The Square Peg (2 page)

it really was a trivial matter, but this didn’t qualify. “You got the other half. That was

very generous of Craig, in my opinion.”

“Not sure you’re entitled to an opinion on this matter.” Shane shook his head and

stood. “I built this place, okay? It was Craig’s money, but the hours and sleepless nights

and advertising decisions were mine. I appreciate Craig made me a partner in his will,

but I also know I deserved it. And that you’ve got a lot to learn.”

“You’re right about that.” Ben wasn’t sure if admitting it would get Shane on his

side, but it was the right thing to do either way. “I intend to learn it. I sort of get the

impression Craig was happy being a silent partner, but we were different in about a

thousand ways.”

Shane snorted. “Yeah, you don’t strike me as the silent type.”

“I don’t usually have arguments with people I’ve just met, though.” He meant it

as an apology.

That got him a raised eyebrow with some skepticism showing. “I’ll take your

word for it. Start over, shall we? Nice to meet you, Benedict. Sorry about your dad. I’m

sure you’re gutted. Now piss off so I can get back to sorting out the payroll, yeah?”

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The hostility Shane was showing left Ben off balance and lost for words. It was so

unfair and unwarranted that he had no defense.

“I’m not gutted, as you put it, because I haven’t seen Craig since I was a kid. He

wasn’t there. He left. He did. Not us. Not that it’s any of your business.” He tried one

more time to be conciliatory. “I’m not much of a drinker. I’m not sure what goes in a gin

and tonic, to be honest.” That didn’t get a smile. Well, it wasn’t very funny. “But I can

help you with the accounts and the payroll if you point me at your computer.”

Shane’s pale eyes narrowed. “No need. Like I said, you can piss off now we’ve

done the introductions and all that. I’ll send you a check every month with your cut,

just like I did with your dad. Someone like you doesn’t want to hang around a gay bar

on the dodgy side of town. Not exactly your cup of tea, is it?” Shane moved closer. He

was shorter than Ben by an inch or two, but that didn’t stop Ben from taking an

involuntary step back. Shane was wearing black jeans and a denim shirt over a gray T-

shirt, with battered leather lace-up boots. He looked tough without trying, and his

exposed forearms were muscular in a wiry way, a faded tattoo decorating his right arm,

some kind of bird that had been brightly colored once. “Or don’t you trust me? Is that

why you want to breathe down my neck? You think I’d skim off the top and do you out

of your share?”

“Whoa, what?” Ben held up both hands in surrender. “What happened to starting

over? First off, I don’t know you, but that doesn’t mean I’m assuming you’re dishonest.

Second, you don’t know me either, so you have no idea what my cup of tea might or

might not be. And for the record, I’m gay, and I’m not interested in a monthly check. I

want this.” He waved at the space around them, then his eyes focused on the piles of

paperwork and boxes of liquor bottles stacked halfway to the ceiling. “Okay, maybe not

this specifically.”

“I know you’re gay. Your dad told me. Doesn’t mean you’re going to fit in here.”

Shane’s gaze traveled over Ben, appraising enough that he had to fight the urge to pull

back his shoulders and suck in his stomach. “You’re wearing a suit, for God’s sake.”

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7

“I spent the day at work and came straight here.” Okay, that’d sounded perilously

close to an excuse, and there was nothing to apologize for in wearing a perfectly

ordinary suit. It wasn’t a three-thousand-dollar bespoke one, just an off-the-rack suit

marked down in the January sales. “I’m an accountant. This is practically a uniform.

Sorry if I don’t meet the dress code. Next time I’ll be sure to wear my leather pants.”

Shane’s eyebrows quirked. You’d still look like an accountant.”

“And what does an accountant look like?” Ben demanded, giving way to his rising

temper. He was standing in a bar he half owned, and he was damned if he was going to

be marginalized by some mouthy thug with an attitude problem.

