Bad Attitude (28 page)

Mike had lived through a lot of locker room explosions, through frustrations over injuries, through watching players learn what they’d worked for their whole lives was gone in an ankle-shattering instant. Dylan’s sudden calm, the brittle sheen of control visible in his rigid body and whispered words, was somehow more alarming than his earlier outbursts. “Darryl told me you were from Jacksonville. If your brother is flying—”

“I know.”

“Someone else you want to call?”

Dylan shook his head. “We have two sisters, but…” He swallowed. “I can’t— I don’t want to talk to them until we know.”

“He’ll be okay.”

“You don’t know that.” The anger was back, but Dylan’s voice was still pitched barely above a whisper. “No one here seems to know shit. Why don’t you find someplace else to wait for the five-o and leave me the fuck alone?”

“Because you look like you’re in as bad a shape as your brother.” And Mike couldn’t walk away any more easily than he could let someone bleed to death in front of him.

Dylan started following the blue line the nurse had told them about.

“So it’s true?” Mike asked, half-curious, half-trying to get Dylan to slow his long legs down.

It worked. Dylan froze. “What?”

“That twins have a bond where they feel sympathetic pains.”

Dylan looked at Mike as if a parasitic twin had suddenly sprung from Mike’s neck. “Like psychic?” Dylan’s lip lifted in disgust. “No way.” He strode to the elevator and punched the button for the fourth floor.

“So why do you look like you’ve been kicked in the ribs?”

As they stepped into the elevator, Dylan glanced down at the left arm he had tucked around his torso. “Maybe I’m trying to keep from punching people who won’t leave me the fuck alone.” He let his arm hang loose as they stepped from the elevator and picked up the blue line again.

The waiting room she’d sent them to was small, eight chairs and a few tattered magazines. To Mike’s relief, there was no one else there. Dylan paced the ten feet to the window and back to the door.

“They’ll find us here? They should have given us a pager.”

Mike kept his mouth closed and shrugged. For someone who wanted Mike to disappear, Dylan kept talking to him.

“What?” Dylan snapped.

Mike raised his hands in a placating gesture. He hoped that the older brother would be here soon. Dylan was about to fly into pieces. Mike found a space on the wall that needed holding up while Dylan maintained his three-steps-forward, three-steps-back pacing.

He was about to suggest Dylan take his raw nerves for a walk outside when Dylan picked up the pile of magazines and threw them halfway across the room. “I can’t fucking do this.”

Mike’s ex-boyfriend had claimed Mike had boundary issues, though Carl would have been shocked as hell to see Mike follow Dylan across the hall and into the men’s room. Mike had come a ways since then, and he couldn’t stand back and let Dylan self-destruct.

Dylan was resting his hands on the sink. “Goddamn, what is with you, man?”

The bathroom was single occupancy. Mike locked the door. Either he’d get his face punched in, or he’d get Dylan to ratchet it back enough to make it through the night, but either way, they were better off without the chance of an audience.

At the sound of the click, Dylan’s head snapped up. “You got the wrong idea. Totally.”

Well, that was one way to take off some of the tension. That possibility hadn’t occurred to him until Dylan brought it up. And the way Dylan’s tongue came out to put a shine on his full lips wasn’t doing a lot to get it out of either of their heads. Whatever Dylan was able to admit about himself, Mike hadn’t been wrong earlier. They turned each other’s crank.

Dylan pushed away from the sink, reaching for the door handle. Mike leaned back, the cool satin of the wooden door pressing into his ass and shoulders.

Dylan took a step back. “Do not start this shit.” The hand that had been reaching for the door went to his head, fingers sliding along the grooves between the cornrowed braids on his scalp.

“So get me out of the way. Throw a punch. C’mon. Because you have got to burn some of that off or you won’t be much good to your brother.”

Dylan was on him in a second, his fists wrapped tight in Mike’s T-shirt. Mike tried to relax, to let Dylan shove him out of the way, but Dylan hauled him in closer, and his mouth crashed down onto Mike’s.

