Chance Encounter

by David Horne

  “Chance Encounter”

  M/M Gay Romance

  David Horne

  © 2020

  David Horne

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is intended for Adults (ages 18+) only. The contents may be offensive to some readers. It may contain graphic language, explicit sexual content, and adult situations. May contain scenes of unprotected sex. Please do not read this book if you are offended by content as mentioned above or if you are under the age of 18.

  Please educate yourself on safe sex practices before making potentially life-changing decisions about sex in real life. If you’re not sure where to start, see here: http://www.jerrycoleauthor.com/safe-sex-resources/ (courtesy of Jerry Cole).

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Products or brand names mentioned are trademarks of their respective holders or companies. The cover uses licensed images and are shown for illustrative purposes only. Any person(s) that may be depicted on the cover are simply models.

  Edition v1.00 (2020.01.27)

  http://www.DavidHorneauthor.com

  Special thanks to the following volunteer readers who helped with proofreading: Bob, RB, Jenny, Naomi W., and those who assisted but wished to be anonymous. Thank you so much for your support.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Moving was going to suck. There was something about moving that could make even the toughest guy just want to toss everything that he owned out the window. Not that Alex owned much. It was mostly a few boxes and some old furniture his uncle loaned him. Still, that was enough to make him want to give it all away and move somewhere furnished.

  He grunted as he pulled the mattress out of the small moving van. “A new start.” It was almost a chant as he started to fight it up to the third floor. “How does anyone move without an elevator?”

  He knew that he was grumbling, but it didn’t seem like anyone was looking at him. It didn’t surprise him at all. He knew what this kind of neighborhood was like. Nobody ever saw anything. It was the way people survived in a place like this. Keep their heads down and stay out of other people’s business. Especially the business of strangers. He would find no friendly faces here.

  That was the way that he liked it. No one was going to bother him. Not in a place like this. But he still had to get his mattress up three flights of stairs to the third floor.

  It was certainly a struggle for him. Even in his early thirties, he could feel his difficult life adding up to some soreness in his knees. Knees that had taken quite a bit of punishment from his former rough and tumble life.

  He headed into his new apartment with the mattress. The bed wasn’t assembled yet, but it would do for now. At least until he got the rest of the work done for his new place. “First step, bed,” he mumbled to himself. Then he headed back down the stairs to close up the truck. He would have to take it back the next day. But for now, he was eager to take a short nap. It had been a long day. For him to continue moving in, he needed a nap.

  He had just reached his floor when he bumped straight into another man. It took him by surprise as the man mumbled a quick apology while adjusting his glasses.

  “No problem,” Alex said.

  The man was cute behind the phone that he was staring at. Alex felt his breath catch in his throat as he looked down at him. Alex was a good head taller than him, but that didn’t matter either. The neighbor shrugged and didn’t really look up. “Should’ve paid more attention.”

  “We both could have been paying better attention,” Alex responded.

  He nodded, still looking at his phone. He hadn’t even looked up once and the man was already walking away, heading into the apartment right next door to Alex. He shook his head and went back to his apartment. Alex had more important things to do with his time than to worry about his next-door neighbor.

  Instead, he needed to focus on putting his bed together. Surprisingly it didn’t take as long as he was expecting it to. But it still wasn’t time to rest. His phone buzzed and he looked at it. Sure enough, he was being asked to come into work a day early. One of the bouncers had called out at the last minute. He was going to have to start his job early.

  He pulled on a black t-shirt and some dark washed jeans that hugged his muscular form and stormed down the stairs. His bike was already there, having been towed in the back of the van he had rented for the move.

  He didn’t need the moving van, so the bike would do just fine. It roared to life between his thighs, comforting heat and vibration that made him feel like he owned the world. It was a dangerous arrogance the feeling of raw power brought him, and he knew it. He forced it back down to the back of his mind and headed into what he had ironically nicknamed his office.

  The bar was much like he remembered it before he had left the city to hunt the great adventure elsewhere. “Uncle Trev.”

  The older man greeted him with a hug. “You act like we didn’t see each other just yesterday when you were getting into town,” Trev said with a laugh.

  “Hard to keep track. Sometimes my time with you feels like an eternity. Sometimes it feels like a second.”

  Alex’s uncle laughed at that. It was a laugh that could put someone instantly at ease. “Come in. We open in a couple of hours Just enough time for you to meet the girls.”

  “How many?” Alex inquired.

  “On a Wednesday? Two guys in the kitchen, one girl behind the bar and two servers. Nothing too big. And one big guy keeping an eye on the place.”

  “Do I need to stick near the door?” Alex asked.

