“What Pigskin over there is trying to say,” Benji said, “is that we need to vet him properly before you go all ‘put a ring on it.’”
“Nobody’s putting a ring on anything.” I raised an eyebrow.
“Not even your cock?” Benji grinned.
“Benji—” Mark warned again, thoughthere was more humor than heat.
“Yeah, you know.” Jacks gestured. “Like, make sure he’s not a . . . what’s the word I’m looking for?”
“Weirdo?” Mark suggested.
“Sexual predator,” Benji offered. “Although, from what we’ve heard, you might like that.”
“Benji!” I protested.
“Child molester,” Mark tossed out.
“A jerk,” Jacks said. “We need to make sure he’s not a jerk, that he’s good to you. I mean good for you. Or both. Definitely both.”
I couldn’t help feeling a strange affection for the poor boy as he tried to assemble sentences like a Jenga puzzle.
He meant well. He really did.
Jacks scratched the back of his head. “My coach used to say something about . . . how’d he put it? You gotta know the whole team, not just watch them play. You gotta eat with them and hang out and see who they are when they’re not, you know, performing.” He paused. “That made more sense in my head.”
“Performing.” Benji snickered. “They already know how to do that.”
Jacks shoved him, though they were grinning like brothers ganging up on their other brother.
“No, I got it,” I said, smiling despite myself.
Benji magically found a sincere tone. “The point is we want to know the person who’s making you smile at your phone every five minutes. And yes, we have approvalandveto power. We’re gay. Judging is in our genes.”
“Fuck right, it is.” Jacks held up his palm for a high five.
Reluctantly, Benji smacked it.
“And Priya’s dying to hang out with him, too,” Mark added. “She’s texted me like forty times. She said, and I quote—” He switched into the absolute worst Indian accent ever attempted. “‘I’ve had one five-minute conversation with Chase and it was while I was threatening to kill him and right before those two horny boys kept me awake all night with their banging and groaning and squealing.’”
“We don’t squeal!” I said in a squeaky voice. Then, despite everything, I laughed. “That sounds like Priya.”
“She’s a doctor. She’s smart and shit.” Jacks pushed off from the doorframe, taking a step into the room. “Chase seems great and all. He shows up here just to be near you, and that’s commitment, you know? That’s real.” His brow furrowed again. “But you’re family now. We want to know him if he matters to you.”
Family?
I hadn’t seen that coming, and the word struck me harder than I would’ve expected. Mark and I had been best friends for as long as I could remember, but Jacks and Benji were just employees, coworkers who scrambled for a paycheck by serving food and drinks every night.
Clearly, they saw us as more than just their employers, closer to brothers. I stared between them and let the weight of that settled onto my shoulders.
“And we need to know whether he can handle Benji,” Mark added with a smirk. “And not just the evil bartender, the guy behind the colorful hair and fruity drinks.”
“How could he not love me?” Benji protested. “I’m delightful!”
“You’re . . . intense,” Jacks said, grinning now. “But Mark’s right. We need to know if Chase can hang with us, with our chaos, because if you’re serious about him—which, no offense, boss, but we all know you are even if you don’t yet—then he’s gonna be around us a lot. We should all be, like, friends and shit?”
“I’ll be the friends. Jacks isclearlythe shit,” Benji said.
After another brief shoving match, the three of them stood there, quiet and waiting, as my mind spun with everything they’d just thrown my way. I’dnever slowed down long enough to even think about what Jacks and Benji had become to me. They were just people I’d hired, employees I managed; but was that true? Was that all they were? Or were they more than that?
