PROLOGUE
Game Night
GAVIN
I really wish I didn’t like my employees, then I wouldn’t be forced to go to a fucking game night, but here I am standing at Drew’s – my employee Ryan’s boyfriend – front door trying to gather as much polite energy as I can to keep a smile on my face for the next few hours. Drew fucked up big time a few weeks ago and is on a mission to win Ryan back. I have so far enjoyed watching him find his happiness again but I like to enjoy it from the sidelines, not up close, or in the middle of it, like tonight. When Ryan texted earlier he made it very clear that we were all to be here at seven-thirty p.m. sharp or face his wrath, naturally we are ten minutes late just to piss the guy off for making me come to a fucking game night.
The door opens and Carter pushes his way inside like the overexcited puppy he is, followed by Nyx. “Thanks for coming man, it means a lot.” I just nod at Drew, it’s not like they gave us much of a choice. It was either show up tonight or deal with a sad Ryan again, and that shit is just too damn depressing. I manage to make it just inside the door before a soft angelic voice floats to my ears and makes me stop dead in my tracks. It takes me far too long to register that said angel is talking to me.
“And who is this bear of a man?”
I turn to face the sound and my eyes drop down onto the most beautiful man I’ve ever laid eyes on. Definitely an angel.
A mop of dark curls frames an almost pixie-like face and a body to match. He’s wearing extraordinarily bright pink pants that somehow match his smile, but damn he is young, a lot younger than me. If I had to guess, early twenties, and a whole fucking foot shorter than me, yet he oozes the confidence of a man twice his size and twice his age. He’s exceptional. Before I can ask his name Drew moves around my body and takes him by the shoulders redirecting him away. Well shit. Who the hell is that guy?
Making my way into the kitchen I move around the outskirts of the group chatting and grabbing drinks. Social gatherings aren’t my thing at the best of times but especially when they are small and intimate. There are far too many open opportunities for people to ask questions or try to find out more about me. Even though I’ve worked with these people for many years, I’ve been careful to keep my private life private, and situations like this kinda make me uncomfortable. I don’t know the stories they are referring to and I’m not in on most of the jokes so I tend to just hang back.
“Doing okay, boss?” Ryan asks, appearing beside me with a bottle of water in hand. Thankfully, my sober status isn’t a secret. Opening the bottle I take a sip and as casually as I can manage I tip my head in the direction of the brightly dressed angel.
“Who’s that?” I ask and wait as Ryan’s eyes follow my line of sight.
“Oh that’s Drew’s little brother Pete. Remember I told you about him and how he managed to break his ankle last year doing water aerobics?” He laughs and my brows scrunch in confusion.
“How the fuck do you break a bone doing water aerobics?” I ask, my eyes glancing over at Pete, taking him in again. He’s so bright and I don’t mean his hideous pants, more like the light shines from his very core. Ryan’s shoulders bounce as he laughs and shakes his head.
“We still don’t know how he managed it, but that kinda sums Pete up.”
We’re an hour into Game Night and it has been entertaining as fuck to watch Ryan losing his shit over Pete turning every game into some kind of mating ritual. His turn at Pictionary was a stickman with a phone and ‘call me’ in a speech bubble. To be fair the answer was ‘phone booth’ so I mean he wasn’t that far off, but neither Ryan nor I guessed it. We also couldn’t guess that a tall bearded stickman kissing a small non-bearded stickman inside a heart was supposed to be ‘Love Actually’. I’ve been fighting my smile all night, just letting Ryan spiral further into chaos with every loss.
Deciding we need a break, Drew and Pete bring out the food they ordered for everybody. Sipping on a Coke I try to force my eyes away from Nyx and Pete as they discuss yoga and meditation, but the way his face lights up as he talks is mesmerizing. He turns his gaze to me like he could feel me watching and his smile somehow manages to beam even brighter forcing me to look away. The guy is the physical embodiment of the sun, whereas I prefer the shadows. I just know if I get too close I’m going to get burned.
What happens next can only be described as a comedy of errors and the very reason Ryan hinted that Pete is a disaster waiting to happen. I’m not even sure how it happened but one minute I’m discussing needle sizes with Carter and the next I have a lap full of sticky BBQ wings and Pete is picking himself up off the floor where the huge wooden easel still lays against the refreshment table, his cheeks blazing red with embarrassment.Jesus, this kid.
With the whole room staring between us and the tension building like they are preparing for me to blow a gasket, I just laugh. Loud and hard and soon they all join me busting a gut.
“All right, all right, enough of that, as funny as that was, I need to get home and get out of this… wing sauce,” I say with a playful roll of my eyes. Pete jumps forward then with napkins in hand.
“I can help.” The idea of him touching my crotch, even with a napkin, has me conjuring images of rotting chair legs to keep my boner at bay.
“Oh, you’ve done enough tonight, Troublemaker. But since it is your fault I’m in this state, I guess it’s only fair for you to give me a ride.”
PETE
I rush out of Drew’s place to get to my car before Gavin does. I can’t believe this big, gorgeous, grumpy bear of a man is going to let me drive him home after I just dumped a bowl of BBQ wingsall over him.
Ugh,it was just my luck. I was gracefully coming out of the ‘Gaylord of the Dance’ yoga pose I created and was showing Nyx. My foot caught the leg of the easel we were using to hold up the scoreboard, sending it crashing into the refreshment table and a bowl of wings launched right onto my future husband’s lap.
If it had been anybody else, the messy mishap wouldn’t have been a big deal. I mean, I’ve made worse mistakes. Like last week, my bestie Jordan and I got invited to a really cool pool party, with a DJ and everything. The guy throwing the party, Brett, maybe? I can’t remember. He asked me to put a capful of the bubble liquid into the foam machine, but a fucking giant bug flew by me, and I accidentally tipped the whole bottle in. It took about five minutes before the whole backyard was covered in foam and threatening to breach the house. We left before I got yelled at. Jordan still isn’t talking to me. Apparently, he was way into Brett or Bryan, whoever the guy was. So yeah, wings in the lap… not that bad, except it was Gavin’s lap they landed on, so it’s actually the worst.
I had been trying to get the guy’s attention since the moment I laid eyes on him tonight.He’s all big and tattooed and my little twink heart damn near exploded on the spot when I saw him. Not to mention my cock was half hard the whole night and now any progress I had made was being scraped off his pants with the wings.
I quickly pull open the passenger side door of my car and grab an armful of drawing supplies off the seat, throwing it into the back so Gavin can actually sit without a pencil up his ass. I’m not entirely sure why he asked me to drive him back, but I’m not about to smack a gift horse in the mouth. Perhaps all my advances tonight didn’t go unnoticed after all. I knew Ryan was wrong. Grumpy Bear Gavin has to be into me. He walks up to me as I toss a loose McDonald’s napkin from breakfast into the backseat.
“You ready, big guy?” I ask with my best flirty smile.
“I’m not sure.” He eyes my car suspiciously, like he’s unsure if the rust bucket will even hold his weight. I swallow the lump of nerves in my throat.Please don’t back out now.
“Come on, you’re going to attract ants if you stay in those clothes much longer.” I throw him my biggest smile before sliding across the hood of the car and jumping off the other side.I’m so fucking cool, and he knows it.
