But the idea that I was somehow less horny now? That was the biggest joke of all.

If anything, I’d gotten more insatiable as I grew older. I was useless. I was so horny I couldn’t even flirt with a straight guy without getting a hard-on under my pants. At work, no less. I still jerked off before going to bed almost every night, and half of the mornings, too.

And apparently I still fantasized about straight guys like Rock.

I adjusted. I could already feel my cock perking up again under my pants, and I hated it. Talking to Rock out at the bar had been driving me crazy, and I hadn’t been able to stop. I knew I couldn’t have him. I knew he was straight.

But Isobel was right about his boyish charm. It was exactly the thing that made Rock the human form of my kryptonite. He looked like he could be a decade younger than me, even though he was in his thirties. He was a couple inches shorter than me. Very fit. I swore he must have purposely chosen T-shirts that were a little too tight, just to show off his body.

And that whole boyish jock, cute but devilish, baseball-cap wearing, flirty straight guy thing was going to be the death of me.

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” I told Isobel. “It’s better not to get involved with your boss’s younger brother, anyway.”

She rolled her eyes. “Nobody cares about rules like that anymore,” she said. “I would have hopped on him like a damn bunny.”

“Christ,” I said.

She giggled, giving me a glance. “You’re shy about everything, Perry,” she said. “You’re not like other gay guys.”

“Gay guys aren’t all the same. We’ve talked about this.”

“I know, I know,” she said. “But I don’t think there’s a gay man on Earth who would be as… uninterested in Rock as you are.”

Uninterested.

If only she knew.

“He’s my boss’s brother. And he is straight.”

She rolled her eyes. “So what?”

“I don’t go for straight guys,” I said. “There’s no point. It only ever hurts.”

“I get that,” she said, nodding. She hitched one shoulder up in a shrug. “Nothing wrong with a little fantasizing, though.”

“All right, we need to get to work around here,” I said.

I needed to do something productive instead of thinking about Rock in any sort of sexual situation, fantasy or otherwise. My brain had already been scattered as hell waiting for Cameron to call me.

Family was priority number one. Always. I needed to be thinking of my own brother, not Red’s.

I headed over to the other side of the small kitchen, sorting through the shipment of root vegetables we’d gotten in earlier today.

“I think I can still be friends with Rock,” Isobel said. “Maybe he can take me on a tour of his fire station someday. If I can’t have him, I can have one of his sexy coworkers. Those uniforms….”

“Maybe you can find one who’s a little closer to your age,” I said. “Rock is… a wild card.”

“He seems fun.”

“Unpredictable.”

She let out a sigh. “He’s just so fucking hot.”

I sucked in air through my teeth. “That’s an understatement,” I mumbled into the bin of potatoes.

“What?”

Had I really just said that out loud?

“Nothing,” I said. My cheeks went a little hot with embarrassment. The tequila really was getting to me now. “Once we’ve got the cucumbers prepped, we should get started on the queso for the nachos. Around ten o’clock, all anybody ever orders is nachos.”

“Roger that, boss,” Isobel said. “Oh, did I tell you I finally found that obsidian midnight purple shade of nail polish at the store last night?”

“You did, huh?”

I was beyond glad to hear about Isobel’s epic tale of finding the perfect nail color instead of talking any more about Rock. I took the bin of potatoes over to the sink and started washing them.

The problem was that I totally agreed with Isobel. Rock wasn’t just hot, he was a damn wet dream. Isobel thought I was uninterested in Rock, but the reality was I was too interested. And I was tired of it. He’d been coming into the bar more and more now that he was staying with Red, and it was a distraction. A straight-guy distraction that I didn’t need.

Work had been so predictable until recently. Red had more cashflow, which was amazing for the tavern, but was wreaking havoc on my simple life. He’d hired Isobel a month ago to help me out in the kitchen.

In the old days, it had been a massive load of work to run a bar kitchen all on my own. It had often meant twelve or fourteen hour days with no breaks. But I had loved it. I was always happy to be alone in the kitchen.

Now, with Isobel, the work was a lot easier, but everything was… different. I had another person to help with all of the prep and cooking, and she was very good at her job. But I couldn’t zone out anymore. I wasn’t in my own little introverted world, away from everyone else.

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