Page 12 of Provoking the Punter

There was no codeword for ‘save me, I am so over this’. But that question might as well have been it.

“I started with a bar down the street before opening the distillery, and eventually added the restaurant.” He’d known what he wanted and had made a plan to get there before he turned thirty. Some of the men and women in attendance had been initial investors in the distillery and still received bottles of gin each month.

Some of them had been starting out in their own business, others were well established. His father had taught him several useful things, the first being everything about liquor. The second was the importance of connections and community, but his father did not approve of the way Chester made use of those lessons. By buying a bar and running a legal distillery, Chester had become ‘the man’ his father had railed about his entire life.

Like Garrett, he gave the answers people wanted to hear. How he had a burning ambition to leave his mark. No one cared about the why. They all assumed he was like them, and that he wanted to be rich, with the trophy wife and a yacht. He didn’t give a fuck about either of them.

Both were expensive and did nothing for him.

When they found out he was gay, they thought he wanted a winter home where he could walk out the door and go skiing. He didn’t want that either, but it was something they understood.

“I’ll give you a tour after if you’d like.” He meant it, if only to spend a few more minutes with Garrett, to assess him. To find out what was going on… or if anything could go on.

Garrett’s gaze flicked over him. He gave a small nod, but there was a wariness in his blue eyes as if he was aware he’d been made. And truthfully, if Chester hadn’t known the rumors about the head coach of the Copperheads, he wouldn’t have noticed the tells. Garrett played a tight game.

“Careful, he’ll sign you up for the gin club,” Margot said in a faux whisper, batting her eyelashes at him.

Chester smiled. “Stop it, Margot, or I’m going to have to give him a few more drinks before he’ll sign up.”

The table laughed, and Chester steered the conversation back to safer topics. “What is the skiing like in Australia? Do you even get snow?”

Then the conversation rolled on to people’s favorite places to ski and where they like to go on vacation. Chester barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes when they dropped the locations of their cottages in the south of France or Italy.

People do love talking about themselves.

They liked the attention as they preened. And Garrett gave it to them. He asked about the best resorts and where to stay and made it seem as if they were the special guest and he had paid to see them.

That was not the behavior of a media-trained football player.

That was the behavior of a man who was used to propping up someone else’s ego, so he wasn’t caught in the backlash. Which parent was the one Garrett spent his life placating?

But asking that question would mean revealing that he was far too interested, so Chester kept his mouth closed.

CHAPTER

SIX

Sitting through the fundraiser was harder than doing two-a-days in college. Garrett needed another spray of antiperspirant and an ice pack for his cheeks. His face hurt from all the smiling.

Most of them were for show. He nodded and said the right thing, the way he always did at family dinners. He’d never expected those skills to come in handy after he’d left home.

There was another round of handshakes filled with ‘good to meet you’s and ‘thank you for your donation’s, and then they were gone, leaving only him and Chester and the waitstaff who were cleaning up.

Garrett ran his fingers through his hair, blew out a breath, and let the tension go. Chester walked over with a glass and a smile.

He wasn’t an expert, but he was pretty damn sure Chester had been flirting. Not obviously… or had Garrett only hoped he’d been because he had a bad case of the hots. He wanted to lick the barbell piercing through Chester’s lower lip and find out what other ones hid beneath his clothes.

Chester surprised him. He wasn’t what a successful businessman should be like. He didn’t behave the right way. But he said all the right things, and he seemed to know all the right people.

“Here, you deserve this after that performance.” Chester held out the glass.

It was not soda and lime based on the orange color. “What is it?” Nothing good happened when he drank. Nothing good happened around alcohol period, yet it was easy to think it might be different this time.

“Non-alcoholic gin, house-made.” Chester held his gaze. He could be lying, but he had no reason to.

Garrett accepted the glass and took a sip. He didn’t know much about gin, and when he had drank, he avoided non-alcoholic stuff, because what was the point of drinking without the buzz? But this was very drinkable.

“It’s not a training thing, is it?” Chester asked.

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