  “You can move around a bit, but you should stay close to the door,” Trevor said nodded. “Don’t worry too much. Most of the crowd doesn’t cause any trouble.”

  “I can handle trouble if it comes up,” Alex said to Trev.

  “Try to avoid raising my insurance too much,” Trev said.

  Alex laughed at that as three girls came out of the back with stuff that needed to be stocked behind the bar. They were all working together. And they all looked like sisters.

  “Jen and Jan are the twins. They do the serving,” his uncle explained. “Tracy is the bartender.”

  “I haven’t seen any of the girls in years. Wow, they grew up fast.”

  “You’ve been gone since they were young teenagers.”

  “Hey!” Jan weaved her way over to him. “Alex!” She looked so happy.

  Alex laughed at the joy in her voice. “You act like I fell off the edge of the earth.”

  “You might as well have.” She shrugged. “We missed you.”

  “There’s not that much to miss, trust me.”

  “Don’t try that on me. You’re family.” She waved off his joke as not being funny. “We missed you. We worried about you.” She pulled him into a hug. “Welcome home.�
�

  “It’s good to be home.” There wasn’t a truer statement that he could have made at that moment. This old bar was as much of a home to him as any other place in existence. He loved this place dearly and couldn’t imagine a world where he had to live without it.

  He had been in that world. Luckily no one around asked him much about that place. It was better that way. He decided to start asking the next questions before anyone had a chance to dig too deeply into the life that had only been hinted at before. That life wasn’t easy to talk about. “Jim and Taylor in the kitchen right?”

  “That’s right,” Trevor said nodding as Tracy waved from behind the bar. All three of the girls could be called heartbreakers with light brown hair in just slightly different shades.

  They could have even pulled off being triplets, but they were cousins. “Alex, you want a coke or something?”

  “Water’s fine, thanks.” would work,”

  “Water for Mr. Healthy over here.” Tracy teased him while she produced a bottle of water from the small fridge behind the bar. “Non-alcoholic drinks are on the house for employees. The kitchen will always cook you something for your breaks if you want it. Even if you end up working through your breaks, we keep our plates on that booth right there. You can stop by and grab a bite as you can and sit down whenever it slows down enough to take a breath.”

  Alex nodded at the quick rundown. “Sounds pretty simple.”

  “Simple is the definition of your job. You just look intimidating and check IDs unless someone causes trouble.”

  “Intimidating is my specialty.” He crossed his arms to demonstrate that fact, causing his already powerful shoulders to square. His face grew serious.

  “Yep. That’s pretty damn scary,” Jan called over from where she was placing whiskey bottles behind the bar so that Tracy could get them easily.

  “I’m gonna go talk to Jim and Taylor.” Alex headed back to the employee only area.

  “Bring out another case of beer while you’re back there,” Tracy said.

  “Which kind?” Alex asked his cousin.

  “The ones in the cans that are shaped like bottles.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “The ones out of the fridge,” Tracy explained. “Just move one of the warm ones into the fridge and keep it rotated.”

  “Gotcha.” He shot a thumbs up over his shoulder as he walked to the backroom of the bar.

  He hit the beer cooler first and pulled out a cold case of beer, placing it next to the door as he pulled a warm one in and rotated the stock. It had been a long time since he had done this kind of work. He was pleased to still remember the basics of working in the family bar. He hauled it out of the kitchen doors and slid it onto the bar. “Right here,” he called out.

  “That was quick, Tracy”

  “Wanted to grab it first so I didn’t forget about it.”

  “You rotate new stuff into the cooler?”

  “Sure did,” Alex answered Tracy, then he made his way into the kitchen. The boys were in prepping for the meals that they would serve tonight, mostly chopping up vegetables and cooking some homemade chicken soup in a giant pot on the stove. “That stuff still selling?”

  “What can I say? They like the food here. We’re surprisingly popular for the food.” Jim looked up. He was a bit older than most of the employees, well more than a bit. He was Trevor’s baby brother. About ten years younger than Jan and Jen’s father. Still, he had a bit of salt and pepper in his hair that could only be explained by working hard for years to support the family business. Just like so many people in the family had done.

  Then there was Taylor, diligently slicing tomatoes for the numerous burgers they were bound to sell that night. He nodded a greeting but didn’t say much because his headphones were on. The boy was addicted to music. Not that Alex could blame him for that.

  It didn’t take long for Alex to decide that this was going to be a good day. Jim was stirring more celery into the giant soup pot. “Think I need to put on a second one?”

  “Has it gotten that popular?”

  “People are starting to notice it,” he said with a shrug.

  “That’s pretty good.”

  “We had a producer for the Travelers Channel in here the other day asking around.”

