Page 6 of You've Got Male (Rom-Com Reboot)

Austin cameinto the coffee shop while I was there again.

He scowled as soon as he saw me on Rosita’s bench with my breakfast bagel. For some sick reason, my blood heated at the sight.

I liked needling him. Playfully. Getting hard for the guy was taking it a bit far. I was pretty sure he was straight—or at least, anti-Chase.

I still rose and wandered over to him while he waited on his order from Rosita because apparently I was a boy who liked to pull pigtails.

“Good morning!” I said brightly.

Austin grunted and lifted his phone into his eyeline. But I wouldn’t let him ignore me.

“Tell me, is it a good day for record sales? How do you tell something like that? I’m taking notes because I’m a spy.”

“Not a very good one.”

“What?”

Austin turned his phone toward me, and my gaze caught on the news blog with the headline: Is the big bad Fox preying on indie business? There was a photo of my store with the sign Opening Soon in front of it.

“Son of a—” I made a grab for his phone, but he tucked it into his pocket.

“Look it up yourself. Shouldn’t be hard. It’s already being shared all over Facebook.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Are you behind this?”

He shrugged. “Like I said, you’re not a very good spy.”

My heart sank. I’d thought our rivalry was friendly. I’d thought Austin was more bark than bite. I’d been sure we’d find a way to co-exist in peace.

I was wrong.

My throat grew tight, straining my voice. “I was never trying to be a spy. I like you, Austin.”

He dropped his gaze and shifted. Guilty conscience? Or merely uncomfortable at being called out?

“You like me so much you’re going to put me out of business,” he said, gaze rising to meet mine, defiant now. “But I’m not going down easy.”

“I don’t want you to go down at all.” I paused. “Well, in a business sense. But on a more intimate level…”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m not a homophobe, so you can flirt all you want, Chase. I’m not going to run scared.”

Well, in that case…

I let my gaze drift down his body, taking in the T-shirt that clung to broad shoulders and a narrow torso, the ripped jeans that encased slim but long-as-fuck legs. Yum. He was the emo boy of my teenage fantasies.

“You’re hot, Austin,” I said. “But this was a dick move.”

His face reddened. “W-well, you have a dick too.”

“I noticed. Not what I meant.”

He opened his mouth then closed it again, at a loss for words.

So, I’d flustered him. That was satisfying.

But it didn’t fix the PR nightmare he’d thrust me into. And not just me, but the whole Fox brand. There would be no stopping Gigi now. She’d come here to oversee the situation, making the predator narrative more true than I’d like. Only I’d be the prey, not indie business.

“Stop playing the victim,” I said. “If you want to stay in business, then come up with a way to bring in customers. Don’t turn me into the monster. I’m just a guy trying to keep his family business thriving. We’re really not so different.”

I threw my half-finished sandwich into the trash, no longer hungry, and stormed out the door.

I spent the rest of the day fielding calls from my grandmother, our lawyers, our PR manager, and several mid-level business execs, getting a thorough coaching in what I should say to the media.

Those calls were flooding in, as well. Too bad they hadn’t tried to get my side of the story before printing that first one. Technically, it had been an opinion column in a business blog, so apparently, that made it okay to speculate about the consequences Fox Entertainment Zone would wreak on the Union Heights neighborhood and especially the indie record store owned by Austin Kelly.

Fox was far from the first chain business to move into the neighborhood, though. A fact they hadn’t mentioned until several paragraphs in, and certainly not in the headline. The neighborhood had been shifting dynamics for a while. Understandably, not everyone was thrilled about it.

With redevelopment, many indie business owners had been pushed out. But that wasn’t what I had done. I’d merely filled an empty spot in an old building. I was not the enemy Austin thought I was. If anything, Fox Entertainment could bring more business to this block, more customers who’d venture across to Austin’s store. I just had to figure out how to make him see it that way.

On the plus side, I’d learned a little more about Austin from the article. He’d inherited the store from his great-uncle, who was a queer man who’d helped shape this district. He’d run his store for fifty years, somehow surviving even the decades when no one was interested in vinyl by selling CDs, collectibles, and other merchandise.

Austin’s final quote in the story made my gut clench.

“I want to uphold my great-uncle’s legacy. Closing the store would break my heart.”

That didn’t have to be the outcome of our grand opening, did it? I didn’t want that.

When I got home, I walked and fed Bennie, but there was a churning in my stomach, an itch to my skin that just wouldn’t quit. I skipped dinner, picked up my phone, and messaged the only person who would understand.

Wash972:

Sometimes I hate making the hard choices for my business.

ShopGuy24:

Me too. I took your advice. Got tough on a rival.

Wash972:

How did it go?

ShopGuy24:

Honestly? I thought it’d feel better than it did. Maybe I’m too nice.

Wash972:

There’s nothing wrong with being nice.

ShopGuy24:

I thought nice guys finished last?

Wash972:

Not with me ;)

ShopGuy24:

I knew there was a reason I liked you.

I smiled at his response, but there was an odd parallel to his life and mine. We both had a business rivalry. He’d taken my advice and gotten tough, just like Austin had—

I sat up, heart skipping. Could it be?

Surely not. There were millions of people in the Seattle metro area. What were the odds I’d befriend someone running a business on the same block? It had to be a coincidence.

Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the guy on the other end of this screen might be Austin.

I could simply ask. That’d be the easy solution. But what then?

If he was Austin, I’d lose the only friendly voice keeping me sane. Maybe it was better that I didn’t know.

We’d gone into this friendship anonymously for a reason. No expectations, no pressure.

And fuck knew I needed that right now.