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

I’d gotten the money from Milo’s life insurance. And I met you guys. Honestly, I’m happy again. Or,” Sean added with a wry twist of his mouth, “I was happy again, before I fucked this thing up with Gabriel.”

“How exactly did it get fucked up?” Tony wondered.

Sean thought he could talk about how and why and whose fault it was for a hundred years. But really, maybe it was simpler than that. “He told me he loved me, and I said I didn’t know how I felt.”

“Ouch,” Tony said.

“Hey,” Lucas said, nudging his boyfriend’s side with an elbow, “he was trying to do the right thing.”

“By breaking his heart?” Tony wondered. “I can’t imagine . . . well, I can’t imagine what it would feel like if I said I loved you, and you didn’t say it back.”

“Um,” Lucas said. “That is what happened.”

“Oh.” Tony laughed. “Well, obviously we aren’t good role models.”

“I think you are, actually,” Sean said. “Maybe you didn’t get it right at first, but you got there. Things aren’t always perfect.”

“You mean, like you and Gabriel?” Tony asked pointedly.

“Yeah,” Sean said. “I . . . I really don’t know how I feel. I can’t lie to him. Not about this.”

“No, you were right not to,” Lucas said reassuringly. “It wouldn’t have been right to lie.”

“But then what do I do?” Sean didn’t want to sound so upset, but he was so upset. He’d hurt Gabriel, who he knew he cared about at the very least as a friend. He’d broken them apart, just when things had felt so damn good.

“Are you scheduled to be part of the festival next week?” Lucas asked.

The festival? For a second Sean wasn’t even sure what he was talking about. Then it hit him. The City of Food Festival, that they were closing for. That he’d forgotten to even register for, even though he’d fully intended to.

Gabriel had obviously distracted him more than he’d even realized.

“Uh, no, actually,” Sean said, feeling embarrassed because they’d all talked about it at the staff meeting, but instead of registering he had . . . well, he had gone home and obsessed over whether he should invite Gabriel over to fuck. “I totally forgot.”

Lucas shot him a sympathetic look. “Well, then it’s an easy decision. Close for a week. The lot’s closed anyway. Go somewhere. Think about Gabe. It’s hard to do when he’s right here, you know? But maybe some space will help you figure out what you do feel for him.”

“What if I don’t love him?” Sean asked, because it was his worst fear.

Worse even than telling him that he did, and realizing later that it was just lust.

Worse than the guilt he’d feel moving on from Milo.

“Then you don’t,” Tony said. “But I think I speak for Gabe here when I tell you that he’d want you to figure out for sure, before you talk to him.” He nudged his boyfriend. “And Lucas is right. It’s hard to know, when Gabe is right there. He’s a big guy, you know? Takes up space.”

Sean knew exactly what Tony meant. Gabriel was louder-than-life, full of passion and noise and excitement. It was hard, even when they were parked on opposite sides of the lot, for him to not think about Gabriel.

At least, to think about him in any kind of objective way.

“Is there someplace you could go, for the week?” Lucas asked.

Sean had thought, initially, that if he was going to be closed for the week, he’d just take a nice long staycation. Not set any alarms and sleep in. Work on some of his new menu ideas. Maybe even go to the beach for a day.

But then it occurred to him that maybe he did need to get away. Like really get away. And the thought of the beach tugged at a thread inside him.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, there’s a place I can go.”

Maybe he couldn’t ask Milo for his advice, because Milo was long gone, but maybe going to the place where he’d scattered his ashes would bring him some kind of clarity.

“Great,” Tony said, clapping him on the back. “I think you should. And don’t wait til the weekend, when we’re officially closing.”

“You’re sure?” Sean was surprised; Tony was very adamant about the fact that they needed to be open on all the days that they had agreed to be. It didn’t look good for customers when they showed up to visit the lot and noticed half the trucks were closed.

“I’m sure,” Tony said. “I want you to get your shit straight, okay? Gabriel is a friend. You’re a friend. I don’t want to see either of you suffer.”

It occurred to Sean, much later, after he’d returned home to a cold dark townhouse, that Tony was willing to take this gamble because he was sure, as sure as Gabriel had been, that Sean loved him.

That everything would turn out as beautifully as it had turned out between Tony and Lucas. Between Tate and Chase. But that wasn’t how life worked. Sean had discovered that the hard way.

And he was afraid he was about to discover it all over again.

Chapter Fourteen

Gabriel showed up the next morning, determined that he was going to make things right.

Only to walk over to Sean’s truck and discover that it was closed up tight, with a handwritten sign, posted in the window that stated they wouldn’t be open for the next ten days.

“What’s this?” Gabriel said as Tony walked by. Looking casual, but if Gabe knew Tony at all, knowing it wasn’t. “Did you have something to do with this?”

“All I know is Sean decided to go away for awhile, take a trip,” Tony said. “He said he needed to think about something.”

Gabriel felt like crying. Sean had said that they needed some space, but it had never occurred to him that he would mean they needed this much space.

He’d thought a couple of days, at worst, and then Sean would come waltzing in, with a huge