by L. A. Witt
“Nothing like a blow to the confidence, right?”
“So much.”
Nate gave him another quick kiss. “You want a beer or something?”
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
They went into the kitchen, and Nate pulled a couple of bottles from the fridge. He opened them and handed one to Lucas.
“So the cover-up came out good?” he asked.
Lucas took a deep swallow of beer, then nodded. “Better than I thought it would. I mean, it’s not done yet, but the hardest part is over. When she comes in next time, it’ll just be shading, and then the old tattoo will be completely gone.” He paused, and shyly added, “I . . . have a picture on my phone if you want to see it.”
“Yeah, sure. I’d love to.”
Lucas put his beer on the counter and took out his phone. “So, this is what it started as.” He showed Nate a photo of a hideous lower-back tattoo.
Nate arched an eyebrow. He’d seen some awful tattoos before, but Jesus. “Okay, I’m no connoisseur, but . . . is this as bad as it looks?”
“Worse. Trust me. And here”—Lucas swiped left—“is the work in progress.”
Nate could see why Lucas was considered a wizard at this. Though the new tattoo was obviously unfinished, the groundwork had been laid for a much crisper design over the top of the old one.
He handed back the phone. “You really have a gift. I’m serious.”
Lucas blushed. “Thanks. Guess all that time I spent drawing when I should’ve been paying attention in class paid off.”
“Apparently so. And I can see why you wanted to keep working if you were on a roll.” Nate handed back the phone. “That one looks great.”
“Thanks.” Lucas smiled again as he pocketed his phone. “And thanks for understanding. I really hate bailing at the last second.”
“It’s fine. My job interferes with my life, too.” Nate kissed him lightly. “I’m in the military, remember?”
“Oh, I remember.” A feisty gleam in Lucas’s eyes made Nate shiver. With a not-very-subtle down-up glance, he added, “I definitely remember. Which reminds me—when do I get to see you in your flight suit?”
Nate laughed. “When I haven’t been sweating in it all day long, maybe.”
Lucas chuckled. “Well, that would just mean tearing it off you and dragging you into the shower, right?”
“Hmm, I like the way you think.” Nate slid his hands over Lucas’s hips and onto his amazing ass. “I’m down with anything that involves you tearing clothes off me.”
“Of course you are.” Lucas grinned and pushed himself up to kiss Nate. “And actually, I could use a shower right now.” He frowned as he tugged at his collar. “Didn’t have a chance to change when I left the call center, and I’ve been at the shop for hours.”
“I won’t say no to that, especially if you let me join you.”
Lucas rolled his eyes and clicked his tongue. “Let you?” He took Nate’s hand and tugged him toward the bedroom. “I’d be insulted if you didn’t join me.”
* * *
Lucas stepped out of the shower just long enough to discard the condom. Then he joined Nate again, and they tangled up in a lazy kiss under the falling water. Lucas’s whole body was limp against his, boneless and unsteady after fucking Nate up against the tile wall. After the long day he’d had, it was a wonder he was still conscious, but he seemed to be holding his own.
As they kissed, Nate stroked Lucas’s wet hair. He loved this—just holding each other and kissing while his body still tingled from coming.
“God help us if Virginia Beach is ever on rationed water,” Lucas said against his lips. “We won’t know what to do with ourselves.”
Nate laughed and lifted his head so they were looking in each other’s eyes. “This would be well worth getting fined for violating the law.”
Lucas chuckled. “Agreed.” He ran his fingers over the tiger on Nate’s arm. “You know, we never did get back to figuring out your cover-up.”
“True. We didn’t.” Nate glanced at the ink, then shrugged. “I still don’t know what to cover it with.”
“Well, when you think of something,” Lucas said with a grin, “you know where to find me.”
“Usually in my bed, conveniently enough. Or my shower, as the case may be.”
Lucas laughed, but sobered a bit. “I, uh . . . kind of feel like I’m monopolizing all your downtime.”
If you only knew how much time I spend with you when you’re not around.
“Do you hear me bitching?”
