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  "I'll just bet you do." I looked at him in surprise as he grinned at me. He really was trying to flirt. "Sorry, I'm just tired and hungry and don't have the first clue what I'm going to do tonight."

  Damn it. At least I could relieve one of his worries. "I've got a spare bedroom. You can stay there tonight."

  "I couldn't impose," he said. "Don't small towns have boarding houses or something? Or bed and breakfasts?"

  "It's not an imposition." Yes, it was. "Boarding houses went out years ago. We aren't Mayberry. And we do have a couple of bed and breakfasts in the vicinity, but like I said, they're all full."

  "Yeah, I know." Nate sighed. "I just don't want to be rude and jump on your offer without making sure I have no other option before inconveniencing you."

  "I appreciate that." We drove a couple more miles before he couldn't stand it and spoke again. Apparently, he wasn't the type of guy that could have a comfortable silence.

  "Let me buy dinner as thanks. It's the least I could do."

  My stomach rumbled at the thought. Lunch had been many hours before. "Okay. I'll take you up on that."

  "What sounds good? Your choice."

  He said it like we had a lot of options. "Actually, there are only two places to grab food in Three Lakes. We can either go to the diner, which has your typical diner food. Greasy stuff and good pie. Or there's the brewery that has a food cart that's surprisingly tasty."

  Nate drummed his fingers on his expensive-looking khakis. "Let's go to the brewery. I could do with a beer. It's been a rough day."

  He managed to stay quiet until we got to the garage. I hit the button on the fob clipped to my sun visor and the first garage bay door opened. It was the only one I had motorized. No need for the other three. When it was up, I backed Nate's car into the bay before hopping out to unhook it. Nate wandered around my garage, looking at my tools. The stuff hanging on the walls seemed to interest him the most.

  "You collect this sort of thing?" he asked in a raised voice, pointing to the old gas station signs.

  "My dad did," I replied over the roar of the motor as it lowered his car. "I never took it down."

  The motor quieted, leaving the garage feeling empty without the noise. "Did he die?"

  As I unhooked the chains, I considered not answering him. It was a personal question. I decided to go with brief. "Yeah."

  Succinct. I still didn't like talking about my dad. We'd had a complicated relationship. He loved how much I wanted to be in the family business, a real chip off the old block. He never once mentioned the fact that I was gay, though, and had treated Scott like my best friend rather than my partner. I'd never pushed him about it.

  After he passed I wished I had. I should've made an effort to find a way to get him to understand I was no less the son he thought he had before I'd told him I was gay. I always told myself it could've been worse. He could've rejected me completely. That would've killed me.

  Once I got the car settled and moved the tow truck, I turned to Nate, who had gone quiet. "Ready?" I asked. He nodded. "C'mon."

  I led him over to my favorite vehicle, a new-to-me Mustang. I'd been fiddling with it for a few weeks after buying it off of a neighbor that had bought it during a bout of mid-life crisis. Now it purred like a really big kitten. Maybe I wanted to impress Nate a little, after seeing what kind of sports car he drove.

  Mine was better.

  I waited for him to get in before turning over the engine. "Nice," he said, smiling at me. It was a genuine smile and made him look a lot less like a city boy and more like someone I might want to have a beer with. Or more. Ugh, no. I still didn’t need that complication or heartbreak. City boys were trouble.

  But, the least I could do was give him a chance. Maybe there was more to him than his multimillion-dollar property sales. I still doubted it, but we’d have dinner. It would give him a chance to change my mind about him.

  Broken Peak Brewery was built inside an abandoned gold mine. One of the fool millennial’s ideas, but I was damned, ‘cause it was a good one. People talked about the gold mine brewery for miles around, and their business was always booming.

  I pulled into the packed parking lot and looked at Nate. "Ready?"

  "As I'll ever be." He laughed and opened the door, and the smell from the food truck hit him. "Holy cow, what is that smell?" He sniffed the air like a cat.

  "Told you, they've got really good food." Chuckling, I stepped out of the car and walked toward the line at the truck. Nate moved to walk beside me, matching my stride. "The food takes longer, so we'll put our order in then go get beers while it cooks."

