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“Good boy, always a go-getter. Your mother’s making us go on some historical tour, but there’s a rum distillery at the end, so I said I would do it. We’re getting ready to leave.” A horn beeped, and for a second, I couldn’t tell if it was coming from the speakers or somewhere on the road near me.
“Have fun,” I said, smiling as he ended the call.
I slowed down at a stoplight and groaned when my head whipped forward and there was a loud crunching sound from the rear. My neck ached and I rubbed the muscles. It took me a dizzy second to realize my car was halfway out into the intersection. I glanced in the rearview mirror and groaned. A massive truck with a tank on the back had hit me. We Do Dog Doo was plastered on the front, and I started chuckling, despite everything.
My day had started out shitty, and I guess it was just going to keep heading the same direction. I drove over to the side of the road—so I wouldn’t get T-boned next—and parked. The truck turned down the street I was on and stopped in front of me, and I sighed, getting ready to do the insurance exchange dance.
The driver’s door opened, and I stifled a moan as a massive man in a tight white tank top climbed out. He had his gray overalls tied around his waist, and as he shut his door, his bicep bulged. I licked my lips as my gaze got stuck on some massive, delicious pecs. It was like someone had stacked two perfect mounds chiseled out of marble on his chest. I swallowed hard as my dick twitched. Jesus Christ. Now this was a man. He came toward me, and I opened my door and stepped out with my paperwork in hand, gaze still glued to those flawless muscles.
“Sorry about that,” he said, and the Scottish brogue made me freeze and glance at his equally amazing face. I got trapped staring into shocked green eyes. The sunlight made them gleam a pure emerald. His short blond hair had been sprinkled with a liberal amount of silver that did unholy good things for him. Oh, fuck. All the warm feelings fled.
“Tavish, is that you?” I asked, feeling stupid, but I couldn’t make my tongue move to say anything else.
He stumbled to a standstill and stared at me. All the air seemed to vanish from my lungs.
A strange knocking and suction sound from the tank on the truck had me frowning in that direction, despite the awful situation I’d suddenly found myself in—well, more awful.
“Oh, bloody hell,” Tav said, some of the first words I’d heard from him in decades. He snagged my shoulder and dragged me backward a few steps.
There was a pop and a glug, and the most awful smelling sludge I’d ever encountered in my life began to pour out around a hose on the back of the tank, spraying directly onto my car. I was too stunned to do anything at first, but as I raced to move my car, the face I hadn’t seen in forever—since high school—began to twitch into a smile. He exploded in laughter, the sound booming and fucking perfect. Yeah, he had laugh lines I’d never seen, but his face was still the one that twisted me up inside.
Fuck, how could he see me like this, after the way he’d ended things, and laugh? Old anger roared to life in my gut. Rage had me punching the gas too hard as I backed up the Bentley, and the car spun as it was hit again, leaving me pointing halfway around in the opposite direction. I slapped my steering wheel and glared. Someone’s horn blasted, then another one joined it. Flashing lights had me groaning.
Fuck my life, and more importantly, fuck Tav. Of course everything would start falling apart for me the second I saw him again.
2
TAV
If I didn’t laugh, I might’ve cried. I’d only been on the new job for a week, certainly not enough time to get used to the truck, before the accident with Judah happened.
The cops came, did their job, and went, and Judah barely looked at me. I didn’t blame him. Between our past and what had happened today, it was a miracle he didn’t deck me. I’d never expected to run into him again, let alone for it to happen quite literally.
Too many years had passed between us, and even if he knew the truth—I doubted it because his mother certainly wouldn’t’ve told him—he clearly hadn’t forgiven me.
Now, I was back in my trailer, newly unemployed from my fuckup with not securing the hose to the vacuum truck properly, and still a little shaken from running into Judah. As soon as a tow truck had come to take his car away, he’d left without a word, and I’d let him, not quite sure what to say. I didn’t deserve the chance to explain, even after all these years. I’d signed a contract, and there was nothing I could do to make up for the hurt I’d caused him.
“What happened?” Ellis—formerly known as Chet—fell onto the dilapidated couch beside me, dragging his long legs up to tuck them under himself. He was lanky, all limbs. He widened his big brown eyes in my direction.
Until recently he’d lived across the river from my trailer park with his uber religious parents, and when they’d been ready to send him off to a conversion camp, he was saved by my former neighbor, Ethan Shephard, and Shep’s boyfriend and Ellis’s best friend, Jonas. Now, Ellis lived with me, using his middle name to create a new identity and life. But if I knew anything about the past, it was that it tended to catch up with you when you least expected it.
Like today.
I shook my head and leaned it back against the couch. “I lost my job.”
“Already?” There wasn’t any judgment in his voice, rather sympathy. Ellis was a nice kid who’d grown up under difficult circumstances, something I understood well. So, while he’d offered to try and get out of my hair, I’d brushed off the idea. He deserved a new beginning, even if it was in my shitty trailer with my old, shabby furniture. It was better than living with his Jesus freak parents who were ready to ship their son off to have him tortured.
I glanced at him and took in the teenager. He was eighteen but had grown massively in maturity in barely a month. The scared child that I’d been asked to protect was still in there, but he was hidden behind a young man who’d learned to stand on his own two feet. I was proud of him. He’d dyed his hair black and pierced both of his ears. Each earlobe had a hoop with dangly pieces, but the right one had a long cylinder-type shape with rounded edges. His clothing style had also changed since he’d been with me. While his fashion was still masculine, he wore baggier pants that resembled skirts even though they weren’t. He loved his leather jackets and loose shirts, too.
Today, he went for a casual pair of black pants and a band T-shirt with no shoes. He looked good. Comfortable. But that’s what I wanted. When I took someone under my wing, I liked to be their older brother in a lot of ways, and Ellis was no different. I’d sent him back to school to finish his final year, which left me needing a job that supported us both. Hell, I had to figure out what to do.
“Yeah.” I squeezed the back of my neck and sighed. “I got into an accident, which would’ve been fine, but I didn’t secure the hose properly and shite went all over the other bloke’s car.” I didn’t mention who the other person was. Ellis didn’t need to know the details. He had no idea about my history, and I wanted to keep it that way. I was ashamed enough about it as it was.
“Are you okay?” He glanced down my body, studying me for injuries, and I smiled at his concern. I’d never understand how his parents had been so cruel to him just because they’d discovered he was gay.
I patted him on the shoulder. “I’m fine. Just a few bumps. Nothin’ huge.”
“So, the bastard boss fired you over that?” He scrunched up his nose and huffed. “That’s stupid.”