  “You think you might be featured on one of their shows?”

  “I think someone is considering it.”

  “That would be great.” Alex grinned as he headed back out. Until opening, his time was taken up helping get the bar ready to serve the rush of people who were due to come into the bar at any time. It didn’t take too long for them all to get set up and he was stationed at the door to check the identification of everyone coming into the bar. After all, that was exactly what he was hired for. And nobody messed with him at all. He was expecting that. This wasn’t the kind of place that attracted much trouble.

  He had to admit to himself that it was nice to have honest work.

  Chapter Two

  Benjamin barely noticed that the once empty apartment next to him had someone move into it. Whoever it was happened to be fairly quiet and he was appreciative of that fact.

  However, the quiet was starting to get to him. He knew that he had signed up to do this. It was a dream of his. He wanted to create his own video game, and that would take some time and energy. And it would take money. Money that he had carefully saved by cutting his expenses as much as he could. He could afford to take a year off doing just occasional freelancing. His old company had already made the offer to call him if they needed him.

  It was the only freelancing that he did out of the house. The rest of the work he found was telecommuting. He never really knew who he was working with or for. That suited him for the most part, but he did miss the interaction with people.

  Briefly, he considered going to go find a coffee shop to work in. It had to be better than trying to lock himself up and get this done.

  Instead, he sat back down at his computer and pondered exactly what was to come for him.

  Something in him told him that he was onto a great idea. A new framework for mobile games to use. And he was going to solve this.

  But not today. Today he was staring at lines of code on the screen, trying to figure out exactly what was wrong with it. But the answer wasn’t coming. “Damn it.” He grunted as he stepped away from his computer and stomped over to the fridge.

  Opening the door of the fridge he found nothing there. At least nothing he wanted. The truth was that he had plenty to eat, but nothing really looked good. The standard bachelor fare of microwave dinners didn’t exactly make him happy.

  There was beer in the fridge, but that didn’t sound good either. “Maybe I just need to get out of the house?” He mumbled to himself as his phone rang.

  Finally, a distraction from the trouble that was following him. He looked at the screen. Haley. From an office phone. Her office phone. She had been a boss in his previous life, and the one that called him in when she wanted him to do freelance work.

  He picked up the phone. “Hey, what’s up?”

  “Can you make it in tonight? We got a hell of a deadline and things got stuck.”

  “Sure, usual rate?” He had to cover getting paid. He wasn’t so desperate to spend time with people yet.

  “Yeah. Of course.” He could almost see her nodding along with her words. She was just that easy to identify.

  “Sure, I can make it.”

  “Sorry to call you at the last minute.”

  He shook his head. “It isn’t a problem. I was looking for a distraction anyway.”

  She laughed. “Good. I’ll be happy to see you.”

  “How many hours are we looking at?”

  “I’m gonna pay you for the full day, more if it goes after normal hours.”

  “Sounds good.” He hung up the phone and grabbed his shoes, slipping them onto his feet.

  He shoved his wallet in his pocket as he made his way out of the apartment and locked the
door behind him. It would be good to get out of the house for a short while. It might even help him get over the issue he was having with the code for the game.

  He climbed into his small older model Toyota. It was a car built for efficiency rather than looking cool, and he liked it that way. He didn’t need an expensive fancy car. It was more likely to be stolen than his old car with dents in all the doors from shopping carts and an engine that sometimes struggled up steep hills. And Kansas City had a lot of steep hills in the city.

  The car started up. It was reliable and he had maintained it so that it was still running smoothly at over two hundred thousand miles on the odometer. It meant that he didn’t have car payments and his insurance was a lot less expensive. A complete all-around win for a man that made more than enough to pay the rent in his one-bedroom apartment from just a day or two of freelance work each week. Partially due to the fact that his office no longer had to pay a lot of money to keep him in the office. Even if they called him in.

  It didn’t take long for him to get to the office, but the city looked entirely different once he crossed the highway. Heading into the office district it was easy to see that this was a place most people from his neighborhood rarely went to, at least not to do professional jobs like he did.

  Still, his office was pretty nondescript on the outside, a rented space in a larger building, but they controlled the entire third floor.

  He checked in and headed up to the elevator to take him up the stairs. As soon as he walked off the elevator he was greeted warmly. “They’re already waiting for you in the back. Do you still remember how to get there?”

  “Would be hard to forget with how much I’ve been here since I quit.” Benjamin laughed at Heather, the receptionist.

  “Yeah. Yeah. That’s because there’s nobody that can replace you.” He knew it wasn’t true, he was just someone that was easy to get a hold of when they needed a little help to get stuff done.

  And he appreciated it as he made his way back. “Haley in her office?”