Melting Point (4 page)

This morning in that shower, Gage had smashed all the rules again, and Brady had loved it. Hell, he'd begged for it. Question was: what now?

“Hey.”

Brady turned toward the sleep-softened voice to find Gage running a hand through all that tangled blondness, sticking up every which way because he'd slept on it wet. The motion drew Brady's gaze to his biceps with the tats honoring his foster father and brother, both cut down in a fire eight years ago. Gage had pulled on jeans, zipped up, but left them unbuttoned. The hip indents framing his abs had Brady ready to fall to his knees in worship.

Brady's Cajun
mamere
must have put a
cunja
on Gage. Only dark magic could explain why he was here.

All languid grace, Gage headed to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. Downed half of it in one gulp. Brady watched transfixed as the smooth, tanned skin of his throat bulged on his swallow. He wanted to lick that neck and work his way down.

When Brady still couldn't string two words together, Gage smirked.

“So, Chef, should I be taking your silence as regret for what happened a few hours ago?”

Brady managed a smile. “No, not at all, it was amazing. I'm only sorry it bored you so much you fell asleep right after. Good job on being the responsible adult.”

“Shit, I was supposed to keep you awake, wasn't I?” Gage closed the gap and held Brady's jaw, his eyes alive with concern. Evil Nurse had repeatedly instructed Brady to stay with someone who would keep him conscious, to make sure he didn't slip into a coma. “Do you feel dizzy? Faint? Confused?”

All of the above, but not because of any concussion.

“I'm fine, Nurse Simpson.”

Sexy, half-guilty grin. “I had four runs last night, including a house fire, so I got no sleep at the station. My postorgasmic collapse was nothing personal.” He drew back and threaded his arms over that blockbuster chest. “So how'd you want to play this?”

Typical Gage, no need for apps, just straight to the entrée. What had he said in the shower?

Trying's sexy.

Brady was ready to try. For Gage, for himself, because hell if the guy didn't make him feel
hopeful
for the first time in forever. He hooked a finger in the belt loop of Gage's jeans. “With this arm I'm useless in the restaurant for a while, so if you're free and you want to hang out . . .”

“Sure. I've got somewhere I have to be for the next few hours, but we could hook back up later.”

Something about how Gage said that rankled, the casualness of it. His usual intensity—that steel in his voice when he wanted Brady—was missing, and Brady didn't enjoy that lump of disappointment like cement in his gut. Was it that he had somewhere to be? Someone else to be with?

“Okay,” Brady said, because halfhearted Gage was better than none at all.

“I promised a friend I'd hit Sidetrack with him tonight. You could join us.”

Us?
At a noisy club in Boystown filled with hot guys looking to rub against the god who graced billboards and firefighter calendars? Trying suddenly didn't seem so sexy anymore.

“Not really my scene.”

“'Nother time, then.” Gage slid out of Brady's greedy grasp, and that it was a clear reversal of their previous roles was a lovely moment of irony that Brady really struggled to
appreciate. “You need anything before I go?”

Just a time machine to the moment when Gage wanted him more than anything and wasn't afraid to show it in the clearest terms. Brady shook his head. Gage headed back into the bathroom to pick up his shirt, leaving Brady to wonder if things were better or worse than before.

chapter five

T
HE DRIVE TO LOMBARD
took an hour in late-afternoon traffic, time Gage used to acclimatize to the arm floaties he'd need once he jumped into the shit pool out there. He listened to his tunes at full volume, letting the beat flow through him, but all thoughts returned to one thing: Brady.

Gage had never seen anyone as shocked by his own pleasure as Brady when he'd come in that shower. The way his face had twisted and his eyes had rolled into the back of his head would be imprinted in Gage's brain for as long as he lived. Like he didn't think he deserved to feel that good. No one should ever feel they didn't deserve an orgasm, yet if Gage was being honest with himself, he'd be disappointed if he didn't see that look engraved on Brady's face every time Gage got him off in the future.

'Cause that would be happening again.

The surprises didn't end there. Brady had seemed pretty damn surprised that Gage wasn't acting all puppy dog around him. What did he expect, after how it had all gone down the last time? Keeping it on as casual a footing as possible was the only way to prevent the Hurt Train from rolling over him again.

Well, the
only
way would be to go cold turkey. One hundred percent Brady-free. But Gage hadn't gotten his rocks off with another guy in a while, and the idea of being with anyone else repelled him. He had needs
and
he could control this.

He punched up the volume, dialing in some old-school Muse, and by the time he reached the Hillview Nursing Home (not on a hill, no views to speak of), he was about as relaxed as he could be. But the smell of disinfectant shot his temporary calm to hell, and it didn't take long for his muscles to harden like quick-drying cement. Or for his brain to question his heart:
Why are we doing this again?

