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BO SAUNTERED OUT OF the green room in the back with a blue and white cooler in his hands. Its cover was still wet with drips of water, and the ice slush and remaining five bottles rattled inside. He’d poured most of the water off in the parking lot after their gear was all loaded up.
Just as well Ralph had to let his neighbor’s dog out, and Jay had promised Allison a foot-rub. Even though the band usually hung around the bar for a bit, Bo didn’t want to deal with Ralph’s brand of assholish cheer-leading.
He was just returning a cooler.
Nothing would happen with Eli Winkler. Nothing.
The hallway emptied into the dance floor, forcing Bo to bob and weave through the drunk and gyrating mass of people. He cleared them, passed the bar, and froze.
Eli stood at the other side of the L-shaped counter, presumably waiting for a drink. He was leaning his hip against the bar stool with a boneless grace Bo would’ve never expected from a nerdy quality control geek he was used to seeing at work. Gone were the loose chinos, steel-toed shoes, and the long-sleeve dress shirt Eli wore as he did his rounds and investigated all the scientific details of turning sand into glass.
The jeans Eli wore weren’t quite painted on, and they showed his butt off to perfection. The bartender handed Eli a glass of something effervescent, and the way Eli reached out for it reminded Bo the way Eli had danced. He was like liquid, moving, animated streams of water. Or maybe that tight top he was wearing just made him think that – what was that, silver beads? Shiny girly shit – except Bo stood there like a pillar of salt because the twinkles of light reflecting off Eli’s shoulders and the graceful arc of his arm mesmerized him.
Someone bumped him from behind. “Sorry.”
“Oh,” Bo stumbled forward. “Sorry,” he said when he realized he’d been blocking traffic. And just as he stumbled, Eli turned toward him in a perfect, graceful pirouette, drink in hand.
Of course he had to see Bo stumble around like a big, dumb idiot.
“You okay?” Eli floated across the floor to him, spanning the fifteen feet like gravity meant nothing.
“Yeah.” Bo didn’t know what to say. Not only was Eli hot at work in his geeky, smart sort of way. Now he turned out to be a kickass dancer, and with his glasses gone and sweaty hair brushed back, he looked attractive in yet another way. Like an exotic animal, all power and grace and unattainable affection. Like a snow leopard at the zoo. “Here’s your cooler.”
“Set it on the floor?” Eli lifted his drink. “I just got a ginger ale with a dash of bitters. You want some?”
The bartender shot Bo a questioning glance. If Bo made too big a deal over his drink selection, he’d open himself to scrutiny even deeper than Ralphs, so he just went with it and nodded.
“Come sit at the bar with me. You must be tired.” Eli headed for a strip of four empty stools at the end. Nothing better occurred to Bo, so he followed. He settled next to Eli on the cool, hammered copper seat and leaned to the side to dig out his wallet and pay.
“Don’t bother, it’s taken care of.” Eli didn’t meet his eyes. His previous confidence, that magnetic force of personality he played like a well-tuned instrument on the dance floor, had dissipated upon contact. Like a soap bubble. The sexy geek was back, sans glasses and nerdy, practical clothes that must’ve been the uniform at Zimm Glass since the fifties.
“Thanks,” Bo said easily and picked up his ginger ale concoction. “Cheers!” He held it up, and to his surprise, Eli turned to him and clinked glasses.
“Cheers,” he said back, glancing up fast. Eli grabbed the straw straight from the glass, no hands, and busily sucked on it. It was such a kid move, Bo grinned and, all of a sudden, his own self-consciousness fell off.
There was nothing to be afraid of. The white-collar sexy guy he’d been so apprehensive about? The one who had been to school and knew the inner workings of all sorts of things? He was shy. He probably hid behind his glasses, his chinos and his plain white shirts, too. One thing intrigued Bo, though. He’d seen Eli dance, and there wasn’t even a speck of shyness in any of his moves.
“Thanks for the Gatorade,” he said instead of exploring the whole dual-persona issue.
“No, no,” Eli said fast, straw still in his mouth. He was turned halfway toward him now, looking at him from underneath his generous eyelashes. “Thank you for the other night. You were... well. Just awesome, I guess.”
“Who were those assholes?” Bo shut his mouth. He didn’t mean to say that. He’d meant to say that it was nothing, really, he’d have done that for anyone.
Except he probably wouldn’t have, because he wasn’t in the habit of taking that close a look. And the only reason he looked was because it was Eli, and he knew Eli from work, and Eli looked a lot more interesting all naked and trussed up – and a lot less threatening – than he had on the hot floor of the glass factory.
Bo realized where those thoughts were going. He didn’t like that in himself, so he reined it in and sat, patiently waiting for his answer.