“Well, no. But when I bail on you at the last second . . .”
“It happens. Relax. As long as we’re both enjoying the time we spend together, I’d say everything is just fine.”
“Hmm, yeah. And I definitely enjoy it.” Lucas lifted his chin so they were looking in each other’s eyes, and he grinned. “In fact, I like spending as much time as possible with you.” He trailed his fingertips down Nate’s abs. “Especially since I usually end up getting off a couple of times.”
Nate bit his lip, muscles tightening between Lucas’s featherlight fingers. “Mmm, yeah. You do. So do—fuck.”
Lucas grinned, drawing little circles on Nate’s skin. “Like that?”
“You know I do.”
Lucas gave a wicked laugh, and then kissed Nate before murmuring, “We should take this in the bedroom.”
“Yeah. We really should.”
* * *
Life in a squadron wasn’t all excitement at Mach 1. Unfortunately, it was still the military, and no one spent more than five minutes in the military without doing mountains of paperwork. Pilots and RIOs were no exception.
And this week, since the weather promised to be shit for the next three days, that meant paperwork for the next three days. Not that they couldn’t fly in inclement conditions, but the powers that be preferred they do that only enough to stay in practice without putting billion-dollar birds in jeopardy more often than necessary.
So . . . paperwork. Tedious, redundant, excessive, bullshit paperwork.
A conference room in the air wing’s building had been converted into a hybrid work area-slash-lounge. The Coke machine was right outside, and the big tables provided enough room to spread out all the reams of forms and reports while still leaving space for Chinese takeout, sub sandwiches, coffee, and whatever else squadron members brought in to make life more bearable. Plus they’d all chipped in for a Keurig, which meant that the only thing more endless than the paperwork was the coffee.
Today, as always, Jon and Nate had taken over the table farthest from the door. The building was sweltering, but a vent in the corner kept them from sweating their dicks off.
Jon was hunched over a stack of reports next to a couple of crumpled-up Egg McMuffin wrappers and a steaming cup of coffee. Beside him, Nate was kicked back with his chair balanced on its back legs, his shoulders pressed against the cool brick wall and his boots resting on the edge of the table. He had a clipboard propped against his thigh, and in between pulling Cheetos from the bag against his other leg, he slowly made headway on the stupid maintenance-request form.
The forms were long and dull in the name of being thorough. Generally speaking, Nate appreciated that—the more information they could pass on to the maintainers, the more likely the bird would be properly fixed.
That wasn’t foolproof, though. He and Jon had asked maintenance like twelve times to check the landing gear and figure out why it was making weird noises, and each time the maintainers had come back insisting there was nothing wrong. And maybe there wasn’t. It was entirely possible that the noise didn’t mean a damn thing.
Still, landing gear was pretty fucking critical, so once Nate finished this form, maintenance could check that weird noise again.
He tugged the form off the clipboard and held it out to Jon. “Hey, can you add this to the outgoing stack?”
Jon reached over his shoulder, felt around blindly, and found the form. When he brought it arou
nd, he glared at it. “What? I thought they fixed that last time.”
Nate shook his head as he took another Cheeto from the bag. “No. Heard it again last time we went up.”
Jon muttered something under his breath before adding the request form to the stack.
“You guys still trying to get that landing gear fixed?” Recon asked, glancing up from polluting his coffee with seventy-five gallons of nondairy creamer. “You sure it isn’t just a normal rattle?”
“Might be.” Nate shrugged. “But until they can tell me exactly what’s making that sound and why, even if it isn’t anything to worry about, they’re going to keep checking.”
“No wonder the maintainers hate you,” Taxi said with a snicker.
“Yeah, well.” Nate dusted some Cheeto dust on his blue camouflage trousers. “I’d rather be hated by the Airedales than splattered across the flight line.”
