Page 6 of Absolutely Pucked (Punk as Puck #3)

CHAPTER

FOUR

KILLIAN

If Ford had the faintest hint of an idea about who I was, my dick most certainly wouldn’t have been intact.

Neither would my balls. It was bad enough I’d recognized him from the apartment complex where I’d been parking my car while I tried to find the courage to talk to my brother.

I’d seen him coming and going. I’d caught him peering into my car, trying to see past the sheets I’d put up for privacy.

He’d even called out a few times to see if anyone would answer. I stayed silent, and eventually, he left it alone. So finding him at the club, and the offer he made, it was impossible to turn him down. I just hadn’t realized the mistake I was making.

It took all of a single conversation to realize Ford and Tucker knew each other.

And it took all of my self-control not to panic and run.

I wanted to be close to my brother. I wanted to know the man he had become—the person who had been shaped by all of his trauma and experience.

I’d gotten a glimpse of it the first day in Vegas when he showed up. I could see the changes in him.

He was happy for maybe the first time in our lives.

There was an anger in me at seeing Tucker so content while I was absolutely wallowing in misery, and it had taken until he was gone to realize that I wasn’t actually angry with him.

I was jealous. I’d picked up the pieces of the life he’d trashed with his bad decisions and his inability to ask for help, yet somehow, I was miserable, and he was smiling.

I hated him for it.

And I hated myself because I’d known even then—even before Delia had shown her ass and confessed her sins—that something wasn’t right. My twin intuition had always told me there was more to her sob story of Tucker telling her he never loved her and breaking up with her.

But she’d seemed so fucking heartbroken, and he’d been so furious at his circumstances that it was easy to believe her version of the truth.

And that had always been my downfall.

Tucker had always called me the golden boy of the family, but he had no idea how hard I worked for what I had. Everything had come to him so easily. Talent, skill, friends, charm. His joy was infectious. He laughed easily and loved hard.

I was the awkward and nerdy dweeb, and even though we shared the same face, everyone who ever approached me had used me as a way to get into his inner circle. Not that he would have trusted my opinion on who was cool and who wasn’t.

Tucker had spent all four years of high school either emotionally tormenting me or letting his friends do it. The more I tried to win his attention and affection, the more he seemed to enjoy making me pay for it.

We hadn’t been friends. We hadn’t been anything except two unfortunate souls who’d once shared a womb. Who’d once stood side by side against our shitty parents. But it hadn’t lasted. By middle school, he resented me. By high school, he hated me.

I was lost, he was found, and I had no idea how to put the pieces back together to be the brothers we should have been.

It was my fault for never telling him all this, but he’d been such an angry, resentful dickhead back then. If I’d opened my mouth, he would have laughed at me. Or hit me. Either one had become a regular occurrence by the time we reached college.

I felt like an ass for caring.

I felt like an ass for following him to the party that night and trying to stop him from making bad decisions.

And I felt like an ass for not saying fuck it and forcing him to get into my car. I saw him take the pills. I saw him drinking. I had no idea my choice to let him live with the consequences of his decisions would end up the way it did.

If I’d done it, he’d probably still hate me to this day, but at least he’d hate me from his spot on an NHL team.

But God, that didn’t matter, did it? Because he was happier now than I could ever be. I had no idea what happened to him after Vegas, but heading to Turenne to talk to him had been yet another one of my giant mistakes .

The moment I set eyes on him, I knew all the dirt I’d dug up—all the revelations I’d had about Delia—wouldn’t matter to him.

Why would he give a shit about my pain—about his past—when his future was so bright?

I caught a single glimpse of the man on his arm and then the look on Tucker’s face, and I knew.

Whatever I had to say was pointless for him. It wouldn’t change the past, and it wouldn’t change his future. I’d made my bed full of nails, and now it was time to lie in it.

Going to the bar to spend the last fifteen bucks I had to my name was the desperate act of a tired man. Heading up to that room with the stranger I recognized for a plate of fried food and a beer was the pathetic act of a man who didn’t know where his life was going.

And then, giving in to the quiet desires I’d spent my life holding back was the act of a man who had nothing else to lose.

