My brain kept going, repeating that thought over and over. That I could be gay and this would tell me, but I wasn’t sitting here craving his ass. My dick was interested, but mentally, I didn’t want to have sex with a random stranger at all. That just wasn’t me.
I wanted to have sex with someone I liked. Someone I cared about. Someone who meant something to me.
He pulled away, sighing. “You’re definitely not into this, gorgeous.” He was right. I’d even lost my erection because my head had been such a mess. “As hot as you are, I don’t want to have sex with someone who doesn’t want to have sex with me.”
“Shit.” I rubbed a hand over my face. “I’m sorry. This wasn’t very fair to you.”
He shrugged. “Eh, it is what it is.” Then he gave me a grin that again seemed familiar. “It’s still an early night, and there’s an app full of horny men out there.”
He said his goodbyes, but I couldn’t really find it in myself to reply. I just sat there staring until the door closed behind him.
It finally struck me why he looked familiar, who he looked like. Apparently, I’d spent hours browsing a hookup app and chosen a man who looked a whole hell of a lot like Josh Westbrook.
Fall
The music was thumping so loud, my heart shook. The bar was packed, men dancing everywhere I looked. I still couldn’t believe I was there. Fucking Josh. I didn’t know why he was able to talk me into things I wouldn’t usually do. Ever since that first hiking trip, it had been this way, and I wasn’t even going to let myself think about that incident this summer, when I’d met up with a guy at a hotel only to realize he was a Josh Westbrook lookalike. Sometimes I couldn’t work out why Josh seemed to want me around either. Why had he cared if I’d come to Richmond with them? But we were good friends, better than we’d ever been, so I guessed it made sense.
“Excuse me,” I said as someone bumped into me. Chase and I were carrying beers back to our friends.
We got back to the group and handed them the drinks.
“What were you guys talking about?” Chase asked.
“How my brother is going to steal my best friend,” Kellan replied.
“Hello pot, meet kettle,” I teased. Josh and I were just friends. Kellan had fallen in love with Chase.
“He didn’t steal me,” Chase replied. “You’ll always be my brother, Griff. You know that.”
I nodded. “Yeah, but I like to give him shit.”
“Aw, does that mean you really do think of me as your bestie?” Josh rested his arm over my shoulders. “I’m touched. And don’t worry, boys, there’s enough of me to go around. I’ve always wanted to know what it was like to have a pair of brothers, only it wasn’t friendship in my fantasies.”
Kellan and Chase laughed, but the back of my neck prickled with awareness, like somehow, Josh touching me had made something weird start firing off inside me.
“You’re gross.” I tried to pretend I wasn’t standing there analyzing imaginary signals in my body. It happened fairly often after the hotel incident, which made sense once I realized what I’d done.
“You love me, Griffy. I make your life more interesting.” Josh leaned over and gave me a playful kiss on the cheek. It was as if his lips seared my skin, and I jerked back.
“I don’t know where those lips have been.” I wiped my cheek. Stop thinking about the hotel, stop thinking about the hotel. That must be why I was reacting to him this way.
“Always busting my balls,” Josh replied.
Callum and Knox disappeared to dance after that. I tried to ignore Josh and pay attention to my beer. If I tried hard enough, maybe I could fade into the background. The group was all chatting around us until eventually Kellan and Chase went to dance too. What would I do if someone asked me to dance?
“You gonna dance with me or what?” Josh questioned as if he could read my thoughts. My back shot straight, and for a moment I lost my words…which was dumb. It was a fucking dance. “Friends can dance with each other, ya know.”
Yes, they could, but what about friends who searched Grindr to find a guy who looked like said friend? “What? It’s not that. I don’t give a shit about that. It’s just not my thing,” I tried to play it off.
It wasn’t long before a guy came up—a beautiful blond guy with plump lips and a confident smile. “You here with anyone?” he asked Josh, and my gut twisted.
Josh’s eyes shot toward me. What the fuck? I didn’t want him to feel like he had to babysit me. I could handle a damn bar on my own. It was the only reason I could think that he wouldn’t say yes. Josh always wanted to hook up. “You should go have fun. That’s what we’re here for, right?” Sex was a lot more fun to him than it was to me.
“You can come along,” the dude said.
“What? No,” jumped out of my mouth. Did Josh do that kind of thing often? Sure, it wasn’t him who’d asked, but I couldn’t help wondering. “Go have fun. You don’t have to babysit me all night.”
Josh watched me, something…confusing in his gaze, almost like he was trying to tell me he’d stay. If I asked him to, he’d stay. When I didn’t reply, he shrugged and left.
No matter how hard I tried not to, my eyes kept finding their way to Josh and the guy kissing and dancing.
Every once in a while, he’d look at me too.
CHAPTER ONE
Josh
“Come on. You can do it. You got this. Only five more,” I encouraged the client who’d hired me for personal training. I continued to spot her as she finished up on the bench press.
When she was done, she grabbed a towel and wiped the sweat from her face. “That felt good.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” A lot of people didn’t understand the feeling of accomplishment from exercising. The burn my muscles always felt reminded me that I worked hard, and I reveled in that. It was why I’d always known this was what I would do. I sure as shit didn’t make a lot of money at it. The only reason I had a house and my own gym was because of the money and home my grandma left me when she passed away. As much as I loved it, though, I would trade it all to have her back. She’d always been my favorite person in the world. My parents and I had never been close. They might have been willing to give me a loan—they could afford it—but I wouldn’t have wanted to owe them. We just didn’t work that way.
We finished up her workout, which was my last of the day, since I was getting off at noon. I noticed the way she looked at me, the spark of attraction in her eyes. She hadn’t been in Havenwood long—she’d recently moved from California—so she had no idea she was barking up the wrong tree.
Her gaze darted down to my hand. Looking for a ring, maybe. Just then something caught my eye in my periphery. Not something, but someone, a very sexy male someone I took a quick second to appreciate. I couldn’t help it; I liked admiring beautiful men. It drove Griffin crazy. It was fun to razz him a little, so I often played it up around him, and yeah, I had no reason to be thinking about Griff right then. Little shit liked to sneak up in my thoughts when I least expected it.