The Closer You Get (3 page)

“That’s her,” he said.

Cash glanced over his shoulder. “Which one?”
 

“The blond.”

Cash glanced again. “She’s cute.”

“She wasn’t cute yesterday.” She did look different now. He hadn’t noticed what she was wearing yesterday, but today it was casual jeans and a loose fitting t-shirt. She looked younger. And smaller. She was pretty short. She might’ve had a good figure, but in those clothes, who could tell? Her face was nice, but she clearly wasn’t putting out any effort. In a bar or on the street, Rye wouldn’t even have glanced her direction except to make his standard acknowledgment that there was a female in the vicinity. The red-head she was with was a stunner, however. Long, tall, sultry. Rye tried to determine whether she was wearing a ring, but she was angled wrong so that he couldn’t see.

The front door jingled open again. Cash glanced back and quickly away. “Shit.”

Rye watched as a man in a suit went to join the ladies at the bar. Waves and smiles and hugs. The guy was almost as tall as Cash. Dark hair and blue eyes. Good-looking, Rye supposed. “That him?” he asked.

“Yep,” Cash said, hunkering down in his chair.

“We seem to have stumbled upon a local hangout.” More people were pouring in as the dinner hour approached.
 

“Let’s pay and get out of here,” Cash said.

“Hey, Lyssa, get your sweet ass over here and take our order!” shouted the rowdy redneck who’d come in earlier.
 

The chef made her way to his side of the bar. He continued to speak loudly and rather rudely to her. She behaved professionally, considering how obnoxious he was being. Rye wondered why her brother wasn’t doing anything about it. The guy had his back to the room, tossing pizza dough, as though nothing was wrong.

The red-head with Cora wasn’t so passive. “Hey, Les, dial it down.”

The guy laughed. “Kiss my ass, Franny.”

Rye and Cash looked at each other and silently agreed that this situation fell under the category of ‘none of their business.’ They each bit off a half a slice of pizza and tried to ignore the noise. Rye stole glances at the situation. Cora was trying to keep Franny from making matters worse. Meanwhile, the guy she’d called Les was on his feet and heading towards Franny. The guy’s girlfriend stood up and grabbed him. “Hey, where the fuck you going?” she shouted.

He jerked his arm out of her grasp. “Get off me, bitch!”

“Why are you being such an asshole?” the girl shouted. She shoved him. He shoved her back, and this time she punched him in the face. Fairly powerfully, too, because he spun and landed right in the middle of Rye and Cash’s table, face planted in their pizza.

Which officially made it their business.
 

They stood. Rye’s shirt was drenched in soda. He waited while the guy stood up. Les glared up at him. “What the hell are you looking at?” he snarled.

“I’m looking at the guy who’s buying my dinner,” Rye said.
 

Les laughed and spat on the floor. Then he turned around and found himself face to chin with the guy who’d been slinging dough only moments before. The guy was big, with dark hair and eyes. He glared down at Les, his hands on his hips.

“Relax, Sullivan,” Les said. “No need to get violent.”

Rye thought this was funny because Sullivan was just standing there.
 

“Now come on, man, back off,” Les said, sounding panicked.
 

Sullivan continued staring him down. He jerked his head towards Rye. Les turned around and dug in his pockets. He pulled out a wad of cash and gave Rye twenty bucks. “That should cover it, don’t you think?”

“Sure,” Rye said. “No problem. Reckon you ought to apologize to these ladies,” he said.
 

Les turned and looked at Sullivan, who nodded once. Les leaned past him. “Sorry, Lyssa. Sorry, Franny.” Lyssa nodded, and Franny flipped him off.
 

Les took his wrecked girlfriend by the arm, and the two of them stumbled out of the place. Sullivan pointed at the trashed pizza. “I’ll get you another. On the house.” And then he was walking away back to the kitchen.
 

Rye and Cash looked at each other again and shrugged. Free pizza. Cool.
 

Cash had escaped unscathed, but Rye had to sop up soda out of his shirt with napkins. The apartment was only a few blocks away, but they’d walked, and he didn’t want to go to the trouble to change.

Adam watched the whole scene unfold with more disgust than dread. The town would be darn near perfect if it weren’t for Les and Eddie Dunigan. There were three other Dunigan brothers, but two were in prison, and the other wasn’t a troublemaker at all.
 

