Better Off Page 3

  “So tell me.”

  “Ever.”

  “Ever what?”

  “That was my name. Ever.”

  “Ever… Green? No. Seriously?”

  “Seriously. I kept it as my middle name. Hailey Ever Green. I appreciate the concept of it—always green, you know? But you can’t walk around with the name Ever.”

  “I can’t believe your parents did that to you.”

  “They’re the ultimate hippies, Woodstock generation. Except when the rest of the hippies grew up and settled down, my parents didn’t. They’re festival followers.”

  “If they were at Woodstock, they must be….” Mac worked through the math in his head.

  “Seventy. They are. I was a late surprise, and they were entrenched in their nomadic lifestyle by the time I came along, so they just dragged me with them. They’re still hanging out with kids my age, getting high and living easy.”

  “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

  “You think? I’m establishment to them, rebellious in my conformity. I went to college, got a degree, worked for the man. I own property. Well, not own, as you know, but lease. I have a fixed address and a draft card.”

  “Okay, I’m surprised about the draft card.”

  “Can’t get financial aid without one. I’m registered as a conscientious objector, of course.”

  “Of course.” Mac had registered without a second thought when he’d turned eighteen, not because he intended to go to war if he got drafted—he certainly didn’t—more with the expectation that such a thing couldn’t happen to him. If it came to it—an invasion, for instance—he’d do his duty, but not in any combat capacity. His talent would be better used elsewhere. And Hailey’s would be better used…. Given how likely Hailey would be to foment mutiny, the Army would be better off without him.

  They joked about Hailey the Subversive Soldier until Mac pulled up in front of 502 Main Street and was reminded that this wasn’t a date. It had been a business meeting, and it hadn’t gone well.

  “Come in with me?” Hailey popped his seat belt and turned to Mac with a smile. Mac pushed away the image of fucking Hailey against a dusty bookshelf or over the ratty armchair in the window where Edgar had sat. If he were going to fraternize with the enemy, which he wasn’t, he’d bring Hailey back to his loft or to wherever Hailey lived—somewhere he could stretch him out and memorize the smoothness of his skin.

  “You know I have to say no to that.” But he plucked Hailey’s hand off his thigh and brought it to his mouth so he could nibble at the tempting skin on the inside of his wrist.

  If Hailey had a shoulder fetish, Mac was only now realizing he had a forearm fetish. Or a fetish for Hailey’s forearms specifically. Someone behind him honked, and he flipped on his flashers to tell the asshole to go around already. The street was surprisingly busy given the hour.

  “Where do people park around here?” That church would have to go.

  “My bike’s behind the store. I have an assigned space in the alley back there if you’d like to come inside. I have a futon,” he added, as though that were a selling point.

  “I’m not coming inside.”

  But Mac drove behind the building and parked in the spot labeled Hailey’s Comic. The alley was only wide enough to allow parking on one side. It would never handle the number of condos they planned to sell. Several of the other spots were occupied despite the fact that the building had no legal tenants other than Hailey’s Comic. Mac made a note to have the cars towed. They couldn’t encourage squatters, not even of the vehicular variety.

  The alley was dark—too dark. Hopefully they could get the city to front the cost for new streetlights, but in the meantime, the darkness was a blessing. A metal door directly in front of his car led into Hailey’s store. One easily opened barrier between them and complete privacy.

  Mac settled deeper into his seat, reminding himself that he couldn’t sleep with Hailey. Not until he got him to see reason and sign that agreement. But he put the car in Park and turned it off. The dome lights came on, then slowly faded back to black when neither of them made a move to get out.

  Hailey turned to Mac and took him by the shoulders, swinging him around until they faced each other. Mac could see what was coming.

  “We should talk,” he said gruffly.

  “Does that mean stop touching you?”

  How could he not want Hailey to touch him? Without an order to retreat, Hailey’s hands settled heavier onto his shoulders and began moving over them, cupping the mounds of his deltoids, stroking over the lines of his clavicles, digging into the edges of his traps. Mac slumped forward until their foreheads brushed.

