The Broken Triangle (26 page)

“Civil means asking me to wait on you?”

Riley rolled his eyes, the gesture natural, unforced, a grin appearing. “Get your whiny ass out of the way, and let me do it. How’s that?”

“Much better,” Patrick told him. He checked his watch. Time for one cup before he headed out into the winter wonderland that in the city translated to icy winds channeled by long, straight streets and sidewalks either shiny with ice or ankle-deep with slush.

The bus ride over to the bar gave him time to come up with some ideas to present to Ben, though. He felt proud of one of them, that he could give part of his nightly tips to Ben to deposit in an account that Patrick couldn’t access easily because Ben would hold the card and choose the password. It meant trusting Ben with his money, but that wasn’t a problem. Patrick had been serving one night when Ben overcharged a customer for a large round of drinks. The customer hadn’t noticed, but Ben had stood there, frowning, lost in thought, blind to everyone around him as he reworked the calculation.

Vin had been helpless with laughter when Patrick acted out Ben’s horrified, mortified reaction at discovering he’d been twenty-six cents out. The bewildered customer had been reimbursed, Ben’s apologies had been profuse, and yeah, if there was anyone out there who would treat looking after Patrick’s money as a sacred trust, it was Ben.

Ben was behind the bar when he got there. “Half an hour before my shift, as promised,” Patrick told him, and Ben nodded.

“I’ll be in the office in a minute,” he said. “Those papers are in a folder on the desk. Check them out while you wait for me.”

The folder was easy enough to find. Too bad Patrick couldn’t have said the same about his ability to translate the papers inside, which might as well have been some kind of scientific formula as far as he was concerned. He hated science.

“Do these come with Cliffs Notes?” he asked when Ben joined him.

“You won’t need them. They’re more representative than anything else. The first page is your earnings, the second is how you’ve been spending your money, the third is a proposed budget, and the fourth is how much money you’ll have saved up in six months if you can stick to the plan.”

Patrick flipped to the last page, since that sounded like the good news. “Wow. For real?”

“For real, if you can stick to the plan,” Ben repeated. “Which would be your hint that now is a good time to look at the plan.”

Patrick gave his best piteous moan, but Ben raised his eyebrows in a way that made him feel approximately seven, and sat waiting for him to begin reading.

It made sense as he read it, absorbing each point. It made so much sense, in fact, that Patrick wasn’t sure why none of it had occurred to him before. He said as much, and Ben shrugged.

“It’s always easier to fix someone else’s problems. I’m not emotionally involved in it the way you are, and I’m not seeing the figures through a haze of panic.” Ben’s expression softened. “I wish you’d asked me for help before it got to this point. I don’t mind. In fact, though your situation is about as far from complicated as it gets, I enjoyed working on it. I love being here, helping Shane build the bar into a going concern, but I do sometimes miss my old job.”

That side of it hadn’t occurred to Patrick before. Ben’s accountancy career had seemed like a living hell of dusty papers and long lines of numbers to total. He’d pictured the office as a hushed gray space, with quill pens scratching at parchment. Well, the twenty-first-century version, anyway.

After clearing his throat, he put forward his plan about saving some of his cash. He’d wondered if Ben would protest the idea as too complicated, but Ben nodded. “Good plan. We’ll set up a way for it to go directly into a new savings account at the same bank I use, with the best interest rate we can get, which isn’t much these days. It could get messy from a legal perspective if you can’t access it, though. Consider it a test of willpower. Just forget the account exists.”

“I’m going to keep myself busy,” Patrick promised. “No time for spending money, even less for thinking.” If he was going to craft himself into the new, better Patrick, he couldn’t screw around. No daydreaming about what Vin would be like in bed, no imagining a steamy-hot first kiss between them, no creating the perfect romantic date. Hell, he wouldn’t have the money for a date anyway, and he hoped Vin would understand that the truce he’d negotiated between himself and Riley was the only Christmas present he’d be able to afford this year.

“That’s the attitude,” Ben said. He hesitated, then asked, “How are things going?”

“You mean with my unrequited love?” Projecting a sense of humor about the situation seemed the way to go. “Oh, you know. Unrequited. That’s sort of the definition.”

“Have you said anything?”

“Are you kidding? Having you and Shane know about it is bad enough. Can you imagine what my life would be like if Vin knew? Perish the thought.”

