Chapter 2

So what if Nelson wanted to change things up? I had other guys, right? I didn’t need him when I had a book full of names and nights of sex for sex’s sake at my fingertips. I was thirty-eight years old, and I did not need to be in a relationship. They were complicated, and they never lasted. I witnessed my parents’ divorce, my sister’s cheating husband, my younger brother’s willingness to let men and women use him and leave soon after. He still had a Disney-type hopefulness of finding “the one” that made me nauseous.

Okay, so maybe I was jaded and scared. But how could Nelson be so sure I would fit the bill? I avoided commitment like the plague. It simply wasn’t in me, as far as I was concerned.

I finally got out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom. I didn’t bother shaving since I’d spent way too long with my thoughts in bed and was in danger of being late for work. I took a quick shower, dressed in my uniform, and made my coffee extra strong so I could gulp down some Tylenol.

I parked in the employee lot at the depot some minutes later and punched in. The lights were almost too bright in the locker rooms, and it was all I could do not to squint. There were three other drivers present, but none of us were interested in conversation. It was just too damn early.

I grabbed the keys and headed toward the bay to get the bus I’d been assigned. I checked the outside, made sure the tire pressure was good, and the brakes were working adequately before taking a seat behind the wheel. My head was still pounding, but at least the painkillers had taken the edge off.

It was going to be a long day.

* * * *

After the first sixty minutes, I was already wishing for the end of my twelve-hour shift. There was a manufacturing facility on my route, and the passengers were rowdy. Probably trying to wake themselves up. Still, I had to tell them to keep it down a couple of times and even threatened to throw one of the riders off the bus.

When they saw I wasn’t kidding, they calmed down a bit. Twenty degrees Celsius was not the kind of temperature you wanted to be walking to work in, if you could help it.

One the regulars, Damion—his name was stitched into his shirt—made the comment as he was about to step off the bus, “Didn’t get fucked last night for Christmas?”

Everyone knew I was gay. I made no bones about it and even had a rainbow flag tattooed like a bar code on my neck where it was visible to all. I was big enough that naysayers rarely messed with me. Anyone who tried learned the error of his ways fast.

My only reply was, “Nobody fucks me, Damion. I do the fucking. Always.”

Well, that wasn’t true. Nelson had fucked me once. We’d been drunk, and I’d apparently begged for it. I still denied it to this day. And I didn’t want to think about Nelson right now, either. A flare of lust in Damion’s brown eyes told me what I’d suspected for a while. He definitely swung for my team.

“I’d be happy to help you out sometime,” Damion replied as the other workers nudged him down the steps, wanting to get off the bus and into a nice warm building since it was freezing outside.

See? It wasn’t as if I didn’t have plenty of offers or opportunities to get laid. Ass was everywhere and mine for the taking. Why did Nelson have to make things complicated? We’d been doing so well.

I had ten minutes to spare around eight o’clock, and since it was the day after Christmas and the bus was empty right then, I stepped into a McDonald’s and got breakfast to go.

As I quickly worked through two egg sandwiches, I checked my cell phone for texts. Nothing from Nelson, but lots from a few other guys looking for a good time if I was free. I decided to schedule one a day until New Year’s Eve. Why not? Nelson asked too much. He’d changed the rules, and I wasn’t having it.

I sent a text to Nico that he could come over to my place at eight that night. He agreed. The others, I planned accordingly. I cleaned my hands with wet wipes that I kept on the bus and headed back on my route. My head still hurt, but now I had food and more caffeine in my system, as well as the prospect of a hot fuck in my future. Nice, right?

By the end of the day, I was tired but ready to plough a hole. People were irritating to me, most days, but the day after Christmas brought out the crazies. Probably all the alcohol and sweets turned folks into a special kind of evil.