  His cock thickened without insistence, content to be stimulated indirectly for now. Their breath mingled until it was only natural for Mac’s lips to find Hailey’s. They slid together like silk on satin, tongues tangling lightly.

  Mac tried to tug Hailey closer, but of course he couldn’t with all that leather-covered molded plastic between them.

  Hailey drew away instead. “You’ve said no, so….”

  “I did.” But why? Hailey’s Comic would still be housed at 502 Main Street tomorrow whether he indulged himself tonight or not.

  C&G would just have to make Hailey’s life unpleasant enough to change his mind. A word in the ear of the local police would have them patrolling Hailey’s store and his customers for nuisance violations. The thermostat could be lowered, and with October coming to an end, Hailey would miss the heat soon enough. Declan could look into whether Hailey’s lease had any termination clauses they could leverage with respect to hosting on-site drinking. They could plant an article in the local paper about schoolchildren visiting an establishment with an erotica section in the back.

  C&G had used tactics like these successfully in the past, but the prospect of using them against Hailey didn’t sit well. All was fair in war, sure, but in love? Mac tried to be a decent guy in his intimate relationships—clear about his intentions, honorable in keeping his word, faithful if he’d promised to be faithful, and attentive during the brief periods of time he had available. Fucking over someone he’d fucked was a step too far in the direction of dastardly villain.

  “I’m going to have to pursue this, Hailey.”

  “This?” Hailey gestured between the two of them with a hopeful smile.

  “No.” He brought Hailey’s wrist to his mouth for a final kiss, then released it reluctantly. “Getting you out of the building. I’m going to do things—C&G is going to do things—”

  “You’re going to be an asshole.”

  “It’s not personal, but yes. You’re going to be mad at me in the future, and knowing that, it doesn’t seem right to take advantage of your trusting nature tonight.”

  “Trusting nature,” Hailey repeated with a smile Mac couldn’t read. “What if I’m only trusting you to be a hot lay? I told you before, we’re not enemies just because we disagree on something. I try not to have enemies at all. Let me love you tonight.”

  “It won’t change my mind tomorrow,” Mac warned, knowing he was about to give in.

  “Are you saying I can’t fuck you into canceling this project? You sure about that?”

  The funny thing was, he wasn’t.

  So this was… tawdry. Mac perused the back room of Hailey’s Comic, regretting his decision to proceed, or at least regretting that he hadn’t insisted on bringing Hailey to his loft instead. On the other side of the metal door leading from the alley was a narrow, crowded, windowless space separated from the store only by the curtain Hailey had peeped around earlier.

  A futon mattress lay on the floor—no sign of a frame. The only place to sit was a wooden chair in front of a small table on which was perched a laptop surrounded by piles of books and papers. A dorm-sized refrigerator hummed loudly on the ancient tile floor—asbestos tile, Mac guessed with a shrewd glance—next to a small cabinet featuring a stained porcelain sink. An easel stood near the curtain—that would be where
Hailey had been working earlier—but every other inch of floor space was stacked with books.

  The asshole part of Mac made a note about the possibility of fire-code violations—that was definitely a hot plate sharing the three feet of counter with a coffeepot and a microwave—even as the more fastidious part wondered what kind of vermin lurked behind the cracked plaster walls. The room smelled strongly of pot, reminding him that Hailey smelled strongly of pot too.

  “Do you smoke back here?” That was definitely a code violation. The ground floor was zoned commercial, which meant no smoking.

  “I don’t smoke at all.”

  “Not even pot?”

  “Well, I won’t say never if you’re offering, but not back here, why? Oh!” Hailey picked up a bar of soap from the sink and extended it to him. “This is what my parents make. Patchouli.”

  “Patchouli soap?” Mac sniffed at the bar. Sure enough, that was Hailey—sweet but dark, like fresh wet soil.

  “Patchouli everything. My shampoo, my deodorant. Toothpaste. I’m so used to it I don’t even smell it anymore, except that it smells like home, I guess.”

