I could just imagine the kind of apartment he lived in. Hardwood floors, marble countertops, flashy fixtures with views overlooking the city—no, wait, Lake Michigan—as he sipped an expensive wine from a hundred-dollar glass.
Yeah, that seemed fitting. Ryan must’ve been a really good friend to come all the way down here on a Friday night. It’d been more than obvious that he didn’t belong with my crowd, but that sure as hell hadn’t stopped him from chasing me down in a dark alley.
It had been a ballsy move, considering what I saved him from inside Jon’s bar. He didn’t know me from dick. But to follow me into an empty side street and practically beg me to let him “thank me” for my services? He was lucky I hadn’t decided to take payment out on his very tempting body.
I shifted and stretched my legs out, readjusting my jeans as they got a little tighter from the fantasy I’d just planted in my head. But that was all it would ever be, a fantasy. A seriously fucking hot one, tied up in a nice pair of suspenders.
I had enough problems without adding some rich golden boy to the list. He was one mistake I couldn’t afford right now, and like I’d told Jon, I talked to who I wanted when I wanted. That also applied to my hookups, and there was no way he was going to be one of them.
Quick, easy, and over with—no questions asked. That was what I wanted. I didn’t want dreamy ideals and hearts in eyes when they looked at me. And the very last thing I wanted was to ever be thought of as someone’s fucking savior.
So while I could only imagine how incredible the body was under Ryan’s expensive suit, I wasn’t stupid enough to actually find out. It was time to find a replacement for GQ.
I pulled out my phone and opened the app I usually used when searching for a distraction. Needing one now more than ever, I began to swipe through the men in the area that matched a certain look.
Too short.
Too grungy.
Too close.
Too— Wait a second.
My eyes caught and held on a profile image of a man in a suit. Well, in a suit was a slight exaggeration. The photo captured a delicious, full set of lips surrounded by a very corporate shadow lining his sculpted jaw, and he’d placed his hand there as though in deep concentration—or maybe just to draw your eye to a mouth that would make any man’s dick throb, including mine.
He had on the usual shirt, tie, and jacket, but instead of being all neatly buttoned up for work, the shirt was left undone and the tie hung loosely around his neck. His smooth skin teased the eye from chest to navel, and the shadows captured by the angle of the photo made me wish I’d been there to strip him naked and feast on what was beneath.
The photo was sexy as fuck, and the fingers that flirted with the parted zipper of his dress pants were nice and long. I could imagine them wrapped around my cock, much like I wanted to wrap my hand around his, and though I couldn’t see that particular part of his anatomy, the pose he’d struck for this image left a sexy glimpse of the tight black briefs I’d have to get through to find my prize.
Now this was what I’d been looking for. A distraction.
I clicked on the link, hoping to find more photos, a contact of some sort, and then popped open the button of my jeans, ready to really enjoy what I was looking at. That was when I noticed several more photos on the guy’s profile.
He was definitely hitting all the right buttons for me tonight with this sophisticated business look. The next one had him lounging in an unmade bed, and he was wearing a dress shirt half buttoned, the sheets barely covering his hips. To say I wanted in that bed—and him—after looking at this was an understatement. But then I clicked on the next photo and my brain close to exploded.
There, staring back at me, was a pair of suspenders I would recognize anywhere.
“What the hell?” I said as I quickly exited out of the images and back to the profile. “There’s no fucking way…”
But there it was, clear as day, under the name: Ry.
A.k.a. Ryan, a.k.a. GQ.
Unbelievable. This was unbelievable. What were the odds that I’d click on the fuck file of the guy I’d rescued tonight? No, not rescued—helped out of a difficult situation?
Jesus, if I hadn’t been so hellbent on getting him out of my head, this might be funny. But I had been, and for good reason. Guys like him didn’t hook up with guys like me. He was from a completely different world, and I’d been right to send him back to it. Guys like him ventured into this side of town looking for some kind of thrill. But I wasn’t going to be his one-night slum story, the bad-boy fuck he told all his goodie-two-shoe buddies about.
No way. The best thing I did tonight was leave before my dick took control of my brain. Because no matter how tempted I’d been to take him up on his offer to thank me, nothing good would’ve come from that. Just like nothing good would come from me sitting here in my apartment getting off to some fantasy. I’d be better off spending my time searching for a new place to fucking live.
Yeah, that did it. Any desire I had to go fuck myself to sleep was now gone, and in its place was the reality that in a little over a week, I’d be homeless. Something I doubted GQ had ever had to deal with.
I shut off my phone, headed to the fridge, and grabbed the second beer out. Then I switched off the lamp and made my way into my bedroom. I placed the bottles on my nightstand and shoved my jeans free, before I peeled off my shirt and climbed into bed.
I sat with my back to the wall and stared into the darkness, then reached for the half-finished bottle beside me and drained it. How in the hell had I ended up here? Alone, in an apartment I was about to lose, drinking myself to sleep?
I’d promised myself I wouldn’t do this. I’d promised him.
But as I stared at the wall separating our two rooms, I realized this wasn’t the first time I’d lied to him. It wasn’t the first time I’d failed him, either. I’d made empty promises that day, too—and I wasn’t the only one. He’d said he’d get out, that he would be fine, but the silent room on the other side of that wall showed me that our promises didn’t mean shit.
So did it really matter if I broke mine one more time?
Chapter 6
Ryan
“RYAN? RYAN? HAVE you seen my blue and grey tie?”
At the sound of my boss’s voice, I got to my feet and headed to his office, where he was looking inside the garment bag hanging on the coat rack in the corner of the room.
“The striped one? It isn’t with your suit?”
Dressed in his casuals—black slacks and a designer sweater—Alexander looked over at me and gestured to the inside of the bag. “Feel free to look, but I can’t see it, and I’m going to need it in a couple of hours.”
I rushed over to where the bag hung and searched the pockets, the hanger, and the bottom of the bag just in case it had fallen loose. But he was right—it was nowhere to be found.
“They must’ve left it out when I picked it up.” I turned to see Alexander behind his desk reading over something on his computer, and then glanced back at the grey suit hanging in front of me. It was still early enough for me to go back to the dry cleaners and pick up the tie if he was dead set on it, but I had another idea. “Wait right here.”