Looking At Forever (The Rock Gods Book 4) (2 page)

For that reason alone, he would be smiling for days.

It may not have been mind-altering sex, but it was certainly life changing in the sense this experience now confirmed Wheland loved being with men, not just Cooper. And topping for the first time confirmed something else, too. He was a natural top, and he fucking loved it.

Chapter One

Los Angeles …

Wheland’s head should have been wrapped around thoughts of the last two wild days of his week at Alex’s Martha’s Vineyard estate; reliving memories of Alex’s commitment ceremony with Chase and Danni or the hook-up he had with the hot waiter afterward. Instead, he was focusing on an anniversary for the worst day of his life. Why did his mind always want to dwell on the bad shit, the stuff from his past he couldn’t ever change about his life, rather than focus on the positive things now unfolding for him?

One of the positives was screwing Jeremy senseless after Alex’s wedding reception. That event was a turning point of sorts for Wheland, making him finally see things more clearly about himself. Things that were probably always there, but now he was seeing with a fresh pair of eyes. For the first time in quite a while, Wheland was excited to be moving forward.

Wheland finger-combed his hair with one hand, before he pushed it off his forehead and tucked it behind an ear. He caught his reflection in the rear view mirror of his sports car and saw the fatigue in his hazel eyes. Odd, he thought, considering how full of energy he’d felt just a few short days ago on the Vineyard. His hand skimmed over the prickly whiskers on his chin. The stubble was much longer than he typically kept it, and if he didn’t shave soon it would be considered a beard more so than a five o’clock shadow.

His gaze scanned the traffic clogging the road around his car. He knew the bar he wanted to stop at and it wasn’t too much further. At the rate everyone was crawling forward in their vehicles, it would be time for dinner by the time he got there instead of lunch. The sooner he made it to a bar to get drunk at the better. Wheland cursed at himself for waiting so long to leave the house. He knew how bad traffic was heading into town this time of the afternoon. He slammed his open palm against the steering wheel and tipped his head back against his leather seat.

Decade old memories and horrible traffic were the perfect way to ruin what could have been a nice day. A few cars began to move around him and Wheland zipped his Ferrari out of his lane to navigate a few spots up in the traffic jam. He was going nowhere fast and considered turning around and visiting Alex. Alex always knew how to get him past this anniversary without ever knowing there was something Wheland was trying to forget. But, Alex was on his honeymoon with Chase and Danni to a destination no one knew and he’d be gone for several weeks. His other option was calling Cooper, but Cooper was in full-on nesting mode with Jayson. No way in hell Wheland wanted to interrupt that.

Nope, this year he’d handle the anniversary all by himself, thank you very much. He’d get himself to the bar, have a thick burger with fries, and wash it all down with enough alcohol to make himself forget what today meant to him. He was purposefully trying to force his mind off of the bad memories looming in his brain and get himself to think about something good. It was no use. The ugly thoughts kept replaying over and over making his head ache.

It seemed nothing less than miraculous to Wheland that he’d somehow managed to keep that entire pile of dog shit from his past buried for over a decade, never telling a single person in his life about any of it. Even his closest friends didn’t know about the sordid details of his upbringing. He kept that bit of tainted family history locked away and only took it out of his sub-conscience once-a-fucking year on the anniversary. He picked off the scab yearly just to torture himself, to remember the less than honorable lineage he came from and get drunk while he did it.

Wheland downshifted his car quickly, cutting off a BMW, as he pulled into the center lane of the road. He waited at the stop light, rubbing at his forehead, as if by doing so erased the memories. It didn’t. All it did was amplify the dull throb he had going on inside, which was an issue he intended to remedy as soon as he arrived at the bar to eat and get drunk. He didn’t care which happened first. It made no difference to him at all. He was happy to call a taxi to take him home if he had to.

Wheland saw the line of traffic in the right-turn lane start to move forward on their green light. He revved his engine, dropped the stick shift into first gear and let the clutch slip free beneath his foot before he realized, at the last second, his lane of traffic hadn’t moved. His black Ferrari lurched ahead in the lane and slammed directly into the ass-end of a Mercedes sedan. A second later, a hand popped out of the driver’s side window and directed Wheland to pull over his car.