  He nodded with his hands in his pockets as he looked around, turning away from me for a moment. His khakis looked good on him. I’d never been a khaki man, but somehow he looked at home in the dressier pants I normally considered dad pants. On him, they hugged every curve of his ass. Shit. I jerked my gaze away from his butt and to his face as he spoke. "Everyone in town here tonight?"

  I studied the faces of the people sitting at the outdoor picnic tables. "Looks like mostly tourists. Probably the diner is booming, too, thanks to the skiing competition." Some people said we needed more businesses to support all the tourists, but every time we voted to zone more commercial land, it was voted down. For the most part, we wanted to stay small and intimate.

  We got in line for the food, and I struggled for something to say. I was stuck with the guy until at least morning, though I had a bad feeling it would be a lot longer.

  5

  Nate

  My sister always told me I was a snob, but I'd never really taken her seriously until I'd listened to myself talking to Ian in the tow truck on the way into town. Bragging about how much my sales were? Geez. What an asshole.

  We moved forward a few steps in the line at this food truck while I lamented my big mouth. Ian had driven us way back into the woods until the road had dead-ended at the restaurant. It was actually pretty cool. "This is an old gold mine?"

  "Yeah, it was functioning until a few years before I was born. The shafts deeper in collapsed and the whole structure was deemed too unsafe to continue mining." He looked back at the entrance to the building. "A few years back a guy named Carson came into town to visit a cousin. Went hiking, found the gold mine, and had a fool idea."

  "He opened his own gold mine," Nate muttered with a laugh.

  "He did, yep."

  "Why a food truck? It seems odd." I looked around at the building holding the brewery that went back into the mountain, then back at the truck.

  "The mine wasn’t big enough for a kitchen, and Carson couldn’t swing the cost of building any bigger of a building. I know he’s seriously considering expanding the building now that business has been excellent."

  That made a lot more sense. He’d started conservatively, but left room to expand.

  "Hey, Ian," a feminine voice said, interrupting my next thought about his expansion. "Who's this?"

  "Nate, this is Sissy. Sissy, Nate."

  A voluptuous blonde held out her hand to me. "Nice to meet you," she said, pouting her enormous red lips and squeezing her arms together slightly so that her breasts plumped forward, giving me a nice cleavage shot. She was really barking up the wrong tree. Time for the big guns.

  "Well, hi," I gushed. "Are you a friend of Ian's?" I patted him on the arm as he looked at me like I'd grown two extra heads. I almost lost my train of thought as I felt his muscles. Damn, he was cut from slinging car parts. "Isn't he just the nicest?" With a swishy wrist flick, I laid the final proof that she had no reason to flirt with me. "Oh, my god, your lipstick is divine. Perfect for your skin tone."

  Sissy beamed at me, as single women were wont to do. When they discovered that I was gay, they'd either want to be my best friend or look grumpy that a potential date was off the table. Sure, I’d had genuine female friends over the years, and of course, my sister was amazing, but it happened all too often in the gay community.

  I really didn't need any more best
friends. "Oh, looks like it's our turn to order. Ta-ta," I said with a little finger wave, my other hand still on Ian’s arm. I really had no desire to move it.

  "So nice meeting you, Nate," she said and scurried away.

  "What in the hell was that?" Ian said under his breath as we stepped up to see the menu, and I finally removed my hand. He smiled at the person taking the orders. "We just need a sec to look over the menu."

  It wasn't in the best location, under the counter on the side of the truck. We hadn't been able to check it before because the people in line blocked it.

  Their variety surprised me. I skipped over the section for sandwiches. I was in the mood for a heartier meal, whatever that smell was, preferably. No to the tacos, no to the kebabs. The local delight section drew my eye. It touted as being made with all locally sourced ingredients. "I'll have a barbeque sandwich with steamed broccoli and fries." If that wasn’t barbeque I was smelling, I’d just eat Ian’s shirt. I considered doing that anyway as I watched him order.

