It should be thewhateverthat makes my pulse kick, the inference playing into every day I lived before I met him. But the truth is, every word from Sab lands like something rare. A gift I haven’t unwrapped, and maybe never will.
And yet, every little moment with him, every scrap of him I get…it’s worth it—he’sworth it.
Every damn time.
You’d think, with that much enthusiasm for all things Sab, I’d be on those messages like butter on my ma’s mashed potatoes. But though I have a few days to kill before I go back to work, aside fromthanks xxx, I don’t respond.
And I don’t know why.
I want to see Sab again. I’ve met him four times and he’s under my skin so deep he’s all I think about when I’m not hoofing up and down ladders, or zooming the rig at high speed through heavy traffic. But maybe that’s the problem. I’ve never thought about anyone like this, andno one, not even my ma, has ever held me like he did the other night.
Doesn’t mean anything.
Course it doesn’t. Sab came to FlingIt for a reason, and it wasn’t to cuddle sulky firefighters nursing a fecking ouchie. He came becauseItold him to and it’s hard not to wonder where we’d be right now if I’d just given him my number.
Nowhere. He was already looking for no-strings sex.
And the realist in me knows that’s all Sab has time for right now, a reality I should be fine with cos it’s all I’ve ever wanted fromanybody. But anytime I think about Sab cruising FlingIt and someone half decent reeling him in, I want to burn the world down, and that’s so against my beliefs it’s not even funny.
My friend Nash thinks it’s funny. He’s come up from Devon under the guise of helping me repipe my bathroom, but I know Logan sent him. The dad club sticks together.
“That’s really not it.” Nash takes the spanner I hold out, my sole contribution to Project Bathroom so far. “I was coming up to grab the last of Remy’s tools from the workshop and catch up with a retired brother. It made sense for me to do this at the same time.”
Remy. Logan’s soulmate. Love him. But all the same… “Why can’t Remy fetch his own tools?”
“Van’s broke.”
“You’re a mechanic. Fix it for him.”
Nash snorts with his back to me. Framed by broad shoulders with a mop of curly blond hair, since I met him through Logan’s brother he’s always caught my eye in ways he probably shouldn’t. But somehow since I last saw him, I’ve moved past drooling over his boyish grin and biker aesthetic. Now he’s just a mate seeing too much of me for comfort, even when he’s not fecking looking.
“Pass me that Stillson.”
“The what now?”
Nash jerks his head at the pipe wrench. “That one.”
I hand it over. Watch him do something I should’ve done myself six months ago. “That’ll fix the pressure?”
“Yeah, should be less like showering under a rat’s cock now.”
“Nice.”
Nash shifts around, giving me his face for the first time in a few hours. “It will be. You just need to lay your tiles and seal it all back up.”
“Story of my fecking life.”
“That why you’ve got a finished bedroom and no bed, and derelict living room with a pure mint couch?”
“That couch isn’t mint. It’s twenty years old.”
“Looks all right to me.”
“Cos you’re all about the leather.”
Nash chuckles, finishes up the pipes, and gets his shit together. He’s a busy man. Dad of more fecking twins, and VP of the Rebel Kings MC. He needs to hit the road on the menacing motorbike he rocked up on. The one that gives me hives. I’ve seen way too many bike crashes to like ‘em. Hell, I’ve seen Nash nearly die in an RTC and it makes me think of Sab’s brother. OfSab, and whatever that does to my face, Nash pauses on his way out of my house.
“You okay?”
