Chapter One
The soft, constant hum of people in Angie’s bar was exactly what Charlie needed after a long week at work. He loved his job, but he was always relieved when Fridays rolled around and he could sit down with his friends, drink exactly three beers, and then go home warm and giggly and happy again.
Tonight, though, he couldn’t stop himself from staring at a man who was standing at the bar. He was tall and broad-shouldered, easily twice Charlie’s size, and therefore exactly his type.
The problem with small towns was that new faces were rare, even with the community college bringing in new students every year. That had been fine when Charlie was college-aged, but now that he was getting a little old for undergrads, he was quickly running out of prospects.
“You’re gonna stare a hole in the back of that guy’s head,” Lanie said, sipping her glass of house red. “You need to get up and talk to him before your laser eyes set the bar on fire.”
Charlie had thought he was being subtle.
“He’s straight,” Charlie said, sighing in defeat. Angie’s was effectively a gay bar—on account of Angie herself being a drag queen—but it took new people a while to catch on. Every time there’d been a new face that Charlie had any sexual or romantic interest in lately, they’d been straight. And new.
The huge estate project on the outskirts of town had brought in a whole bunch of electricians, plumbers, carpenters and general laborers. Two-hundred new houses being built, apparently, by six-hundred straight men.
Or at least it felt that way.
“You’ll never know if you don’t go and talk to him,” Amber said from Lanie’s other side. They always teamed up together, though. That was what couples were supposed to do.
It was just that in this case, they happened to be right.
Charlie sighed, looking up at the gorgeous man smiling at the bartender. Maybe he wasn’t straight. Maybe this would be the guy.
Draining his beer so he’d have an excuse to be at the bar, Charlie slipped out of the booth he’d claimed when he arrived and headed over. A swarm of butterflies exploded in his stomach. He talked to people all day, but most of the library patrons were regulars. He knew them.
He wasn’t desperately hoping they’d want to take him home and screw his brains out.
“Hey,” Charlie said, leaning against the bar while he waited for service. The crowd usually picked up a little around nine, and it was right on schedule tonight.
Heywasn’t the best or most inventive opener, but it was all he’d had time to think of.
“Hey,” the guy responded. At least he sounded nervous, too.
Possibly because he was being approached by a strange man—in all possible senses of the wordstrange—in a bar he’d just come into for the first time. That would have been enough to make Charlie nervous.
“I haven’t seen you in here before, so you have to be new,” Charlie tried again, realizing too late that it made him sound like a bar fly.
Maybe he was. He couldn’t remember a Friday night in years that he hadn’t spent here, except for last winter when he’d caught the flu before he’d gotten his flu jab.
Maybe he needed to start looking for Mr. Right someplace else.
“I am new, actually.” The guy smiled wryly. “I guess I don’t quite fit in yet.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Charlie wet his lips. “Charlie, by the way. I work at the library.” He offered his hand, figuring they were still in safe, friendly territory.
“Oh, awesome.” The guy grinned, taking his hand and shaking it firmly. “Devin. I’m working over at the new estate.”
Charlie barely stopped himself from laughing. That had been his guess.
“I figured. Most of the new faces around here are. So I’m gonna guess… hmm. Let me see your hands?”
Was he so desperate to hold someone’s hand that he was asking strangers in a bar?
Absolutely. Physical contact had been sorely lacking in his life lately.
Devin laughed awkwardly, but offered his hands a moment later. “Okay.”
Charlie took them, feeling for callouses on the tips of Devin’s fingers and only finding one on the outside of his left index finger.
