Page 23 of Touch of Innocence
ELEVEN
Somehow, Sam was able to make himself get dressed and got to work, and with even about a half an hour to spare. They certainly had work to do, with the car that had fallen to pieces. In fact, Sam could forget what had happened, even so recently, between him and Gunner.
Almost. Sometimes. For seconds at a time, even.
What would people say? How would they react? Even his own brother would probably make fun of him if he knew because Sam had always been so determined not to be weird about sexuality. Straight had always been safe, but now, even as much as he tried, he couldn’t really think of himself that way anymore.
Straight? Straight men didn’t tend to fuck other men. At least Sam didn’t think so. And even if they did get experimental and try it out, Sam was pretty sure that they didn’t like it as much as Sam had.
Being inside of Gunner had been like no other experience that Sam had ever had. He had fooled around with women before, and that had always been pretty okay, but the intensity of being buried inside of Gunner’s body, the heat of it, the passion, the look in those hazel eyes as they almost seemed to glow golden, that had blown every other experience away.
So here he was, stuck thinking about it. Obsessed with a man who was just going to leave as soon as his bike was done. One of the most important things to Sam was that he be able to think of himself as intelligent, but he had to question himself when it came to Gunner.
Why had he done it? But Sam knew why, really, if he let himself be completely honest. He had done it because he’d wanted to, nothing more complicated than that. Gunner had saved his life, and that had spurred Sam on to do it, but truthfully he had wanted to before that, too.
As they wrapped up their work, as they explained the situation with the car to Mike, who would call the owner and yell at him for not being honest about what had happened, Sam found himself looking at Gunner. Tracing over his face with a hungry gaze, lingering on the full, even lips, those lips that were so fun to taste, to tease apart, to kiss.
While he looked, a sort of epiphany came over him. Not in an overstated way, he just suddenly realized that he knew something, that something made sense. Maybe he had even known it for a while, without acknowledging it fully.
Why couldn’t he just have some fun while Gunner was around? He wasn’t at any risk of his heart getting attached, so he wouldn’t end up broken from it. He could get this weird gay stuff out of his system, and when he and Gunner parted, it could be on good terms.
Why not? There was no reason, not that he could think of. It felt good to think about it, having something like a relationship, on a very short-term basis. The logical thing to do, he figured, was to try to figure out if Gunner felt the same.
“Hey,” Sam asked, as Mike, grumbling, went off to the front room to make a phone call. He looked at Gunner as the other man turned to face him, his expression frankly questioning. Did Sam’s tone sound weird or something? Probably, but he forged on anyway. “Do you want to hit the bar or something?”
Immediately, he wanted to start justifying the question. Make sure that Gunner knew that it wasn’t a date that he was proposing or anything like that. Clutching his hands in front of him, Sam kept his mouth shut through great force of will and just looked at Gunner.
It was probably only fair to give the guy a chance to answer the question before he made any assumptions, he supposed.
“Yeah, okay. Cool,” Gunner spoke like it was no big deal, and Sam supposed that it wasn’t, to most people. But the only bar in town being a gay bar sort of tended to make things a little bit awkward. He’d been to the bar with friends before, but they’d always had to go to a different town to make that happen.
Somehow, though, Gunner didn’t exactly seem like the sort of person who would be ashamed to go there. It was sort of refreshing, sort of terrifying, in pretty much equal measure. Gunner didn’t know how to keep his sexuality a secret, and Sam, well, he didn’t know how not to.
With a smile that was almost shy, Sam nodded and turned to wash his hands, trying, as always, to dig out the oil and dirt under his fingernails. It seemed that he had something that, despite what he might have blurted out, really did seem like somewhat of a date to him.
A date, at a gay bar, with another guy. He should have been scared or disgusted or both. Anything but this sense of anticipation. This desire to be around Gunner, to catch him in unguarded moments, to watch as his eyes shone and his lips quirked up into that adorable little half smile.
It was funny how life worked out sometimes.
* * *
Somehow, it hadn’t occurred to Sam that there would be other people at the bar. It really should have, since it was probably the most popular place in town, but it hadn’t.
If anything, he had thought that the very bustling atmosphere would protect him. Every time he had walked in before, people had barely looked up, and it had been an easy thing for him just to slink to a corner and nurse his drink in peace. Even when he’d picked up a shift or two here and there to help Ben or Isaac out, no one had paid him much attention.
Or so he had always assumed. And maybe it was even the case, but it apparently didn’t work out quite the same way when he walked in with another man. It seemed to Sam, who wanted to crawl deep into his own skin suddenly, that everyone was looking at him and Gunner, who had his hand lightly, easily, on the small of Sam’s back.
“Hey, Sammy,” Ben called, just one more thing that Sam really should have remembered. Normally, it wasn’t a problem that Isaac or Ben or sometimes both were almost always here, but from the look in Ben’s eyes, he wasn’t going to forget that Sam had come in with Gunner.
When he’d thought of going on a date, in short, he hadn’t thought of it as being such a public thing. But what did it matter? As far as any of these people knew, he and Gunner were just here as friends. Sam had nothing to be ashamed of.
Or so he tried to tell himself. Somehow, that didn’t seem to sink in quite as deeply as he might have liked. He felt himself cringing back, away from the waves of heat that seemed to come off of the eyes of everyone watching them, but Gunner’s hand was there, and it provided some stability.
“Hi, Ben,” Sam replied, making his way through the crowds of people, Gunner right by his side. They dropped down into a couple of bar stools, while Ben looked them over with eyes that seemed to gleam despite the dim light in the bar.
“What can I get you two?” Ben finally asked, and Sam let his shoulders relax a little bit. For a moment there, he’d been worried that he was going to be subjected to protective big brother mode. Ben had done it before, but honestly, he seemed more amused than anything else.
Which for Sam meant that he was probably never going to hear the end of this. Maybe he should have thought this out a tiny bit more before he asked Gunner out. Gone somewhere else, where no one knew them. Still, who would remember that any of this had happened? A few weeks after Gunner left, it should all fade away. Right? And Sam had nothing to be ashamed of.
