Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 82201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Relief flashed in his eyes, and he turned to the bartender. “Please put their beer on my tab.”
“That’s unnecessary,” Nate protested.
The guy waved it off. “Trust, you’re doin’ me a favor. And it really is nice to see some fellow Americans here. I need fuckin’ subtitles to understand some of their accents here.”
I laughed, liking the guy already. He felt like home. He was clearly a New Yorker, and if I were to venture a guess, he was military too.
“I’m Ash. Good to meet you.”
“Kyle Finlay,” he replied.
“Nathan.” Nate smiled politely and nodded toward the tables. “Let’s have a seat.”
It shouldn’t be too long before the boys left. They had no one else to chase in this place.
We grabbed our beers and headed over to a small table in the back, and Kyle was…a presence. I didn’t meet men every day who were my height at six-four, but he was one of them. He was easy on the eyes too, with very dark hair, clear blue-green eyes, and pale skin. All contrasts.
“They’ll give up in five, ten minutes,” he said and sat down.
“No problem.” I sat down too, and I took a sip of my beer. “What brings you to the UK, Kyle? Something tells me it’s more of an R&R situation than a Pride vacation.”
He smirked crookedly. “Am I that obvious?”
I smiled back.
“You’re close,” he said. “I had some flight training over here, and now I have two days off before I ship out.”
“You’re a pilot?” Nathan asked.
Kyle nodded. “Helicopter. I fly Cobras in the Marines.”
“Ah. That’s nothing at all like my dad,” Nate chuckled. “He’s a pilot too, but just for fun. I find aircraft and aviation very fascinating.”
Uh, since when?
I eyed him.
“What kinds of aircraft fascinate you, baby?” I asked curiously. Because Keith and I had suggested we all go to Oshkosh a couple of years ago, and Nathan had groaned like a kindergartener forced to clean his room.
He shot me a dirty little look. “I didn’t say I know a lot about it. I called it fascinating.” He glanced back at an amused Kyle. “I’ll admit my knowledge is limited to a flight-sim game I play occasionally on my computer.”
That was closer to the truth. He’d played it twice.
I grinned and chugged my beer.
For some reason, I only found it entertaining to see Nate flustered over finding someone hot. And my embarrassing him, obviously.
Kyle was entertained too. “I think I have a question for you two. Is anyone interested in a shot first?”
Okay, so it was gonna be one of those times. Did we have some kind of energy that made people think we wanted to be propositioned for threesomes? It’d happened a lot over the years, though almost exclusively by much younger guys who were…well, like the two put-off twinks by the bar. Kyle was, at most, a few years younger than me.
Nate and I exchanged a glance, and I shrugged a little. The shot wasn’t the issue here.
“All right, one won’t kill us,” he replied. “Vodka for us, please.”
“Comin’ right up.” Kyle left the table and went over to the bar.
I gave Nate a pointed look.
“Do you mind if I decline the offer this time?” he asked. “When you do it, you’re…you know, you.”
Blunt. I was blunt. Not rude or anything, but blunt.
“I’m surprised you wanna decline at all,” I joked. “I find aviation so fascinating,” I mimicked, batting my lashes.
He groaned and slapped a hand over his face. “Oh my God, stop. I’m already mortified. I don’t know what came over me.”
I laughed. He was too fucking cute.
“It’s okay, baby. He’s very easy on the eyes.”
“It’s not even that.” He shook his head and discreetly looked toward the bar. “He reminds me of you.”
What? Kyle and I looked nothing alike. “The only thing we share is our height.”
“That’s not even close to the truth,” he argued. “You have to realize you’re my personal porn star, Ash. Over the years, I have watched you climb mountains, assemble scaffolding on the sides of buildings like it’s nothing, create your own floggers, throw knives, run 10Ks for charity, lift weights, do chin-ups, and God knows what else.” That was an impressive ego boost. “Kyle has some of that energy too, and I guess it threw me for a moment.”
A slow grin took over my face, and I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I keep those abs cut for you, my love.”
“Quit it.” He exhaled a laugh. “Be cool, he’s coming over. I’ll decline the offer. Hopefully, he’ll stay and chat a bit.”
Fair enough.
“Do we thank him for his service?” he asked under his breath. “I always want to, but it feels awkward.”
I had no time to respond because Kyle was back with three shots. Truth be told, I didn’t know what I would’ve said anyway. We had a few friends who were military, and two of them were overseas right now. If the moment was right and we were on that topic, I liked to express that I appreciated what they did for us over there, because 9/11 had affected all of us. But I related to what Nate had said too. It could easily feel awkward, and the war brought out conflicting emotions. Wanting justice was one thing, but at the expense of so many young American lives was a whole other.