No Sacrifice Read online

  “Jack. What is that, anyway?”

  Patrick raised his eyebrows. “You know, I’m not sure I’ve ever tried Jack. This is Jameson. Irish, like my roots. Good stuff.”

  Chance blinked at him. “Irish?” he asked, looking Patrick over.

  Patrick laughed and glanced down at himself. “Yeah, I guess the Irish doesn’t show, does it? My da is Irish. Mom’s Samoan and Hawai’ian. I got her looks.”

  Chance’s lips twitched. “No, really?”

  Patrick laughed again. “A little obvious, huh?” He chuckled again, and when Benny made it back to their end, he waved. “Jack for me and a Jameson for Chance.”

  Benny raised his eyebrows, but Chance nodded. “Sure, why not?”

  “So, Chance… what do you do?” Patrick asked when they were alone.

  “Sound gopher,” he said, and Patrick heard the self-deprecation. Patrick blinked at him. “Sorry, Utility Sound Technician according to the SAG. But, really, sound gopher.”

  Patrick smiled. “Hey, nothing wrong with that. I was a gopher myself for a long time. I got lucky. Are you trying to get on the other side of the camera?”

  “Oh, hell no, despite what my mama wants me to do.”

  “That was… emphatic,” Patrick said, then chuckled.

  “The one time my mama managed to get me on stage, I froze up like you wouldn’t believe. Total deer-in-the-headlights look. They had to literally drag me off the stage. And that was just the audition. I’m not cut out for that. I like being behind the scenes.”

  “Ah, yes. I was never quite that bad, which is good, I guess. Got me in front of the camera… which I have to admit I love.” He thanked Benny when their whiskey was delivered and held up his glass. “To… new friends,” he said, watching the blue eyes widen.

  “New friends,” Chance echoed and held up his own shot. They downed them at the same time, and Patrick couldn’t stop the look he was sure was on his face. Chance started laughing. “I take it Jack isn’t for you?”

  “I… like my Jameson,” Patrick managed, and Chance laughed harder.

  “I can see this. It’s good. I just grew up on Jack.”

  Patrick blinked at him. “Grew up?”

  Chance snorted. “Mama wasn’t above rubbing the stuff on our gums when we were teething. Of course, I didn’t actually drink it until I was older—high school, you know—but….”

  Patrick nodded. “Right. Da was pretty insistent on us boys earning our Irish drinking abilities, much to my mother’s dismay, so we were pretty young too, but always around him when we did.”

  “Boys?” Chance asked.

  “Yeah,” Patrick laughed. “There are five of us boys and three girls.”

  “Good God,” Chance said, eyes widening. “I have one older brother and a younger sister. I think my mama might have killed us if there were many more.”

  “Kind of a thing in our area—big families. My mom had eight siblings. I can’t keep track of all my cousins or their kids. It’s insane. I get lost at family gatherings.”

  “I bet. My daddy’s not around, but when Mama and Grandma get everyone together, it can be a little crazy. I can’t imagine that many people.” Chance shook his head.

  They fell silent for a long moment, sipping their beers, and someone apparently fed the jukebox. Patrick managed to make Benny understand he wanted another round when the Rolling Stones blasted through the bad speakers, and Chance winced. Patrick leaned in to Chance’s ear and asked, “Not a fan of the Stones?”

  Chance shook his head. “I love the Stones. I hate when it makes my ears bleed… on a bad sound system.”

  Patrick nodded. “I gotcha. Audiophile?”

  Chance laughed and nodded. “Guilty.”

  When Benny brought the drinks, Patrick drank his shot and asked for one more. With the music so loud, they couldn’t talk very well, so Patrick focused on drinking his Guinness. He realized he was finally starting to feel the effects of the alcohol when it sunk in he was seriously considering asking Chance to go somewhere else. He thought it through as he downed the last shot of Jameson and finished up his beer.

  Why the hell not? He was probably never going to see the man again, despite the earlier toast. He set his glass onto the bar and leaned in toward Chance’s ear. Pitching his voice over Aerosmith, he said, “Hey, would you want to… uh… go somewhere a little less, uh, loud?”