  Ian ordered a burger and fries, and I paid the man, leaving a generous tip. Not to impress Ian. I was pretty sure he hadn’t even seen how much money I’d left. My sister had done a stint as a server in high school, and she'd impressed upon me the importance of tipping food workers well. It wasn't a pleasant job.

  "So, explain the sudden flamboyance?" Ian asked as we walked into the pub to order beers.

  I chuckled but didn't immediately answer. The drink menu distracted me. "Wow," I muttered. I'd never seen so many craft beers on a menu. "I could get really drunk here."

  He pointed to an American IPA. "Try that. It's delicious."

  Nodding to the bartender, who heard him, I handed over a ten. "Keep the change," I said as he handed us two frosty bottles. Not a very large tip, but we'd be back for more, I was sure. Turning back to Ian, I followed as he led the way back outside to wait for our food. We got lucky, a table opened up near the edge of the mass of people.

  "Ian," a male voice called. "How are you?"

  With a wave and a nod, Ian moved on past his acquaintance without striking up a conversation. Polite of him to keep his attention on me, especially after I’d made a bit of an ass of myself.

  "So," I said once we were seated. "I'm sorry about your friend, Sissy. It's a thing a lot of gay men do. When a woman walks up and clearly wants to flirt, we act... gayer, for lack of a better term." His eyebrow arched. "It gets them off of our backs so we don't have an awkward explanation."

  The eyebrows went down, and he pursed his lips. "I've always found saying, 'Hey, I'm gay,' works great."

  Holy shit, he was gay. "Wait," I began, but he cut me off.

  "You didn't know I was gay?" He took a long drag off of his beer and laughed. "Yeah, I don't trigger the gaydar very much, do I?"

  "Not at all. I'd hoped, but every time I've tried to get you to talk, you act sort of like you don't want to, so I figured you were just a quiet, private dude."

  "I am. But I'm also gay." He shrugged and smiled at me.

  "Well, okay then. Welcome to the club." I shrugged and chuckled.

  That brought out his first real laugh. "I'm pretty sure I was in the club before you were." His laughter warmed me. He struck me as a man that didn’t laugh often, but when he did, his entire demeanor changed.

  "How old are you?" I asked him. I'd pegged him to be my age, but maybe he was older. "I'm twenty-seven."

  "Ha, see? I was in the club first. Twenty-nine."

  "Okay, you win. You can welcome me to the club." I realized we'd been sitting less than five minutes and I'd already sucked down over half my beer. Close to all of it. I'd been thirstier than I realized, and definitely hungrier.

  Setting down the bottle, I decided to get some food in me before drinking any more, or I'd end up drunk, especially off of beer, which I loved but didn’t drink very often. Too fattening. I tried to stick to Diet Coke mixed with rum or something with zero calories. I preferred to save my calories for great food.

  A teenager in a halter top brought the food to our table, plopped down some napkins and a bottle of ketchup, then hightailed it back to the cart without a word. "Thanks, Suz!" Ian called to her retreating back. "She's going through a phase," he explained in a quiet voice. I shook my head. I didn’t even know the name of the lady that made my coffee every single day in my lobby.

  "Don't we all?" I felt the beer ever so slightly as I stood to grab a salt shaker from the table next to us. "Another beer?" I asked Ian before I sat down.

  "Sure."

  "I'll run in and get it. Be right back."

  Taking a minute to browse the menu, I ordered a different IPA for each of us and returned to the table, where Ian was speaking to a handsome blond man.

  "Nate, this is Carson Wiley. He owns the Broken Peak Brewery. Carson, this is Nate."

  Carson held out his hand. "Nice to meet you, Nate."

  "Likewise. I love what you've done with the place."

  He laughed, a rich, genuine laugh. "Thanks, it means a lot. I'll send another beer out for the both of you. Enjoy yourselves."

  Carson moved on to the next table, chatting up his clientele. He had a winning personality and a killer smile. I was sure the repeat business wasn't all for the craft brews.

  My barbeque sandwich, however, was phenomenal. The first bite exploded sweet flavor into my mouth, and I moaned in delight. "This barbeque is enough to make a man want to give up city life."

