Bound by Lies (6 page)

Drawing his phone from his pocket, he finds his calendar and checks the dates for an opening when he can get away without being missed too badly, not an easy feat when you own your own business.

The bell on the front door tinkles, catching Jenner by surprise. He looks up from the gadget cradled in his palm with raised eyebrows, wondering if one of the patrons from the previous night has come back to claim a lost item. God knows they stacked enough in the lost-and-found bin that morning—clothes, a wallet without I.D., two phones, one shoe, and a purse.

“Can I help you?” Jenner says it automatically, even as he freezes with shock. Because the person who has just entered his bar is possibly the last person he ever expected to see there. As someone who is well used to keeping the different spheres of his world spinning in perpetuity in their own orbits, never allowing them to overlap or collide lest it fuck up everything in the process, a sense of vulnerability washes over him.

Setting his jaw, swallowing around a sudden, thick lump in his throat, he masks his surprise and unease with a façade that is nothing but calm and confident.

Did he follow me here
, Jenner wonders.
Was I too obvious?
Does he know I’ve been watching him? Is he going to call me on it?

Shards of crisp white sunlight glint through the dingy window decorated with unlit neon tubing proclaiming the names of beer and alcohol manufacturers. The light catches on long hair, making it shine like spun gold and Jenner wants to reach out and wrap a hand in it so badly that he feels it as an ache that twists his gut and throbs in his balls.

Cry Baby Braydy
, Jenner thinks a little deliriously.
Don’t call him that.
Sweet Jesus, he’s even more gorgeous up close.

Gripping the bar’s edge, leaning forward against it, a switch gets flipped in Jenner. He goes into predatory mode as his target, his
prey
, comes steadily closer, their eyes locked. Everything in Jenner screams at him to take, to plunder, to fuck, and it does so with such force that he gets lightheaded with the strength of the need.

But as Brayden approaches, something strange happens to his expression. Briefly, upon seeing Jenner, heartache so profound and poignant crosses Brayden’s face, it makes Jenner feel like he must have just murdered Brayden’s dog or something. He can’t remember the last time he saw someone so distraught. It also makes Brayden look more like the boy he was in high school—forever grieving, tucked away in corners, trying to disappear.

Does he remember me? Did I do something to hurt him back then?
Jenner frantically scans years of foggy memories, but can think of nothing specific linking him to Brayden.

With a sense of vertigo, Jenner witnesses Brayden replace the heartache with hope. The boy becomes the man. Sadness lingers behind green eyes, but it’s infused with wisdom and resolve.

It takes Jenner’s breath away.

“Hey, I know you,” Brayden says with a grin that changes his face even more, softening the rougher edges. Captivated by the beauty of that brave smile, Jenner is more drawn in by the stubborn remnant of pain. “Varsity football, right? You were quarterback, I think.”

Of all of the things to say in greeting, that it’s high school Brayden mentions first makes Jenner smile. It’s part reflex, part relief that he’s not the only one still thinking on those terms. “Oh wow. Yeah, I guess I was. That was decades ago. Or it seems like it anyway.”

Jenner can’t stop staring at the rich caramel hue of Brayden’s skin against the crisp, stark white of his button-down shirt, tucked neatly into dark jeans, adorned with a black leather belt. He tries to draw his gaze away from the exposed areas of skin at his guest’s neck and along his bared forearms where the shirt has been rolled up to the elbow. Jenner’s mouth waters at the idea of sealing his lips around the warm flesh, feeling the pulse beating under the skin.

Clearing his throat, Brayden raises and traps Jenner’s gaze. The sweetness of his green eyes draws Jenner in and holds him. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

“Parrish,” Jenner blurts, offering a hand from over the bar. “Jenner Parrish. And you’re?”

Cry Baby Braydy.

Stop it.

The secretly-treasured mental image of Brayden in the locker room at the Y—and his bare ass—fills Jenner’s mind, uncalled for, sending a bolt of heat directly to Jenner’s cock. He forces it away. Hard.

“Brayden Clare. I was a year or two behind you in school. You probably have no idea who I am,” Brayden says, giving Jenner’s hand a firm shake.

Oh, you’d be surprised
, Jenner’s inner voice provides. He tells himself,
Keep playing dumb. Don’t lump yourself in with the assholes you’ve always hung out with. The best way to ruin your chances is to become the bad guy.