“We met in college,” Eli said. “Then we ended up in the Peace Corps together, and the monsoon season was so miserable, we huddled together for comfort. Cambodia can be pretty rustic in the rural areas.” Eli straightened up on his bar stool and set his drink down, looking through the wall and far away. “I don’t really know when the three of us became an item, but they were always tighter with each other than with me. And I felt... well... I felt like a third wheel on a bicycle.”
“Trikes can be fun,” Bo said.
“If they’re designed as such, sure,” Eli said. “But we weren’t. It was just fun, and after a while I went my own way. I never thought they’d resent it like that.”
“But they did.”
“But they did,” Eli nodded. “And I lived with them for a bit. Then I got my own place, and I guess they didn’t take it well.”
“Fuck, Eli, the stuff they did? That’s one hell of a way to show your resentment!” Bo didn’t mean to shout. “Sorry,” he whispered. “Really, sorry.”
“That’s the weird thing, I knew we’d hook up. I just didn’t realize they’d slip me something extra. So in a way, I sort of caused it myself.”
Bo was about to spout something he’d probably regret later when Eli grabbed his wrist with his smaller hand. “No really. Listen, Bo.” His voice was a low, intent hiss. “This ain’t victim-blaming. This is trusting someone too much or not reading them well enough, or shit like that. But there comes a point where I become complicit in what happens to me, y’know?”
Bo nodded. He didn’t know what ‘complicit’ meant, but he got the general gist. “So you’re saying, if you invited me to your place and I put the moves on you, and something happened between us, you’d be complicated in that?”
“Yeah, I’d be complicit.”
Bo listened to the word again. He’d look it up later. For now, he just loved the way Eli didn’t correct him. The way Eli leaned closer, with the rough sparkles of his top brushing Bo’s bare shoulder, he guessed both of them would be complicit in whatever happened. Tomorrow was a free day. He wondered if Eli would let him stay over, or whether he’d be expected to leave after they screwed, like a cheap trick with no prospects.
“You’d be okay with that?” Bo asked, sort of appalled that his voice came out all raspy. He downed more of the ginger ale with bitters. It tasted strange. Not bad, though.
“One way to find out.” And that straw was in Eli’s mouth again, and color began to rise up Eli’s neck, from under the neckline of that sparkly silvery top and up to his ears, spilling across his cheeks like a Kool-Aid stain.
Bo leaned back, figuring he better not crowd Eli too much. He twitched his eyebrows, and tossed out an off-hand comment that took more courage than, well, anything. Bo couldn’t remember the last time he felt this vulnerable, this scared. But he said it anyway. “I guess I’d have to be invited first.”
Eli choked on his drink, coughed, spilled a bit of it. He mopped up the mess with bar napkins as though dealing with clumsy messes was a normal part of his life, then wiped his hands, running his palms down his long, slender thighs. “You are. Invited, I mean.” He glanced at Bo. “If you want.”
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BO GRIPPED THE WHEEL of his pickup truck, wondering if he was being a damn fool. The red lights of Eli’s ancient Toyota twinkled ahead, skittering through the raindrops that landed on Bo’s windshield. He turned his wipers on and glanced at the clock.
Quarter to two. What the fuck was he thinking? He could’ve been asleep by now.
The draw was ahead, in that little car. Eli exerted his magnetic pull even now and Bo tried not to overthink it. He did decide nothing would happen, but that’s before Eli started to slink around with that catlike grace of his. That’s before Eli bought him a ginger ale.
Why ginger ale? Had last week’s episode scared him off beer?
Bo had been sure nothing would happen, but that was before Eli blushed to his ears, and way before he’d wrapped his soft lips around that soda straw.
Fuck.
And then he sucked on it, making his cheeks hollow just enough. Had Bo not seen Eli with those two jerks last weekend, he’d have taken him for a blushing virgin. He stirred on the bench of his truck, unable to adjust himself through his tight leather pants and trying not to run off the road.
Eli nosed into his numbered spot in the parking lot, and Bo took one of the four empty visitor’s spaces. Apparently, the residents of Royal Arms didn’t get many booty calls. Bo turned his truck off and slid out of the cab. His pants were too tight for the keys to fit inside his pocket, so he stuffed them into the pocket of his leather bomber jacket along with his phone and his wallet.
The rain had that thick, warm quality of a good springtime downpour, and the freshness in the air promised a thunderstorm. As he stood there, his jacket tucked under his arm, he saw Eli get out of his car and shut the door. Bo leaned against the front fender, ready for the show across the parking lot.
The wind picked up and the rain came at them in sheets. There was no show – none, unless you counted one very drenched Eli Winkler, making a run for it.
Feeling like a fool, Bo followed at a more sedate pace. The rain would help steady him, and getting steadied just might keep him from doing anything stupid.