  Ian snorted. "If it was, I'd probably be married right now." His eyes widened as if upset he'd said anything. He took a monstrous bite of his burger.

  "You gonna explain that one?" I asked him when his mouth was clear.

  He took a big swig, finishing off his first beer. "I guess. I dated this guy named Scott. He hated living in the country, hated Three Lakes. Eventually, he got to where he said I was too much like the town, too boring."

  "That's horrible." Just because someone wanted to live in a small town didn’t mean they were boring. I’d already learned enough about Ian to make me want to learn more and more.

  "Well, he left me and moved to San Francisco and never looked back." Ian shrugged and took another bite.

  "That's shit. Did he even ask you to go with him?" Ian was obviously well connected in his community, but that didn't necessarily mean he was boring. Maybe this Scott just wanted a totally different life.

  "No, he didn't. Didn't even broach the subject."

  "He wanted a fresh start then. I hope you don't take that personally. It happens." I moved on to my second beer, the flavor a perfect combination with the smoky barbeque. "Man, they've got good drinks here."

  Ian grinned. "Glad you like it."

  Considering we'd both had one, and he was relaxing a bit, I decided to push it and try to flirt again. Hopefully, I wouldn't screw it up this time, now that I knew for sure he was gay.

  "For what it's worth, he was an idiot to leave a man like you behind," I said, not exactly sure where I would go from there. I hoped he didn't ask me to clarify.

  "A man like me, huh? What kind of man is that?" He popped a fry in his mouth, watching me fumble for an answer.

  Fuck. I crammed a few fries in my mouth before he finished speaking to give me a second to think. With a small gesture toward my chewing, I bought myself some time. Then I took a drink to get a few more seconds. "Well, you were obviously close to your dad, since you didn't want to talk about his passing at all. Any man that's good to his parents is going to have a good heart. And you're committed to hard work. So, you're not lazy."

  He nodded thoughtfully. "I guess I am quite a catch."

  I nearly dropped my bottle when he winked at me. "Yeah, I guess you are." He was actually flirting back. "Plus, you're hot."

  He had just taken a big draw of his beer and proceeded to choke on it. I rushed around the table and beat on his back as his face turned blood red.

  When he was able to suck in some air, I sat back down and ignored the stares that the commotion had caused. "You okay?"
<
br />   He nodded. "Sorry," he whispered. "You surprised me."

  "Has nobody told you you're hot before?" I couldn't believe that. He was too hot to have never heard it before.

  "Not in a while. I've had a few romances over the years besides Scott, but it was tourists that were out for a good time while they were vacationing, usually. Nothing I could consider getting serious about."

  "I haven't had time for a real relationship. Ever," I said flatly. "I'm always working. It doesn't leave much time for wooing someone."

  "Oh, you're a wooer?" he asked with a laugh as he finished his second beer.

  "Definitely. Want another?" I pointed to his empty bottle.

  "No, thanks, any more and it wouldn't be smart for me to drive."

  I nodded, because I really didn't want to have to drive us home, and I really wanted a third beer.

  Carson had been true to his word. Two bottles were brought out to us just then by the bartender. I thanked him and handed him a five since I knew we were done for the night.

  "Do you want a relationship?" Ian asked as I started in on one of the bottles.

  What a loaded question. "I don't know, honestly. On the one hand, of course, I want a relationship. I don't think there are many people in this world that truly don't want a serious significant other. But on the other hand," I paused for another drink. I'd finished my food already, so I didn't have anything to do with my hands other than hold the bottle. This roadside rescue had turned into something akin to a first date. "On the other hand, I feel like all I would do is neglect a boyfriend and end up with a broken heart."

  "I don't think you could neglect anyone," Ian said. "You probably don't see it, but you've made sure to take care of me all evening. Not just paying. You grabbed napkins at the truck, tipped everyone well when you didn't think I was looking. I thought at first you did it to impress me, but the casual way you did it makes me think you're good to service people. And you've made sure I had drinks and helped me when I choked."

  Wow. I'd done all those things, but they were just decent things any person should do for another person. I would do any of them if I was out with a friend, not even if it was a date.