by Myra Scott
After hearing him mumble Zane’s name, I just wanted to go home and be alone for a while. I gently pushed his hand away, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and got dressed. He watched me with a sort of lost look on his face as I put on my clothes and opened the door to leave. Gage looked confused, as though he couldn’t quite put together what he had done wrong to make me stop. He wasn’t drunk, but I had a feeling that between the rush of orgasm and the light buzz still coursing through his veins, it would be a while before reality kicked in. And I would be long gone by the time he realized his mistake.
So, I gave him one last sad smile, then walked out to catch a cab home.
CHAPTER 8 - GAGE
“I don’t care if it’s a first offense,” I snapped at the young man who was being held by a couple of security guards. “This is the Sentry, not some two-bit slot machine factory, and my security knows a pickpocket when they catch one.” I gave a nod to one of the guards. “Get this fucker out of here, make sure he stays out. No refunds on his room.”
“Yes, sir,” the guard said, and I watched them haul the thief away before I let out a long sigh, feeling the tension down my back as taut as a guitar string.
Once they were gone, I stepped out of the private room and back onto the casino floor. It felt like there were emergencies everywhere tonight, and I was blowing up at each and every one. Usually, I liked to play it cool, but I felt more agitated than a caged bull tonight.
That kid wasn’t the first offender I had thrown out of the casino tonight. Earlier, I had three drunks escorted up to their rooms forcibly, and I called the police on a couple guests who tried to run out on their bar tabs.
It wasn’t an especially unusual night, but my light touch wasn’t in the cards at the moment. Not with how I was feeling.
My heart was a wreck.
I held back everything I felt last night, but I couldn’t shake the intense guilt over what happened with Devin. How could I call him Zane’s name? Every time the memory came to me, I felt a new pang of guilt washing over me all over again, like I was right there letting it happen in real time.
It was the most inconsiderate thing I’d ever done to anyone, and I’d done it to the person who deserved it the least.
And of course, the more I beat myself up about last night, the more the rest of the evening came to mind. I remembered Devin flirting with me, but I’d hardly paid him any attention. I’d been too tied up with Zane and my thoughts about him. And as soon as he walked in with Diego, Devin had been right there trying to calm me down.
I must have seemed like a monster to Devin, pining after Zane like some lovesick schoolboy.
But I couldn’t help it. As much as I wanted to be as calm and collected as Mick, I was not Mick. I was Gage, and I’d always be Gage. The fire churning in my heart told me that much.
I tried to make myself forget everything by doing the normal routine, checking in with my pit bosses and the guards and generally ensuring everything went smoothly. But I was just going through the motions, and I knew it.
Zane and Devin were the only things on my mind.
The more I thought about last night though, the more I appreciated Devin. There weren’t many people in the world who would stick with you after something like that, but Devin was one of them. And I couldn’t deny that the feeling of his mouth around my cock was something out of this world.
I’ve had a lot of boyfriends over the years. I knew what I liked, and I’d been a serial dater since high school. I was an emotional man, and getting a rein on my feelings had always been a big part of growing into an adult. But I knew myself well enough to know when I was with someone special. Devin was special whether he realized it or not.
He had a way of putting me at ease that was unusual for me. I tried to keep myself a little more mysterious around employees, even the ones like him that I grew close to, but for some reason, nothing was stopping me from telling him my whole life story last night. I would have gone on longer if it weren’t for…
As if on cue, I watched Zane and Diego step out of the elevator and onto the casino floor, and almost immediately, they were swarmed by some of the richer guests, coming to catch up with the two of them, pose for photos, and live that damned enchanted life that seemed to follow the two of them around.
Immediately, all my thoughts melted away and got replaced with white-hot jealousy.
I hated myself for that. Jealousy was an ugly look on anyone. I was no exception. I didn’t know why Devin hung around me despite it. The anger that burned in me from seeing the two of them together and flaunting their love made me want to get a room at the hotel and just scream into a pillow until my lungs hurt.
But tonight, I had even more reason to be upset at the two of them together—Zane was supposed to have spoken with Diego about breaking ties with La Torre. The way they were smiling and laughing, perfectly at ease, it sure as hell didn’t look like they’d had that difficult conversation.
Before I could stop myself, I stated marching over to the two of them. I was a tall, fit guy, so I didn’t have any trouble wading through the small sea of expensive perfume and richly dressed people around them to get to Zane.
He looked a little surprised and anxious to see me but that didn’t stop me.
“Zane,” I whispered to him, taking him by the arm and leaning into his ear. “We need to talk. Now.”
“What’s this about, Gage? I’m right in the middle of something,” he hissed back.
“Can’t talk here,” I said. “Follow me.”
I pulled Zane away without so much as a glance at Diego. Zane shouted an excuse to Diego and the crowd, nervously laughing and waving it off, but then he looked to me with a death glare as I trotted him to the nearest private room we usually use for security disputes.
“Gage, what in the hell is so important that we have to step away from public relations like that?” Zane demanded as soon as I shut the door behind us.
