Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
“Maybe I’ll figure it out after a few of these. Thanks.” He dropped cash on the bar, lifted the drink, and took a healthy swig.
The bartender gathered up the payment. “Well, have fun tonight, man. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot of you around here.”
Liam saluted him with his drink, then turned and faced the crowd. Since he didn’t have any friends to chat with, he finished his drink in record time. The alcohol hit his bloodstream, chasing away his inhibition. With a smile, he set his empty glass on the bar and strode out into the throng of gyrating men to do what he did best—dance.
CHAPTER TWO
SECRETS SUCKED—LITERALLY.
They reached inside a body, found whatever soul a person possessed, and sucked it out like a fucking Hoover on turbo until nothing remained but a walking, talking husk of a human.
Still, that was preferable to having someone rip your actual guts out, which would have happened had Tate not held on to his secret tighter than a virgin asshole.
His secret began long before he understood he’d need to keep it for his whole goddamn shitty life. It began early in his childhood when he’d been a sponge absorbing the toxicity his parents poured on him. Parents was a loose term. Sperm and egg donors turned roommates painted a more accurate picture.
By thirteen, he’d long been caring for himself and his needs. Hell, he’d been more responsible than his damn brother, who was older by three years. Randy came out of the womb a damn fuck-up, feet first, and not even smart enough to take a breath until the doctor whacked him on his ass.
Food? Tate had shopped for it, begged it from friends, and even stole it if he got hungry enough.
Clothes? Goodwill for the win.
Shelter? Their shitty trailer was about the only thing his old man had ever paid for. To this day, they have never paid a lot fee. His mother had been banging the trailer park’s manager for as long as he could remember.
Slutty mom for the win.
That left love and affection, but he didn’t think someone in their trailer park had experience with either. Even Letti and Jack, the newlyweds in the trailer diagonal from his, hated each other’s fucking guts. Oh, they’d devour each other’s faces for all the world to see and profess their undying love at the top of their lungs, but their fights could wake the dead, and Letti slashed the tires on Jack’s bike last week. New ones were expensive as hell, and Jack worked at a damn junkyard. She wouldn’t have pulled that shit if she loved him for real. He had a sneaking suspicion Letti was banging Daryl on the side too.
They lived in a fucked-up town with fucked-up people.
Last week, he heard Old Man Richards, who lived in the first lot in their park, say nothing could shock him after living in Swan for over fifty years.
I could shock him. I could shock the shit outta him.
God, I’m in a mood.
It had been a long, frustrating day, and traffic to Tulsa sucked, turning the sixty-minute trip into almost ninety. Randy gave him shit for not hanging out tonight too. He and Whitney got in a fight—big fucking surprise—and he needed someone to listen to him bitch while he drank half a case of beer.
But Tate had needs, too, and he hadn’t had his needs met in six months.
Tonight, that was going to change. He’d needed a nameless man with stellar sucking skills to swallow his cock and drain his balls. Fuck, it had been so damn long. He’d been a surly bastard this past week. Even his mother asked what crawled up his ass, and she barely knew what year it was on a good day.
His hand wasn’t cutting it anymore. He needed to get off with another person, and to do that, he had to go out of town. Way out of town to Tulsa, the only place with a gay bar, and was far enough from home that he didn’t have to look over his shoulder every two seconds.
But he did anyway.
Some habits were unbreakable, especially when they kept him breathing.
He got half-hard on the walk from his car to the club, imagining the sea of men grinding all over each other beyond the entrance. His brother would stroke out if he got a peek inside, but not before beating the shit out of Tate.
As he strode to the entrance, he rolled his shoulders and tried to shake off the unease that always cropped up when he went there. No matter how many years he’d been playing this game, he couldn’t shake the fear he’d return home, and somehow, they’d all know. Maybe someone would smell lingering cum on his breath. Maybe Daryl would take one look at his sated smile and shout, “Holy fuck, you got off with a dude.” Or he’d show up at a job site on Monday, and Randy would be waiting to pound him into the ground because someone saw him fucking a twink’s throat behind the club.