Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
“Only when they deserve it.” As we walked, he looked down at our joined hands. “Your hand is warm.”
“You cold?”
He shrugged. “A little. I meant to grab a fleece, but it was so warm this afternoon, I fell prey to the Montana weather trick.”
I laughed. “What’s that?”
“Back home, if it’s eighty during the day, there’s no chance it gets down to forty at night. Montana… not so. It’s a trick.”
When we arrived at my truck, I opened the passenger door and let him in. He glanced at me with a funny look on his face. “You didn’t need to do that. I’m not a child, you know.”
“Yeah, because adults have to remind people of that fact.”
I walked around the truck and got into the driver’s side before turning to look at him.
“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to meet his eyes.
He shrugged. “I get it. You’re old, so you make age jokes.”
I barked out a laugh that made him jump and his eyes go wide.
“I wasn’t apologizing for the joke. And I’m not old. I’m forty, for fuck’s sake.”
The edge of his lips curled up. “And you think that’s young? Cute. No, no, it is. It’s adorable.”
I reached out and took his chin between my thumb and forefinger. “I’m sorry I blamed you for something your cousin did. That wasn’t fair. Instead of assuming it was you, I should have asked.” I couldn’t help but add, “But young people make mistakes, so you should forgive me.”
He burst out laughing, and the sight made my pulse quicken. “You know who mixes up people? Old guys, that’s who.”
I leaned back between the seats to grab a Legacy FD fleece and heard Alex suck in a breath. Suddenly, I realized how close our faces were.
But I also smelled the beer on his breath and remembered he wasn’t sober. And he was a virgin. Fuck.
“Here,” I said softly, handing him the fleece. “Put this on.”
He shivered and did as I said with a murmured thanks.
I put the truck into Drive and pulled out of the lot. Silence sat heavy and full between us for a few minutes. The highway was dark and still, and the night air whistled through the small open gap in my window.
Alex tilted his head back and closed his eyes. I thought he was going to drift off, but then he spoke. “If you’d invited me back to your room in Amsterdam… or anywhere else… I would have gone. There’s no man on Earth who could’ve changed my mind.”
It took all of my self-control to resist his implication. To drive the man back to his place and pull away.
But I did it. Because even if Alex hadn’t been the Marian who blew me off in Amsterdam, he was still too young, too inexperienced, and too under the influence.
It made way more sense for me to head back to SERA and seek out Monroe for a night of fun. But I didn’t do that either. Instead, I went home and got in the shower to wash off the smoke smell.
And jack myself off to the memory of Alex Marian saying he would have given himself to me without question.
11
ALEX
IndexEcho: Sorry I was MIA for a couple of days. Food poisoning.
DrunkenPoet: Should I send you photos of my meatloaf?
IndexEcho: If only that was a euphemism for something much better.
_____________________
I’d done everything in my power to send Chief Kincaid the message that I was into him. I’d even cleared up the misunderstanding about a previous meeting. And still… rejection.
Not gonna lie, it stung like a bitch. But I was a grown man, and I could take it.
But I was sick and tired of being rejected. And yes, I realized I wasn’t actively rejected by IndexEcho. Chances were high that he was killed. Regardless, it was time to move on. Watching Monroe flirt with Kincaid reminded me that I would’ve appreciated being on the receiving end of that attention, and my sister had even tried to make that happen for me earlier in the summer.
“Can I find a hookup in Billings, or do I have to use an app?” I asked my cousin Lennon while helping him load feed into his truck at Palmer’s Feed and Seed on the edge of town.
Lennon glanced up at me like a deer in headlights. “How would I know?”
I rolled my eyes. “Listen. You can play recluse monk to the rest of the family, but I know you hook up. What I don’t know is how or where.”
He grunted and went back to the stack of feedbags on the pallet. “In summer, it’s easy since the tourists are here. In winter… it depends. You either find someone local like Nate Lewis, who’s usually up for a quick fuck with no strings, or you head to Billings, Bozeman, or Missoula. I usually need something from Costco anyway, so I kill two birds.”