Page 72 of The Aster Valley Collection, Vol. 1

SAM

On the drive back to Rockley Lodge, I tried my best to feel regret over kissing Truman. It wasn’t fair to lead him on when I was simply passing through Aster Valley. He didn’t seem like the casual hookup kind of guy, and I was the king of casual connections.

But, god. Those full lips, that tight little body… the way his nose wrinkled when his glasses slipped down a little. The man was irresistible.

I’d noticed the broken gate again when pulling out of his driveway and had made a mental note to grab some supplies and come over early enough tomorrow to fix it before dinner. If Truman had people in town who didn’t like him, he needed better security than he had now.

I wondered idly how the security was at his shop.

Mikey had pointed it out to me earlier on our drive through town.

The Honeyed Lemon was in a two-story historic brick building on the end of a string of similar buildings that made up part of the main drag of the little town of Aster Valley.

Several of them had been abandoned somewhere along the way, but many of them had newish, seemingly thriving boutiques and restaurants in them.

It was nice to see the town doing fairly well even without the ski resort running.

When I got back to the lodge, it was suspiciously silent until I heard enthusiastic sex sounds coming from the direction of the kitchen. I quickly turned on my heel and went right back out the front door, deciding a nice nature walk would do me some good before dinner.

It was hard not to be, well… hard … after hearing that.

Tiller was a professional NFL wide receiver with a killer body, and Mikey was small and flexible.

Even though I had no real-life interest in sleeping with either man, it was hard not to imagine how hot the two of them would be together.

Tiller’s hands were multimillion-dollar assets, and I was fairly sure they were just as talented on my best friend’s body as they were on the football field.

Mikey always got a dreamy look on his face when talking about Tiller’s hands, and it was enough to set my imagination in motion.

I forgot the walk and threw myself down in one of the wooden rocking chairs on the front porch instead.

The afternoon light was turning that magical golden color that signaled my favorite time of day.

I propped my feet on the porch railing and tried to relax and enjoy the moment with a few deep breaths.

There was a fresh herbal smell coming from something nearby, and I wondered if Truman would be able to identify it with only a sniff. Probably.

And he’d lean over to sniff the mystery plant which would stick that sexy ass up in the air again.

It hadn’t been that long since I’d hooked up with someone, but for some reason, Truman Sweet’s slim form was doing it for me.

It had stuck to my brain cells like a very sexy Velcro strip, and I was having trouble plucking it off.

I forced myself to remember I was just passing through.

Work had been hectic lately, and the situation with my sister had done a number on my stress level.

All I had was my reputation as a hard worker and a contractor who came in on time and under budget.

I didn’t have a lot of capital. I had business loans that I was constantly juggling between sending out invoices and getting paid.

My profits either went into the business or went to my mom and sisters.

I couldn’t keep going like this. Something had to give.

Even though I knew I deserved a vacation, waves of guilt still came over me when I stopped to think about it too much. What if one of my clients had a catastrophe? What if one of my family members needed me?

But that was part of the problem. I’d spent the last several years dropping everything to either help my family or put out fires at work, and I’d spent even more years than that trying to protect my family from danger.

Was that why I was attracted to Truman? Because he needed someone to rescue him?

I pushed the porch rail with one boot to start the chair rocking. No. No, that wasn’t why I wanted him. I didn’t want to rescue him. I wanted to fuck him. There was a difference.

And then I was back to picturing Truman bent over a garden plant in shredded shorts.

There was no telling how long I sat out there trying not to jack off to thoughts of Truman’s body and sweet blushes.

I may have even dozed off a little bit, but eventually Mikey texted to ask where I was, and the buzz of my phone startled me fully awake.

The air was much cooler, and the light was fading.

I made my way into the house and lifted a knowing brow at him. “Feeling better?”

Tiller snorted from inside the fridge where he was most likely doing recon to find out what Mikey had in store for us tonight.

Mikey nodded his head with enthusiastic exaggeration. “Soo much better. Thanks for asking. You should try it.”

“Getting dicked down in the kitchen?”

He continued the nod but added a maniacal grin. It was Tiller who had the decency to blush. “How’d it go at Truman’s?”