Almost two hours later, Gage's eyes strayed to the window fronting a postage-stamp-sized lawn, now covered in early-evening shadow. The activity room wasn't quite as active as the name implied, unless you counted card playing and aimless wandering. One pair of residents tried to work through a game of checkers, the free-for-all dementia version where anyone could move any piece.

He redirected his focus to the woman in the armchair opposite him. At fifty-seven, she looked too young for this place, but with the way she'd conducted her lifestyle, no one would have expected her to make it to even this ripe old age. She was now suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's, so her body was pumped with a different cocktail of drugs from the street poisons she used to load up on like Jolly Ranchers.

“Eat your Jell-O,” he said, pushing the plastic bowl toward her.

“Don't like green,” she mumbled.

He was with her on that one. Green Jell-O was the worst.

She stared at him, sunken blue eyes under lank blond hair. He'd washed it for her an hour before, brushed and dried it, trying to bring out a shine, but it refused to sparkle. Pity, because she'd always been so vain about her hair.
My gift from God,
she'd called it.

“Do you have a sweetheart?” she asked, as if she didn't ask it on every single visit.

“I have my eye on someone.”

“Must have the girls chasing you down the street.”

He chuckled. Boys, too. “It's mostly because I'm a firefighter. But I wear protection.” He stood and turned, showing her his T-shirt and its slogan: “Keep Back 500 Feet
.”

It took her a moment, but she laughed. A girlish giggle, unlike anything he'd heard when he was a child. She never used to laugh.

“As if that would work. You're too handsome to keep them away, John.”

He sat again, willing the hitch of his heart at that name to quell. Foolish, really, when it was the one he had given her. The first day he came to visit six weeks ago, clutching that letter from social services, his heart slamming madly, he'd walked in, expecting nothing but a fire hose of vitriol. That she would pick up where she'd left off when he was fourteen, the last time he saw her. But she looked up at him, face vacant, eyes blank, and asked the one question he never expected:

“Who are you?”

That day he became John. A guy who liked to visit a nursing home in outer fucking Mongolia because he was an all-around decent fella, but reserved most of his two hours for Emmaline Simpson who, according to the staff, had no visitors. No one left who remembered her.

But Gage remembered.

He remembered the twelve hours of on-bended-knee Bible study until he keeled over with pain and fatigue. The Clorox baths poured nightly to scrub the demon from inside him. The panic attacks he suffered for being different.

Gage didn't want anything to do with those memories, or the woman who had caused them. But John was a saint. John forgot.

John forgave.

He had asked her about her family. She said they were dead. Maybe she truly believed that, or maybe she just didn't care.

I'm here, Mom,
Gage had wanted to shout. A success in his chosen profession. Loved by his adoptive family.

Instead, John had made sympathetic noises that she had no one left.

The minutes ticked by. Someone “won” at checkers. The sound of a vacuum cleaner whirred in the distance.

“I should go before traffic gets too heavy.” He stood and leaned in to kiss the top of her head. She was so frail, an empty husk. Not worthy of his hate at all. But a part of him wanted to hold on and use this time with her seeking . . . he wasn't sure what exactly.

“Thank you, John,” she whispered. “Bring your sweetheart next time.”

He dug deep for the Gage Simpson smile, the one that felled guys up and down Halsted Avenue. “Maybe.”

T
HE AIR AT SIDETRACK
was scented with sweat, cologne, and the promise of sex as a motley assortment of glistening bodies writhed to the
boom-boom
bass. Preppies, rockers, leather daddies, and gym rats rubbed shoulders and other body parts in that age-old ritual known as Friday night in Boystown. Even a one-balled goat could get laid here.

Pity Gage's cruising companion was less goat and more nervous Nellie.

Gage shoved a glass of Red Bull and vodka over to Jacob Scott, his coworker on the truck and the latest addition to Chicago's Pink Posse. “Drink this and try not to look like you're going to faint any second.”

Jacob knocked it back and aimed another nervous glance over the crowd. “Knew this was a mistake.”

Gage barely suppressed an eye roll, regretting for at least the fifty-seventh time tonight that he'd agreed to play Obi-Wan to Jacob's Luke Skywalker in the fine art of hooking up. As the crowd at Sidetrack was only about 5 percent more discerning than the butt-ho contingent at Roscoe's—meaning not fussy in the slightest—Jacob should have been in like Flynn. But he'd looked miserable since they walked in ten minutes ago. Major sex repellent.

“I told you to wear your CFD shirt, fuckknuckle. It's a man magnet.”

“I wanted to look nice,” Jacob said, plucking—nervously, of course—at the top button of his pink and blue pin-striped shirt. “I thought the crowd would be a bit less . . . gay.” He shot a baleful look at a couple of drag queens, one of whom winked long fake eyelashes back at him.

“If you want less gay, go to a Young Republicans meeting. You're here to celebrate being out and proud, even if you've barely got a toe out of the closet and your pride is buried in your virgin ass.”

