I’m ready for a break when we stop. I was dumb enough to touch Celeste earlier when I’m painfully aware of the consequences. With Leo, I realized halfway through the shoot that I’d signed up for a torture session by giving him the option to draw it out. I could have limited it to a half-hour shoot. Hell, I could have gotten away with less down in the tattoo shop and not even paid him, but I didn’t want it to get back that I paid any of the other guys and never offered him the same opportunity.
I pull two fresh beers from my fridge and pop the tops, offer him one, and lean back against my counter. “I admit, I’m a little surprised you survived the week. How’d you get away with what you did to Gustavo?”
“I didn’t,” he blurts and grabs the beer. “He’s kind of my supervisor, so he’ll get me back. I just don’t know how yet. The fucker just pisses me off. He had no business dragging Celeste along with him like she’s nothing but his arm candy. That’s how he treats her. And I can’t believe Toni’s brothers didn’t do anything.”
“I don’t remember Celeste being someone you could push around. It sounded like she had a reason to come.” I narrow my eyes at him, remembering the look he had when he defended her. It was just like the one she gave me this afternoon before he interrupted our moment and spooked her. “You’re really in love with her, aren’t you? What I’m curious about is how the hell you can stay sane spending so much time with her while feeling how you feel. You know it’s never going to happen. Even if she did return your feelings, there are elements outside your control. Really fucking deadly elements.”
My voice goes tight because I realize I’m grappling for answers to my own dilemma, which is twofold now: I want them both. That revelation hits me like flying shrapnel to the back of my skull. My feelings for Leo have been a year in the making, and I could map out every conversation in the lines of ink I’ve inscribed over half his body. But now Celeste is back in the picture, and I know there’s no way I can get her out of my head even if Leo were open to something. In a perfect world, they’d cancel each other out.
My world has always been far from perfect.
“I don’t know, man,” he says with a helpless shrug. “You don’t really get to choose who you love.”
That statement gives me pause, and on impulse, I open the cabinet and reach for my tequila, then fill a pair of shot glasses. I grab a lime, slice it into quick wedges, then hand him a glass and a wedge followed by a saltshaker.
“Here’s to not having a fucking choice.” I give him a humorless grin, then lick, slam, and suck.
“A-fucking-men.”
We move back to the couch with the bottle and are three shots in when he asks, “So the girl downstairs. Is it serious?”
“I fucked her in a locker room. What do you think?” I ask, proud of myself for the quick deflection.
He snorts. “You’re a regular Casanova, aren’t you? How did I not know this about you already?”
My head is muddled from the booze, so with the soundest of logic, I pour us more shots.
“Seriously, man, I see hot women in your shop all the time, but you don’t react. You don’t check them out at all. I’d love to see the woman who actually caught your attention enough for an afternoon screw in a locker room.”
“Maybe it was a timing thing,” I suggest. Of course, it’s a timing thing. Mostly the answer comes down to the fact that every time Leo witnessed me around women, he was there, and when he’s there, my attention is already spoken for.
“Nah, that’s a cop-out. I want to know what she’s like. Describe her to me.”
I scowl at the tequila and pour him yet another shot, hoping it’ll distract him and he’ll drop it, but he’s as attached to this line of questioning as a pit bull to a stick. I don’t know how to distract him, so I say the absolute dumbest thing that comes to mind.
“What if it wasn’t a woman?”
First off, he saw a woman’s purse, so if he picks up on that, he’ll know I’m full of shit. Second, what the actual fuck am I saying? I don’t need him to know the full truth, or even a piece of it.
He’s so quiet I’m afraid to look at him, and it’s difficult to congratulate myself on actually diverting his attention from the identity of the woman.
“All right, I’ll bite,” he drawls. “Describe him to me. Was he wearing shoes to match that fancy handbag?”
Fucking hell.
I give him a wary but hopeful look. “You seriously aren’t bothered by the idea that I could’ve been nailing some dude back there and not a woman?”
His eyebrows lift and he stares at me as if to say, What is this, the dark ages? “It’s the fucking twenty-first century, Mad Dog. Anyone who’s bothered by the idea of two dudes fucking should just move to an island and stay there. Are you saying you’re gay?” He sits up straighter, his eyes widening in excitement. “Dude, are you coming out for the first time to me?” There’s still a note of mock incredulity in his voice. He smiles around the mouth of his beer bottle as he takes a swig.
I pin him with a serious stare. “You’re a motherfucker, Leo. No, I’m not gay.” I sigh. “I’m also not joking. I mean, it was