“Because he has a boyfriend.” Ben seemed uncertain, like he wasn’t sure this was a path he should be treading.

Patrick decided it was a great path, if viewed through rose-colored glasses. “I know, right? I couldn’t possibly consider letting anything slip now. It would be like I was doing it to break them up.”

“You could only do that if there were cracks showing.” Ben glanced at Shane’s favorite coffee mug, an official Everton Football Club souvenir shipped over from England. Shane was always leaving it about with an inch of coffee at the bottom. Now it was perilously close to the edge of the desk. Ben moved it to safety, a faint color rising in his face as if it’d been Shane he’d touched. “A dozen men could tell me they loved me, and it wouldn’t matter because what I have with Shane is solid.”

“That’s still how it’d look to people.”

“You don’t care about that. You care about how it’d look to Vin.”

“Yeah,” Patrick said after a moment. “And it would upset him, so I’m going to let them do their thing, and if it cracks, if it breaks”—he pointed at Shane’s mug—“I know I did my best to save it.”

Ben’s expression became wary—not the best compliment in the world, but Patrick didn’t take it to heart. He didn’t have a reputation for being tactful and diplomatic, after all. “What did you do?” Ben asked.

“I went to see Riley. Told him that if he gave Vin grief over his new tattoo, he’d lose him. I could’ve stayed out of it and waited for the boom, but it didn’t feel right.”

“And how did it turn out?” Ben was careful to sound neutral, Patrick could tell.

“Okay. We talked. He gave me coffee. He sort of came around to seeing it my way, or at least he pretended to. I don’t know him that well.” Patrick looked down at the papers he was holding again, then set them on the edge of the desk. “You don’t have to answer this if it’s too weird, but has Vin talked to you about him?”

“It might be weird to share it if he had, but he hasn’t,” Ben said. “Nothing you wouldn’t have heard, at least.”

Patrick hated to say it, but he needed to bounce the idea off someone else, and it wasn’t like it could be Vin. “I think Riley’s kind of controlling.”

“But not abusive?” Ben stiffened, waiting for the answer.

“Not like that,” Patrick rushed to assure him. “Nothing like that. If he was, I wouldn’t be here talking to you. I’d be calling the police.”

“Controlling can mean different things to different people.”

Ben was choosing his words, and Patrick bit back a groan when he figured out why. Shit. How could he tell Ben he knew what Ben and Shane had was totally different without telling Ben that he knew what he and Shane had?

“I get that. I do. I have friends who, um, take that and run with it, if you know what I mean.” Ben made a noncommittal sound that Patrick took for agreement. “This isn’t like that. It’s more like he wants to make Vin different. More, oh, I don’t know, socially acceptable. So he fits in with Riley’s rich buddies. Because right now, Vin doesn’t. I saw them at the party he threw, and they’re all designer labels and sports cars. Some of them were good people, but they spend more on a haircut than Vin and I make in a week.”

“If that’s your idea of asking for a raise, forget it.”

“You know it’s not. I’m making the point that Vin can’t keep up with them. Hell, the places they hang out, buying a round would leave him broke. And Riley’s going to want to go on vacation somewhere. Does Vin go as his toy boy or something, everything bought and paid for? He’d hate that. But he won’t be able to afford it any other way.”

Ben leaned back in his chair. “Then it sounds like you don’t have anything to worry about.”

“What?” That shocked Patrick. Ben didn’t understand at all. “I don’t want him to get hurt.
That’s
what I’m worried about! You think I want him and I don’t care how I get him?” As what he’d said sunk in, Patrick realized what it meant. And that it scared the hell out of him. “I want him to be happy.”

He’d said that before, but each time he did, the truth of it sank deeper.

“I can see that.” Ben pursed his lips, looking pensive. “Your shift’s about to start. You’d better get yourself out there and get to work.”

“Right. Thanks.” Patrick stood, still more than a little bit stunned, and picked up the papers Ben had given him, rolling them up so he could stick them in his coat pocket. He’d look at them again later. “And thanks for this. I appreciate the help.”

“Somehow I don’t think you’re going to need all that much,” Ben said. “But you’re welcome.”

“I didn’t think you’d be happy about the tattoo.” Vin could feel the inked skin throbbing under his loose shirt, a slow, measured beat he treasured as a reminder.

