Heat Stroke (Beach Kingdom, #2)(9)

“Who called you a dumbass?” Jamie interrupted, sounding pissed.

“You’ve called me a dumbass.”

Jamie’s Adam’s apple worked up and down. “If I have, I didn’t mean it.”

Marcus’s mouth spread into a smile. “You didn’t?”

“No.” Jamie bit down on his bottom lip, chewing on it as he studied Marcus. “You’re not a dumbass, you just have an uncomplicated point of view. Maybe everyone else is dumb.”

They both quickly faced forward in their seats again, breaking eye contact. In his periphery, Marcus could see the fast lift and fall of Jamie’s chest. Marcus’s own chest did the same, but he couldn’t explain why everything below his neck suddenly felt full to bursting. His body always did funny things around Jamie, but this…it was different. It was more. Something he could no longer ignore or write off as a dude crush.

“I’ll help a little,” Jamie muttered. “Just to challenge myself, though.”

“I know.” Marcus battled like hell against his smile, even though he wanted to pick Jamie up and toss him in the air like a pizza dough. “Thanks, Jamie.”





CHAPTER FOUR





Jamie couldn’t believe what was happening.

There he sat, in an arena full of drunk assholes who’d actually prepared chants for a monster truck rally. His boots were sitting in a sticky puddle of Budweiser, thanks to the man sitting behind them who’d spilled a whole tray of beer before the trucks even emerged to wreak havoc on perfectly drivable vehicles. It was so ever-loving loud, he could barely hear himself think. And he was enjoying the hell out of himself.

Marcus poked him in the shoulder. “Jamie—”

“Don’t.”

“You’re smiling.”

“No, I’m not.”

In the center of the arena, a neon green monster truck spun its wheels, turned and prepared to launch itself off a ramp onto a line of Oldsmobiles. It had to be dangerous, but the crowd demanded no mercy. It had to be done. The audience would accept nothing less than utter destruction. Their sleeveless T-shirts said so.

As the monster truck revved its engine and gunned it toward the ramp, Jamie’s hand shot out and gripped Marcus’s naked lady forearm. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” The massive tires crashed down on the cars in a deafening crunch of glass and squeals of twisted metal—and it was so satisfying and weirdly cathartic that Jamie couldn’t stop laughing. When he glanced over at Marcus, he was staring at Jamie’s hand on his arm. He quickly took it back. “If you tell my brothers about this, I’ll deny it.”

Marcus was frowning at the hand Jamie had removed from his arm. “Where do they think you are tonight?”

“They weren’t around to ask me,” Jamie said, jerking back when an ancient Toyota pickup was smashed like a pancake. “It’s Rory’s night off, so he’s with Olive trying not to propose before their one-month anniversary even passes. Andrew is working the bar.”

The announcer’s voice over the loudspeaker broke in, promising more bone crunching after a short intermission and the lights turned on, illuminating Marcus’s thoughtful expression. “Would you usually be on, like, a…date or something?”

Jamie narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

“No reason. I just saw you slide those digits to Father Time at the bar last night. Maybe if you hadn’t lost the bet, you’d be out with him.”

“First of all, he wasn’t that old.”

Marcus snorted.

Jamie rolled his eyes. “All right, fine. I date older guys. It’s easy.”

“Why?”

“Because…” Christ, this was hitting way too close to home. And by home, he meant this so called friendship between him and Marcus. He’d gotten out the door with his self-respect intact tonight by telling himself he was only going to Monster Jam because he’d lost a bet. Not because the thought of hurting Marcus’s feelings made him want to gouge out his eyes. Here he was again, though, trying to shield Marcus from the obvious truth. He didn’t want Jamie as just a friend, no matter how he probably denied it to himself.

Jamie wasn’t doing Marcus any favors by shielding him from reality. He wasn’t doing himself any favors, either, by swallowing the truth of how hurtful it could be when someone refused to acknowledge him in public.

“I date older guys because most of them aren’t scared. To be who they are. A lot of them are past that.” Jamie exhaled slowly. “I’m never going to wait around again for some guy to figure himself out. Especially when they don’t really want to. It’s exhausting.”

There was a flicker of discomfort in Marcus’s eyes, before it was replaced with rapt curiosity. “Again? That’s happened before?”

Jamie didn’t answer, but he could hear the wheels turning in Marcus’s head.

“Did it have something to do with the incident?”

“The incident.” Jamie laughed, even though a crack formed straight down his middle. The incident. The incident. “Is that what people call it?”

They both had to stand so someone in their row could sidestep by with a tray of nachos. When they sat back down again, Marcus looked like he was chewing something distasteful. “Finding out what happened to you on the beach six summers ago is kind of like playing telephone. Most of the lifeguards we work with now weren’t there at the time. But I thought what happened to you was just some drunk idiots looking for a fight.”