for a business.” Will looked at him expectantly, and it took Raven a second before lightning struck.

  It was a fucking good name. But a good name wasn’t exactly a strong foundation for a business. In this day and age, though, it might be a decent stepping-stone.

  “Tartan Candy. Kilted eye candy for all.”

  Will snorted at Raven’s expansive arm movements.

  “Today Orlando, tomorrow the world!”

  “Whatever, Raven. Maybe just get through this weekend first.”

  “Harshing my buzz, man. Not cool.” Raven barely got through the sentence before laughing. “Seriously, though. Think people would pay for that? If there’s no skin, and no sex?”

  Will shook his head sadly. “Someone already is paying you. You’re the business major—you figure it out.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I can do it. Doesn’t need to be big. Doesn’t need hardly any capital to start. All I really need is some income to get me through to the end of school and finding employment. Hey, you can be my first employee.” He clapped Will on the shoulder.

  “Fuck that, Raven. If anything, I’ll be a partner.”

  “Partner. We can do that.”

  Will’s wary look returned. “As long as I can hold my own with you. I might not make the best… uh… advertising.”

  “Shut up. We’re both hot, and it’ll be fun.”

  “I don’t think I can do, uh, any escorting.” Will looked almost constipated at the thought of having sex for money.

  Raven rolled his eyes. Will could be surprisingly prudish for a guy who effectively ran a porn website, but it wasn’t like Raven’s lifelong dream was to become a pimp when he grew up. “Oh for fuck’s sake. I’m not setting this up for us to have sex with anyone, or even do any of the type of one-on-one dates like I did with Jeremy. I wouldn’t wish that shit on my worst enemy.”

  Nope. He wasn’t going to make anyone go through the Jeremy experience. There wasn’t enough money in the world.

  Will huffed out a breath and smiled. “Okay, good. You’re right. It will be fun.”

  “I’d better let you get back to work, though, before Stefan bitches us both out.”

  After barely a moment of hesitation, Raven hugged Will again—he could get used to hugging—and left the server room with a smile on his face. Making sure everything was ready for the weekend wouldn’t take too long, but it would keep his mind off Caleb and their disastrous attempt at having sex. Maybe he could learn something from rediscovering his friendship with Will. Maybe focusing on the negative was a habit he needed to break. After all, a sexy man had finally managed to flip his libido back on. Maybe Raven needed to take a little joy from that development.

  RAVEN EXITED the studio, spirits buoyed enough that the sight of his sensible four-door sedan, the one with highest-safety rating, the one that no kid ever dreamed about getting a Matchbox version of, only elicited a tiny disappointed sigh instead of the crushing sense of loss it usually represented. Along with the loss of mobility, almost daily discomfort, and a bleak celibate future, the accident had also totaled his beautiful bike. Maybe it wasn’t as hard-core as a Harley, but then Raven had never wanted to be part of a biker gang. The big touring bikes were pretty, but way too big for what he needed and wanted. His goal had been to be memorable and exciting. Wearing leathers that blended into the form of his speedy Ducati, giving the illusion that man and machine had melded… it was exactly the sort of plumage he’d been after. And it took only a matter of minutes to strip out of his leathers and don whichever kilt he’d brought with him.

  Losing the bike itself wasn’t nearly as important as what it represented. After all, the bike was just a thing, and while Raven was grateful to be alive, he was less enthused by the daily reminders of that “luck.” Including the crippling fear of getting on another motorcycle and the faint breathlessness that overtook him whenever he was obliged to drive on the highway. Although it had been a drunk driver in a sporty two-door that had caused the accident, transport trucks, pickups, and anyone who even hinted at weaving made him nervous as shit.

  He’d bought the car with the insurance money from his bike, as soon as the doctors cleared him to drive, because it was too damned hard to function in Orlando without a vehicle of some sort, but he’d started imagining how nice it would be to live in someplace like New York or Chicago, where public transport could easily replace a vehicle.

  The boring silver car forced him to remember his losses every time he saw it, even though the tanklike construction was the only thing that prevented him from having a full-blown panic attack every time he needed to drive.

  Today, though, he had new beginnings to think about. And a super sexy handyman to obsess over. Was this what moving on with his life was supposed to feel like? Raven got into his car and started the engine. Licking his tongue across his lips, the flutter in his chest could more rightly be attributed to those hot memories of Caleb’s kisses than his normal apprehension over driving.

  For a change, a smile tugged at his lips. Raven had shit to do. He had to consider if it really was possible to springboard this romance event into something bigger. And if he was going to start a new business, he had to do more than make sure his kilt was dry-cleaned. He had a week to get down the bare bones of “services” an eye-candy business might offer, complete with proper business cards, because this weekend was going to be his first marketing and networking opportunity. Hell, he could even check out internships and jobs that might fit the bill after he finished school. Give him some ideas for the future.

  Hopefully he’d be too damn busy to obsess over whether Caleb would use his phone number. Raven had already wavered between changing his number so Caleb couldn’t call him and trying to find a number for Caleb Sanderson online so he could make the call himself.