Shit!

The light turned green and Wheland moved through the traffic and followed behind the Mercedes. He pulled into the very club he was headed to when he set out on this angry trip down memory lane. Wheland parked beside the car for a minute and tried to get his head back on straight. Looking to his side, he saw a man bent over the back end of the Mercedes, rubbing his hand over the bumper examining the damage. Wheland took a deep breath and leaned over to collect the insurance information from his glove box.

He stepped out into the sunshine, shut the door to this car, and adjusted the sunglasses from the top of his head back to the bridge of his nose. As soon as his eyes adjusted to the light, he walked to the front of his car and looked at the chipped paint and dent.

Fuck!

“Do you always drive in bumper-to-bumper traffic with your eyes closed?” the man asked.

Wheland heard the man’s voice before he saw him and stood up quickly at the sound of the rich tenor. A chill rolled over his skin and lifted up the tiny hairs on his forearms. Wheland spun around to face the man owning that voice.

“Hey, I’m sorry about that,” Wheland apologized. “My mind was elsewhere. I’ll pay for whatever damage was done to your car.”

Wheland watched the man freeze in place and a slow smile curled the most amazing mouth he’d ever seen. Dark, tanned skin, thick wavy hair, and brown eyes that stole Wheland’s breath. Literally and completely.

Holy. Hell.

“Wheland, you stupid fuck,” the man said and crossed his arms over his wide chest. His smile grew, exposing beautifully straight white teeth.

Wheland stared at the gorgeous man with the defined biceps, narrow hips, firm thighs, and a nice package concealed behind the zipper of his jeans. Wheland’s brain dug deep to remember who this was and how he might know him. Then, suddenly it hit him.

“Roostarelli?” Wheland asked. “I haven’t seen you around in fucking years!”

“Leave it to me to get back into town and have the likes of you hit my rental,” he said, still grinning at Wheland.

Sonny Roostarelli, Rooster to his musician buddies, had been professionally involved with several different bands for seventeen years. His talents ran from playing almost every instrument, to writing music. Some of his song compositions had made it on the Billboard Top 100 and kept him popular with bands in the rock and country rock genres for a long time.

“I thought you retired and moved to Florida,” Wheland teased.

Rooster looped a muscled arm around Wheland’s neck and pulled him in for a hug. “I’ll never retire,” he said. “You know that, and if I did, it wouldn’t be to Florida.”

Wheland accepted the hug and embraced the solid feel of the man pressed flat against him. He also loved the scent of Rooster; a mixture of musk and something that smelled a lot like vanilla. It made Wheland want to lick Rooster’s neck to get a taste of the fragrance on the man’s skin. Realizing how gay that sounded in his head, Wheland pulled back from the embrace. When he did, he met Rooster’s gaze, fluid brown eyes with flecks of gold around each iris.

Jesus! You are
fucking beautiful.

Wheland felt the arousal wash over him, starting at his head and reaching his toes. The heat radiating off the man was overwhelming.
Why didn’t I ever notice how hot Rooster was to look at all those years ago?
It may have had more to do with Wheland only recently admitting he had an attraction to men, and this particular man positively took his breath away.

Wheland stepped out of Rooster’s embrace and smiled. If Rooster only knew what he was thinking about him right now, the guy would surely have him arrested.

“If you’ve got some paper, I’ll write down my insurance information for you,” Wheland offered.

“I’m not worried about the car,” Rooster said. “Did you miss the part where I said it was a rental?”

Wheland laughed. “They’ll still expect you to pay for the repairs,” he said. “And, since it was one hundred percent my fault, I’m willing to pay for everything.”

Rooster set his arm on Wheland’s shoulder and laughed. “Come inside with me,” he suggested. “We’ll have a beer and catch up.”