But it’s probably useless, you know. He remembers you. He knows you were on the football team. Those were the guys who gave him that nickname. Those were the guys doing most of the laughing.

You’re already the bad guy.

He resists, with effort, the urge to stroke the soft skin of the back of Brayden’s hand with his thumb before releasing him.

If he thinks I’m cruel, maybe the best way to counter it is to show him, firsthand, that I’m not.

Or else he’ll just peg you as a creepy stalker faggot and hate you even more.

Speaking over his exceedingly unhelpful inner diologue, Jenner asks, “What can I do for you, Brayden Clare?”

“Well, I saw you’re hiring here and was hoping to speak with whoever’s in charge. I’d like to apply for the position.”

Position. I can think of a few interesting positions.

Stop it. Focus.

He almost literally shakes his head to clear it, willing away his growing hard-on.

Then Jenner smiles. It’s calculated, laden with charm. “You’re speaking to him. It’s my bar. Or it is now, anyway. It’s been in the family for years. I inherited it. Do you have experience bartending?”

“Yeah,” Brayden says, still eager to please, to say the right thing. Jenner can see him making the effort, picking the right words, showing his interest in the job without going overboard and seeming desperate. “I just moved back here from Florida, and I had a steady gig at a bar down there. My day job was lifeguarding but it didn’t always totally cover the rent. But yeah, I’m certified. I started as a waiter but they were training me to cover the bar, too. I took classes and I’m a really quick study. And hey, if there’s ever a medical emergency, I’m a pro at CPR.”

Jenner feels the fantasy coalescing: Brayden in a miniscule, almost-obscenely small bathing suit like the one he had on that day at the pool, running down the white sands, falling to his knees, tossing his golden brown hair back over a shoulder, leaning down over him and parting his lips.

He blinks and straightens. This could be a problem, if being around Brayden disrupts Jenner’s ability to reign in his libido to this extent. How is he supposed to get any work done if a distraction like this is hanging around day and night? He considers telling Brayden the position has been filled.

But then selfishness wins out. “How are you with crowds? It can get pretty crazy in here. It’s one of the reasons we have trouble hiring. But the pay is decent. Fifteen bucks an hour plus tips. We’d need you on a rotating schedule of days and nights. To start you’d be working a lot of weekend hours to give my current employees a break.”

“That sounds great!” Brayden breathes out his relief and his beaming, friendly smile grows somehow wider. Joy bubbles to the surface, and Jenner can imagine it dancing just under his skin, tingling with its intensity. Distantly, he wonders, were a hand grazed over Brayden’s smoothly-waxed skin, what the goosebumps currently pebbling it would feel like. “I’ve got no problem with crowds. My, um.” He shows the first sign of bashfulness, ducking his head and beginning to blush, the color rising up his neck to his cheeks.

He blushes
, Jenner marvels.
So fucking adorable.

“My friends back in Miami always call me on being a huge flirt. It’s come in handy with tending bar.”

“I bet it does.” Jenner walks around the bar and returns to Brayden, folding his arms over his chest. Jenner is almost a whole foot taller than him. He towers over Brayden and tries to minimize his pleasure at this discovery, lest the possibly-worrisome and growing bulge in his pants gives him away. Scanning Brayden’s body, Jenner debates his answer, and knows Brayden waits with bated breath.

“Please, I really need this job,” Brayden says softly.

That does it. Having the lithe, sweet, beautiful creature before him literally
beg
decides Jenner then and there, despite lingering worries about Brayden’s ability to deal with the non-female, non-flirtatious customers, especially since they’re likely to be people who remember him.

Loosening his iron grip on his self-imposed behavioral filters, he reaches out and gently hooks a finger around a stray fallen tendril of Brayden’s long hair. It’s even softer than he’d imagined. Tensing briefly at the contact, like he’s bracing himself, Brayden bows his head slightly. The sunny grin vanishes.

“You’ll have to do something about this.”

“Oh. I’ll tie it back. No problem,” Brayden assures him, his gaze sharpening.

Jenner savors the moment just a little longer, having Brayden so completely at his mercy.

“Okay. You’re on.”