  He didn’t know why he was nervous. It’s not like he was asking the man out on a date. Chance probably wasn’t even into men. But he realized he’d liked the conversation, felt better while talking to Chance than he had in a long time—since before things had gotten so complicated with Rhys.

  “Yeah, that’d be great,” Chance replied, surprising Patrick. He’d been so lost in his nerves, he’d almost forgotten he’d asked. “There’s a café—Pablo’s—right down the street.”

  Patrick nodded, tossing a few bills onto the bar to cover their last round. The two of them stood and made their way out of the bar.

  Chance took a deep breath when they made it to the street. “My ears are going to ring for hours. I don’t know why Benny has it set that loud.” He waved a hand to their right—which happened to be in the opposite direction of Patrick’s apartment building—and they started moving.

  “I think he doesn’t really expect people to talk. They’re either watching the game or making out,” Patrick said, thinking of the couple that had still been locked together when he and Chance left.

  “Yeah,” Chance said, chuckling. “I guess.”

  Patrick glanced over at Chance as they walked, frowning over his train of thought. He was seriously considering spilling the mess of crap that had been going through his head the last few weeks to this near stranger. But… maybe if he was lucky, he really wouldn’t see Chance ever again and it wouldn’t matter.

  Before he could say anything, though, Chance waved a hand. “Here we are.”

  “Oh, sorry, was lost in thought,” Patrick said, clearing his throat.

  “No sorry, don’t worry ’bout that.” Chance opened the door for him, and Patrick smiled as he stepped through. He paused on the other side to take in the classic diner interior. A long counter stretched out in front of them, and to their right and left, red vinyl booths lined the walls. Patrick turned to the right and picked a booth in the corner, sliding onto the bench and watching as Chance sat opposite him.

  A waitress who could have been plucked straight from the old 80s TV show Alice, with her chewing gum, her dark hair up in a twist, and classic pink diner uniform on her thin frame, approached. “What can I getcha?”

  “Uh, coffee for me, Marcy,” Chance said.

  “Same,” Patrick said when she glanced at him.

  “Y’all gonna eat?” she asked, popping her gum.

  Patrick fought the urge to chuckle. “Sure,” he said, “got a menu?”

  She rolled her eyes and pointed with her pen at the end of the table near the window. “Right there. I’ll be back with your coffee.” She shook her head as she sauntered off.

  Patrick couldn’t resist laughing. “She’s something.”

  “That’s Marcy. Thinks she’s Flo from Alice,” Chance said, obviously suppressing his own laughter. His blue eyes were dancing with mirth, though, and Patrick found himself staring at them. When Chance raised his eyebrows, Patrick blushed and dropped his gaze to the menu.

  It was an odd combination of standard diner fare and Mexican food. When he looked up toward the kitchen, he saw why: a tall, lean man of obvious Latin American descent manned the grill.

  “Pablo is from Brazil,” Chance offered by way of explanation. “He does the diner stuff because he knows it’s expected, but he’s best at the Latin food. It’s an… interesting combination of Brazilian and Mexican, but it’s good.”

  “Do you eat here a lot?” Patrick asked.

  Chance nodded. “Yeah, this is kind of my… kitchen,” he admitted, laughing. “I don’t cook.”

  Patrick shook his head. “Me
either. If it wasn’t for the crafty and the catering, I’d spend all my money eating out, much to my mama’s dismay.”

  Chance laughed. “Yeah, that’s about right. I do make coffee at home… but… yeah, my mama yells at me every time she hears. She tried to teach me how to cook, but I almost burned the kitchen down once. After that, I was forbidden to enter the room if the stove was on.”

  Patrick barely stopped laughing by the time Marcy came back with their coffee. “I can manage about two things—ramen and rice… and that’s about it. And those aren’t even good—I overcook both. Mama saved her culinary skills for the others… my older brother Quinn even became a chef. Me? Yeah, well, she tried, she really did, but I was so bad, she gave up on me eventually and told me to marry someone who could cook.” He shook his head, then looked sheepish when Marcy cleared her throat. “Sorry,” he muttered, glancing at Chance, who was grinning. “Uh, cheeseburger, home fries, and the apple pie,” he said, stowing his menu.

