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  “I sent you the YouTube video link. You’ll be fine. You’ve learned how to do far more complex things with far less guidance. I have faith in you.”

  “And once your event gets going,” the clerk said, “and things have loosened up, just take the tie off and unbutton the top one or two buttons.”

  “I might do that anyway.” He adjusted the bowtie, tugging on the ends. They’d worked with him, made him do it three times, and he still wasn’t sure he’d remember how.

  It made him uncomfortable to wear regular ties, anyway, and this was even more so.

  Because it reminded him too damn much of something else.

  Someone else.

  Of the sensation of a hand closing around the front of his throat, or the way a certain someone sometimes tied a rope around his neck.

  Of a life he couldn’t have.

  Of dreams shattered, and chasing a ghost.

  He untied the knot and pulled it off, not wanting to be over-washed by memories right here, in front of others.

  “I guess we’re good then,” he said as he started unbuttoning the shirt. “Is this something I’d be able to wear to other formal events?”

  “Sure,” the clerk said. “Unless it’s something that specifically says white tie and tails. This is a very popular style of jacket, very classy and stylish, but not one that will go out of fashion anytime soon.”

  “Then I guess I’ll go ahead and buy it, instead of renting it. And the shoes. And the extra shirt.” He didn’t want to know how much they cost because it’d knot his stomach. If it was too expensive, Avery would have already spoken up and put the kibosh on it.

  “I’ll ring it up for you.”

  “Here,” Avery said, going for her purse. “Put it on the business card.” She handed it to the clerk, who left the fitting area to ring it up. “We’ll call it a business expense, since, technically, it is. I know I damn sure won’t be able to get you into it for anything short of one of my kids’ weddings, if it’s not work-related.”

  Avery walked over to him and took the bowtie from him while he shrugged off the jacket. “Too bad you don’t have a plus-one to take, hon.”

  “Ausar didn’t say I could bring someone.”

  “Did you even ask?” She took the jacket from him and hung it up.

  “No, because I don’t have anyone to take with me, anyway.” He passed her the shirt and pulled his own T-shirt back on. “I’m not going to subject someone I’m just friends with to this. I’m going to be a nervous fucking wreck, anyway. I’d rather not have someone with me thinking they have to try to fix things for me. I’ll be okay.”

  She gave him what he thought of as her “mom” look. “You haven’t tried to date since Hooper. What was wrong with him, anyway? He was cute, smart, and funny.”

  “He’s okay, but not—”

  Dominant. A sadist. Toppy enough.

  “—really my type for more than just friends.” He toed off the shoes and pulled the socks off.

  “Well, after the show airs, you’ll likely have women falling out of your asshole. Good luck wading through them to find a cute guy.” She grinned as he shot her an irritated look. “What? Pun totally intended, babe.”

  “I’d rather focus on work for now. The show is going to bring a huge influx of business for us, and there’s the shop renovation, too.” He stepped back into the changing room to remove the slacks and don his shorts. She took the slacks from him when he emerged.

  “All work and no play makes Linc a real bastard when he gets cranky,” she said. “Like, an I want to smack you around kind of cranky asshole.”

  If only she knew.

  That was one thing about himself Avery didn’t know, though. Despite her being his best friend, that was still something he’d never confided to her. “I’ll try not to be a cranky asshole. I was thinking about hitting Croom before it gets too dark.”

  Her eyes widened. “Tonight?” Disbelief filled her tone.

  “Yeah.”

  “Uh, no. I’m going to overrule you, honey. You need to get on the road to Miami.”

  “It’ll only take me a few hours to drive there. I can take an hour to ride over to the park.”

  “Yeah, and with traffic and stuff, it’ll be a pain through Tampa and down in Miami. Besides, last thing I need is to get a phone call from county EMS asking to meet you at the hospital tonight because you broke something riding your damned dirt bike in that fucking park. No.”

  “You just hate the park.”

  “Damn right I do.” She shuddered. “That house creeps me the fuck out. Especially after what happened there a couple of years ago.”

  “I love riding in there. Hey, if it wasn’t for that park, I might never have ended up in Brooksville, and we’d never have met.” He smiled. “Admit it—life’s more interesting with me in it.”

  She poked his shoulder. “That’s true, but there’s also an ancient Chinese curse that goes something like, ‘May you live in interesting times.’”

  “Then I guess that’s come true,” he said. “Nothing more interesting than being picked to have a TV show made about your work, right?” He grinned.

  She poked him again. “Asshole.” She finished tucking everything into the garment bag they were giving him, too, and zipped it up. Then she handed it to him. “There. It better not leave your damn truck before you get to Miami. I don’t want to hear some bullshit that you forgot it here. Remember—there will be pictures. I see pics of you wearing jeans, or even khakis, I will beat you in a bad way when you get back.”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  The clerk returned with a clipboard, the card, and a receipt for Avery to sign. Lincoln couldn’t do this without Avery, and he damn well knew it.