  And to think he’d been conflicted over rubbing out a few orgasms to Caleb’s image. That was nothing compared to the whiplash-inducing waffling about whether he wanted to talk to or see Caleb again.

  Chapter NINE

  WEDNESDAY NIGHT, Caleb picked at the label of his beer bottle, the cold glass soaked in condensation. There were times he didn’t mind the humidity of a Floridian evening. Sitting out on a half-empty patio, beer in hand, watching the sun go down over the horizon was one such instance.

  If he squinted, he could even pretend the large retention pond in the distance was the ocean. Waveless, sure, but it still sparkled in the waning daylight.

  Breathless, Jaime dropped into the chair across from him.

  “Sorry
I’m late.”

  Caleb waggled his half-empty beer at his cousin. “No worries. I’ve been doing okay.”

  “Oh good.” Jaime waved down a waiter, ordered himself a beer, and settled in the chair, his whole frame relaxing. “I’m so fucking glad to be back on days. I mean, the heat’s still causing havoc, but there are fewer knifings and beatings due to the heat. At least for my shift.”

  They made small talk about their workdays until after they’d ordered and their burgers arrived. Jaime waited until Caleb had taken a bite of his burger before he leaned in like he was going to share a secret.

  “You gonna tell me why you bailed on Gallo on Sunday? I thought we were gonna go together and get laid.”

  Caleb stopped midchew, trying not to inhale his burger as the memory of exactly why he’d ditched Jaime warmed his face… and the rest of him too.

  Jaime narrowed his eyes as he stared at Caleb. “Wait a minute. Did you get laid? Did you at least ditch me for a full-on hottie?”

  Thankfully Caleb’s skin was brown enough that blushing wasn’t obvious—not like it was on Raven’s skin—but Jaime didn’t need to see a blush to read Caleb’s nonverbal cues. That’s what happened when someone had been friends with you almost since birth.

  “You did. Fucker. I mean, why didn’t you just say so? And I want details. Your dry spell had been so long I half expected your cock to wither away and turn to dust.”

  Caleb concentrated on chewing and swallowing while Jaime chuckled.

  “I didn’t.”

  “Didn’t what?” Jaime’s laugher stopped, and he returned to peering intently at Caleb, making him squirm in his seat, like a bug under a microscope. “Hmmm. No, I guess you didn’t.”

  Jaime’s skills at reading body language bordered on the supernatural, and that skill had to come in real handy for an EMT who dealt with patients who weren’t always lucid or coherent. Caleb had long thought Jaime would make a great doctor too, because of it. Jaime was certainly smart enough.

  “Spit it out. What’s wrong?”

  “I met someone.”

  “Who?”

  That was just it. Caleb didn’t really know. He’d met a stranger in a hotel room, whose first name sounded made up and whose last name he didn’t even know. They’d thoroughly explored each other’s mouths and nearly gotten to a whole lot more.

  Probably every gay man’s fantasy, but Caleb didn’t do random hookups. Especially not that… random.

  “That job I got called away from your mom’s to do on Sunday.”

  “A booty call masked as a work emergency? You sly dog. My mom would never suspect that of you. Then again, she wants so badly to fix you up with a ‘nice girl,’ and nice girls don’t do that.” Jaime leered. “Nice boys do, though, don’t they? Very nice boys.”

  Caleb rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t a hookup, for fuck’s sake. It really was a work call.”

  “And what? There just happened to be some scrummy gay man in his undies, ready to give your parts a thorough seeing-to? Your eyes met across the generic print bedspread of a mediocre hotel room? Did you add your DNA to the Jackson Pollack UV light show?”

  Scrummy. Where the hell had Jaime come up with that word?

  “He was wearing a kilt, actually.” Caleb spoke softly, not even sure Jaime would hear him as he warmed up to his topic… which mostly seemed to consist of some bizarre porn fantasy about a CSI technician.

  Jaime’s eyes widened. “Get the fuck out. A random dude opened the door in a kilt and you fucked him? You’re my goddamned hero.”

  Caleb shushed Jaime. “I didn’t fuck him. And before you ask, he didn’t fuck me either.”

  Shoving a fry around on his plate, Caleb drew designs in ketchup while he debated on whether he should tell Jaime everything. On the other hand, there weren’t too many people he could ask about this particular dilemma, and yet Jaime seemed to think just about every problem in life could be solved with sex, whether you knew the guy’s name or not.

  “Hey. What’s up? Seriously.” The salacious note left Jaime’s tone, and Caleb dared to glance up, despite whatever secrets his expression might reveal. Keeping secrets from his cousin didn’t sit right—not now, not ever—because otherwise all the secrets he kept from the rest of the family would have driven him batshit crazy by now. Why he thought keeping secrets now was a good idea, he didn’t know.

  So he told Jaime about everything, and then he pulled out Raven’s card, already a little rough around the edges from the number of times he’d looked at it, relieved it hadn’t all been a dream but too uneasy and unsure to pick up his phone and call.