  “That sounds good,” Chance agreed, and Marcy shot him a look. “Separate checks, Marcy, this isn’t a date.” Chance sighed, and Patrick had to bite his lip. So he was gay. Patrick wondered why that relieved him so much.

  She sniffed. “Well, damn. I’d hoped.” She sighed and shook her head. “Fine, if y’all insist. Make more work for me,” she grumbled as she walked away. “Pablo!” she called. “Dois ordens de cheeseburgers com batatas fritas em casas e torta de maça!”

  “I told you to stop trying to speak Portuguese!” Pablo called from the back. “And stop using Google translate to learn it!” He shook his head and turned away from the window.

  Marcy just smiled, shrugged, and moved over to another booth to talk to her other customers.

  Chance and Patrick grinned at each other, and then Chance said, “She’s terrible at it but refuses to stop trying.”

  Patrick laughed. “My mama tried to learn Gaelic for a long time for my da, but every time she started speaking, she’d slip into pidgin—uh, what the folks in Hawai’i speak,” he added when Chance looked confused. “Anyway, she’d slip into pidgin at times and confuse him. So she gave up.”

  Chance laughed. “I can’t speak anything but English and Southern. And the Southern usually wins—’specially when I’m tired or drunk, the twang really comes out.”

  “I thought I heard it…. Georgia?” Patrick asked, and Chance’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Shit… that’s good. How’d you know?”

  “My older sister married a Georgian, and Christian was as Southern as you could get. He was from Macon, and there’ve been a few almost-wars between them.” He shook his head. “But anyway, I recognized the accent.”

  “Damn, I thought I was getting rid of it,” Chance said and chuckled.

  “There’s always going to be a little bit left,” Patrick said and grinned. “Now and again, the pidgin comes through. Or, God forbid, even the Gaelic.”

  “That must be a hell of a combination.” Chance laughed.

  “It is, at times. Like… I probably had too much to drink tonight. If I start calling you a ghrá, please just ignore me.”

  This time Chance laughed much louder. “What does that mean?”

  “It means ‘my love,’ so… uh… yeah. It’s one of the things Da made sure I knew. I picked up more of it later on, but he taught me that early. Said I’d get a lot of girls if I could call them something in a foreign language, and of course, most of the girls in my town were Hawai’ian so that wouldn’t work on them. It had to be different.” He shook his head. “Yeah, too much, I’m rambling.” He blushed and looked up when Marcy brought their plates.

  “Want anything else?” she asked, looking between them.

  “Uh, no, I’m good.”

  “You forgot my ketchup,” Chance said.

  She rolled her eyes. “You gotta stop drownin’ everything he makes in that stuff,” she said, smacking Chance on the shoulder before turning away. She snatched a bottle off a neighboring table and plunked it down next to him. “There. Anything else?”

  Chance’s lips twitched, and he glanced at Patrick. “Nope, but you could remember what courtesy is. You’d never get away with that back in Georgia.”

  “There’s a reason I ain’t in Georgia no more,” she answered as she walked away. “Y’all call if ya want more coffee!”

  “She’s… funny,” Patrick said, chuckling.

  “Yeah, that she is. She’s all right, though, even if she’s good at embarrassing me.” Chance fell silent and opened the ketchup bottle, then poured it over the home fries and set it aside.

  Patrick turned to his own food and realized just how hungry he was. As he started in on the burger, he remembered he hadn’t eaten since lunch. “It’s good,” he said between bites and looked up. Chance had a bit of ketchup on the corner of his mouth. Patrick fought hard to keep from grinning but lost.

  “What?” Chance asked, and Patrick pointed. “Shit,” Chance grumbled and snatched up his napkin.

  Patrick laughed. “S’okay, dude. It’d be a miracle not to get some of that on your face, as much as you use.”

  “It was a family thing. Always had ketchup in the house and it was always Heinz.” Chance shrugged. “I broke myself of some of it, but fries are a must.”

  Patrick nodded. “Yeah, I can understand that.” He focused for a while on his burger, just worrying about getting some food into him. As the surprisingly comfortable silence stretched, though, his mind went back to earlier in the day—to Rhys’s ass and cock, to the dreams and increasingly uncomfortable situations.

