That felt better than the kiss.
Patrick wrung out the mop again, trying to avert his eyes from the water in the mop bucket, which was starting to look disgusting. “This is so gross!” he wailed through the men’s room doorway. He’d propped the door open with a chair and opened the small window in the room to create a slight cross breeze, but it wasn’t helping to freshen the air the way he’d hoped it would.
“If you didn’t complain so much, you’d be done in half the time,” Shane called back to him from behind the bar. They were opening soon, and everyone was getting things in order.
That wasn’t fair. He was working hard, cleaning the filth from the floor with the damp mop, which was the last step in cleaning the bathroom after scrubbing the toilets and urinals—even more vomit-worthy—and cleaning the sink. Wasn’t he entitled to complain about the worst part of his job, especially since he’d completely reformed and become a model employee in every other way? And extra especially since coming downstairs to clean a filthy bathroom after a morning in bed with Vin seemed like such a hard transition?
Vin, who’d been sweeping the floor in the main part of the bar, paused and said, “You’re almost done.”
“I know. But why do people have to be so disgusting?” It was a rhetorical question.
“I don’t know. They just do.” Vin went back to sweeping.
Patrick finished up and started to roll the mop bucket toward the janitor’s closet where it was stored when someone banged on the door of the bar. He glanced at the wall clock and frowned. “Jeez, some people really can’t wait to get a drink.”
“We don’t open until eleven!” Vin shouted through the locked door.
The sound was repeated.
Shane sighed dramatically. “Ignore them,” he said and disappeared into the snug.
When more banging followed, forceful enough to rattle the door frame, Vin leaned the broom against a table and went toward the door. “Maybe they couldn’t hear me.”
A second later, Patrick heard the door open. Then Vin said, in a small, shocked voice, “Hi.”
Riley stood in the doorway.
And that was when what had started out an amazing, beautiful, and orgasm-filled morning took a sharp left turn into suck town. It didn’t help that Patrick was clutching a mop instead of doing something cool, like shaking up a cocktail. Feeling disgruntled at the universe, he decided to make the situation better by ditching the bucket. By the time he’d done that, in an ideal world, Vin would’ve gotten rid of Riley.
The bucket-in-cupboard, cupboard-door-closed part of the plan went smoothly, but then that’d always been the easy bit. Getting rid of Riley seemed to be giving Vin problems, though. Maybe because Riley was in his face, hell, grabbing Vin’s arm so he couldn’t back off.
For God’s sake. Righteous indignation felt good, and Patrick was brimful of it. That was his boyfriend Riley was manhandling. A quiet voice told him that if he was so sure Vin wouldn’t take Riley back if offered a pretty enough apology, this encounter wouldn’t bother him as much as it did, but he ignored it.
He got close enough to hear what they were saying, not liking the way the conversation was taking place in low, urgent whispers.
“—blocked your number, that’s why!” Vin said.
“Why would you do that?” Riley sounded upset, but Patrick couldn’t summon a shred of sympathy. “We had an argument. People—couples—do that all the time. I gave you space to get over it, and I even told Marco’s lawyer I wouldn’t be at the hearing. I did that for you, Vin.”
“You should’ve done it because it was the right thing to do,” Patrick said as he stepped closer, meaning every word. “And get your hands off him. He bruises easily.”
Okay, that last bit was a deliberate dig, but Riley had earned it.
“Mind your own business,” Riley snapped.
“That’s what I
am
doing.” Calculatedly, Patrick reached out and ran his fingertip along the edge of Riley’s ear, and as hoped, Riley let go of Vin and jerked out of Patrick’s reach. He hadn’t expected Riley to smack his hand away with enough force to make him wince, but hey, life didn’t always go the way you planned.
“Fuck off, you little asshole!” Riley’s arm was still raised, and Vin stepped sideways and shuffled Patrick out of reach, glaring at Riley.
“Don’t touch him,” Vin said. “And don’t call him names. If you want to talk, I’ll talk, but not like this.”
Riley lowered his arm slowly. “I want to talk to you, not him.”
Vin sighed and looked at Patrick, and Patrick knew, just knew, Vin was going to say yes. “Five minutes, that’s it. I promise.”
“What, you have to get his permission now?” Riley asked before Patrick could respond.