  “Damn.” Jaime bounced in his seat. “Almost sounds like some sort of hidden-camera fantasy, except for the fact he was a bit of a cocktease.”

  A sudden rush of anger buried Caleb’s earlier confusion. “He wasn’t a cocktease, dammit.”

  Raven’s distress and need to step back had been very real, and Caleb had been kind of relieved. He’d never been swept up and away so damn fast before, especially not with a stranger, and it was so unlike him that taking the time to cool off and think things through had been exactly what he needed.

  But what if Raven had also been caught up in the moment? What if he regretted giving Caleb a means to contact him? The other part of Jaime’s speculation trickled through his ire and he stared at his cousin, eyes wide, heart pounding.

  “What if there was a hidden camera? What if this was some sort of… I don’t know… a propriety test by the hotel?”

  Jaime stared at him in silence. For a few seconds. Then he burst into laughter.

  “Whoa. Paranoid much? If it was a propriety test, mi amigo, you already failed. Spectacularly. It’s Wednesday. Your ass would already be toast if they were trying to trap you in that way.”

  Caleb’s heart rate slowed a bit. “I suppose that’s true.”

  Jaime jabbed both thumbs toward himself. “This guy. Always right. Remember that.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” As irritating as it was to admit, Jaime’s statement was true more often than not.

  “Honestly, it sounds like he’s just your type. Fucking repressed. Seriously, if you don’t use your cock regularly, it’ll fall right off. And I should know. I’m in health care.” Jaime opened his eyes wide, and almost innocently, before he picked up Raven’s business card. “Although the plain card with just a phone number is a little mysterious. I think you should call. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  Jaime proffered the card to Caleb, and he snatched it back and stuffed it in his wallet before Jaime could memorize the number.

  “I could get my fucking heart broken.”

  Jaime’s eyebrows lifted. “You really like this guy. Are you sure it’s heartbreak you’re hiding from and not having to introduce him to the family?”

  Panic made Caleb’s stomach turn, and for a moment he wondered if he needed to sprint to the restroom. Damn Jaime. Caleb had spent barely any time with Raven, but what he’d seen had been so appealing to all of his senses, he’d started to hope that something could come out of their chance meeting. Something good, something long term, and if he truly fell for another man, he didn’t know if he’d have the fortitude—or acting skills—to stay in the closet with his family.

  Caleb took a few deep breaths and reminded himself he was a grown man who shouldn’t be freaking out over… this. Or at least not yet. Maybe he was building up the encounter in his head because of its surreal nature. Maybe he and Raven were completely incompatible, or maybe the intense attraction would fizzle out once they’d had a shared orgasm or three.

  “I could introduce him to the family.” Even if the thought made him want to throw up. He could all too easily imagine a roomful of disappointed expressions, the most painful one on his mom’s face.

  The imagined disapproval faded in the face of Jaime’s obvious skepticism, and Caleb scowled. They sat in silence for a few minutes, as Caleb squirmed. Not literally, but the silence was definitely uncomfortable on his end, a
s the patently untrue words hung between them.

  Then Jaime changed the subject to a completely neutral topic, and Caleb did his best to participate, unable to remain ignorant of Jaime’s effort to keep away from any conversational sinkholes while they finished dinner. Was he really such a coward that he’d be willing to throw away the chance of something real and true with a possibly broken man who filled his thoughts because he was scared of letting his family know who he really was inside? Or was he going to let his family railroad him into marrying someone he’d never be able to love?

  As understanding as ever, though, Jaime hugged him after dinner, a sympathetic look in his eyes. “I’m just going to say one more thing on the matter, I promise. I think you should call him.”

  Jaime left before Caleb had a chance to respond, so Caleb couldn’t even spend the evening letting Jaime distract him from the increasingly weighty business card in his wallet.

  RAVEN CLOSED his laptop, wishing it made a more satisfying bang, although that would probably mean it was broken and replacing it was an expense he didn’t need right now. Before his accident, he’d never worried overmuch about where the next paycheck would come from. He was young, healthy, and men were happy to pay to watch him get fucked on camera. Sure, he’d known he couldn’t do porn forever and was already edging into too-old territory, but he’d had his future planned, more or less. After the accident, despite a hefty settlement, he’d been left with an almost paralyzing fear of the future.

  Grimacing, he got up and paced. His hip ached, but he needed to move.

  With one semester left to complete his degree, he should be thrilled, but opening up job search sites left him depressed and agitated. How had he thought a business degree, of all things, would be a good fit for him? Every entry-level job would be… death. Conforming to the nine to five, dealing with a dress code, worrying about someone finding out about his past, never mind the fact he was probably older than any other entry-level candidate. Was that even a thing? Did office people get promoted based on age group, like it was an extension of school? He should have fucking applied for that intern thing when he’d had the chance. He was going in blind, and all he knew about office work was what he’d read in books and seen on television.