  “Toothpaste,” Mac repeated. “Why would anyone make toothpaste out of patchouli?”

  “The supposed benefits of patchouli oil would amaze you. It deodorizes, soothes inflammation, relieves constipation, promotes weight loss, facilitates the faster healing of wounds.” Hailey laughed. “Not sure how much of that I believe, but the benefit of patchouli to me is that my parents give me the stuff for free. Free is exactly my budget.”

  Mac ran his hand through his hair in frustration. Hailey was doing the best he could here, no doubt. Starting your own business was a major undertaking, and even if Hailey wasn’t exactly succeeding, Mac could appreciate the initiative and the fact that Hailey hadn’t completely fallen on his ass yet, but he obviously needed guidance.

  “So this is your office?” There was enough space for an office if it were organized better. The futon was wasted space, especially if Hailey didn’t really jerk off back here.

  “Office, warehouse, kitchen, you name it. You’re uncomfortable here, aren’t you?”

  “It’s not really a place to get comfortable.” The blood that’d been teeming in his cock out in the car had settled back into his brain. He couldn’t imagine lying down on that futon, not even with Hailey under him.

  “How about we take your shirt off?”

  “That’s going to make me more comfortable?”

  “It’s going to give me a better look at those magnificent shoulders, and if you let me work on them a bit, we might get you more comfortable. Here, sit down.”

  Hailey pulled out the chair, and Mac lowered himself into it as Hailey rearranged the debris on the table to give him a little breathing room. The chair creaked, complaining about his weight. It was made of wood, no padding of any kind, which meant no place for vermin to hide, at least, and the table was wood too—scarred with water stains and pockmarked with gouges that must have been made by someone with very poor table manners, but clean enough so far as he could tell by the light of the single bare bulb overhead.

  Hailey’s mouth brushed against the back of his neck, and Hailey’s arms came around his chest. Mac bristled a little, waiting for Hailey to take his sweater off, but there was only this hug, the warmth of a man at his back and the gentle press of lips over the sensitive spot behind his ear, then down across the tendons of his neck with a soft swipe of tongue, as though Hailey were tasting him.

  Mac closed his eyes, focusing on Hailey rather than where he was. He really did want Hailey, and this was likely his only chance at him. Even if Hailey would be willing to continue seeing him despite the hounds Mac would have to unleash, it would be foolish of him to be willing himself.

  But he wished it could’ve been somewhere clean and light, somewhere Mac belonged. He didn’t belong here, in the tawdry back room of a bookstore. And Hailey didn’t belong here either. No one did. These weren’t conditions to which humans should be subjected.

  “Let me take you somewhere.” He opened his eyes and twisted around to look at Hailey.

  “Let me take you somewhere. You could use a getaway, I think, a little vacation from being you.”

  All right. He’d try, try to not be Gregory MacPherson II and just be Greg. It’s a dorm room, he told himself. You’re twenty years old and horny and a bed is a bed. Tidiness is for fascists; worrying about appearances is bourgeois. He’d never been as bohemian as Hailey’s parents, not even as Hailey himself, but his college years had been a lot looser, a rebellion against his parents’ upright expectations and their carefully controlled world. Funny how less than twenty years later it’d become his world.

  Turning forward again, he closed his eyes and leaned back into Hailey’s arms. The mouth nibbling at his ear was soft, but the teeth were sharp, and Mac hissed in a breath when they closed around an earlobe.

  “Too much?”

  “No, no, not too much.” The sharpness of the sensation anchored him as his body floated between the easing stroke of Hailey’s hands over his chest and those clever, teasing teeth. The diffusion of patchouli in the air was like being surrounded by Hailey. He let his jaw relax and his lips part so he could breathe deeper through his mouth as his cock started to firm up. A warm nose burrowed behind his ear, and Hailey’s voice, husky in its softness, spoke low into it.

  “Can I take your shirt off now?”

  He nodded, eyes firmly closed as Hailey worked his sweater off over his head, one slow movement at a time. He didn’t open them to see where it ended up because he didn’t want to think about it. Here in the cocoon of Hailey’s embrace, the room was warm and welcoming, not sordid or cluttered.