“He doesn’t need my permission,” Patrick said. That much was true. “You might. He’s doing you a favor, after how you treated him, so you should consider yourself lucky if he’s willing to talk to you at all. But keep your hands to yourself, or you’re going to be sorry.”
“I’m terrified,” Riley sneered.
“Stop,” Vin said sharply to Riley. “Go sit down over there.” He gestured at a table and turned his attention to Patrick like he expected Riley to obey, and to Patrick’s surprise, Riley did. “Five minutes, okay? Then that’s it, for good. I’m not going to let this drag on, I swear.”
Patrick wanted to protest, but even more he wanted Riley out of Vin’s life forever. If he had to tolerate Riley for five minutes to buy his absence for the next however many years, he’d deal. “Okay. But if he hurts you, I’ll beat the shit out of him with my mop.”
He went to loiter near the bar, wanting to keep an eye on things, as Vin joined Riley at one of the tables. Patrick had been there ten seconds or so when he heard someone behind him and turned to find not just Shane but Ben.
“What’s going on?” Ben asked, keeping his voice low.
“Unfinished business that had better be finished in five minutes.”
Shane grunted. “Yeah, can’t say as how I’m surprised, and you shouldn’t be either. Nice lad like Vincent, you don’t let him walk away to keep your old man sweet, do you?”
Patrick had no answer. Hard to speak with his mouth dry with apprehension.
“He’ll make the right choice,” Ben said quietly, resting his hand on Patrick’s shoulder for a moment, the weight of it comforting.
Shane cleared his throat. “Yeah, but that might mean forgiving Riley, not— Ow!”
Ben had smacked the back of Shane’s head. “Vin’s looked happier the last few days than he has in a while. It’s a look I recognize because I often see it in the mirror.”
Shane’s glare softened, and he rubbed his hand over his mouth, trying and failing to hide a pleased smile. “Yeah. Well.”
“If he goes back to Riley, I’ll die,” Patrick said with conviction. He could feel the color leaching out of his life, leaving it gray and drab.
“Not going to rattle your brains again, but you won’t. You’re a fighter, like me. You’ll get him back if it’s the way it’s supposed to be.” Shane slung his arm around Patrick’s shoulders and pulled him in for a hug. “Look, his lordship’s pissed off about something—and that’s a look I recognize.”
Vin and Riley had been talking in low voices, but now Vin was getting loud enough that Patrick could catch every second or third word, not that it helped him figure out what was going on. Riley stood abruptly, shoving his chair back so it scraped across the floor, and leaned forward with both hands braced on the table. It was an aggressive stance that made Patrick’s stomach twist with apprehension, but if Vin was tense, he was doing a great job of hiding it.
“Easy, tiger. He can take care of himself.” Shane patted Patrick’s shoulder, which did little to reassure him.
Riley slapped one hand down on the table and straightened up. He ran his fingers through his hair—Patrick wished he was holding his cell phone so he could have snapped a picture of Mr. Perfect with his hair sticking every which way—and said something Patrick couldn’t hear with an angry expression on his face.
“Get out of here!” Vin said, and that much at least was loud and clear. “And don’t come back.”
“Fine!” Riley stormed out, whipping the door open with enough force that it banged against the wall and not bothering to close it after him. Vin glanced back at Patrick and the others before going to shut it, and by the time he’d done so, Patrick was there, a hand on his back to let him know he wasn’t alone.
Vin turned toward him, trying to force a fake smile onto his face. “I’m fine.”
“Obviously they rewrote the dictionary when I wasn’t looking, then, because you’re as far away from fine as I am from wherever it is in Scotland that Shane’s from.”
“I’m from England, you ignorant git!” Shane called across to him. “Don’t they teach you kids geography over here?”
He might have annoyed Shane, but it was worth it to see Vin smile for real, if only fleetingly.
“So what did he say? No, what did you say? You told him to get lost and that you were madly in love with me and I’m way prettier than him, right?” Patrick put his hand over his mouth apologetically. “Oops. Babbling. Sorry. Just suffering a major anxiety attack here.”
“He started out okay,” Vin said. “He realized he was wrong trying to get me to change, he missed me, he wanted to try again. Stuff like that.”
Patrick was working hard to breathe slowly and not freak out. “Then what?”
Vin sighed. He looked like he’d been put through the wringer, and Patrick stopped feeling sorry for himself and started feeling sorry for poor Vin. “I told him I’d moved on. He didn’t like that.”