I told them about my visit, leaving out the part where I’d attacked his face with my lips.

I also left out the part where I’d imagined bending him over his butcher-block kitchen island and sinking into his hot body.

It galled me that my friends were living my fantasy while I’d had to settle for blue balls on the porch.

Tiller handed me a beer. “So, he’s going to file a witness report for your bike?”

I took a deep sip of the crisp pale ale and shook my head as I swallowed. “No. I told him it wasn’t necessary.”

Mikey looked relieved. “Good. Because there’s no telling what Patrick Stanner would do if Truman got him in trouble. The man’s unstable, and his brother’s just as bad.”

Mikey got to work on dinner, moving around his kitchen with a kind of natural rhythm and grace he’d always had when cooking. I loved to watch him work. Watching someone do one of their favorite things was like getting a special glimpse into their true self.

“Why do they have it out for him?” I asked. “Was their family that affected by the ski resort closure?”

Tiller poured some nuts and pretzels into a little bowl and slid it over to me like a bartender. I knew him well enough to see this for the little deception it was, but I kept my mouth shut. Mikey did not.

“You eat those pretzels and I’m not letting you have dessert,” he said calmly to Tiller.

Tiller blinked at him with faux innocence. “What? They’re for our guest.”

Mikey’s eyes narrowed. “Then it won’t be a problem for you not to eat them.”

“It’s the off-season.” Tiller’s voice bordered on whiny. “I can have pretzels.”

“Yes, you could have. If you hadn’t eaten half a pan of brownies for breakfast. And don’t lie to me and tell me it was Sam, because I know his body is a temple.” He shot me a wink.

The truth was, I’d ignored the brownies in favor of the leftover mousse. Being here with Mikey’s cooking reminded me how much I’d missed hanging out at their house back in Houston.

“I think it was Sam,” Tiller said, shooting me a look of false disappointment. “He’s always making bad choices, aren’t you, buddy?”

I laughed before taking another sip of my beer.

Even though Mikey was no longer Tiller’s professional nutritionist, he still managed Tiller’s eating plan to help keep him in top training shape.

Tiller secretly loved it. He loved having someone who cared about his health and paid attention to him in that way.

In return, Tiller looked out for Mikey and made sure he didn’t run himself ragged with too many commitments cooking for others.

They made a good team.

“Can we get back to Truman and the Stanners, please?” I asked.

Mikey nodded and proceeded to explain that Gene Stanner, Patrick’s father, had managed all of the lift operations and maintenance for the resort.

As it was a highly specialized position, maybe he had a hard time replacing the lost job.

But in Colorado, there would be several places to at least get similar work.

It was hard to believe anyone could place that kind of long-term blame on a child.

Why hold a grudge like that for this long?

It didn’t make much sense to me, but then again, I was an outsider.

I didn’t really know what the closing of the resort had done to the people of Aster Valley.

“What’s your timeline for opening the resort?” I asked once we sat down to dinner. I wondered if their plan would make a difference to people like Gene Stanner, assuming he got his drinking under control of course. “You said you were going to aim to get it up and running in three or four years?”

Tiller and Mikey exchanged a glance before focusing back on me.

“That’s one of the things we wanted to talk to you about,” Tiller began.

“Originally we didn’t want to even consider undertaking this project fully while I was still under contract with the league.

But if we had someone here permanently overseeing the project who we could trust… ”

Mikey jumped in. “And, just to be clear, that would be you .”

I refrained from reminding them I ran a business in Houston. My family was in Houston. Besides, I’d never even skied before.

Tiller continued. “Then we’d want to go ahead and get started right away. I told you about that sports awards event we went to in Palm Springs, but what you may not know is that Mikey and I met several Olympian skiers there. One of them was Rory Pearson. Do you know him?”

I pictured the rugged alpine superstar who I knew more from men’s underwear ads than his actual career achievements. Even now that he was retired from skiing competitively, the man had a body that wouldn’t quit. “Yeah, of course I know him,” I said with a laugh.

“Right?” Mikey asked with a dreamy look on his face. “And to think there was a time I tried to swear off having feelings for pro athletes.”