  “What’s wrong?” Chance asked, and Patrick glanced up.

  “Uh, I don’t know, actually.” He frowned again, then sighed and pushed his plate away.

  Marcy came over and picked it up. “More coffee?”

  “Please,” Patrick said with a nod, and he waited until she’d refilled their cups and left again. “I guess you know I’m an actor.”

  Chance nodded. “Yeah, I’ve seen the show.”

  Patrick smiled. “So you know who I play. And… who I play opposite.”

  “Yup.”

  Patrick took a deep breath, then a sip of his coffee. “I’ve never done a role like this before. They were always smaller, and I’ve only ever once before played a character who was in a relationship. This is… all really new to me.” He frowned into the steaming liquid, not sure how to proceed. “I’d always been told that it’s so… clinical and unromantic on a set, you know? All about choreography and lighting and positioning and stuff. But about six weeks ago, something really weird started happening.”

  He sighed. “Rhys and I were struggling with a couple of the scenes, and Jack—our director—was being a real pain in the ass about it. Seems that the viewers wanted, uh, more of Cyrus and Nadir’s relationship—more, um, intimacy, you know….”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” Chance said, nodding.

  “So, Jack’s been pushing for more of that. Well, during a kissing scene a while back, I… sort of… reacted. Even when I did the play where I kissed a woman, that didn’t happen—and I guess you know I’m married, so you know I’m straight.”

  “And that reaction is bothering you?” Chance asked.

  Patrick looked up and considered him. “Well, not really. I mean, if it were just that, no, I could deal with it once. But… it’s been happening almost every time. And….” He took a deep breath and hesitated, then threw caution to the wind, reminding himself he’d probably never see this man again. He could always avoid Benny’s and Pablo’s. “I’ve dreamed about him.”

  “Ah, I see,” Chance said, and Patrick looked up.

  “But I have a wife. We have a kid,” he said and paused to pull out his phone. Avery’s picture was on the lock screen, and he turned it to show the toddler with curly blond hair and a wide, if peanut-butter-smeared, smile.

  Chance grinned. “He’s gorgeous.”

  Patrick’s smile was just as wide. “Yeah, he is. He’s my life.” He shook his head.
“So… I don’t get it. I can’t be gay… not that there’s anything wrong with that,” he assured Chance quickly, realizing just how that must sound.

  But Chance just held up a hand. “Don’t worry. I don’t think you thought that. Have you considered that you might be bi?”

  Patrick blinked at him slowly for a long moment. “Bi?” he asked finally.

  “Yeah, bi. Bisexual. Maybe you just like both?” Chance offered.

  Patrick bit at his lip for a moment and stared into his cup. He’d never considered that possibility.

  “Have you ever found a man attractive before? Have you thought anyone besides Rhys was attractive?” Chance asked.

  Patrick knew the answer to the second one, though he wasn’t about to voice that. Not when the object of said attraction was still sitting across from him. He thought back to high school and college. And if he was truly honest with himself, he could only say one thing. “Yeah. Back… back in high school, I had a couple of friends I was attracted to, and there was one in college that I remember thinking about.” He shook his head. “At the time, I thought I was just crazy.”

  “Cause you liked girls, you figured it was something—”

  “Passing, yeah. I had a girlfriend or whatever.” He shook his head.

  Chance shrugged. “Nothing wrong with being bi.”

  Patrick dropped his face into his hands. “I fuckin’ jacked off to him,” he muttered. “What the fuck?”

  “Him? Rhys?” Chance asked, and Patrick looked up, nodding.

  “Yeah. God.” Patrick sat back and shook his head. “I don’t know. What a way to figure it out.”

  “Well, you could always think of something, uh, unsexy when you’re in the scenes,” Chance suggested.

  Patrick considered it. “That’s a possibility. I just don’t want to fuck up the scene.”

  “Yeah. Is Jack that bad?”

  “You have no idea,” Patrick said, shuddering. “He’s awful. Every damned little movement.” He fell silent for a long time. “You, uh, won’t say anything, right?”

  Chance chuckled. “Hell no. I’m gay, remember? I tend to keep a lot of shit to myself.”

  “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. Yeah.”