ConvenientStrangers

Convenient Strangers

Cara McKenna

After three weeks of post-breakup wallowing, Adam’s in dire
need of a cold drink and a cure for his romantic hangover. At his favorite bar,
he spots that cure in the form of a six-foot-something muscular man, custom
built to Adam’s fantasy-rebound specifications. But his hopes for a therapeutic
one-night stand are dashed the second he approaches the decidedly surly English
stranger.

Stephen’s nursing romantic wounds of his own—fresh ones. He
cut his closet-case lover loose just hours earlier, and now, heartbroken and
homeless, he wants to be left alone to drown his sorrows in peace. But that’s
no excuse for snapping at the friendly, handsome guy who only wanted to flirt.
Plus, if anyone needs to be reminded how good a bad idea can feel, it’s
Stephen.

Both men could use a reckless rebound to cleanse their
palates. The sexy, dirty solace of drowning in a stranger’s hands, mouth and
body. But when something deeper sparks, strings-free one-nighters never look so
simple in the morning light.

Ellora’s Cave Publishing

www.ellorascave.com

Convenient Strangers

ISBN 9781419938634

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Convenient Strangers Copyright © 2012 Cara McKenna

Edited by Kelli Collins

Cover design by Caitlin Fry & Syneca

Photography: Vishstudios/Shutterstock.com

Electronic book publication January 2012

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Convenient Strangers

Cara McKenna

Acknowledgements

Thanks as always to my editor, Kelli. She culls my ellipses
with a specially forged editorial scythe…though she’ll never slay them all.

Chapter One

Stephen stole a glance at the microwave clock. Quarter to
seven? And they’d started at, what? Four?

Fucking hell, this had to be the longest breakup in history.

“It’s not something you can just bully me into,” Ethan said.
“You’re asking me to turn my whole life inside out for you.”

“Yeah. Because I wouldn’t have any clue what
that
feels like.”

Ethan stirred his tea. He’d been stirring that same cup of
tea for at least twenty minutes, its steam long since gone, dissipated along
with Stephen’s will to live. The spoon kept tinkling against the ceramic and he
wanted to…something. Knock it from Ethan’s hand, grab his wrist and force him
to stay still.

Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle
, like a bell announcing
Stephen’s official arrival at the end of his rope.

“Stephen?”

“Could you stop stirring that fucking tea, please?”

Oh shit, that look. Saint Ethan let the spoon go and crossed
his arms over his chest, eyes wide and hurt.

“How’s telling you I’m fed up and insulted count as
bullying?” Stephen asked.

“It’s the way you say it.”

“Well, fucking forgive me, I’m bloody fed up and insulted.
I’m sick of holding your hand and telling you I
don’t mind
and I
totally
understand the pressure you’re under
. I’ve done that for ten months.” He
took a deep breath and rubbed his face. “I moved my entire life to this
shithole city for you. I bloody
emigrated
for you. Have the fucking
decency to at least introduce me to your mother. Your sister. The bloody
postman—”

“You don’t know how my family is about—”

“Of course I don’t! I’ve never been deemed worthy of meeting
them. Oh, except that cousin of yours. Ryan, was it? The guy who came by with
the chair this spring? And you waved your hand toward me and mumbled, ‘And
that’s my roommate, Stephen.’ You know,
you
don’t even know how your
family is about you or anyone else being gay, because it’s not like you ever
bloody told them!”

“I just know. I hear how my dad talks about it. We’re not in
London anymore—”

“Fucking wish we were,” Stephen said with a mighty eye roll.

“This is pickup truck country. Southern Baptist country.”

“And this,” Stephen said, waving his arms to encompass the
apartment and the two of them. “This is my life. This is what I moved here for,
to be with you, and see where this was going. And it’s going absolutely nowhere
except in circles. Like this bloody conversation—”

A fresh thump on the wall admonished their volume. Ethan
gestured as if to say,
Look what you’ve done.

Stephen smirked. “What’ll you tell the neighbors, if they
ask? You and your roommate just having a row over the utilities?”

“Fuck you.”

The words stung but Stephen covered his hurt. He’d never
driven Ethan to a
fuck-you
before, but he also hadn’t driven him any
closer to the closet door. He took another deep, ragged breath. “You know what?
Fuck you too. I’m done with this. With you.”

“Fine by me.” Oh, that prissy, put-upon, holy-ass
expression.

Stephen shook his head, willed himself to be cool, to speak
slowly and clearly. Act rationally, no matter how pissed he was. “Waste of my
bloody time and life,” he muttered, walking to the bedroom.

“Where are you going?”

“To get a change of clothes.” He turned in the threshold.
“See how reasonable and accommodating I am, letting you keep the flat?” Was
that what he was doing? Sure, why not? Small price to pay. Good riddance to
these walls and all the memories they held.

“Whatever.”

Stephen sighed, utterly unamused. “‘Whatever.’ That’s just
perfect. Exactly what a bloody teenager would say.” He headed for his dresser.

Ethan framed himself in the doorway, watching Stephen
tossing clothes on the bed. “You’re running away and
I’m
the teenager?”

