Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84247 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84247 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
“I think I might go have a beer…at that bar, Griff’s?” I told Mom before realizing I’d worded it like a question.
“Oh.” She nodded. “Okay.”
“I don’t have to. If you wanted to hang out or—”
“No, of course not. You’re an adult. You don’t have to sit at home with me every night.” Guilt teased at my brain, and I almost said I’d stay in before she added, “Callum, go out. Have fun. I want you to make a life here, meet friends and all that. I want you to be happy.”
There was a plea in both her voice and her eyes. She was trying to say more than she was, maybe that she had always wanted me to be happy, but she didn’t let those words escape.
“Okay. I won’t be out late.”
I pushed off the couch and went into the room I was staying in. There was no bathroom attached, so I grabbed my clothes and went back out to take a shower. If I was going out, I damn sure planned to look good. I also made sure to get myself ready in case I got lucky. A good bottom should always be prepared. It wasn’t that I thought there would be a whole lot of options in Havenwood, but then, I hadn’t expected to meet a group of friends like Knox’s my first night in town either.
Not that I should consider it his group, since I didn’t know him and he was straight.
Ugh. Life was really unfair sometimes. It had been close to two weeks since I’d seen him and his son at dinner. I’d wondered more than once how they were doing. How Logan had settled into school. The kid had a sadness in his eyes I recognized, one I’d had even when I was young but hid well so no one saw it.
I pulled a tight tee over my head, brushing my thumb against the small scar over the left side of my chest. I didn’t know why I did that sometimes.
I ran my hands through my wet hair a few times, decided it looked properly mussed, told my mom goodbye, and then I was on my way.
To Griff’s. Tiny-ass bar in a small town where I knew no one. I still couldn’t believe I was there.
The drive to the bar only took a few minutes. I could hear rock music as I approached the building. I didn’t get as many looks when I walked in this time. My eyes were immediately drawn to the bar, not because of my lumberjack, or you know, that was a lie. Knox was pretty to look at.
He was there, sitting on the end. Lawson and Remington fucking Monroe weren’t there—I still couldn’t get over that shit—but the blond, his twink boyfriend, and the dude with the brown hair were. I couldn’t remember their names.
Griffin was behind the bar, and there was another bartender there with him, a woman with red hair.
Knox took a swig out of the bottle of beer in front of him and looked up, his eyes landing on me over his drink. He set the bottle down and glanced away.
“Oh, hey. Callum, right?” the twink said. “I’m Kellan, remember? This is Chase, Josh, and Knox.”
“Oh yeah. Sorry. I was a little frazzled that night. It’s not every day you drop everything and leave LA for a town in Virginia you’ve never even been to.”
“We seem to have that effect on people. We’ve been drawing the gays like crazy lately,” Kellan teased. “Wanna join us?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll scoot down,” Knox said. There was an open barstool on the end. I sat in the one he’d left, which put Josh on the other side of me, then Kellan, followed by Chase.
It took one glace at Josh to see he had Grindr up on his phone—a man after my own heart.
“How are you liking Havenwood so far?” Kellan asked.
“It’s good…different.”
“Can I get you a drink?” Griff asked.
“Just water for now,” I replied.
“What brought you here?” Chase asked.
I could feel Knox’s eyes on me. He was probably just waiting for me to speak, but it still made me shift. He really was gorgeous.
“Well, my mom, but outside of that, a bad breakup. You know how it goes.” That wasn’t completely the truth, though. “Just needed a change.”
“This is why I stay single—so I don’t have to ever worry about the breakup thing,” Josh said with a grin.
“Well, that,” Kellan said, “and you like sex too much and with many different people, not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
Griffin made a huffing noise behind the bar, as if he disapproved, before handing me my ice water.
“Why are you always bustin’ my balls?” Josh asked Griffin.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You made a noise,” Josh countered.
“So? Maybe the noise had nothing to do with you.”
“Simmer down, gentlemen,” Kellan soothed. “You two are different from each other, and that’s okay. Go back to joking and flipping each other off, please.”