A murmur of agreement rippled through the group. Nate was pretty sure the maintainers had a dartboard with his face on it, but he really didn’t care. Not after last year, when they’d blown off his concerns about an electrical malfunction, only to have the radar go tits-up in midair. Rumor had it, his call sign had very nearly been changed from Screws to Hulk-Smash after that incident. Not that he’d actually caused physical damage to anyone or anything, but he had kind of lost his shit and scared the bejeezus out of every maintainer within earshot, plus a few supply guys and a couple of air framers who’d happened to be in the building. He wasn’t normally one to lose his temper, but he did have his limits.
After everyone had slogged through as much paperwork as they could handle without lapsing into comas, Jon, Nate, and about half the squadron wandered over to the food court for lunch.
While he waited in line with Jon for teriyaki bowls, Nate’s phone buzzed with a text from Lucas.
Gonna be a long shift tonight. See you tomorrow?
Tomorrow is good. Always worth the wait. ;)
So worth it. ;)
Admittedly, he was disappointed. The nights with Lucas made even the longest days go by faster. Going home to an empty house didn’t give him much to look forward to. But . . . tomorrow.
“You know,” Jon said, “I can always tell when you’re texting him.”
Nate looked up. “What? How?”
Jon rolled his eyes. “Same way you can tell when I’ve been chatting with Matt, idiot. It’s written all over your face.”
Well, if it hadn’t been before, it probably was now—Nate was pretty sure his face was bright red.
“Fuck you.” He chuckled as he pocketed his phone. “Don’t judge me.”
“I’m not judging!” Jon laughed, holding his hands up in surrender. “Just saying.”
“Uh-huh.”
They reached the front of the line and ordered their food. This place was pretty fast—anything in a military-base food court had to be—so in minutes, they were at a cluster of tables with their friends.
As Nate drowned his food with extra teriyaki sauce, Jon studied him.
“So, um.” He shifted in his chair. “Out of curiosity, how are things moving along with the divorce?”
Nate ignored the sudden knot in his gut and shrugged. “Slowly. We can’t even file until we’ve been separated for six months, which sucks, but . . .”
“Not even after he cheated on you?”
“Eh. That would mean a fault divorce, and the no-fault just seemed like less of a hassle. I could do without the six-month separation bullshit, but dragging ourselves to court and hashing out the details of him cheating?” Nate shuddered. “I’d rather not.”
Jon grimaced. “Yeah, being saddled with him that much longer sucks, but it’s only on paper, right?”
“Yep. Could be worse—it’d be a year if we had kids.”
“And a whole lot more complicated anyway.”
Nate nodded. “Exactly. But we’ll get there. Just a few more months. And the day that shit’s finalized?” He gestured at all the squadron members. “Party at O’Leary’s, and all y’all are invited. First round is on me.”
“Just the first round?” Recon scoffed. “Come on!”
“Fuck you, asshole. The way everyone in this squadron drinks, you’d all bankrupt my freshly divorced ass.”
They all laughed, but Jon still seemed a little uneasy. Picking at his food, he had those creases in his forehead he always got when he had something on his mind.
“What?” Nate asked.
Jon chewed his lip. He skewered a piece of chicken on his fork but didn’t get much farther than that. “I’m just concerned about you, that’s all. With this new guy.”
“What about him?”
“Well, the ink isn’t even dry on your divorce, and you’re—”
“And I’m doing exactly what you always tried to convince me to do when we were younger—getting laid without any strings attached.”
Jon eyed him skeptically.
Nate took a bite of his cooling teriyaki chicken, and after he’d washed it down with some Coke, his friend was still giving him that I’m not buying it look.
“What?” Nate shrugged. “I mean, yes, I like the guy. I wouldn’t be sleeping with him if I didn’t.”
“But is that all you’re doing with him?”
“Obviously. You hung up your slut cape, so now it’s my turn to wear it.”
Jon chuckled halfheartedly. “Doesn’t count as wearing the slut cape if you’re only banging one guy.”
“But what if that one guy is insanely hot and amazing in bed? Then does it count?”
“Eh.” Jon made a so-so gesture. “Not really. Still basically monogamy.”
“Even if I’m totally open to nailing another guy if—”
“Oh my God.” Taxi groaned at the next table. “I swear, if you two start comparing notes . . .”
