“The one you were talking to. Mr. Yellow Jeans?”
“Oh, hell, I don’t even know his name. He was waiting for his boyfriend.”
“Oh. Okay.” Rick scooted to the door.
Denny chuckled. “You jealous? Come on. Femmes aren’t my type, you know that, you big hairy bear.”
“Yeah, right. Thanks, Denny.” He dropped to the ground and ran to the back door of the bar, rushed inside, and jogged down the hall. As he burst into the crowd, someone yelled, “Ten!”
Shoving through the bodies, Rick made it back to Mel on the count of Two, and as the ball hit and the fireworks started, he swept her up in his arms and kissed her.
“Happy New Year!” All the voices in the bar and those on the TVs blared at once.
She pulled back wide-eyed. “Wow. I didn’t think you were going to make it.”
He grinned. “Sorry. Me either. There was even a line for the stalls.”
“Poor baby, that must have been hell if you really had to go.”
“Yeah, it was. Ready to go home?”
She chugged a last little bit of her drink, gave him a much-too-warm smile, and took his arm. “Ready when you are, baby.”
He hadn’t been ready at all.
An hour and a half of trying to get it up later, he staggered into his apartment in Costa Mesa, drank a big glass of water, and dragged himself to his bedroom.
Shit. He’d used feeling badly as his excuse, and thankfully, he’d never had any big performance issues with Mel before. Not that she knew about anyway. She couldn’t peer into his brain and see the pictures he had to conjure to get his dick interested.
He tossed his stripped clothes on the chair by his bed and got hit with a nose full of sex smell. Male sex smell. His cock jiggled.
“Fuck. Thanks a bunch, asshole.” He stalked into the bathroom, turned the water on so hard it was a wonder he didn’t rip off the shower handle, then slid under the hottest stream he could stand. No thinking, just wash. Three minutes later, he stepped out, dried his body, and then gave his furry head and face a toweling. Back in his bedroom, he pulled on some sleep pants and stopped. When he woke up, it’d be New Year’s Day.
Holy crap.
Did someone expect to see him somewhere? On previous New Years, he’d taken Alice to the movies and brought Chinese food to make it seem a little like a celebration, but no. This year, she’s got Hank. His little sister’s fiancé would see to it that Alice had all the family and fun she needed. No Rick required. True confessions, that gave him a black pit in his stomach. He’d only ever had one reason for being, and that was done.
Alice being at her in-laws also meant his father would be alone. Admittedly, that was the way the old man liked it, but still.
With a deep sigh, he set his alarm for 8:00 a.m. Five and a half hours from then.
He walked toward the bed, then glanced at the laptop sitting on his bedroom desk. Maybe for a couple minutes?
Slipping into the desk chair, he toggled the space bar, put in his code, and clicked on his saved sites. Hell, the cursor knew the way.
His favorite porn site blinked on in all its gaudy, colorful glory with still photos of guys getting sucked and fucked all over its home page. He tapped in his password for his account, his breath already coming hard. Sliding open the desk drawer, he extracted his tube of lube, paused because he’d kind of sworn to stay away from it, but hell. It was New Years.
He opened the menu and clicked on femmes.
“Well I’ll be damned, they’re finally gone.” Rick slammed his foot on the brake to keep from running up the butt of the truck in front of him, chugged a mouthful of black coffee, and half smiled. No fucking holiday decorations on the streets of Laguna Beach for the first time since fucking Halloween. Somehow, since two nights before, all the decorated trees sitting incongruously on sand and the phony art palettes attached to the light poles with greetings on them had vanished. My compliments to the maintenance crew. Man, was he sick of that shit. All holidays meant were the bars were too full and nobody got their work done.
Scratching his beard, he maneuvered the truck through the already building traffic on Pacific Coast Highway. Even six in the morning was busy in Laguna, mostly with construction guys like him and idiots heading to Starbucks for their double half-caf full-cafs with caramel sauce that cost six fifty.
Toward the south end of town, he turned left up the hill, his old truck groaning under the strain of the tip-over-backward angle. Laguna was hell on his transmission, and that was only one tiny problem among many with that town, including way too much traffic and houses that cost the annual income of Bill Gates. The only thing he liked about it was the Breakers.
He shuddered. I don’t need to go back there again.
His cell rang, and for the first time since he’d gotten up in the pitch dark, he smiled. It was Alice. He clicked the phone. “Hi, Sis.”
“Hi, Big Guy. How’s my favorite brother?” Their joke, since he was her only brother.
“Better than most.” Their standard reply.
“Did you have a nice New Year’s?”
“Uh, yeah. I went out with Melanie.” No elaboration required.
“That’s so great. I’m so happy you like her.” He didn’t say anything, and there was a moment’s silence, but then she went on. “See Dad?”
He sighed. “No. I called the old man at eleven and told him I’d be over with Chinese and a movie, you know, so he’d feel like it was a little special.”
“That was nice of you, but I gather it didn’t exactly happen.”
“He said he’d already cooked a Trader Joe’s dinner and didn’t want any company. Hell, I wasn’t going to force myself on him.”
“Oh, Rick, I’m sorry. I called him. Truthfully, he sounded kind of lonely. I mean not that he’d say or anything.”
“If he was, it serves him right.” He wiped his hand over his neck. “Sorry. I know that’s not fair.” Hell, there but for the grace of God and all that shit. Their mom had died when he was seventeen and Alice was ten, at which point their father buried himself in his construction company and pretty much left them to fend for themselves. Rick dropped out of high school in his junior year and went to work with his dad. Then he worked his ass off to be sure Alice got through high school and went to college. Now, twelve years later, after she’d completed her BS through PhD in physics, she was getting married. But he’d done it. His sister was grown, happy, and a success.
He was just old.
He took a breath. “Did you have fun yesterday?”
He could hear the smile in her voice. “It was great. You know what we did?” She chuckled. “We got Chinese and went to the movies after. You should have come, Rick.”
“Thanks, but I caught up on my TV.”
“We missed you.” She paused.
He pulled the truck into the big driveway of his client’s home and parked over to the side, out of the way of his crew, who’d be arriving any minute, and then waited. He knew what question was coming next. He sighed softly.
“Uh, done anything about my one request?” She sounded tentative, like she kind of didn’t want to ask.
He snorted at her. “One, my butt. Demands, demands, demands.” She laughed and he joined her, but he had to answer. “Nothing yet. Busy at work. But I will.”