I was still the monster because it didn’t take me long to realize the company Ford kept. Or, at least, I had a pretty damn good idea who his friends were. And Ford was entirely ignorant of the fact that he was sleeping with the enemy.

But I couldn’t leave. As much as I told myself to go, I was stuck in his orbit.

With his gorgeous eyes, perfect hands, and coarse hair tied in a bun at the back of his head, he had me enraptured.

He laughed easily and cared too much about some loser who hadn’t showered in three days and had no idea where he was going to go after this.

How could I not want to be with him, even for a single, stolen night ?

I had no idea how close he and Tucker were, but the rough hockey calluses on his palms that matched the ones Tucker always had told me everything. When he realized my face was familiar, I held my breath, expecting him to figure it out.

But he never did.

So I was selfish and took the moment, and now I was trying to sneak out without waking him.

“Put it in six. No. Stop it, Nugget.”

I froze halfway to the door, panic surging before I realized that Ford was talking in his sleep.

My heart was still throbbing in my chest from the way he’d asked me to hold him and from the trust it must have taken for him to fall asleep in my arms. But he’d asked, and I found it impossible to tell him no.

Minutes after wrapping my arms around him, he’d gone boneless. I sat there for long, indulgent moments just feeling the weight of him against my chest, thinking about what my life might have been like if I’d made just one different choice.

But I hadn’t. I’d done what I’d done, which meant Ford wasn’t for me. I wasn’t ready to even consider happiness because there had been so little I’d done to earn it. The one thing I was good at was self-flagellation, and this was my moment. My time.

My fucking era.

It took careful maneuvering to get Ford rolled onto the couch, and the fact that he hadn’t woken up when his body collapsed against the cushions was telling.

The man had looked exhausted when he walked up to me at the bar, and as enthusiastic as he’d been while sitting on my lap and taking my dick, there was something bone-tired about him.

I understood that more than I wanted to admit.

Glancing back at him now, I could see the side of his profile. He looked sweet—which was something I think probably fooled a lot of people. There was a lingering darkness inside him that only people like me could relate to.

It took everything in me not to turn around and walk back to him and just…stay. Instead, I made sure his prosthetic was in easy reach, and then I turned the handle of the creaking door and slipped out.

Holding my breath for thirty seconds, I waited. If the universe wanted this for me, he’d wake up and chase after me. I counted in my head, my eyes closed, ears strained for any sound on the floor.

But there was nothing.

Like I’d said before, I hadn’t earned even a scrap of happiness, and there was a damn long way for me to go until I did.

Taking the stairs down two at a time, I made my way to the bar and saw the bartender leaning against the counter. They met my gaze, and a single brow lifted.

“Is this a quiet escape, or did you two need anything else?”

The tips of my ears burned hotly with my shame, but I had to do this. It was better for Ford if I did. He’d never forgive me if he found out who I was, but worse, he’d never forgive himself, and I was not going to lay that guilt on his shoulders.

“Is there anything I need to do to settle the tab?”

The bartender looked me up and down, then sighed and reached into their pocket and pulled out a small stack of cash. “You’re not sticking around, are you?”

I blinked at them. “Um. No.”

They slid the cash toward me, and I couldn’t help but stare at it like it was venomous and poised to strike. “Take it,” they said after a long beat.

“Uh, yeah. No. I can’t do that.”

They pushed the cash closer until it touched my elbow. “I’ve been where you are. I was raised by my granny, and when I came out as trans, she booted my ass to the curb. I was sixteen. It took me years to get on my feet.”

“That doesn’t mean you should help me.”

They took me in, a slow up-and-down gaze that felt almost physical. “I think that’s exactly what it means. You have some idea of where you’re going?”

I stared at the cash, and my stomach twisted. It was enough for gas and some food to get me a few hundred miles north. I had a friend—not a good friend, but one of the few willing to take me in until I figured out what the fuck I was doing.

“I’m going to come pay you back,” I told them.

They laughed and rolled their eyes. “Maybe you will. Maybe I’ll never see you again.” They went quiet, not watching as I slipped the twenties into my pocket with a shaking hand. “What do you want me to tell that pretty boy when he comes downstairs asking for you?”

My heart ached, and I shook my head. “He’s not going to ask for me.”

Their head cocked to the side. “Hmm. You’ll be back.”