Dylan didn’t kiss guys. Even that one time when it had gotten farther than just getting sucked off, he’d only touched the guy’s hips and dick. Kissing Mike wasn’t anything like kissing a girl. It was harder, rougher. Not just the scrape from stubble on Mike’s jaw, but the way Mike didn’t let Dylan’s tongue into his mouth, but dragged it in, hand coming up to grab on to the end of his braids.

There was only one reason Dylan was doing this now. Any sensation beat sitting around with more pieces of his insides being scooped out with every minute of waiting. Not that Dylan had some psychic connection to Dare on that table. If he did, he’d be feeling the pain…where they were working on Dare. In the head, fucking Christ, they were cutting into Dare’s brain.

So Dylan had a reason, but kissing this white boy—man—was still a giant mistake.

Knew it because of the electric rush that went mouth-balls-dick.

The buzz didn’t build slow and nice like when a girl let him feel her up when they were kissing. Blood pumped thick and fast in his dick, an instant ache despite the loose fit of his jeans. His hips tried to rock him closer, to get his hard-on rubbing onto Mike’s. Which was something else he’d always made a point not to do.

Dylan jerked his head back. “I don’t…kiss.” He knew it was stupid even as he said it.

But Mike didn’t laugh or say something sarcastic, though Dylan had that coming. Mike only arched his sandy brows, but the expression in his eyes wasn’t questioning. It was the same cynicism Dylan knew from his own mirror. Mike twitched his lips in a way that might have been a
whatever
shrug as his fingers slid wide, cupping the back of Dylan’s scalp, tingling the edges between his braids.

Fuck it.

Dylan grabbed Mike’s shoulders to pin the smug asshole against the door and kissed him again. Hard. Dylan’s dick kept trying to cross the space between them, no matter what Dylan tried to tell it about limits.

Mike saved him from breaking that rule. His hand shot between them, found Dylan’s dick through his jeans and rubbed him until the tip tingled as juice leaked from the slit. Mike’s tongue was deep in Dylan’s mouth when Mike worked through the fly. His hand burned as it landed on Dylan’s bare skin. With a gasp, he broke off the kiss.

The shock wasn’t about the sudden escalation. That was the number-one thing Dylan liked about sex with guys. No bullshit. Get off. Get gone.

No, it wasn’t shock, but Dylan had never been kissing a guy when that guy went for Dylan’s dick before. That made it tough to breathe, let alone do anything about kissing him back.

Sometimes family chooses you.

Family Man

© 2013 Heidi Cullinan and Marie Sexton

How does a man get to be forty without knowing whether he’s gay? That’s a question Vince Fierro is almost afraid to answer. If he is gay, it’ll be a problem for his big, fat Italian family. Still, after three failed marriages, he can’t help but wonder if he’s been playing for the wrong team.

There’s only one way to settle it, once and for all—head for Chicago’s Boystown bars, far from anyone who knows him. Naturally, he runs smack into someone from the neighborhood.

Between working two jobs, going to school, taking care of his grandmother, and dealing with his mother’s ongoing substance abuse, Trey Giles has little time for fun, let alone dating someone who swears he’s straight. Yet after one night of dancing cheek-to-cheek to the sultry strains of Coltrane, Trey finds himself wanting to help Vinnie figure things out—no promises, and no sex.

It seems like a simple plan, until their “no-sex” night turns into the best date of their lives and forges a connection that complicates everything.

Warning: This book deals with alcoholism, broken promises, and overbearing little sisters.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Family Man:

After the show they went to the bar Trey had taken them to that first night when Vince had gone out. They didn’t hold hands on the way, which would have been weird, but they did walk closely together on the sidewalk, which was nice.

“Why do I hardly ever see you at the restaurant anymore?” Trey asked. “Too much family?”

Vince shook his head. “No such thing. I just…” He paused, trying to think of how to phrase it. “Well, this sounds nuts, but sometimes being in the middle of all that family can be very lonely.”

Trey frowned. “I never thought about it. There’s just me and Gram and my mom. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to have cousins and stuff.”

“I have plenty of those. Let me know when you want to borrow them.”

They walked in silence for awhile. A group of young guys laughing and looking inebriated took up too much of the sidewalk, and even after Vince moved far to the left, practically hugging the side of a building, they were set to run Trey right over. Without thinking, Vince put his arm around Trey and shifted their positions, huddling around him and putting his back to the drunks. As they buffeted Vince’s back, he glanced down at Trey, who was gazing up at him, eyes sparkling.

