CHAPTER2
joel
@thewateringhole:Gentle reminder, folks: Vodka is not a substitute for a personality, but gin very well could be.
@theseguinbean:Joel Hays is a dirty rotten tweet thief.
I handed my buddy Beckett his dark ale, which he paired with some barbecue from down the street. Beckett regularly ignored the No Outside Food or Drink sign on our front door, and we allowed him to because he always brought enough for me and Ozzie, my business partner.
Ozzie chuckled as he grabbed his overloaded paper tray, already translucent in spots from the moist brisket and fall-off-the-bone pork ribs. He sent us a jaunty salute as he headed to the back to finish up the quarterly taxes.
The three of us had known each other since kindergarten, and I never would’ve guessed Ozzie Cavanaugh would move back to Seguin, especially not to go into business withme. He’d made good money at his corporate job in Chicago, but he’d been desperately unhappy.
At the same time, I’d been struggling to keep up with the workload and had discovered that the IRS didn’t accept “bad with numbers” as an excuse when I fucked up my tax returns. Oz and I reconnected over some beers when he came to visit last Christmas, and it hadn’t taken me long to see that he had the skills I lacked. Still, our beer-fueled conversations about increasing my home brew offerings and opening up a rooftop lounge had seemed like a dream scenario easily forgotten when he flew back to Chicago.
A month later, though, he texted me a picture of a certificate from a bartender training school along with the question,When can I start?After hashing out the details, he moved down two weeks later.
These last few months with Oz as my business partner had given me a chance to catch my breath, even as we began to implement our pie-in-the-sky ideas. The rooftop lounge was a bigger draw than I’d anticipated, and I was kicking myself for letting that prime real estate go unused for years.
I was more grateful to Oz than I could possibly express, even if he was sexier and way more fashionable than I’d ever be. The man always cut a striking figure, pairing his glorious afrohawk with perfectly tailored pastel linens and tasteful accessories, all while pouring fancy cocktails with the kind of sexy ease you usually saw only in movies.
Honestly, it’d be annoying if he wasn’t such a solid guy.
Beckett, on the other hand, had a flair for breaking the rules, a habit he’d happily kept well into adulthood. Hell, he was a preacher with more tattoos and notches on his bedpost than I’d ever have.
It was too damn bad I didn’t figure out my queerness until the three of us went off to different colleges—me to UTSA, Ozzie to Loyola, and Becks to St. Edward’s. I bet either of them would’ve been a solid hand-job buddy in high school.
Even so, I appreciated that the three of us could sit in companionable silence and enjoy some damn good food—and beer, ahem—while doing so.
“Damn, Travis knows how to throw on a good brisket.” I dragged the man’s homemade bread through the last of the meat juices, groaning when the smoky, perfectly sopped carbohydrates hit my lips.
Beckett popped the last bit of burnt end into his mouth, moaning in agreement. “I love it when other states talk about their barbecue. So cute to think something drippin’ with sugar sauce could even compare with—”
Beckett’s soliloquy on the finer points of Texas cuisine was interrupted by the door swinging open with a loudwhomp, sending its out-of-season sleigh bells crashing to the floor.
“You!” shouted Tristan, the adorable barista from next door, pointing at me.
I had no idea what I’d done—that was a lie; I had a pretty good idea—but the scowl on his face felt like sunshine washing through my bar. Tristan Silver was temptation personified, and I’d been flirting with him through social media for a solid month now.
Ozzie came in from the back, licking barbecue sauce off his fingers, chuckling. “Think he mighta finally figured out the little game you’ve been playing with him?”
“Me?” I asked, touching my fingers to my chest.
Beckett, who also knew what was up, snickered into his ale.
Tristan stomped over, then stopped short when he saw Beckett sipping his beer, his eyes landing on Beckett’s collar and tattoos.
“I didn’t know priests could drink.”
“I’m not that kind of priest, kid,” Beckett said, flicking his eyes in my direction.
It was his way of teasing me for going all goo-goo-eyed over a guy in college. Whatever. Tristan was getting his degree in a couple of weeks, and besides, Beckett and Ozzie had been running a pool with a few of our friends regarding how long it would take Tristan to figure out my little ploy to get his attention.
Huh. Come to think of it, I wondered if Allie had fixed the game in her favor.
Not that I was complaining.
Ignoring mygood pals, I turned to the handsome, lanky man in front of me. Tristan was about to go on to bigger and better things than we could offer him in Seguin, Texas, but damn.
