So he flirted with the customers and Ace, who rolled his eyes. Ace was straight, really straight, but they had this flirting routine down that the customers always ate up in a will-they-or-won’t-they way. They wouldn’t. Ever. But the customers didn’t know that.
Chad turned to his guy. “Hey, you finally ready to cave and go home with me tonight?”
While pouring a rum and Coke, Ace—the smug, hot bastard who was excellent in this role—didn’t even look up. “In your dreams, Lake.”
Several customers laughed, and one hollered, “Ouch!”
“Let’s make that dream a reality.” Chad waggled his eyebrows. A man drinking a draft groaned at the lame quip.
“Sorry, but I like pussy in my bed,” Ace said back, earning a couple of laughs.
Chad did, too, sometimes. He liked it all, really. “Oh, can I join?” he said, bumping his hip into Ace’s as he walked toward the cash register.
“Keep dreaming,” Ace said with a wink.
Chad licked his lips and gave his coworker the once-over. “Oh, I will.”
Ace laughed it off and turned back to the bar to drop a ten in the tip bucket. Someone yelled, “Give him a chance, Ace!” But the man shook his head and grinned at Chad. He grinned back. They all knew Chad as the flirt because that’s what he was. That’s what he did.
At least, that’s what he did there.
By the time they closed down the bar, Chad’s feet were killing him and his back ached. But while his body was fatigued, his mind was still going. He probably should have skipped that last Red Bull, but it’d been necessary to get through the chaos of last call.
On the way home, he considered going to see his sister. But then he remembered she didn’t live at her apartment anymore, and he feared what Austin would do to him if Chad woke them up. If he’d put a little effort into it, he could have gone home with someone from the bar. But his mind was all over the place ever since that Bow Tie fucker messed with it that morning. And no one wanted a distracted lay.
So he went home, stripped down to his boxer briefs, and sat in front of his computer with a bottle of water.
Facebook was boring. He was friends with too many of Marley’s friends, so there were a lot of babies on his news feed. No, thank you.
He took a gulp of water and shifted in his seat, then opened up Adobe Illustrator. When he needed to calm himself down, clear his mind, he always went right to design. He was self-taught, since his college experience had lasted a whole half a year during which his party-to-class attendance ratio was about five to one. He’d had no idea what he wanted to do at eighteen.
He hadn’t known what he wanted to do at twenty-five, either.
And now he was twenty-seven and thought he knew what he wanted to do, but accomplishing that seemed daunting and maybe a little embarrassing. It’d taken him a long-ass time to get his head together, while Marley was amazing. Not that he begrudged her success. He was thrilled for sure. But he could be happy for her and depressed about his own nonexistent career at the same time.
He began to draw in Illustrator. He didn’t know what yet, but a face was taking shape. A man’s face with big blue eyes. Then all of a sudden, the face had glasses. Horn-rimmed ones.
Chad leaned forward, getting into it now as he sketched a bare torso—rounded pecs and beaded nipples and a set of pretty spectacular abs.
The bow tie was next. Kind of a nerdy version of Chad’s uniform at Blue Moon. This bow tie had polka dots. Because why not?
And then he began to work on those delicious V-muscles that led right to…
A dick. A big dick, because that’s what Chad had on his mind tonight. And if he wasn’t mistaken, he was getting a little hard. He glanced down. Yep. He was getting hard over an illustrated geek with a bow tie and a big dick. One he drew himself. Was that sick? Was there something wrong with him?
The dick was pretty, too. Cut and pink and hard. Chad grinned, sticking his tongue into the corner of his mouth as he enlarged the cock until it hung down to his fantasy geek’s knees. If that was real, the guy would have fallen forward onto his face.
Chad laughed to himself, giddy on his own creation, as he returned the dick to normal—if not bigger than average—size, then gave the guy a set of boots. He added on a cape, which flapped behind his naked superhero, who stood with his fisted hands on his naked hips.
Chad leaned back in his chair and cocked his head. He’d made a naked, geeky, rather well-endowed superhero who looked exactly like the guy who he couldn’t get out of his head.
Goddamn it.
He was really hard now. Not in a way where he was rushing to get off, but in a way that felt good just to want. It’d been a long time since desire this strong settled in his gut. Desire over something that was unattainable. Because that’s what Bow Tie was. He didn’t even know his name.