Marcus accepted his mimosa from the waiter. “Keep them coming, please.” If he had to spend the morning watching Zach and Sam act all dreamy-eyed and moony, he needed to get drunk fast.
“How’s the club? Are the dancers working out as well as you hoped?” Zach took a piece of sourdough bread and offered him the basket.
He shook his head. “None for me, thanks. The dancers are great. They’re bringing a lot of people into the club during the week on off-nights. Now it’s always busy.” His gaze roamed the restaurant and stopped short on a couple in the corner. Disbelieving, he blinked a few times and stared hard. It couldn’t possibly be, but it was.
Paul Feldman. There, at a small round table sat his fucking father, in all his glory, with a woman, not his mother of course, but that was no surprise to Marcus. His father had never had time for his mother, or him, for that matter. Work and women dominated his life, not his family.
“Marcus, what’s wrong?” Zach’s voice penetrated the fog in his head.
Above everything, Marcus had always kept a tight lid on his home life. He and Zach had grown up together, spending the majority of time at Zach’s house. Marcus’s mother was too worried about him creating a mess that might upset his father, who was a stickler for order and precision, and his father and his needs and wishes were her main concern in life.
Not Marcus; never her son.
“Uh, nothing. Something in my eye.” He rubbed it for effect and turned his attention back to Zach and Sam and their conversation. “So the dancers, yeah. Last night we had sort of an incident. One of the new guys I hired was hit on twice.”
“Is that so unusual?” Sam buttered his bread and took a bite. After chewing and swallowing, he continued, “I figured the guys flirt for tips.”
“Yeah, that’s true, but this went beyond the norm. The guy was backed up against the wall with his nuts held in a twist.” Marcus couldn’t help glancing over to where his father sat, finishing his coffee. It had been several years since Marcus had seen him, but from the way the waiters hovered, that proud, arrogant demeanor of his hadn’t changed. The bastard expected and received deference.
“That’s horrible,” said Zach, clearly distressed at the thought.
“That’s assault,” said Sam the ex-cop, shooting him a hard, flinty glare. “You’re gonna press charges, right?”
Marcus finally jerked his attention back to the conversation. “What? No. I didn’t report it.”
“Why not? Your employee was assaulted on your property and place of business. He could sue you as well as the guy.”
Marcus sipped his mimosa before answering. “I don’t see that happening. Tyler doesn’t seem like that type.”
“Oh yeah?” Zach put his fork down and gave him an amused look. “Who is this Tyler, and how well do you know him?”
“Not at all; don’t be stupid.” Marcus shot Zach a dark scowl. “He’s a flirt on the dance floor and off, so I’m sure he gets hit on all the time. Besides,” he said, “when I spoke to him last night after the incident, his main concern was making sure he still had a job, not suing me.”
“What do you mean?”
“He wanted to make sure I didn’t believe the asshole who groped him instead of his version of events.”
“Well of course you wouldn’t. And Sam’s right.”
Marcus finished his mimosa. “About what?” His father’s laughter rose above the din of the other diners in the restaurant, and suddenly Marcus’s throat turned dry as sand. He held up his empty glass to the waiter for a refill.
“That you should report the guy for assaulting your employee, and either Tyler or you should think about pressing charges. People can’t simply touch other people against their will and think they can get away with it.”
It wasn’t only the tone of Zach’s voice that bothered Marcus. Zach’s white, anxious face stirred an uneasy feeling in the pit of Marcus’s stomach. With rising anger and fear he watched Sam put his arm around Zach to comfort him.
“It’s okay, baby. Don’t get upset.”
“Zach? What’s going on? Talk to me.” He braced his elbows on the table. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”
Sam opened his mouth as if to answer, but Zach cut him off. “It’s fine. I want to talk about it. It’s time.” His blue eyes shone with that damn honesty only Zach possessed. Fear gripped Marcus’s heart, anticipating what his best friend was about to say.
“Remember Nathan?”
At the mention of Zach’s long-ago college boyfriend, whom both he and Julian hated, Marcus’s lip curled in a sneer. “Yeah, what about that asshole loser?”
Zach’s gaze fell to the tablecloth where he dug a hole with the sharp edge of a knife. “He…he used to hurt me. First verbally; then he moved on to the physical, but before it went too far he broke it off.”
The room spun, and Marcus didn’t realize he’d stood and knocked over his chair until he found himself staring down at Zach’s mournful face. His breath came in pants, and his vision grayed.
