too hard on him. I bet he still got carded at the bars.
He straightened up, grimacing at the red mark on his upper lip. “Happy now?”
I held my hand out for the mustache.
He scoffed and put it in his pocket. “These things aren’t cheap.”
We were so close together, I could feel the heat of his body and his breath brushed my cheek.
“Well?” he said quietly. “Better?”
I reached a hand up to his hair, let it drop before I touched it. “I miss the black”
“You miss emo Jake?” he said with a grin. He ran his hands through his hair, cracking whatever product he’d put in it to tame his natural cowlicks.
“I kind of miss the skinny jeans,” I confessed. “They made your ass look great. Way better than these awful things.” I hooked a finger into one of his belt loops and bent it. More a suggestion of a tug than anything real.
He swayed almost imperceptibly towards me.
I gave in to the impulse I’d had and reached for his hair, winding a lock around my finger. He made a soft noise in the back of his throat, his hand coming up to rest on my chest. I felt his eyes on my mouth, on my chest, moving down the rest of my body. When his hand started to move, I grabbed it.
What was I doing? Had I lost my mind? I was playing with fire. And I kind of loved it.
“Eric.” The look in his eyes was so familiar. It said kiss me, take me somewhere private and do what you want with me. “Eric,” he said again, and it meant please.
I stepped back, putting space between us so I could think. “Jake. It's not that easy.” It wasn’t, as much as I wanted it to be. I wanted to slip back into his arms like sliding beneath a favorite blanket. It would be warm and safe and fit me perfectly. But when he’d run away all those years ago, it had nearly killed me. If I let him back into my life and he left again, I didn’t know if I could survive that.
He let his hands drop to his sides. “No. I guess it wouldn’t be.” He took another step forward, his tongue darting out to lick his lip quickly as his gaze dropped to my mouth again.
“Jake,” I said warningly, holding out a hand to stop him from moving closer. He held up his hands in surrender and stepped back to lean against the sink again.
I shook my head. “I tried to find you, you know, but I couldn’t.”
“I changed my name,” Jake said lightly.
“Of course, you did.”
“I had to,” he continued. “Security reasons.”
“Security reasons?” Disbelief dripped from my lips. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Smart man.”
“So who should I have been looking for?” I asked.
“Carson Grieves,” he answered.
My eyebrows rose. “Carson Grieves? Really? Kind of pretentious, don’t you think? Don’t answer that. So how come you’re here. Aren’t you worried about the mob or whatever finding you? Are you even supposed to be in La Crosse?” I hoped my sarcasm was coming across.
He waved my concern away. “I’m not using that name here.”
“So it is dangerous for you to be here.”
He made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. His shrug wasn’t quite an answer. He took a step towards me, suddenly serious. “Eric, I need to know one thing. Please. Before anything else.”
“Of course,” I said automatically. The way he was searching my eyes was disconcerting. What now?”
“If you tell me what we had all those years ago meant nothing to you, that it was just some kind of summer fling, I’ll walk away right now. I’ll leave you alone forever.” His voice rang with sincerity. It cost him a lot to say it, but I could tell he meant it.
My hands reached for him without conscious thought. Never see him again? I couldn’t imagine it now that I’d seen him in the flesh again. That didn’t mean I was ready to jump back into something. “You know it meant something. Fuck, Jake. It meant everything. But when you left like you did…” I shook my head and looked away, closing my eyes as the old pain flared up bright and new. “It hurt. Hurt a lot.”
“I didn’t run away,” he said, voice tight. “Bob kicked me out. And when I came back, well, it looked like you had moved on quite easily. That hurt, too.”
I’d been terrified back then. Lost. Trying to keep my