  He hadn’t been able to pay her very well, at first, but he’d gone out of his way to fix up the office, baby-proof it, so she could bring her two young kids to work with her every day. That’d not only saved her and her husband a huge chunk of change every month, it’d allowed them to get ahead on their bills and buy a home. The whole reason she’d come to work for Lincoln was to help pay for their daycare, because the part-time job she’d had working at a convenience store in the evenings had her husband worried about her safety, and they couldn’t afford for her not to work.

  Now, her kids had both started elementary school, and Lincoln was able to pay her more money because of their increased business. It was a win all around. Plus he counted Tom, Avery’s husband, as another good friend.

  Once they were in his truck and heading back to the shop, she spoke her mind. “Maybe you’ll meet someone at the party you can get your freak on with.”

  He sighed. “This is a work thing. I don’t care that it’s a cocktail party, I’ll be nervous enough as it is. I don’t need to add fumbling idiot to my list of personal failings.”

  “Just don’t get shit-faced.”

  “Oh, I’m not even going to drink. I’m sticking to soda or tea.”

  “Excellent.” She tipped her head as she looked at him. “Do you have any idea how proud of you we all are?”

  Heat entered his cheeks. “Why?”

  “You. This. Everything. You’re talented, you’re humble, and you’re a genuinely nice guy. We enjoy working for you. All of us do. And it’s only going to get bigger and better from here on out.”

  Having that kind of faith placed in him vaguely terrified him. “I hope I don’t fuck this up,” he said.

  “You won’t. Just be yourself. Lincoln Kirk is a great guy, and I’m proud to be his friend. There’s no need to create some sort of fake persona. Just do you.” She reached across the seat and poked him in the arm. “And do not go riding tonight. Get moving and go to Miami. Settle into your room tonight, have a drink or two, walk on the beach. Tomorrow night, you’re going to kill it, and then the rest of your life starts.”

  He sighed. “I wish I felt a fraction as confident as you do.”

  * * * *

  Ninety minutes later, Lincoln was heading south o
n I-75.

  With the garment bag in the backseat of his truck.

  He hadn’t taken a road trip like this in a while, and despite his nerves, he had to admit this portion of the weekend would be welcomed. He could zone out, let his mind drift, and think about his next pet project.

  The network producer wanted some sort of long-term project for each season that they would follow along with, which actually wasn’t a stretch for him. He loved creating concept bikes, something to work on in his spare time, until he had something finished that he could take to a bike show, usually netting himself some nice change in the process.

  With zombies being a huge deal right now, he was seriously considering something along those lines, maybe with various zombie-killing implements incorporated into the design.

  Hmm.

  Unfortunately, when he approached the Sarasota exits, his mind turned in a different direction. To a time when he’d been known as Kodie, his first name, instead of Lincoln, his middle name.

  To his parents’ divorce, and what basically amounted to the subsequent abandonment of him by both of them. Might as well have been abandoned, because it would have emotionally hurt a lot less.

  Then, to lose Him on top of that…

  Knowing it would gut him, he took the Clark Road exit and headed west, wondering at how things had changed in the past ten years, and what had remained the same. He hadn’t been this far south in a while, because both his parents lived closer to Bradenton, on the north end of Sarasota.

  Still, he remembered every turn by heart, the drive forever embedded in his soul.

  With Brett’s father increasingly gone on business, the boy known as Kodie had been able to spend more and more nights there with Brett, where the two of them had figured out a lot of stuff between them.

  The old and unrelenting sting that Brett had given in to his father’s demand that he go to Harvard Business School, the way he had, when Brett was accepted there after graduating from USF.

  Actually, it’d been twelve years since he’d last seen Brett, now that Linc tallied the time. He’d been twenty-two, and Brett was just a few months younger than him and twenty-one.

  He didn’t dare look Brett up on Facebook. In fact, the only reason Linc had a Facebook account was to be an admin on the shop’s Facebook page, and the page that Opal had set up for him personally. As far as his profile, he only had the people he worked with and a couple of close friends in real life friended on the site.

  He never searched for Brett, because he didn’t want to see what he was up to.

  Who he was with.

  Most likely he’d settled for some woman and sired a couple of babies to make his dad happy. Darren Tillman never really had liked Linc, he could tell. He’d looked down his snoot at him because his parents had divorced, as if being a widower made him socially superior, in addition to his financial superiority.

  Maybe Avery’s right. Maybe I should call Hooper and see if he wants to go out. Give him another chance.

  It wasn’t like he’d come right out and told Hooper he wanted the man to be toppy. Although, that pretty much summed up why he’d kind of drifted apart from the guy. They’d never really been “officially” a thing, more a long-term friends-with-bennies kind of arrangement. Then, when Linc got really busy at the shop with work, and then the TV show, he’d kept putting off getting together with Hooper.

  Next thing he knew, three months had passed, and Linc hadn’t missed him. Not really.

  And Hooper was the last in a relatively short string of guys he’d tried to date.

  Ironically, there was now a BDSM club in Sarasota, although Linc had never been to it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to risk running into anyone he might have known back in high school.

  He slowed as he pulled up in front of Brett’s old house. It’d been painted at some point, and the stucco was now a light fern green instead of beige.