Shane grabbed him by the shoulders, surprising a yelp out of him, and spun him

around so he was facing a small mirror on the wall, spotted with age and with a

chipped corner. “Take a look.”

Ben swallowed, seeing not himself, but Shane’s hands, curled over his shoulders,

gripping him tightly. Large hands, the fingernails short and ragged as if they’d been

bitten. He was acutely conscious that Shane was standing close enough that their bodies

touched, his elbow nudging Shane’s ribs when he brought his hands up, forming them

into fists.

“Pretty little boy,” Shane said into his ear, all easy scorn. “You don’t belong here.

It’s not one of the clubs you’re used to, all clean and expensive and safe. This is a bar,

mate. There’s a fight once or twice a week, the cops keep coming in to check the nasty

queers for drugs, looking for an excuse to shut us down—or a blowjob to look the other

way, depending on who’s on duty—and the punters would take one look at you and

piss themselves laughing.”

Under other circumstances, Ben would have found Shane’s phrasing charming, if

incomprehensible. Instead, he was wondering how much it would cost to buy out

Shane’s share of the business so he wouldn’t have to deal with him. “You don’t know

where I belong,” he said stubbornly, looking at Shane’s reflection instead of his own.

“Do you get off on this?”

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“On telling you what you need to hear? I’m trying to do you a favor.”

“You’re full of shit if you think this is a favor. Do you have a problem with me

specifically, or is it that you never learned to share?”

Abruptly he was left standing alone, his shoulders still feeling the weight of

Shane’s hands. Shane had retreated—no, not that—Shane had moved to lean against his

desk. There wasn’t space for two desks in the cluttered room, but somehow Ben

couldn’t see Shane being amenable to rearranging the space regardless.

Well, if this turned out to be the only suitable office space, maybe Shane wouldn’t

have a choice.

“Call it what you like. This is my place. It’s not much, maybe, but it’s somewhere

people can come and have a drink without being worried they’ll get stared at for who

they’re with or what they look like. It’s a safe place, and there’s not many of them

around. I can already tell you’re gonna want to change things. Improve us. Bet you’ve

got a nice long list already, just from five minutes in the place.”

“Yes, and a regular cleaner and a few more light bulbs are at the top of it,” Ben

said, opting for a pleasant smile he knew would be infuriating. “Why don’t you give me

the guided tour first? Then we can discuss what else is going on the list. I’ll make sure I

include therapy sessions for you or a personality transplant. You pick.”

“Asshole,” Shane muttered.

“Hey, good for you. You’ve learned to speak American.”

“Been here long enough.” Shane hitched himself up to sit on the desk, knocking a

flutter of papers off onto the floor. He wasn’t glaring, not quite, but it was a close thing.

“Too long, maybe.” Ben never thought of how something was going to sound

before he said it, so wincing was a familiar action. “I just mean, it might be good,

having someone new come in. You know, fresh air, shake things up?”

“Not all that big a fan of change,” Shane told him. “Place is fine as it is. People like

it.”

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9

“I saw the financial statements, okay? I know things could be a lot better. You

can’t tell me you wouldn’t like it if the business was a huge success with huge profits.”

“Yeah, I can’t wait to buy a Rolls-Royce and a place in the country.” Shane gave

him an exasperated look. “Listen, suit, there’s only so much money the people around

here have, and some of them spend too damn much here as it is. Not that I’m

complaining, but I remember when my dad used to drink up his wage packet on a

Friday, and we’d go short the rest of the week.”

“That’s very…” Ben faltered. Telling Shane he had a social conscience would

probably sound condescending. He hurried on. “So we make the bar popular outside

this area, bring in a new clientele, turn the place into something more attractive—”

Shane straightened, his frown on the menacing side. “Kick out all the faggots and

tart it up for a bunch of losers who’d come here for shit and giggles, then wander off to

the next hot place to be, leaving us with no one, you mean? Yeah, you’ve got a real head

for business.”