“What?” Jon smirked. “You’ll have to excuse yourself to take care of a hard-on?”
The other guys howled with laughter, and after a moment, Taxi joined in.
“Hey,” Nate said, “we’ve had to listen to graphic details of the crimes your baby has committed in her diapers, so you can shut up and live with us talking trash about each other’s sex lives.”
“He’s got a point,” Recon said. “I mean, none of it’s exactly appetizing at lunch, but given the choice . . .”
Taxi rolled his eyes again. “Yeah, yeah.” They all laughed again and went back to eating.
Jon met Nate’s gaze across the table. “To be serious—just be careful out there, all right? No sense getting your heart broken when you’re still dealing with Caleb.”
“There’s nothing to deal with,” Nate said. “I’m divorcing him. Dealing with him?” He shook his head. “Done.”
Jon’s expression was full of skepticism, but he let it drop.
As he continued eating and the conversation shifted to other topics, Nate had to admit Jon was kind of on to him. Lucas wasn’t just a piece of ass. He should’ve been, but he wasn’t.
And yeah, it was probably way too soon to have feelings that originated anywhere other than in his pants, but Nate wasn’t fighting it. Whatever this was, it felt good. And it felt a hell of a lot better than the weeks before he’d met Lucas.
So, why fight it?
* * *
Nate was beginning to enjoy this part almost as much as the sex—having Lucas pressed up against him, bodies still and warm under the covers. He ached all over, but it was that nice, satisfied ache that came from a vigorous quickie in the living room and a much longer—but just as vigorous—fuck in his bed. If they ended up going another round tonight, he couldn’t guarantee he had another orgasm left in him, but he’d make damn sure Lucas got one.
Beside him, Lucas yawned and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Fuck. Sorry.”
Nate ran his fingers through Lucas’s sweat-dampened hair. “I wear you out?”
“Well, you and the time clock.” Lucas groaned. “That’s the joy of working three jobs—you’re always exhausted.
”
“And all that because you’re tangled up in student loans?”
“Yep,” Lucas said, with no shortage of bitterness.
Nate grimaced. “Damn. That sucks.” Not a day went by that he wasn’t grateful the military had paid for his education.
“Add the cost of living on top of that, plus trying to save up to replace my piece-of-shit car, and . . . well, I’m going to be triple-shifting for a while.”
“Ouch.” Nate ran his fingers through Lucas’s hair again. God, he loved doing that, especially when it meant brushing a few unruly strands out of those gorgeous blue eyes. “Sounds like you could use a break.”
“So much.”
Nate wondered what it might be like to get Lucas away from all the stress, even if it was just for a weekend. And . . . what it would be like to have Lucas to himself. No jobs. Nowhere else to be. Just them.
The thought made him warm all over. They could spend all night in bed. Sleep in. Go out. Just be together without anything else tugging at their minds.
Was that too close to romantic? Maybe. Probably. But damn if it wasn’t tempting, and besides, spending a weekend together and relaxing wasn’t exactly running off to Vegas. Could it really hurt?
Absently smoothing Lucas’s hair, he asked, “Any chance you can get away from all three gigs for a couple of days?”
Lucas raised an eyebrow. “What did you have in mind?”
Nate shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I could stand to get away for a while myself. Maybe we could get out of town for a weekend. Go down to the Outer Banks or something.”
Lucas’s lips quirked and his eyes lost focus. “Hmm. That could be fun.” Blushing, he sheepishly met Nate’s eyes. “I, um, don’t have a lot of money, though.”
“Don’t worry about it. My treat.”
“Seriously?”
“Sure. It’s not that far of a drive, and we’d only be staying a night or two.” Nate leaned in and pressed a kiss to Lucas’s lips. “Like I said, I could use the time away, too. It would just be nice to have some company, you know?”
Lucas held his gaze for a moment, looking uncertain, but then he smiled. “Okay. Sure. That sounds like fun.” He cuddled a little closer, sliding his hand up Nate’s side. “I’ll talk to my bosses and see if I can swing something.”