“Oh my god. Thank you! Thanks, Mr. Parrish, you won’t regret this, I promise.”

Grinning, biting his lip, Jenner says, “It’s just Parrish. No mister required. Or Jenner, if you prefer.”

“Okay. Jenner, then.”

Jenner’s lips curl into a purely wicked smile, his cheeks dimpling deeply. He rests a hand on Brayden’s shoulder and gives it a squeeze. “Come on. I’ll introduce you to a few people and get you set up with some shirts and a space to keep your stuff in the back.”

Panic—raw, clawing, and gut-churning; that is what has seized Brayden since early that morning when desperation to get a good enough job to pay his Nana’s bills had driven him to look for work at the town’s most popular bar, Parrish Pub, even though in Florida he absolutely hated working as a bartender. He reviled the constant flirting, which only served to underscore how much easier his life could be if only he had any desire at all to carry through with the insinuations seemingly hidden within his interactions with the good-looking, well-lubricated women ordering beer after beer from him. On the off-chance that a guy flirted with him, the instant terror it provoked was much more powerful than any self-flagellation over knowing he wasn’t heterosexual. Besides all of this, he was good enough at the job itself to get by, but it didn’t matter. He despised the whole scene. The beach, open and relaxed and free of the constant reminders of how pathetically repressed he is, was always much more his speed.

But then he walked into Parrish Pub, and any relief he might have felt at facing and conquering his fears was instantly squelched when he saw who was there awaiting him, not only in employ of the bar, but the bar’s owner—the person who would be his
boss.
It was the same sort of guy that loved to pick on him in high school, calling him Cry Baby Braydy, shoving him in lockers, calling him a fag and laughing when he cried; the same sort of guy that he had moved to Florida to get away from. Brayden didn’t always get a good look at who was among the guys bullying him. They ran in packs and Brayden’s goal was to always keep his head down. Even giving him the benefit of the doubt, Jenner Parrish might not have been one of the people that had actually taken part in his social torture, he certainly fits the mold. His body is taller, broader, stronger—hard proof that he can kick Brayden’s ass around the block whenever the mood happens to strike. Even when you get past physical cues, Jenner exudes a brooding, cool, hardass demeanor. He’s the testosterone-fueled man’s man that Brayden strives to be but knows he never will. Not in this lifetime, no matter what he does or how much he exercises.

The impromptu interview goes well enough though, to Brayden’s surprise. However, as he becomes more and more hopeful that he might actually get the job he needs so very badly, not only for the money but to give his new life some sort of meaning and direction, his panic shifts rather than dulls. When Jenner walks around the bar to face him, putting their bodies inches apart and displaying the almost laughable size difference quite starkly, Brayden sinks into a sense of low foreboding. The worst part of all is when Jenner touches Brayden’s hair. Brayden waits for it, cringing—the snide comment about his appearance, the cruel laughter.

It never materializes. What it does do is to stoke the panic within him, giving it power.

And now he follows Jenner through the hallway, trying to grab tight hold of the strengthening knowledge that he did it, he accomplished his goal, but all positivity fizzles out as they get to the kitchen and Jenner’s hand falls onto Brayden’s middle back. Jenner ushers him along by the contact which quickly becomes the focus of all Brayden’s thought and attention. Having Jenner’s fingers on his back is like having a loaded gun pressed there.

They walk through the swinging door and stop on the other side. Jenner’s hand moves, gripping Brayden’s shoulder instead, halting him. Brayden suspects that Jenner doesn’t even know that he’s doing it, that maybe he’s just a touchy-feely sort of guy, but the suspicion doesn’t make it easier to bear. Brayden tries to focus on the even more massively huge wall of a man looming before him, with a shock of red hair and beard. It’s a near impossible feat.

The base of his neck tingles sharply, sensing Jenner’s nearness, inches away from Brayden’s back, so close that if Brayden’s hair wasn’t hanging loose about his shoulders, he suspects he would feel Jenner’s breath over the skin. The tingle shivers down his spine, lighting up the nerves through his back, shooting out to twist his stomach with queasiness, causing his testicles to draw up. The stark helplessness that threatens to consume Brayden in that moment is nearly unbearable. For a reason he doesn’t even understand, tears threaten, swelling his throat, pricking at his eyes, but he denies them with effort.