“Hey, buddy, where’d you go?”
I shake myself out of the memory and remind myself—again—that I made something pretty special of my life, despite the bullshit. Hell, I’m the business manager of an NBA legend, and I own several acres of vacation rental properties in the Texas wine country. I drive a ridiculously expensive SUV and live in a cool house that, because of Austin’s ridiculously good housing market, will net me double when I sell it.
“Sorry. Started taking a walk down memory lane.”
“Fuck, don’t do that. It’s in a shitty neighborhood, dude.”
“Good point. Pulling into the driveway now.”
So yeah, this town’s great and all, but, seriously, fuck that guy. Next time I’ll send Ashley for the pizza.
Chapter Two
Roly
It’s been two days since the Angry Bear Incident, and I’m really beating myself up here. I should’ve recognized him the second he walked in the door; his voice is unmistakable and those eyes… fuuuuucccck, those eyes.
When I think about high school, I usually think about two things: how varsity cheerleading absolutely prepared me to become a Navy SEAL, and how much I crushed on one Heath Treadway. I’ve had a chance to reflect these last coupla days, and let’s just say that it wasn’t a flattering look for me.
I was popular for my quick, biting wit, and Heath got bit on the regular… probably because of the huge crush I’d had on him.
In my rose-colored high school memories, I’d forgotten the rumors that his stepdad was a jerk, and it makes me sick to think about how I’d piled on with my big mouth. This was obviously back when I hid my undying affection for all things bear, a time I jokingly call the Dark Ages. I’m realizing that those times were darker than I’d thought, and I’m grateful that I’ve grown as a person.
Some of that growth happened after being held for three days in Iraq, I think to myself, then dismiss the memory—and a name I can’t ever forget—as quickly as it enters my head. Nick, who is like a brother to me, lost his leg in that incident, so I’m not allowed a pity party.Suck it up.
I totally deserve how much that beautiful bear of a man hates me, but I am undeterred; there’s always a way to make things better… which means that I’m going to be very busy today.
I found out through the grapevine that Heath’s ex got a good job here, so instead of making his girls split their time between Austin and San Antonio, Heath decided to move to Austin. The guys from the gym are helping him to move the rest of his things into his new place today.
I’ve decided that I’m going to join them after an early-morning personal training session with old man Morris and before I close the pizza shop. Once I’m done with all of that, I’ll have hopefully redeemed myself enough to get some sleep. I’d usually reward myself with a tasty bear or two, but even I’ll be too exhausted for that after today.
* * *
Okay, so things aren’t going as well as I had hoped.
First off, Morris was even more unbearable than usual. He’d had a brief stint in the hospital a couple of weeks ago—nothing serious, thankfully—and today was his first day getting back into the swing of things. He groused when I had him do a modified body weight workout in the yoga area, and groused again when I only let him do one rep instead of three.
On top of all of that, we’djustgotten him to stop wearing the shiny stretch pants to Jake’s yoga class, but today he decided to ditch the trainers and socks to go au natural.
*dry heave*
He’s far too wealthy to have that kind of situation going on with his toenails, and I totally called him on it. He then went and said something low-level homophobic, and I banned him for a week. Then promptly instated a shoe rule for the gym.
After I took alongdecontamination shower, I went and got some breakfast things so that we’d all be fueled and prepared to go with all of the heavy lifting. See, here’s the thing: people always call me a twink, and, to be fair, I’m not very tall. But I’ve added a lot of solid muscle onto this tiny, little frame, thank you very much. My favorite party trick is to back up to a big bear and have them lean all of their weight on me until I’m actually holding them up. It’s the equivalent of an ant lifting a boulder, and it’s fucking hysterical.
But, back to how I may or may not have fucked up a tiny little bit this morning.
So, breakfast things. I start handing out croissants and bagels and muffins, and am glad that I brought extra because Everett, Jake’s tattoo artist, shows up. Jules and I helped him out with the grand opening to his shop, and he’s offered to give me any tattoo I want, free of charge.
Yeah, no. My skin is far too pretty for that business.
We also volunteer for the same dog rescue, and he’s got the cutest little Pomeranian you ever did see. As you can imagine, he’s tattooed for daaaaays and has the broad-shouldered, silver daddy thing down perfectly. He’s too ripped for my taste, but I didn’t exactly throw him out of bed when he made his move. We only did it the one time because we are both deathly allergic to emotional connections, but he was memorable, which is saying something.
Fuck, he’s got a good dick and talented hands. I might need to hop on that one more time, just to be sure.
Rabbit trail.
Anyways, I get to Heath, and I ask him what he wants and he says, “No thank you, I’m allergic to nuts.”
