Yet all the stranger made Red Jack feel right now was uncomfortable. “Should have fuckin’ texted. I’d tell you to fuck off, and you wouldn’t have to go to all the trouble of coming here.” Red Jack opened the patio door.
The guy sighed, narrowing his eyes, but when those slim fingers skirted over Red Jack’s stomach, it was too much. Jack pushed his unwanted guest so hard the guy fell over into the sand.
“And stay out.” Red Jack snarled and shut the door, with his heart pounding as if this were a big deal. Invisible ants still crawled over his stomach where the uninvited touch had been. He never should have sent the guy a dick pic.
Chapter 2
One day before...
Two years ago, Loki had cheated death, so he hadn’t expected the Reaper to rear his ugly head so soon.
The tears in Loki’s eyes made everything blurry, but as he drove his old green Dodge down the empty road, he couldn’t find an excuse to stop. Not being sure of what was ahead didn’t seem enough of a reason. He shouted the lyrics along with the angry vocals screaming out of his player and put another item on the hastily written bucket list.
Have a birthday party.
That one he probably couldn’t make with three months left tops. He looked up from above the notebook propped on his knee and turned the wheel left, just in time to avoid driving off the asphalt again. It didn’t help that it was rapidly going dark.
Loki took a deep breath and blinked, but looking at the piece of paper in front of him only reminded him that he’d wasted all twenty-two years of his life, and now it was too late. He’d never get that time back. He’d die bitter, losing it as the tumor in his head grew large enough to give him seizures and eventually killed him.
Not treatable. That was what the results said. There was no way for Loki to survive. He knew there were options to maybe give him a bit more time. Chemotherapy. Radiation. But who’d pay for that? And why would he want to spend his last days in a hospital or lying in bed, too weak to do anything? He’d rather go out with a bang. Die on the dancefloor. Die while being tag-teamed. Kill himself in a way so crazy people would remember him forever. He’d be famous, even if after death. Most of all though, Loki didn’t want to die alone.
He did technically still have a boyfriend, but Loki didn’t love Richard, and he was pretty sure Richard didn’t love him either. It had been an arrangement that allowed him to live in peace, without worrying whether he’d have something to eat the next day, or whether he’d wake up at all. But Richard was the kind of guy who gave you the obligatory Valentine’s gift and expected to get his dick sucked after, as if a box of chocolates was a big deal to someone with his kind of money. It was him who brought Loki the news. And as Loki slowly died inside, Richard offered him tea and a stiff hug. For Richard, telling his boyfriend that he was dying had been an uncomfortable chore.
Loki was so done with this douchebag. He’d rather die in a back-alley than with Richard sitting by his deathbed out of obligation, with his eyes constantly darting to his phone in search for a reason to excuse himself.
Packing everything Loki owned had been a sad affair. It all fit into two sports bags, which were now in the trunk of his car. There had been neither good-byes nor goodbye fucks, and Loki suspected Richard would be secretly grateful for being spared the awkwardness of nursing Loki while his health deteriorated. It had already been clear that he was tired with Loki’s bouts of nausea and headaches. When Richard had taken Loki in, he probably hadn’t expected him to be so high maintenance.
Loki wiped his eyes with his wrists and looked at the bucket list again.
Be famous
Go on a perfect date
Fall in love
Talk to Peter of The Rotting Apple
Try candied scorpions
Go back to bareback
Get love tattoos
Have a birthday party
He swallowed hard and wrote down another entry, Fuck a ginger.
The moment he put those words on paper, his phone beeped with an incoming message.
He sniffed and pulled it out of his pants. He didn’t really want to hear from Richard, but at least it would mean the bastard missed him on some level.
But it wasn’t Richard. It was a message on the hookup app Loki sometimes used when he was bored with his life. There were no words in the message, just a picture. A photo of a pretty stunning cock surrounded with dark ginger pubes.
The car shook as it slid off the asphalt yet again, and Loki returned the right front wheel where it belonged before breathlessly staring at that thick meat. A ginger. A ginger wanted a fuck from him. This was destiny. He could almost hear the fluttering of angel wings in the car.
Loki stopped in the middle of the road and leaned back, sliding his gaze over the thick vein visible in the picture. He’d love to slide his tongue over that pulsing line.