He hadn’t seen Cash when he’d come in. But he saw him now as Cash helped the waitress clean up the mess and then took his seat at the table. It had been interesting to see the way the two brothers reacted. They’d kept their cool, but they’d stood together, and looked good doing it.
 

“You’re drooling,” Franny said.

He shook his head. “One of you should go after the brother. But the fair-haired one’s all mine.”

Franny giggled.

“His brother works for me. Zachariah,” Cora said.

“Zachariah,” Franny repeated. “That’s a mouthful I wouldn’t mind wrapping my tongue around.”

Adam laughed. Cora blushed and rolled her eyes. “Really, Franny,” she said. “Have some dignity.”

“If I have to choose between dignity and sex, then I choose sex.”

“Here, here!” Adam saluted, but his eyes were still glued on the brothers. Well, one of the brothers anyway. “Cora, Franny, go get a table for five, will ya?” He walked toward Cash and put on his most charming smile. “Small world,” he said, holding out his hand.
 

Cash stood, politely, and shook it. “Small town. Adam, this is my brother—”

“Zachariah, right?” Adam asked.

The brother winced as he shook hands with Adam. “Rye,” he said.
 

“Nice to meet you, Rye. Glad you guys found this place, they’ve got fantastic food here.”

“The bite we had was real good,” Cash said. “Who’s the guy in the back?”

Adam glanced back toward the kitchen. “Sullivan Fletcher. He’s a god, isn’t he?”

Cash shrugged, but he was definitely admiring the view. “Straight, I guess.”

“Far as I can tell. I had such a crush on him back in high school. I went to school with his sister, and he was three years older. Hey, let’s go grab a table, and you can eat with us.”

“Thanks, but my brother…”

“Great! The more, the merrier!” Adam gave Cash’s shoulder a squeeze and then gestured for him and Rye to follow. Franny and Cora had found a large, round table by the window. Cora sat to Adam’s right, and Cash settled in at his left. Adam made introductions, and everyone shook hands.
 

“Mrs. McKay,” Cash said, “Rye and I appreciate you hiring us. He was probably an asshole yesterday, but I promise he improves on acquaintance.”

Rye turned his head and gave his brother an inscrutable look. Adam wasn’t so sure about the “improves on acquaintance” part of Cash’s speech. From what he could tell, Rye seemed like a bit of an ape. The guy had immediately checked out Franny when they sat at the table and just as immediately, for some reason, dismissed her. She was likely too high maintenance for him. But now he was casting glances at a couple of college girls sitting at the bar. Maybe he just preferred them young. The pig.

Cora smiled and addressed Cash as though Rye wasn’t there. “I hope so. His resumé was impressive even with the poor references.”

Rye turned his inscrutable look to Cora, who merely arched a brow at him.

“Trust me, Mrs. McKay,” Cash said. “He only acts like an asshole. Deep down, he’s got a good heart.”

Cora and Rye appeared to be locked in a stare down, her smirking, him expressionless.

Adam laughed. “What’s all this ‘Mrs.’ business?”
 

She shot him a look.
 

Franny answered. “She wears a ring at work. Lets everyone think she’s married.”

“You’re not married?” Rye asked.

She just glared at him.

“Cora, love, that’s crazy,” Adam said. “Why do you do that?” He’d never known this about her, but she didn’t always ask his advice when she was making decisions…especially when she didn’t want it.
 

She turned and smiled indulgently at him. “Men respect a married woman more. Most everybody knows I’m not. But they call me Mrs. anyway, and it sends them a subconscious cue to treat me with respect.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Well, you’re a man. You don’t have to worry about your image.”

“I’m a gay man. I have plenty of image issues to worry about.”

Cora sighed and rolled her eyes.
 

“Hey!” Adam sat up straighter. “Rye, now that you know she’s single, wanna go out with her? We could double date or something.”

“I am not dating you,” Cash spoke up.

“Really? Still?”

Cash nodded and hid a grin behind his beer. Adam wasn’t worried. He was definitely getting in those pants. It was only a matter of when.

Lyssa brought out their pizzas and hurried back to the kitchen. Everyone started eating, but Rye locked eyes with Cora again. “You wanna go out with me, boss?” he asked, still expressionless.
 