  Hailey hummed appreciatively. “Where’d you get this posture from?”

  “A lot of correction growing up.”

  “That doesn’t sound pleasant, but the results may have been worth it. I want to climb you like the tree you are. So gorgeously sturdy. You’re a very upright man, aren’t you?”

  He could tell Hailey was teasing him, but he wasn’t sure about what. He was an upright man—honest, dependable, hardworking—and there wasn’t anything laughable about being those things. But his interest in challenging Hailey’s judgment was lost in the sensation of rough palms moving firmly over his chest and shoulders.

  “I can tell you work out too. I probably should.”

  “You’re beautiful the way you are.”

  “Am I? I know you think so anyway. Your eyes don’t lie.”

  Mac squeezed them tighter shut, envisioning Hailey in front of him with his shirt off too, and now he needed to see it. He rose to face Hailey, who smiled curiously.

  “What happened to that massage I was giving you?”

  “I’ve been wondering what’s under here.” He put his hands on Hailey’s waist and let them slide up his torso, taking the t-shirt with them until it was bunched right below Hailey’s nipples. “Are your nipples pierced?”

  “Do you want them to be?”

  “Can you magic them pierced or not depending on what I want?” He almost believed Hailey could. There was something fey about him, as though he existed not on this plane.

  “No, just curious what your answer would be.” Hailey finished pulling the shirt over his head. His hair cascaded back down around his shoulders as he tossed it onto the table. “I’ve got one of each, so—”

  Hailey broke off as Mac lifted him onto his toes so he could see the piercing better. It was a ring, not a bar, perfectly centered through the nub of Hailey’s flesh, extending and elongating the deep red. Mac licked over the nipple, catching the ring with his tongue. Hailey’s sharp inhalation washed over him with a force that went straight to his cock.

  All thoughts of resistance fled. He would worry about the project tomorrow. He deserved this tonight, deserved Hailey, deserved to stop thinking. He shot a glance at the mattress. It was covered in Spider-Man sheets that looked clean enough, a dark green coverlet bunched near the
foot of it, and a single pillow with a Snoopy pillowcase resting at the top. “I want to get you naked.”

  “That’s what I’ve been thinking since I saw you. Haughty isn’t usually my thing, but you wear it well. And if ever a man needed to be taken down a notch….”

  “Take me all the way down.” He needed it, needed to be relieved of the burden of being Gregory MacPherson II, if only for one night, so he didn’t resist when Hailey led him over to the futon and pushed him onto it. The weight of Hailey’s body on top of his pressed all other thoughts from his mind. Hailey was the perfect size for him, long enough to cover him, light enough not to suffocate, narrow enough to wrap up easily, heavy enough to be solid.

  His hair drifted around Mac’s throat and shoulders, tickling his nose with the scent of patchouli until Hailey lowered his mouth, and all Mac’s focus went into the kiss. He’d only gotten a tease out in the car. This kiss was the real thing—deep and wet and consuming—and even though they’d only started, Mac experienced a flash of regret for how quickly it would end. He wanted to be entombed in this moment.

  He cupped Hailey’s head, holding him close so he could drink his fill. “I don’t know what it is about you.”

  “Opposites attract, I suppose.”

  Mac frowned, not liking the way Hailey kept reducing their attraction to the physical. There was something more than that, but he couldn’t hold on to it. It kept slipping away in the face of desire, his body speaking louder than his soul even as he tried to capture that feeling in the back of his heart.

  “I want you,” he said, because it answered both calls.

  “Then take me.”

  “How?”

  “You want a blowjob?” Hailey stripped him while Mac considered his options.

  A blowjob was the easy way out of here. Let Hailey go down on him, maybe jack him in return. Quick kiss goodbye and get himself and his car out of this neighborhood. Try not to feel too bad about what he would have to do tomorrow. Hailey had gotten full disclosure. He knew who Mac was. It was what he’d been attracted to, after all—haughty authority, upright posture.