Gage should probably feel more sorry for the guy, as Jacob had only recently admitted to himself that he liked kissing boys. Unfortunately, he'd chosen to demonstrate his newfound bravery by landing an uninvited smacker on Gage a couple of months back. Normally, that kind of behavior would put a guy on Gage's shit list, but Jacob had turned on the puppy eyes and produced a video that yanked Alex out of job-threatening hot water. Now Gage was playing wingfairy to a guy with no game in a place where no game should be necessary.

Sometimes Gage's optimism was a real pain in the ass. But, weren't lost causes his specialty? First that shitfest with Mommie Dearest in the burbs, now trying to pop Jacob's cherry without having to do the job himself. And the mother of them all was back in that West Loop loft with a sling on his arm and a nice afterglow brought on by yours truly.

Madonna's “Hung Up” came on and the crowd went nuts. Gay guys might argue about the best brunch places to hate-eat at in Lakeview or whether to fuck, marry, or kill Bradley Cooper, but you'd be hard-pressed to find one who didn't love Madge, even her twenty-first-century shit. Gage sighed. This scene was really boring him lately. He'd much rather be hanging with Brady, cooking in his kitchen, brushing arms and sneaking looks and rubbing—
ah, screw it.

“Come on.” Gage dragged Jacob out into the middle of the dance floor. He knew no better way to remove the stick up Jacob's ass than to bust a move and, more important, it showcased the new man meat nicely. Twenty seconds was all it took for some little hooker to come on down.

“Who's your friend?” he heard in his ear.

Gage turned to find Toby Mason, a guy he had once co-opted for some pre-Brady fun. Toby kept the Hollister store in business, and tonight he looked very tappable with a tee that shaped his pecs and showcased his impressive biceps.

“That's Jacob. He's new to this.”

Toby's eyes lit up and Gage mentally slapped his forehead. Amateur. “How new?”

He gave Jacob his back so he could keep his conversation on the down low. “So new you're not an option. Needs to be broken in gently, so scoot your cute little tush away and go corrupt someone else.”

“I can do gentle,” Toby said with a wicked grin over Gage's shoulder. He really was incredibly hot, and if Gage wasn't so hung up on a certain moody chef, he might be willing to dip his wick in that well again. “Only last week, there was this gorgeous ginger . . .”

Gage tuned Toby out, scanning the field of play for better virginity-divesting prospects. Unfortunately, pickins were slimmer than a Pop-Tart. Flannel dude rocking lumbersexual? Go chop wood elsewhere. Surfer twink with the vacant smile? Work those boy hips on someone who cares.

He continued with his survey.
Move along . . . fuhgeddaboutit . . . not in this lifetime . . .
An unexpected image near the bar crashed into his sight line. No fucking way.

Over his shoulder he found Jacob doing some weird dance move with a couple of leather freaks. Progress of sorts. Gage hissed at Toby, “Keep an eye on him and your lubed-up mitts to yourself.”

With Toby's lascivious “oh yeah” ringing in his ear, Gage cut a path through the crowd toward the entrance and the one man he had not expected to see.

“Hey,” he said to Brady, who had been looking around warily and garnering no shortage of attention himself. A curl of possessive heat warmed Gage's chest.
Back off, bitches, he's mine.

“Hey, yourself.”

His arm was in the sling and the crowd was packed deep, jostling him from behind. With a protective hand on his back, Gage steered him behind a pillar out of the path of crazy.

Brady searched his face, maybe for assurance that he'd done the right thing in showing up unexpectedly. In taking action. His lips parted, there was a flash of pink tongue, and Gage couldn't have sworn in a court of law who made the first move, but their mouths slammed together. Tongues and lips fought for control. Gage's hands moved over Brady's ass as he kissed him like it had been months since they'd seen each other instead of just this afternoon. It felt as though the events of a million lifetimes had happened in the last eight hours, and while Gage wouldn't be sharing that verbally, he wanted to share it some other way.

I've missed you. I need you. You're all I can think about.

He broke the kiss, a tangle of thoughts struggling to find voice. But his expression must have given away his desperation. Brady hooked a big hand around his neck and drew his thumb in a sensuous line along Gage's jaw.

“Something happen?” He had this dark look on his face, like growly Liam Neeson when he was threatening those kidnappers with his “particular set of skills.” So hot. And Gage whining about his problems was only going to redirect the situation from fun-times-ahead to not-getting-dick-anytime-soon.

“Nope, unless you count how I was settling in for a lovely sleep this morning when I got a call about this fidiot who'd fallen off his bike because apparently he has the attention span of a squirrel. Then the fucker has the nerve to blame me and I wasn't even there!”

“My dick knows who's at fault here,” Brady muttered.

Gage laughed. “You, Chef, are getting funnier. Want a drink? A dance?”

A shy grin transformed his forbidding features. “Just you, Golden.”

Whoa.
The way he said that was like a lick over Gage's balls. “Is that Brady Smith or the incredibly powerful drugs speaking?”