Vince smiled.

Trey smiled back, the light in his eyes spreading to the rest of his face.

When the drunks were past, Vince went back to the center of the sidewalk, but he found his arm lingered against Trey’s back, and he left it there as long as he could until it seemed awkward. As he let it fall, though, Trey took hold of his biceps.

It felt good.

Being with Trey felt good. Going out with him—on a date, yeah. So what? So he was dating a guy. So he was…gay, or whatever. What the fuck did it matter? He was having a good time. He was happy. He’d played skee-ball and watched a play and now was going to go dancing. They’d laughed and ate pizza and talked and talked, more than Vince thought he had on a date, ever.

There was nothing here to freak out over, just like Rachel said. And he wanted to do this again. The thought made his insides jump all over the place, like a skee-ball was rattling around inside him hitting nothing but 100s.

The jazz bar was a lot busier than it had been the other night they’d come, but it was still ten times more pleasant than that awful gay bar where he’d met up with Trey the last time. A live band played “In a Sentimental Mood” almost as good as Ellington and Coltrane. The dance floor was full, as was the bar, and all the tables. He caught a glance of himself in the mirror and saw that Rach was right, he looked damn fine. Trey too, and the two of them looked good together.

Vince grinned. All he needed was a scotch and a cigar and the moment would be damn near perfect.

He nodded to the bar. “Want anything to drink?”

“Water, please.”

“Sure thing.” Vince pulled out his wallet and elbowed into a free space to order. He got a bottle of water for Trey and a scotch neat for himself.

Trey took the water and smiled, but Vince couldn’t help but notice his date’s gaze drift down to his scotch, and that his expression went a little flat at the sight of the drink. If he hadn’t indulged in a single malt call, he might have put it aside and forgotten about it.

Instead he sipped even more casually than normal and kept watching Trey for clues as to why his ordering a scotch was such a bad thing. They stood there for a few minutes, until the song ended. When a new one started, Vince eased back happily against the wall behind him.

“Somebody in this band likes Coltrane.” He took a sip of his scotch and basked in the sultry saxophone. “I like this band.”

“Do you listen to a lot of jazz?”

“Oh yeah. But Coltrane is my favorite. Nobody has been able to make a sax sing like he could. These guys don’t do too badly.”

Trey leaned against the wall too, but he sagged a bit against Vince’s side. “It’s so…I don’t know. Not soft, but relaxing. Easy. I feel like I could float away.”

“That’s the idea. Jazz seduces you.” Seeing that Trey had drained his water bottle, Vince took one more sip of scotch, leaned over to put the unfinished glass on the bar and held out his hand. “Ready to dance?”

Beaming, Trey took his hand.

They found a bit of open floor space up front by the band. Vince herded them off to the side, in part because he was still a little self-conscious about dancing with a man, in part because it was dark there, and he liked the idea of dancing in the dark with Trey.

Still, when Trey settled into his arms, fitting their bodies close together, Vince watched the other couples to see who was watching him. A few were, though most didn’t seem to care, too wrapped up in each other. Maybe some of those who noticed looked like they didn’t care for two guys dancing. Maybe he read into it.

They weren’t the only same-sex couple on the floor, either. Two other male couples and a female pair were scattered amongst the heterosexuals. Realizing he’d just lumped himself in with the not-heterosexual crowd, the skee-ball went berserk inside Vince again, this time finding every gutter.

He shut his eyes and tried to shut off his stupid head, tried instead to focus on Trey.

It was a good distraction. God, but Trey just
fit
in his arms. A lot of women had, yeah, but not like this. It felt completely different to hold a man. Trey’s body was harder, more filled out, and in more than that hard ridge pressing against the front of Vince’s trousers. He smelled different too. Like a man. And it was so…right.

The band was playing Sinatra now, a smooth-voiced tenor singing “Like Someone in Love”. Vince pulled Trey closer, fitting their bodies so tight together they were nearly fused. He didn’t hide his erection, and when Trey shifted against him, subtly increasing the friction in time to the beat, Vince didn’t let it do anything but fuel the pleasure of the moment.