“You and Diego are what’s so important,” I started, crossing my arms and glaring daggers at him.
Zane was shocked to silence, but that shock quickly turned to exasperation. “Gage, do not tell me that’s what this is about.”
“Have you talked to him?” I asked, putting my hands on my hips. “All three of us are waiting on you, Zane, you know that. Have you even brought up the fact that you agreed to break up the partnership? Because it sure looks like the two of you are about to announce that one of you is goddamn pregnant.”
“That’s enough, Gage,” Zane said in a firm, warning tone, holding a hand out to me. “First of all, I agreed to ease back on the partnership, not a full break. You just wanted long enough to be able to hire and train people with Mick.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t want to start having meetings about exactly what ‘cutting ties’ means, Zane,” I said. “I thought we all made ourselves very clear last time we met.”
“I thought we did too,” Zane said.
“So, come on then, what have you and Diego talked about?” I pushed, my voice getting a little louder. Zane held his ground.
“Gage, there are a lot of things to factor into this kind of thing,” he said. “There are deals we can’t back out of at a moment’s notice. That bridge nightclub means a lot to both our businesses, so we can’t exactly just cut it in half and pretend none of this happened.”
“What does Diego have to say about it?” I snapped. “Surely he didn’t just put all his eggs in that basket without a contingency plan.”
Zane hesitated, and I furrowed my eyebrows at him. “Zane, you have talked to him, haven’t you? Like we all agreed you would?”
“Gage…”
“Have you said anything to him?”
“Gage, look, you need to leave this with me—”
“I cannot believe you!” I shouted, not holding anything back anymore. I was past that. “You haven’t
even thought about bringing it up to him, have you? As soon as you left that meeting room, you just went straight back into his arms and threw out the whole meeting.”
Zane’s face was stone-cold, but he maintained his composure and held a tight, even tone. “Gage,” he started slowly, “you’re treading on very thin ice right now.”
“I’m on thin ice?” I laughed. “You’re the one who’s been forgetting everyone besides your new boyfriend. I saw how you pushed Mick to his breaking point—you’re so wrapped up in this sudden burst of profit that you’re forgetting that you’re not the only one who runs this casino!”
My voice was loud and furious. I didn’t care. I wanted to lay into Zane, and for once, the words were just coming to me naturally and fiercely. Zane took it all in as still as a statue. I wondered if he was even listening to me.
“You’re throwing all of us under the bus for this relationship,” I said. “You need to get your head out of the clouds and pay attention to what’s going on around you, or you’re going to lose this business.”
“Gage,” he said, trying to calm me down, but I was beyond that. “I want you to slow down and listen to yourself. Neither Mick nor Bart has been pressing me like this. Think about what you just said. Don’t you think you’re angry about a little more than the business side of things? I think you’re the one who needs to put things in perspective.”
My face went red.
“Yeah, maybe this is about more than the business, Zane,” I snapped. “Because you are not the same man I met in Madrid.”
“No, I’m not, and you aren’t either,” he said, that firm, even tone driving me insane. “We’ve grown up. We’re adults. We’ve changed. This is normal. We all get on with our lives, even if we’re working closely together, can you come to peace with that?”
“Come to peace?” I repeated in disbelief. “You’re talking to me like-”
“Like you’re a little out of line, Gage, and that’s me being nice,” he said very firmly. “I don’t remember giving you the authority to start ordering me around, but rest assured, I will talk to Diego about this. I’m waiting for the right time. If I just drop this on him out of the blue in the middle of everything we have going on out there,” he said, gesturing out the door, “then it would be a PR disaster. People would assume we’ve had some kind of domestic dispute.”
My arms were crossed, but Zane looked calm and collected as ever.
“And I don’t think I have to remind you how bad it would look for all of us if the public thought a casino run by four gay men was falling apart because of some relationship issues.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but nothing came out. I was at a loss for words even though I was trembling with anger.
“Gage, maybe you need to take a few days off to cool down, because this? This is not the Gage Taylor I hired, and it’s certainly not the responsible head of gambling who’s been outperforming anyone like him on the Strip,” Zane said.
“This all came out wrong,” I said, exasperated.
“I sure hope it did,” Zane said. “Now, I’m going to walk back out there and pretend like this meeting never happened. And I don’t want it to happen again.”
“Then you’d better talk to Diego,” I said, the challenge in my voice clear. I wasn’t backing down from this, no matter how cool and suave Zane tried to be.
Our eyes locked for a few moments, and angry sparks flew, but Zane just shook his head.
Without another word, he pushed past me and out the door, leaving me alone.
I clenched my jaw and my fist.
Fuck me.
CHAPTER NINE - GAGE
“And how would you say your experience at that last position makes you qualified for the Sentry?” Mick asked the young woman sitting across the table in front of us. She was dressed in a crisp, professional outfit, tidy but not too fancy. Her makeup was perfect, and her face was open and friendly yet not over enthusiastic or off putting. She seemed perfect.