“I’m an accountant. Business is my business.”

“Another thing you didn’t get from your dad,” Shane said. “He was a good bloke,

but there was a reason he let me run things. Kind of thought you might be willing to

leave things as they were.”

“I should have called first or something,” Ben conceded. He was willing to

concede a lot if it meant they could have a civil conversation. “Rather than springing

this on you.” He wished it had occurred to him Shane might not want things to change

or might not welcome a motivated partner with open arms.

“I could have called you when he died.” Shane sighed. “I was scared shitless you

wouldn’t have heard, and I didn’t want to be the one to tell you.”

“Were you friends?”

Shane shook his head. “Don’t think I’d put it like that, no. But we were friendly.”

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“Friendly enough he told you I was gay.” Ben frowned. “Though how he knew

that, I don’t know. I wasn’t exactly warbling Judy Garland songs when he left. Hell, I

was only coming to grips with ‘the cow says
moo
.’”

“He left, sure. Doesn’t mean he didn’t keep tabs on you and your mum. His

sister’s the gossipy sort. Kate, is it? Your auntie?”

“Aunt Kate. Yes.” Ben saw her a few times a year, dutifully driving over to her

suffocatingly warm, cluttered house and pretending to be interested in her three yappy

dogs. “I didn’t know she’d kept in touch with Craig.”

Or that she was reporting back to him.

“He was sad when your mum passed. Not gutted; I won’t lie. He hadn’t seen her

for over twenty years, and what they had, well, it’d faded, I guess. But it upset him.

Came in here and got hammered a few times, told me a few stories about her. His way

of dealing.”

“Don’t.” Ben knew he’d stiffened, the memory of his loss rolling over him, a gray

wave of desolation. His mom had been taken from him slowly, by degrees, the cancer

playing cat and mouse, but when the end had come, the shock had been as sharp and

cutting as if she’d been killed in a car crash out of the blue. “He wasn’t there for her.

Ever. He didn’t have the right to be sad, to be anything.”

Ben would never admit there’d been part of him who’d felt a savage pleasure

when he’d heard cancer was what had taken Craig too. That was something he’d keep

locked carefully inside. He suspected its existence meant he might be a horrible person,

so he tried his best not to think about it.

Shane was studying him, and when their gazes met, he nodded. “Right. Well,

anyway. Sorry. Tricky subject, I suppose.”

“You could say that.” Ben’s shoulders and upper back were tense.

“Shall I show you around, then?” Shane offered, and Ben felt the tension ease. He

was beginning to suspect that underneath the bristly exterior, Shane might actually be a

The Square Peg

11

pretty nice guy, and that possibility combined with the fact that he wasn’t hard on the

eyes made the whole thing just a little easier to take.

“Sure. I’d like that.”

“It’s bigger than it looks,” Shane said. “Craig and me, we talked about expanding

the bar, maybe putting in a snug.”

“A what?”

“I don’t know what you call them over here. Kind of a smaller room, quieter, with

its own bar. In my local, it was where all the old men went, but it doesn’t have to be like

that. Maybe we could do snacks in there. Don’t do that now. Another bar would take

some of the pressure off when things get busy.”

Ben blinked as Shane rattled off his ideas in clipped tones, his accent stronger.

“That’s certainly something we could look at,” he said cautiously, unwilling to commit

fully to what would be an expensive renovation, but glad Shane wasn’t completely

against change. Even if it was only a change he’d suggested. Somehow he thought

Shane wouldn’t be as keen to adopt any of his ideas.

“Yeah,” Shane said flatly, his brief burst of enthusiasm fading. “Whatever. Okay,

so through here’s the storeroom, with a door to the yard in the back.” He weaved his

way through cases of drinks and unlocked the exterior door. Like every other painted

surface in the place, it needed attention. A cool breeze swept in, making Ben shiver. “I

put a ramp in. Makes it easier when we have deliveries, see? They can wheel them in.”