“Because it was me.” Patrick swallowed. “You told him it was me, right?”
“Yes, I told him, and yes, he didn’t like it because it was you. Although to be fair I’m not sure he would have liked it no matter who it was.”
“But then there was yelling.”
“I think he was on the verge of crying.” Vin leaned against Patrick, and Patrick held him, rubbed his back. “And I don’t think he really does crying, so he has to get mad instead, you know?”
This was deeper into Riley’s psyche than Patrick cared to tread. “That doesn’t make it okay for him to yell at you.”
“No.” Vin sighed again. “He accused me of having something going with you the whole time I was dating him.”
“I wish,” Patrick said fervently, and Vin started to laugh. “Well, it’s true!”
“You would never have done that. It’s one of your rules. No messing around with someone else’s man.”
“Was,” Patrick corrected him. “I don’t need rules like that now, do I? It’s just you and me.”
“Yeah.” Vin shook his head. “When he came here the first time, I thought that was it. Love of my life walks through the door—how is that going to end other than us riding off into the sunset together?”
“With violins,” Patrick added. “Or some kind of music going on.” He hummed a few notes, then gave up. “Happy endings suck. It’s like hitting a brick wall. This is it, as good as it gets. It’s not going to be like that with us.”
“It’s not?” Vin asked, the dragon earring swaying as he tilted his head inquiringly.
“No. No way. Not a chance.” Patrick wanted to kiss Vin, but this wasn’t the time. “People always think they’re the ones who are different, but we actually are. You know?”
“Not really,” Vin said.
Patrick tried to come up with the right words to explain it. “If you think about it, how things have been for us, it’s like one of those graphs where the national debt keeps going up and up—”
“Please tell me this isn’t going to turn into another financial lecture,” Vin said, lifting an eyebrow.
“Hey! I’m not that bad. Am I?” Patrick had to admit he’d been reading a lot of stuff Ben had recommended—Web sites and books—about how to get control of his debt, and possibly he’d been talking about it a little more than necessary, but it wasn’t like he was turning into a parrot. Although if he had turned into a parrot, it would be Vin’s shoulder he’d want to ride around on, and okay, tangent.
Vin grinned. “No, you’re not that bad.”
“Okay. Whew.” He tried to remember where he’d been going. “I mean, we started out as friends. Then we got to being really good friends, and best friends, and now we’re together.” Patrick shuffled a little closer to Vin. “It’s like climbing a mountain, only there’s no top to get to.”
“There’s always a top,” Vin said, but more like a man who wanted to be convinced he was wrong.
Patrick shook his head firmly. “Not if random birds keep dropping stones on it and building it higher.”
“Random birds?” Vin’s voice went high. “Random birds?”
“Yeah, okay, it’s out there,” Patrick said as Vin began to laugh helplessly. “But never underestimate the power of nature.”
“More like the power of Patrick.”
Hmm. That had a nice ring to it now that he thought about it.
“We’re open!” Shane called out and gave the bell behind the bar a tap, the mellow clang ringing out. “Get over here, Vincent. Patrick, if you think these ice buckets are full, I’ve got news for you. They’re not.”
“Yes, boss,” Patrick said and decided now was the time to kiss Vin, so he stepped in close and did it. The fact that Vin kissed him back with affection and a certain amount of heat told him he’d made the right decision. “Later tonight I’ll prove to you there’s always a higher place to climb to.”
Vin’s lips lingered on his again. “Promises, promises,” he whispered, and they both went back to work.
Vin shut the door to his apartment and flicked the dead bolt automatically. “You hungry?”
“Not really,” Patrick said, kicking off his shoes.
“Picking at fries and mozzarella sticks again?” Vin went to the fridge and took out the water pitcher he and Patrick had bought together with a coupon printed out from the Internet, then poured them each a glass. It was weird how they could be pouring drinks for people all night and somehow end up never drinking much themselves, but they were always thirsty when they finished their shifts.
“Guilty as charged.” Patrick took the glass Vin handed him. “Thanks.” He drank. “Busy night.”
“Wild,” Vin agreed. “Good for business, though.”
The bar had been packed because two regulars were getting married the following weekend and had decided since they’d met at the Peg, that was where they’d kick off their joint bachelors’ night. Shelly and Helen had jumped on the idea, persuading Shane and Ben to let the best men decorate the bar before opening and helping to organize some games that’d made Vin blush.