I sat beside Mick, evaluating her body language and other nonverbal tells while Mick carried on the conversation. She brushed her hair out of her face and smiled brightly.
“My last position was all about keeping a level head in a busy environment. I mean, that’s kind of a survival skill in Miami.” We all laughed politely, and she carried on, rattling off a few details about her last managerial position with the ease of someone who clearly knows her way around an interview.
But all the while, I had to keep trying to refocus myself, because my mind was wandering in eight different directions.
The fight with Zane was still fresh in my mind. I’d barely slept the night after, and now, several days later, I didn’t feel like I’d slept a wink, despite some sleeping aids to just knock me out and help me get through the day.
I couldn’t go on like this, but I didn’t know what else to do.
Zane’s words were just infuriating. He was a perceptive guy, and he wasn’t stupid. There was no way he didn’t know what he was doing to me. So, did he just not care? Was I that worthless to him that he would just brush me off for some handsome Spaniard with perfect hair?
Just thinking about it got my blood boiling, but I couldn’t let it show in an interview. This was supposed to be professional, and we were supposed to be grilling this young woman for all we could, but I was the least professional person in the room by far.
I knew it was plain to read on my face, no matter how hard I tried to hide it. I thought that doing this interview with Mick would let some of his calm aura rub off on me, but it seemed like it was just sapping it from me. Seeing him so cool and collected made me angry. Everything made me angry, it seemed.
Besides that, I had the very real problem in front of me that I couldn’t ignore: we genuinely were short-staffed. That was the whole reason we were taking time out of our busy day to interview this potential new hotel manager.
“…and that internship experience actually let me sharpen my French enough that at the next business meeting, I rattled off enough of it fluently that was apparently sufficient to have the investors asking my manager to hire me out from under them.”
“That’s fascinating,” Mick said with a smile, glancing over to me. “Didn’t you say you spoke a little French, Gage?”
“Hm? What?” I said, snapping myself out of a near trance, and Mick’s gaze turned sharp. I blushed. “Oh, of course,” I said hurriedly, and then to the interviewee, I said in passable French with a horrible American accent, “Being bilingual is an asset in the hospitality industry that we at the Sentry find indispensable.”
Mick gave a soft smile, approving of my save. The young woman nodded enthusiastically and replied in the same language, “Of course, and while I can’t say the same about my Spanish, I think my experience demonstrates my ability to learn quickly for the Sentry’s needs.”
I gave a firm nod in reply, then another to Mick, who stood up.
“Excellent. I think we have plenty to go on here. Thank you very much for your time, Ms. Sanders.”
“Thank you, Mr. Mazur, Mr. Taylor,” she said to both of us, mirroring Mick’s movements and shaking our hands. “I look forward to hearing back from you.”
She gathered her things and headed out while we pretended to organize the things on Mick’s desk, and once she was out of the room, Mick smiled over at me.
“Might as well hire her on the spot, right?”
“Mhm, right, sure,” I said absentmindedly, gathering my own things. In all honesty, I’d hardly realized the interview was over. I was thinking of Devin again.
He was like this softly pulsing beacon of light in all this, and I couldn’t tell if it was the most welcome relief or the most bitter distraction in the world. He was always stuck in the back of my mind when I knew I should spend more time worrying about Zane and getting things broken off with Diego.
Maybe he w
as the one I should have been talking things through about all this. But every time I wanted to do that, I just remembered what happened when we were fooling around that night, and my guilt wrapped around me like a python.
“Are you alright, Gage?” Mick asked cautiously, raising an eyebrow.
“What? I’m fine,” I lied quickly.
“You’re usually the one doing most of the talking in these things,” he said.
“Thought I’d shake it up this time,” I deflected with a fake smile.
“Well, shaking up for you usually doesn’t mean zoning out in the middle of an interview.”
I raised my eyes and stared at him for a few moments, and he just stared right back, our gazes locked. I knew what he was getting at, but I wasn’t going to give it to him easily.
“I’m having an off-day,” I said with a frown. “I just haven’t been sleeping well lately.”
“Yeah, it sounds like an off-week,” Mick said, sitting on his desk and putting a hand on one knee. “Look, I heard about what happened with Zane.”
I shot him a warning look, but to my surprise, he pressed on.
“I know he can be difficult to work with sometimes, in a lot of different ways. Zane’s a big personality, but sometimes—”
“I really don’t think this is any of your business, Mick,” I snapped, and Mick’s eyebrows went up.
“Well, you’re both my friend and my coworker, Gage, so I feel like this is something worth talking about. Just like you said to Zane in the meetings, this is something that could affect all of us.”
“It doesn’t have to affect you at all,” I said, putting my hands on my hips and standing my ground. “You’ve always been a numbers guy, and that’s all you need to worry about in all this. I appreciate you taking my side on the partnership issue, but this is one situation where you need to shut up and let the talkers do the talking.”
Mick’s face looked like I’d just slapped it with the back of my hand.
