Top Priority (The Game 1)

Colt grinned faintly and cocked his head. “What were you doin’ in France?”

Oh boy. “The stereotypical backpacking adventure so many Americans go on after high school or college. I went after high school and was gone for four months.”

“Did you go alone?”

I inclined my head. “I discovered BDSM in Amsterdam.”

He smirked. “Of course you did. In the red-light district, you could finally put a name to all those forbidden fantasies you’d had.”

Well, he was right on the money. My God, I’d lived a predictable life.

“I don’t have the stories you have, Colt,” I admitted. Because it was best just to get it out into the open. So I started rambling.

I was an average guy with an average degree that I wasn’t using very much. And I lived an ordinary DC life. I went out to dinner with friends on the weekends. There was always a new restaurant to try out. Brunch on Sundays. Dinner with my parents once or twice a month. I played squash and badminton with my cousin once a week. Sometimes I took his dog to the park. Money went to rent and food. I didn’t actually live in DC. That was just what you said. I lived in Alexandria. There was a coffee shop down at the corner that I called mine. I ordered the same thing every morning on my way to work.

“Okay, I get it,” Colt chuckled.

“I’m not sure you do.” I frowned, wondering if I got it. Was my life boring? Probably. But the thing was, other than my job situation, I was happy. All right, it was getting tedious to be single. I hadn’t been in a relationship in over two years, and for a while, I’d been content to play with casual partners. That time had passed. “One of my favorite things to do is have friends over at my place,” I told him. “I put a lot of effort into everything from appetizers and dinner to…” I waved a hand. “Hell, the playlist for the evening. But I’m not the storyteller. I go on pleasant vacations every once in a while. I don’t go on risky adventures. I find my joy in the small, everyday things. You, Colt, are a fighter pilot…in every sense of the word. You’re the war hero who gets a book deal one day to write your memoirs. You put everything on the line, and I’m…I’m—”

“You’re the one we come home to,” he said.

I didn’t understand. His words deflated me, only to flood me with confusion.

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “Every storyteller needs their audience, Lucas.” He cracked his knuckles absently, and there was a soft smirk playing on his lips. “Someone who cares to listen to our drivel.”

“You clearly don’t know what drivel is.”

He laughed under his breath and looked down for a moment. Then he lifted his gaze again and shook his head slowly. “Veterans are a dime a dozen, and many of us have the same stories. The same issues, the same hurt. We’re always looking for someone outside the services to understand us, even though we know no one ever will.”

How did anyone respond to that?

I couldn’t even begin to imagine, yet there was this quiet voice in the back of my mind telling me I wanted to understand. Because that was my thing. I wanted to understand people. I wanted to help. I wanted to be there and watch the people I cared for reach their goals and get what they wanted.

I cared for Colt. To an extent, at least.

“I think…” I stopped myself so I could make sure I phrased this properly. “In short, I don’t want to make any assumptions or pretend to know what it is you need, but…if you need someone to listen…”

He nodded once. “I appreciate it. And I could sorta tell that’s the type of Dom you are.”

I smiled and lifted a shoulder. “It’s who I am, period.”“I didn’t mean for this to get heavy,” I said after some silence. The quiet hadn’t been uncomfortable per se, but I felt our time was running out.

Colt had checked his watch twice in the past five minutes, and he’d declined the last offer of a coffee refill.

He gave me a rueful little grin. “I don’t think either of us did.” He cleared his throat and glanced toward the counter. The register. “I should probably go get a new bus ticket.”

Fuck.

“When were you picking up your car?” he asked.

I sighed. “The mechanic said I shouldn’t drive until it’d been twenty-four hours, so…around seven or eight, something like that.”

He nodded in acknowledgment.

Once I had my car, I was going to spend two hours on the road before I was back home. Two hours. The same amount of time it took to drive from here to Norfolk.