“No,” she said dispassionately.
 

He leaned back and cocked his head, assessing her. “I think you do.”
 

She flipped him her middle finger, and it produced the opposite effect than it should have. Rye broke into a grin.
 

“Now you’ve gone and won his heart, Mrs. McKay,” Cash said.

“That was not my intention.”

Still, Rye’s eyes were locked on hers, and Adam couldn’t tell whether it was a good kind of look or a bad one. So he turned to Cash. “Where are you guys living?”

“The apartments over on Faith Street. What the hell kind of name is Faith street, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Adam said. “I guess whoever built this town was some kind of pious, virtuous person. Because the streets all have names like that. There’s a Love Street. Patience street.”

“Courage, Honesty, Humility…” Franny supplied.

“Frugality,” Cora said.

“Frugality?” Adam laughed. “Where’s that?”

“Branches off Temperance Street up where my parents live.”

“So rich people live on Frugality Street? That’s hilarious.”

Cora hitched her shoulder. “They drink a lot of wine on Temperance Street, too. The irony cup runneth over.”

“So do you have any problems here?” Cash asked.
 

Adam looked over and realized Cash was talking to him. “What kind of problems?”

“Well…you’re gay. In a small town. But on top of that, it’s a small town that somehow saw fit to name itself after all these virtues. Seems like folks around here are pretty religious. Saw about three Jesus billboards on the interstate just before exiting. So…do you have any problems living here?”

Adam shrugged. “Not for the most part. I grew up here, however. And I don’t wear diamond studded sunglasses and feather boas, so that helps. There’s not a lot of tolerance here for the strange and different, but I think mostly people don’t care about your personal life as long as it stays personal. And I’m one of only two lawyers in the area, so people have to do business with me, just from lack of options.”

“They would anyway, ‘cause you’re a doll,” Franny said. “I think most folks here are kind of split in two. They talk religious, but on the inside, they’re a lot more tolerant and accepting. My mom’s one of those super conservative people, and she’ll nod and amen when the preacher’s up there condemning homosexuality…but then she’s got no problem taking chicken soup to Adam when he’s sick.”

Adam smiled. “That was real nice of her, by the way. Did she get my thank you card?”

“She did,” Franny replied.

Cash seemed to be listening with interest, but Rye was the one who spoke up. “So how do you meet guys?” He glanced at Cash. “When fate doesn’t throw you into car wrecks with them?”

Adam laughed. “Um, it’s kind of slim pickings. There’s a couple of gay bars down in Fayetteville, so everyone in these outlying towns goes there to hang out. And you know, everyone knows someone they wanna fix you up with. But yeah, there aren’t a ton of options. Even fewer if you wanna be in an actual relationship.”

Franny glanced back at the kitchen. “You ever wonder if Sully’s gay?” she asked.

“All the time,” Adam sighed.

“I’ll ask him,” Cash said.

“Not necessary. I’ve got dibs on you.”

Cash laughed and shook his head.
 

“Hey, Sully!” Franny shouted. “Are you gay?”

He didn’t even turn around. His response was to reach over and turn up the radio. Franny shrugged. “Weird guy.”

“Hey, if we’re done eating, we should go to Darcy’s,” Adam said. It was Friday night, after all, and he needed more time to get Cash warmed up.
 

Franny nodded agreement. Cash and Rye looked at each other and shrugged. Cora slid her chair back. “I think I’m gonna crash early,” she said.

“Nope. You’re coming with us. Come on.” He kept hold of her arm until he was sure that she wasn’t backing out. He managed to talk Cash into riding with him, which made him wish the drive was more than eight minutes.
 

“I’m not going home with you tonight,” Cash said, on the way to the bar.

“We’ll see,” Adam said, grinning.

“I’m dead serious.”

Adam glanced over and saw that he was, indeed, dead serious. But he smiled anyway. “That’s okay. I can wait until tomorrow night.”

Cash chuckled and watched out the window as the town disappeared, and the trees thickened.

Rye drove on his own since Cash had stupidly got into Adam’s car. He detoured by his apartment to change his shirt, but he hurried, not wanting Cash to be alone with strangers any longer than necessary. His baby brother was over thirty and could handle himself in a fight, but something in Cash brought out the mother hen in Rye.