bad idea from the start, and look where he ended up. Brokenhearted and bereft, like a bad country song. All he needed was a train whistle to make it official.
Rafael might not be the one for forever, but he was maybe the one for right now. Justin could dance with him, go out on a few dates. Maybe wind down the nights in Rafael’s arms, get his hands on the body beneath Rafael’s bodysuit. God knew Rafael wanted to get inside his.
Rafael beamed and dropped a quick kiss to Justin’s cheek. “Something casual, I presume? I get the feeling you don’t want to rush.”
That was another thing Rafael was: perceptive. He’d already dropped hints that he knew Justin was getting over someone, and he hadn’t even used that cheesy line about getting under someone else. “Casual would be great.”
“Daisy Lane? Meet there tomorrow at… nine p.m.?”
“It’s a date.”
Rafael smiled again, kissed Justin’s cheek as he hugged him goodbye, and headed for his own car. He fished his keys out of his duffel as he went, calling back to Justin, “You danced your ass off tonight, hon. You were the sexiest mofo in there. Hands down.”
He laughed, watching Rafael climb into his BMW as he unlocked his own car. He dumped his duffel in the back seat, then groaned as he caught sight of the paper shoved beneath his windshield wiper. Some Jesus group, probably, taking advantage of a full parking lot to push their pamphlets. He grabbed it, balled it up—
Something fell and hit his foot.
Lavender.
He blinked. Stared at the single cut stem on the asphalt, then at the half-crumpled paper in his hand.
It wasn’t a religious pamphlet. It was tonight’s program. His performance, his solo, had been circled—and, scrawled in a messy, sideways slant, someone had written Tu étais magnifique.
Someone. There was only one person on earth who spoke French and knew what a sprig of lavender meant to Justin.
He picked the lavender off the ground and held the blooms beneath his nose before sliding them down to his lips.
Justin closed his eyes as he sank to his ass, slumping against his car door.
Chapter Thirteen
Friday nights, Wes worked a double shift at Daisy Lane, stocking and helping with the trash, the extra crush of dishes, and any other hands-on work in the kitchen and the back of the house. Usually he was hauling empty bottles all night long, or peeling more potatoes for the homemade fries, or taking trash out to the dumpster again and again and again. It was repetitive, but it was work, and he liked being busy. More than that, he liked the anonymity of it. Other than the cooks and Miguel, he didn’t speak to anyone, and everyone ignored him. For one night a week, he wasn’t the mythical Wes Van de Hoek. He was just a dude hauling trash.
Daisy Lane picked up around eight and was a madhouse until midnight, then had a late-night surge around two a.m. Wes was on his feet from seven p.m. on, hauling, helping, throwing, peeling, refilling, but just after ten that night, Miguel passed him a beer and told him to take a break and not come back until he was done. Wes grinned and headed out to the alley, sipping the cold, crisp brew.
The back deck of the restaurant had been added on in stages, first one level, and then another, and then another, daisy-chaining outward and winding through the trees that made the neighborhood so quiet and peaceful. From the alley, Wes could hear the hum and buzz of conversations from the decks above his head. He sat on the steps and leaned back, balancing on his elbows as the conversations played around him.
He heard Justin’s laugh first. His loud, wonderful laugh, the one that had run down Wes’s spine and fired up every one of his nerves in Paris. The laugh they’d been shushed for at the Museum of Modern Art. The laugh he heard in his dreams almost every night. He knew that laugh.
Wes popped up. He could pick out Justin’s voice—every fifth word, it seemed. What was Justin doing here?
Wes abandoned his half-finished beer and threaded his way through the kitchen, pushed into the dining room, and slipped out to the back deck. He hovered at the railing outside, near the bussers’ dish dump, and scanned the tables.
The place was packed. A hundred conversations hit him, rolling like thunder from tables of six, ten, even twelve. Quieter conversations came from tables of two,