It didn’t look as attractive right now as it would later, not with only two days’ healing behind it. The skin around it was inflamed, but that would fade, leaving behind the dark drama of the outline and the vivid colors of the heart and dragon. He’d shown it to his parents and endured his mother’s fussing over her baby being hurt, which made no sense at all, and his father’s indulgent shake of the head. With a few days to go before Christmas, their house smelled of the season, the real tree exuding pine, the kitchen of cinnamon and coffee.

He’d delivered his gifts and stacked them under the tree, waiting to be opened on Christmas morning. Riley wouldn’t be there, of course—too soon for them to be involved in each other’s traditions. Even if Riley had invited him over, his mother’s disappointment at his absence would have made it impossible for Vin to accept.

He’d bought Riley a few things. Nothing expensive. He couldn’t afford it, and he didn’t intend to skimp on presents to his family to give Riley something fancy when Riley had everything anyone could need or want anyway.

And he’d gotten Patrick a gift for the first time, not the forbidden coffeemaker, but something else he knew Patrick would like, prompted to it by the valiant attempts his friend was making to turn himself around.

Vin hadn’t realized how in debt Patrick was, or how dissatisfied with his life. Patrick had always seemed like the original party animal, sleeping with anyone who took his fancy, getting very drunk, very often, carefree and content. Dust off the glitter, and underneath was a lot of loneliness. Vin had never been lonely. His family surrounded him with love and support. Even when he’d been longing for Riley, he hadn’t been unhappy.

“I’m not going to lie and say I’m glad you did it, but it’s you. Can’t be mad at you, baby.” Riley took a handful of cashew nuts from the bowl on the coffee table, an elegant rectangle of metal and glass that Vin kept banging his knee on. He popped them into his mouth, chewing slowly as if to give him an excuse not to elaborate.

God, he was beautiful. The years they’d been apart showed on his face, of course, but they served to make him better looking to Vin, more like a man and less like a boy.

“I knew you wouldn’t want me to change who I am.” He hadn’t known it, not for sure; he was relieved and grateful.

“Of course not.” Riley frowned as if the idea bothered him. “Come over here; you’re too far away.”

There’d only been a few inches between them, not enough to complain about, but Vin moved closer. “I missed you last night,” he said, putting a hand on Riley’s thigh and murmuring appreciatively when Riley’s arm encircled him.

“You should get a regular day job. Then we could be together every night. Isn’t that what you want? When you move in—sorry, I mean
if
; I know you haven’t made your mind up yet—I want you here in bed with me, not out at that bar until three in the morning.” Riley ran a hand up Vin’s back and into his hair, then kissed him.

“Mm.” Vin loved his job, but this wasn’t the time to say it. “I could make it up to you right now.”

“Yeah? That sounds good.”

“It’ll feel good too.” Vin reached for the hem of Riley’s shirt and pulled it out of his waistband, then bent and kissed his stomach. Riley was fit, so the softness under Vin’s lips was the velvet of skin. He felt the solid press of Riley’s cock as he undid his zipper.

“Already does,” Riley said with an anticipatory groan that made Vin’s balls tighten.

He couldn’t get used to the fact that sex was part of his life now. It wasn’t something he took for granted the way other people seemed to. It also wasn’t exactly the way he’d pictured it. Sex made him feel closer to Riley, and it left his body humming happily, but sometimes he had a flash of frustration that it didn’t feel better. Maybe because it was over so soon? Riley came quickly, and though he was always willing to finish Vin with his hand or mouth—usually his hand—Vin felt guilty, as if he was robbing Riley of the chance to bask in the afterglow. He’d tried coming first instead, but it wasn’t like he could snap his fingers and climax at will. He wanted to enjoy the journey; Riley was all about crossing the finish line first.

It was hard not to feel like he was doing something wrong. The night he and Patrick had seen Ben and Shane together—a night he hadn’t been able to get out of his head—Vin had felt flushed, a rush of heat and envy overwhelming him. It wasn’t that he was into the idea of being that rough in bed, surprisingly hot and less surprisingly disturbing as it had been to play voyeur to his employers’ passionate encounter, but the intensity and intimacy he’d witnessed were missing from his sex with Riley. Maybe he’d gone too long in life without that kind of connection with another person. Maybe that kind of profound bond took a while to build, and with time he and Riley would have something similar together.