Page 47 of Needing Your Love
Envy, my faithful companion whenever the boys were around, slunk into my chest and settled atop my heart, making it feel heavier than usual.
“I invited Jimmy,” Jamie repeated what he’d said the second he walked in, his fiancé on his heels. “The guy could use a friend, and I see the way you look at him.”
“Ha!” Dex barked a laugh from the living room, and I rolled my eyes. The guy had superhuman ears.
I set aside the tongs I’d retrieved to put steaks on the grill and turned toward my son, arms and ankles crossed as I leaned my back against the kitchen counter. “The age difference doesn’t bother you?” I asked what I expected everyone to have issue with even though I and Jimmy certainly didn’t.
Jamie shrugged. “Just want you happy, Dad. You deserve it after all the shit you went through with Darla.”
“Goddamned right!” Dex hollered and muttered under his breath what sounded a lot likepsychotic bitch.
He didn’t lie, and to this day, I couldn’t stand fake people or their underhanded methods of getting what they wanted—Jimmy to an absolute T.
But fuck, the draw toward him was real. Sleep-depriving and ball-aching in its intensity. And hehadshown a shit ton of signs of having grown up since leaving but not nearly to the level I needed to trust him with my heart.
“What about you, Chaz?” I asked.
“What about me?” he asked while setting a container of store-bought potato salad onto the table.
“What do you think about me getting involved with a younger guy?”
“Couldn’t care less, Chief.” He pressed against Jamie’s side, and my son slung his arm around Chaz’s shoulders.
Dex sauntered into the kitchen, and they all glanced at one another before turning their gazes on me. The sudden silence made my skin itch.
“What?” I asked, feeling like a bug under a microscope.
“Jimmy needs a guy like you,” Jamie said. “He doesn’t have the cleanest record or prettiest past, but I don’t believe a single one of us—you included—gives a shit about what he’s been up to.”
I rubbed a hand over my mouth, my freshly oiled beard soft on my palm while glancing at my best friend.
Dex nodded, his dark eyes offering encouragement. The asshole loved to tease the shit out of me, but in this, I knew he would have my back no matter what.
“We talked about Elite.”
My focus jerked toward my son. Since he didn’t keep secrets from Chaz, same as I didn’t from Dex, everyone in the room was well aware of the escort company my son spoke of.
“He seemed uncomfortable,” Jamie continued. “Probably thinks you’ll judge him for what he used to do for a living.”
“Past tense?” Dex asked before I could question what I’d also zeroed in on too.
“He didn’t come right out and say he quit, but that’s the feeling I got,” Jamie said, and Chaz nodded his agreement.
A knock sounded, and as though of the same mind, Dex, Jamie, and Chaz hightailed it toward the slider leading onto my small deck.
Dex snagged the tongs and bag of marinated steaks off the counter on his way past me. “I’ll put these on the grill. You go greet your new boy toy and maybe let him talk you into allowing him to hang around after the rest of us leave.”
I growled beneath my breath at his back as he snickered and left me alone. The last thing I wanted was another situation where fake Jimmy attempted to steer the outcome of our interactions. Heaving a heavy breath in and out, I started toward my front door. The twitch of my cock over the prospect of Jimmy being in close proximity made me remember I wore sweats, and I wondered if I had time to quickly change.
Jimmy knocked again, and there was no way I could have him driving off thinking I didn’t want him here because it took me too long to let him in.
“Fuck.” Steeling myself, dick mostly soft, I pulled the door open.
For a brief second, gorgeous hesitancy and insecurity radiated from Jimmy’s tired eyes, but after a quick glance over my choice in clothing, that goddamned mask slid into place. His lips curled upward, and a twinkle lit in his baby blues, erasingthe truth he hid from the world. The sly smirk did nothing to dissolve the obvious exhaustion on his face though.
“Chief,” he purred in that low, sultry voice I hated to love—the same exact tone and word he’d greeted me with when he’d stood on my stoop all those years ago.
Unlike that night, a shiver licked down my spine this time, and I stepped back, motioning the devilish angel into my space. “Jimmy.”
