Page 2 of Rex

“Hey Lacey. I’m here for my usual.” I look over my shoulder out the window and see Booker gesturing wildly and the old man nodding along intently. “And Booker’s too.”

Lacey follows my gaze and snorts. “Sure thing.”

I love this bakery. Lacey has rows and rows of bread on display behind a display shelf stuffed with pastries and cakes. Instead of plastic chairs and formica tables, there are mismatched armchairs and ash wood tables. It’s cosy and happy.

Pretty soon Lacey is handing me out order and I’m on my way to the tattoo shop I own with Booker. He is still in deep conversation and has been joined by two other people. Sometimes I wish I could make friends as easily as he does.

I walk into the shop and lay the pastries and coffee on the small reception desk. This place is my pride and joy. There’s nothing better than making a person feel more like themselves.

I look out at the window at Booker and his crowd of now seven people and smile to myself. Maybe I should take a leaf out of Booker’s book and put myself out there with more people. It might get me a man.

Even if it will only be temporary.

CHAPTER TWO

IAN

“Thank you for calling Boner Buzz. Have a bonerific day.” I hang up on my last call and officially log out of work for the day.

You would think that working as a customer service rep for a sex chat line was interesting, but somehow I have managed to make that boring. Perhaps if I had someone to tell the funny stories to, it might make it a funnier.

Having no one sucks.

Maybe I should buy a pet? A pet would stave off the crippling lonliness.

My eyes automatically slide over to the half dead Christmas cactus sitting on my kitchen windowsill.

Maybe not.

I can’t cope. I don’t want to spend yet another night in my apartment by myself. I need people in my life I just don’t know how to get them.

I want the last person to have touched me to be someone who knows my name and not a cashier at the grocery store giving me my change.

Before a thought has fully formed, I am grabbing my jacket and keys and heading out the door.

My apartment buiding is two blocks over from main street where the best bakery in all the whole state stands. I doubt they’ll have any pastries left but maybe I can get a coffee and sit in the corner looking approachable. Plus, Kelsey the owner is always nice to me.

When I got the job as the customer service rep for Boner Buzz, they said I just needed to live within a five hour drive from Boise or Portland. I chose this town because it was less than that to get to both, and it was adorable, but with an edge. Like a kitten. Cute, with sharpe claws.

Maybe I should get a cat?

Though they are notorious assholes and I don’t think I can take being rejected by an animal.

Moving to this town was the right decision. I can feel it in my bones. I will make some friends…eventully.

I didn’t have anyone in Portland and city life wasn’t for me. I aged out of foster care years ago and while my foster parents were nice and never treated be poorly, we weren’t close. My birth parents surrended me to the state whe I was a day old. I looked them up when I turned eighteen. Their rap sheets were were so long the rapid scrolling on my laptop was making me feel queezy.

So here I am, alone in the world, but determined to not stay that way.

Maybe I should hire a sex worker?

Before the thought fully forms into a mental pro/con list, I am distracted by pretty bright lights. Tat’s The Way blinks at me, making me snort. A smaller sign in the window announces that walk ins are welcomed and flash tattoos are only $50.

I step closer and look beyond the signs into the actual store. There is a partitioned section where I’m guessing the tattooing happens, and a small but cozy reception area where a coupleof guys all wearing matching leather jackets are talking and laughing.

This must be the tattoo shop run by The Fallen Gargoyles.

Being a gay man, I was a bit nervous about moving to a town with a motorcycle club, but when I googled them and saw all the queer charities they support, I immediately felt even more excited to move here.

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