Page 49 of Flipping the Script

I’d given Sebastian a hickey, and I hadn’t thought twice about it.

I wasn’t the type to mark my partners, not unless they asked for it. And I hadn’t even protested, or really noticed, when Sebastian scratched the hell out of my back.

All I’d been aware of was how good he felt, how the little slices of pain amplified everything and made it that much better.

“Didn’t realize I was,” I said lamely. I could’ve denied it, but what was the point? Isaac and Asa weren’t just my coworkers. They were my friends.

I started at the garage just over six months ago. Isaac had been working here for almost three years now, and Asa officially started as a full-time employee after he finished his apprenticeship three months ago.

The shop we worked at was a small, family-run business. Asa, Isaac, and I mostly worked daytime shifts and occasionally filled in an evening or weekend one when needed. Zander and Luka worked evenings and weekends together, and our bosses were around whenever they needed to be and didn’t work on any sort of set schedule.

Both Devon and his older brother Nate were mechanics by trade, but Nate was the business guy and spent most of his time in the back office handling that side of things, while Dev split his time doing shifts on the floor when we were short a mechanic and helping Nate in the office.

I loved working here. The atmosphere was chill. Our bosses treated us like adults, and they’d built a safe environment where we could be ourselves.

In the mechanic world, that was rare. Not every shop was staffed with homophobic assholes, but there were enough in the trade that I’d spent most of the last four years bouncing from shop to shop, trying to find a place where I could be open about my sexuality without having to deal with daily harassment or microaggressions.

I’d found that here. Most of the staff wasn’t even queer. Asa and I were the only out guys, but Nate and Dev were loud and proud allies, especially since Nate’s best friend owned a gay bar and worked closely with an LGBT youth shelter in town.

It was exactly the kind of workplace I’d hoped to find when I became a mechanic, and a part of me was terrified I’d lose it all if my secret got out.

The guys were chill as fuck. Isaac wouldn’t have an issue with my past, and I didn’t think Asa would either. Zander was a toss-up because he was so quiet and kept his opinions to himself, so I had no idea what he thought about sex workers. I didn’t know Luka well enough to even guess what his reaction would be, but from everything I’d assessed, he could go either way.

Dev and Nate were the wildcards. I couldn’t see either of them having issues with it coming from a moral standpoint. They knew my stepbrother was a retired porn star who still sold solo content and moonlighted as a stripper on top of running his contracting business, and they never once made any indication that they didn’t agree with his side jobs.

But porn and stripping weren’t the same as escorting. For one, they were legal. And while porn was still iffy for some people, it was becoming more normalized and accepted as a form of sex work.

Escorting wasn’t. Most people in my life probably wouldn’t care, but enough would that I needed to keep that secret close to my chest.

But I could talk to them about whatever the fuck was going on with Sebastian.

The three of us had grown close. And I’d heard enough about Isaac’s sex life that some scratches were downright vanilla compared to his adventures. Asa was much more tight-lipped about his dating and sex life, but he enjoyed hearing about Isaac’s adventures as much as I did.

If there was anyone in my life I could talk to about this, it was them.

“You going to see him again?” Isaac asked. “It looks like he was a good time.”

“Definitely not,” I said before I could find a better way to phrase that. One that wouldn’t lead to any follow-up questions.

“Why not?” Asa asked.

“Was he all talons and no talent?” Isaac asked. “And by talent, I mean dick talent.”

“I figured.” I shot him a smirk. “It’s not that. He’s just not someone I need to see again.”

“The one-and-done life.” Isaac held up his fist for me to bump. “I respect that.”

“Yeah.”

“Liar.” Asa’s stare was piercing. “You liked it. There’s another reason he’s on your nope list.”

“How do you know I liked it?”

“Because your neck went red when Isaac was teasing you about your love scratches.”

“You’re annoyingly observant.”

“It’s a gift.” He smirked. “So why’s he on your nope list?”

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