Wheland walked into the bar with Rooster and removed his sunglasses. The sudden change in light had Wheland stopping for a moment to let his eyes adjust to the darkened space. The room was long and narrow with a wooden bar occupying most of one wall and booths positioned against the opposite side. Old black and white linoleum squares were patterned on the floor and
Tuesday’s Gone
by Lynyrd Skynyrd pumped from a jukebox in the far corner.

Wheland instinctively headed toward the empty seats at the bar where he’d sat a few other times, but Rooster grabbed his elbow and directed him to a booth at the back of the room. Rooster slid onto a bench seat behind a beat-up table and waited for Wheland to do the same across from him.

“If it’s all right with you, I’d rather not be bothered at the bar,” Rooster said.

Wheland shrugged. “This is fine,” he said. “I’m usually by myself when I come here so I sit at the bar.”

Wheland’s eyes darted around the place. It was fairly crowded for a late Thursday afternoon, he thought, then his gaze came back to Rooster. The guy’s tanned good looks were difficult for Wheland to study without focusing on his mouth or those hypnotic eyes that seemed to burn holes into him without even trying. Wheland’s groin began to react and he glanced away before he made his attraction obvious to Rooster. He needed something else to concentrate on besides Rooster’s sexy mouth and what he’d like to slide into it. He spotted a pudgy waitress making her way to their table wearing leopard print Spandex leggings and a halter top.

Perfect boner killer!

“Don’t you get recognized when you sit at the bar?” Rooster asked.

“Sometimes,” Wheland answered. “But people are pretty cool about not pissing me off when they recognize me.”

“Are you still living up near Alex?” Rooster asked.

The waitress stopped at the end of their table and snapped her gum in her mouth before offering Wheland a heated smile. He did his best to ignore her short, spiked, bleach blond hair, bright red lipstick, and overdone eyes. In fact, everything about this woman was overdone.

“I’m Candy,” she said. “What can I get you boys?”

“No doubt it’s Candy with an ‘I’,”
Wheland imagined and rolled his eyes.

“I’ll take a draft beer and a shot of Jack,” Wheland said.

Rooster smiled at the woman and winked. “I’ll take the same, darling.”

Wheland held back the look of disgust that threatened to wash over his face at Rooster’s wink.
Darling? Really? Did Rooster think this woman was hot?
His repulsion quickly turned to shock when he saw Rooster watching the retreating form of the waitress leaving their table.

“You want a piece of that?” Wheland asked.

Rooster laughed. “Not on my worst day or even after consuming all the booze in this shit hole,” he said and paused. “But, if you treat her right, she’ll keep the beer coming.”

“Judging by the way you were reacting, I thought maybe you were hoping she’d keep
you
coming even more than the beer,” Wheland said with a snicker.

Rooster’s eyes turned back to Wheland and the smile fell from his face. Wheland felt his breath catch in his throat and his cheeks heat. He suddenly wished they were sitting on the bar stools so he didn’t have to look into Rooster eyes like this.

Jesus fucking Christ!

Wheland reached for his phone and aimlessly stared at the screen, partly hoping for something really important to keep him distracted. His mind began sifting through the old memories he had of Rooster back in the early days of both their bands. There were months on the road when their bands toured together, countless parties, and time simply spent in one another’s company. Wheland felt he knew Rooster pretty good back then and not one red flag stuck out in his mind about Rooster’s sexuality. Not one detail from that time period gave Wheland any indication Rooster was into dudes. In fact, Wheland was pretty sure he remembered Rooster getting married, once or twice, and the line of women before that was too long to count. Out of the corner of his eye, Wheland saw Rooster shift in his seat and Wheland looked across the table at him. Their eyes met and this time Rooster seemed to be the one feeling uncomfortable.

Hmmm, interesting.

“So, you didn’t answer my question,” Rooster said. “Are you still living up by Alex?”

Wheland cleared his throat. “Yeah, we all live right around the corner from each other. How about you? I heard a while ago that you moved away. Are you back in L.A.?”

Rooster nodded at him, then smiled at the waitress as she set down their drinks. Wheland grabbed his shot glass from the table and quickly tossed the liquid it into the back of his throat.