On a Roll by Beth Bolden (free ebook novel .txt) 📗

did they call it again? Friends with benefits. And it would have to absolutely stay separate from whatever discussions they had over the truck names.

He was going to have to make sure Gabriel understood exactly and precisely what he wasn’t going to be giving: maybe his body, but never his heart.

When he got to the Funky Cup, he stopped by the bar, but before he could order, Jackson glanced over at him. “Oh, Sean, it’s you,” he said. “Gabe said he’d meet you outside and that he already grabbed some drinks.”

Sean was a little afraid that Gabriel had gotten him another manhattan. It might be easier to tell him about Milo if he had one of those in his hand, but tonight, he knew he wanted his edges sharp. When he walked outside, he saw that Gabriel had claimed a bench next to the smaller fire pit. It was a Wednesday, and a slower night at the bar, so other than a small trio laughing over by the other, much larger fire pit, they were alone.

“Hey,” Gabriel said as he sat down. “I got you a beer.”

Sean accepted it gratefully. As much as they’d argued over the last two years, they still knew each other pretty well. And maybe Gabriel had been paying better attention than he’d given him credit for.

“Thanks,” Sean said. Noticed that Gabriel had another manhattan in his hand. He raised an eyebrow. “Need something stronger for yourself?”

Gabriel shrugged. “You gonna be telling me about a he, so yeah, probably.”

“He was a lot more than just a he,” Sean said, fingers tightening on the bottle. “He was my husband.”

The shock written on Gabriel’s features was obvious; he’d clearly had no idea. “He was your . . . wait, he . . . was your husband?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Sean nodded. “His name was Milo and he died four and a half years ago, now.”

“Oh god, I am so sorry,” Gabriel said, and he sounded absolutely wretched. As sympathetic as anyone had ever sounded. If Sean had needed any additional evidence to prove that Gabriel wasn’t a bad guy, this was it right here. But Sean discovered that he hadn’t really needed it. He’d already known that Gabe was decent. He’d never have kissed him otherwise. No matter how much he wanted him.

“That was why I left Portland,” Sean said. “We’d always talked about starting a food truck—I worked at this little cafe, I’d started there when I was getting my MBA, and I enjoyed it. A lot more than my business classes, actually. Milo hated his job, and we’d fantasize sometimes, about buying some run-down food truck and renovating it and building a business from the ground up.” Sean sipped his beer, more to wet his suddenly dry throat than a need to drink. This was the hard part to talk about, even still. “A drunk driver plowed into him when he was on his bicycle heading home to me. I got a big settlement. Life insurance. Money from the man who’d killed Milo. I didn’t touch it for awhile. Couldn’t even imagine doing anything without him. Kept thinking that I wanted my guy back more than I wanted the money. But then . . . I guess, time happens, right? I started to live again, but I still felt so stuck in Portland. My therapist, he suggested I try somewhere new. That I use the money to fulfill the dream we’d always shared. So I did. I came to Los Angeles. I bought the food truck. And then I met you.”

“Oh, god,” Gabriel repeated, staring at him with wide eyes.

Sean’s fingers picked at the edge of the label on his beer. “On a Roll was always what Milo wanted to call the truck. He thought it was funny. He loved stupid puns. And,” he added with a wry smile, “it is pretty lame, if you think about it.”

“That’s why you didn’t want to change the name,” Gabriel said on a groan. He threw back the whole drink, and Sean watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “And I was such a fucking asshole about it. Especially that . . . that first day. Well, and later, too.” Clearly he’d been thinking about the meatball missile too—but then how could he not, when Sean had gone out of his way to remind him about it?

“It’s alright,” Sean said, and discovered that . . . yes, it really was okay. He wasn’t just saying the words; he meant them. “I just thought, you said you wanted to know, and I realized that you should know why. Not because it gives me any stronger right to the name, but because it was unfair of me to believe that you should just change your name because I thought you should.”

“And because you have a dead husband,” Gabriel said. His eyes widened and he slapped a hand over his mouth. “God, just . . . kill me now,” he added. Then his eyes grew impossibly bigger.

Sean laughed. “No. And seriously, don’t worry about it. Why do you think I don’t tell people? Because of shit just like that. I don’t want to be treated like I’m fragile, like I’m about to break at any moment.”

“So . . . nobody knows?” Gabriel sounded like he couldn’t quite believe it. “You didn’t tell anyone?”

“No and that was probably also kind of selfish, too, now that I think about it,” Sean said with a sigh. “But you get it, right?”

“Yeah, I do,” Gabriel said, firmly. “For the record, I can’t say I get it, because how could I?” He hesitated. “I’ve never been through something like that, and I’m certainly not going to judge you for what you had to do to get through it and stay strong. And for the record, you are. So goddamned strong.”

Sean hadn’t asked him for the praise, but he couldn’t deny that the words felt sweet. “Thank you,” he said. He reached out and put a hand on