  Linc still remembered how the front door echoed when it slammed shut behind him that last time, when he’d run out in tears after their final good-bye.

  How Brett had cried, too.

  How with Brett’s father gone, they’d been able to stay naked and swim, play around however they wanted. The games they’d started in high school had morphed into something deeper and more formal.

  Linc would have done anything Brett asked of him, followed him anywhere.

  Except Brett had been too afraid of pissing off his old man.

  No matter how many times Linc had told Brett he didn’t care if they were broke, as long as they were together, or that he’d take care of Brett, fear and guilt had still won out and Brett left.

  He blinked back tears and pulled away, now wishing he hadn’t stopped by.

  Sometimes, not only couldn’t you go home, there were damn good reasons why you shouldn’t.

  Heartache being one of them.

  It wasn’t like he’d ever see the man again. Unless Brett happened to catch him on TV.

  Wouldn’t that be a shocker?

  He grimly smiled to himself as he headed back toward I-75 to resume his southerly trek.

  Yes, he’d never admit it, but the final reason he’d agreed to do the show was in some pitiful hope that, maybe, Brett would see it, see that he was single.

  Maybe Brett would be at a place in his life now where he’d finally feel safe enough to come out, and they could…

  He sighed.

  Well, stranger shit had happened. There was an old house in the middle of Croom where people had died which proved that true.

  And he’d never admit to Avery that the last time he’d gone riding there near dark, he’d paused for a moment when he’d spotted what looked like a young woman walking across the trail, just to watch as a bird flew right through her before she disappeared.

  Chapter Four

  Saturday morning, Brett sighed as he stared out at the Miami skyline. Still nothing in his e-mail from the network about the show he was working on, and like hell would he bug Ed about it.

  There was dedication to the job, and then there was just plain doucheyness.

  Brett refused to cross that line.

  Being in Florida always brought back memories, and it didn’t help that the Atlantic reminded him a lot of the Gulf, which triggered even more memories.

  Of his boy, of the boys they’d both been back then.

  Of the cowardly way he’d given in to his father’s demands.

  Mom wouldn’t have let him push me into it.

  But then again, if his mom had been alive, his father using her death as a kind of guilt-laden leverage to get Brett to follow in his footsteps wouldn’t have happened, either.

  That he’d be so proud if Brett attended his old alma mater. That he could afford to send him there, and it was the only business school he wanted his only son attending, and, besides, it was closer to DC, right? They’d be able to see each other more often.

  Riiiight.

  Not that the workaholic Darren Tillman had managed to make more time for his son.

  I hope he found someone who loves him the way he deserves to be loved.

  Which was a damned lie.

  While he wanted his boy to have comfort and love and a sweet life, he knew if he ever met his boy’s husband, he’d want to rip the guy’s head off and shit down his neck for daring to touch the boy he’d first claimed.

  A man who still owned Brett’s heart, even if he’d never know it.

  Again, moot, because he was pretty sure Kodie would hate his guts. Probably never even thought about him. Which, yes, altruistically was what Brett hoped.

  Even if he still dreamed about Kodie practically every night, and wished they could see each other again.

  That if he ever had another chance with the man, he’d unapologetically take it, fuck what his father wanted.

  After more than a decade on his father’s treadmill, he was close to done. Life wasn’t worth living like this.

  Damn sure wasn’t going to spend it with Jaylynn. Besides, he was wis
e to her little tricks, trying to talk him into not using condoms because she was on the pill.

  Fuck that noise. That, more than anything else, had been the final deciding factor for him to stop sleeping with her. He’d probably have figured out ways to mask his ever-waning libido with her, but he wasn’t letting her trap him into getting her pregnant.

  Which he knew damn well her own mother told her to try, because Darren Tillman wanted grandkids, dammit.

  Hot news flash—he wasn’t ever getting any.

  The knock on his door pulled his attention from the window, and he answered it to find his room service breakfast delivery. He took it to the table and stared out at the skyline as he ate, alone.

  He’d thought about going downstairs and exploring the area, maybe eating in a restaurant, but then he’d started thinking about Kodie, and the usual depression set in.

  Now with his boy on his mind, all he wanted to do was sit there and think about him, stare at the copies of pictures of him that he kept on his phone.

  Instead, he lay in bed and watched TV, masturbated, and sent all four of Jaylynn’s phone calls to voice mail, but she didn’t leave a message. All while checking his e-mail to see if the network’s information packet had arrived yet.

  Finally, that happened about five o’clock, after he’d taken a shower and shaved and was starting to get dressed. It didn’t leave him much time to prep himself on the show—meaning little time at all. The show was called Brooksville Bikes and followed a small custom motorcycle shop and its owner and chief mechanic and bike designer.

  There were a few pictures of the shop, but scant information on the head guy, who wasn’t even named. Not even a picture of him.

  How am I supposed to do my job if they don’t give me more than this to go on?

  He tried go on Facebook and look up the shop’s page, but he was having trouble accessing it through the hotel’s Wi-Fi, and running out of time to get downstairs for the party. It was actually a dinner and a party, with a presentation about the network’s new shows in between, finishing off with the cocktail party and dessert bar.