On a Roll by Beth Bolden (best historical biographies TXT) 📕

Milo. He didn’t know that Sean was never going to give in.

Gabriel would just have to figure out a way to reconcile himself to a new name, or the old one.

“Speak of the devil,” Tate said, gathering together his trash and standing to dump it into the bin a few feet away. “Looks like Gabe’s coming over this way.”

Sean squinted against the bright sun, wishing he’d brought his sunglasses, but Tate was right, Gabriel was on his way over, a determined expression on his handsome face.

“I’ll let you two . . . well”—Tate paused—“do whatever it is you two do together.”

Sean opened his mouth to argue, but snapped it shut again. “See you later,” he finally said. They’d been stupid enough to be all over each other at the party; it was inevitable they were going to get some shit for hooking up.

Maybe they should just own it.

Gabriel wandered over, all casual, like he hadn’t been clearly walking this direction for the last sixty seconds.

“Hey,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Sean said.

Gabriel shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Busy day,” he said. “You finally get a break?”

It was almost three now. Gabe was right, it had been a crazy day, if he was only just eating lunch mid-afternoon.

“Yeah,” Sean said. “Lunch was busy for you guys, too?”

Gabriel nodded. “Super busy.”

You should just ask him now. It’d be so easy. Just say: hey, do you want to come over after work and fuck me?

They should be easy to say. He knew Gabriel wanted him. They’d already had a really good time together once. They’d clearly left it open-ended—like it could happen again.

Who was he kidding? They both desperately wanted it to happen again. That was why Gabriel was over here, eying him like there was something he wanted to say—needed to say—but couldn’t quite spit it out. And Sean? Well, he was just as pathetic. If Gabriel hadn’t come over, he’d have gone over to Gabe’s truck after his break and done just about the same goddamn thing.

“Are you busy later?” Gabriel finally asked.

“Like this afternoon?” Sean wondered.

“No,” Gabriel said, and he shoved his hands into his pockets. “Like way later. Like after we close, later.”

“Oh.” Duh. “Well, yeah, I’m free.” Gabriel had come part of the way, Sean reasoned, he could at least go the rest. “Did you want to come over again?”

“Yeah, I would,” Gabriel said, a sudden smile breaking across his face. “That would be great.”

Sean found himself smiling right back, so wide his face literally hurt. “Yeah, it really would.”

“Alright. So . . . meet you after close?” Gabriel said hopefully.

“Yeah, sounds good,” Sean said, rising and throwing away his mostly uneaten salad. He hated to waste food, but between the midday heat and the sudden excitement pumping through his veins, he wasn’t hungry at all.

Well, that wasn’t quite true, Sean thought as he and Gabriel just stared at each other. Like neither of them knew quite what to say. He was hungry. Just not for food.

“Alright, I should get back to the truck; give Ren a break,” Gabriel said, but didn’t move.

“Yeah,” Sean said. Not moving either. “I should re-open.”

The air between them was practically crackling with the tension—it was somewhat similar to how they’d always been, Sean realized, but different now too. Because he knew how Gabriel tasted and he smelled and the noises he made when he came.

Everything between them, which had always felt so impersonal before, felt intensely personal now.

Gabriel knew about Milo. He’d told Sean about his family and a little about his insecurities.

Nothing, Sean realized, was going to be the same after that.

And suddenly, he really did not know what they were going to do about the name. He couldn’t change it, but knowing what he did now, about Gabriel and his family, could he legitimately ask him, even as a friend, to change it back?

He didn’t know.

Maybe Tate had the right idea after all, and they should both change it.

But that tiny sore spot inside of Sean, the one that still occasionally thought that Milo might pop his head through the door and shoot Sean that big smile of his, the one that he continued to remember and to grieve, it rebelled. He couldn’t give in; if he did, what kind of a person would that make him?

“Maybe you could make me one of those quesadillas again,” Gabriel said hopefully.

“I’d love to,” Sean said, and discovered he meant it.

Wasn’t that weird? He could have sex with Gabriel and make him a quesadilla and it was fine, but the thought of changing the food truck’s name made him panic.

“Good.” Gabriel still hadn’t walked away.

Sean really needed to re-open his truck, though if he was a few minutes late, who would know? Maybe he could sneak Gabriel back there for a quick make-out session. Just something to ease the tension a bit.

But would it? He didn’t really think it would. Kissing Gabe would only make him want him more.

“I . . .” Sean hesitated. “I guess I’ll see you later?”

“Yeah,” Gabriel said.

There was finally nothing left to do but to turn and walk back to his truck. And Sean was left feeling the whole time that he’d just left something behind. He just couldn’t figure out what it was.

———

The afternoon and evening both crawled and sped by, all at the same time. It was just as busy for the dinner rush as lunch had been, and even though Sean was busy, taking orders, assembling wraps, and feeding hungry people, he found for the first time in a long time that he couldn’t lose himself in his work.

Instead, he was thinking about what was going to happen when he flipped his sign from Open to Closed and he met up with Gabriel.

What would they do?

The thoughts kept racing through Sean’s head, until he was overwhelmed by the possibilities.

Would he let Gabriel take control again and let him make the decisions about how things would unfold the moment they walked into