“No, I’m escaping. And you’re thirty-one, and still too
chickenshit to tell your mum you’re fucking gay. Socially, you’re a
fourteen-year-old. That’s what it feels like, trying to be with you. Like I’m
holding the hand of a fourteen-year-old bloody boy, and I moved here expecting
to be with a
man
.” He glared at Ethan over the jeans he folded.

“It’s different around here. You met me in London.”

“And I was your dirty little secret there, too.”

Ethan ignored the comment. “Being gay’s different here.”

“I grew up in Manchester. You know what it’s like, growing
up there queer? You may as well walk around with a bloody crossbow target
painted on your back. You may as well hand lads a brick and invite them to bash
your skull in for you. There’s no worse thing you can possibly be there besides
gay.”

Ethan sighed and threw his hands up. “Fine. You win. You win
the worst childhood trophy, if it makes you so fucking happy.”

“I’d be happy if my boyfriend—who I moved to another
hemisphere
for—could find the knackers to acknowledge my existence.”

“I’ve explained about my family.”

“Fine. Not your family. How about a
single
mate of
yours? A coworker? A fucking barista from two towns over?”

Nothing, just a wounded, martyred look that told Stephen
this man he’d rearranged his entire life for didn’t get it. Not that he didn’t
care, but he didn’t care enough to upend his own comfortable, cowardly
existence to make a real place for Stephen in it. Fuck this. Fuck the bloody
change of clothes, even. He shoved everything he’d gathered back into a drawer
and slammed it shut.

He brushed past Ethan to the kitchen. Heading for the door,
he grabbed his wallet from the table by the coatrack. “I’m going out. Going out
alone.”

“Yeah, I caught that.”

“
Single.
”

“Whatever. Fine, I get it.”

“I’ll be by for my stuff tomorrow,” Stephen said, flipping
the deadbolt and pulling the door open, praying there’d be a neighbor in the
hall. A witness. “I’m going out,” he reiterated loudly, “and I’m going to snog
the holy hell out of some gorgeous man with the balls to admit who the fuck he
is.”

Ethan’s darting eyes and rigid posture said he was dying of
embarrassment, but he kept his face straight, voice blasé. “Great. Good for
you.”

Stephen turned, leaning in the open doorframe. “Some bloke
whose closet door’s flung so wide open, the knob punched a bloody hole in the
plaster, all right?”

“Have a blast.”

“Don’t think I won’t.” He yanked the door shut behind him,
not quite a slam, and jammed his hands in his pockets as he stalked down the
hall to the stairs. Every step felt like a sock in the gut, in the heart, but
fine.
Whatever.

Ten months was plenty to waste, holding someone’s hand. Ten
months was too long.

He had some goddamn catching up to do.

Chapter Two

Adam pushed in the door to Hadley’s, his hands shaking,
breath short.

It was so stupid, feeling this nervous.

He used to look forward to this moment, excited to have the
whole night spread out before him, full of possibilities. But this was his
first evening out since he’d been dumped, his first time back at Hadley’s for a
drink as a single guy since… Shit, since last November. Since the night he’d
met David at this very bar and they’d gotten attached at the hip in hours flat.
Then attached at the mouth and the crotch, and soon enough the heart.
Thankfully never by a lease or by joint pet ownership, but still. Very, very
attached. More attached than Adam knew you could get this quickly, but here he
was, finally understanding why people got so mopey and annoying after breakups.

Screw it, though. Three weeks should be ample time to mourn
a relationship of eight months. Long enough for the scab to form, even if the
ache might stick around a while longer. It was time to get it together,
remember how to flirt. Remind himself he still
liked
flirting, or at the
very least still liked beer. And it was fast approaching July. No such thing as
summer in Tennessee without beer.

It seemed quiet for a Saturday, or maybe the place just felt
quiet without David beside him. Lonely and intimidating. Still, both the guys
working were familiar faces, and that was enough to draw Adam across the
scuffed hardwood to the bar. He could do this.

He took a seat and smiled a greeting at the nearest
preoccupied barman, waiting patiently until he came over.

“Hey, stranger. Solo tonight?”

The guy was cute, but Adam wasn’t quite ready to flirt. Too
rusty, for one thing. Too sober, for another. “Solo for the foreseeable
future,” he said with a dopey smile.

“Oh, sorry man.”

“It happens.”

“That it does. And that’s why I’m here. What I can do to
help?”

Adam scanned the bottles and taps. “Shot of Jack and
whatever seasonal summer you’ve got.”

“As you wish.”

“It’s quiet tonight.”

The bartender laughed as he turned to pour the beer. “Lady
Gaga concert.”

Adam shook his head. “We’re that predictable, are we?”

The bartender turned back with Adam’s order but kept his
hands wrapped firmly around the glasses. He squinted warmly at Adam. “You get
your heart broken, or break somebody else’s?”

“Mine, sadly.”

“Well, misery’s first round is on the house.” He slid the
glasses across the wood.

Adam mustered a grin. “Thanks.”

The bartender turned away to fill another order and Adam
killed his shot in a gulp, liking the warm sting that trailed down his throat.
He folded a five and set the spent glass on top of it, and carried his pint to
a table near the windows. If the folks inside didn’t prove exciting enough to
distract him, he could always space out to the lazy human traffic streaming
past on the sidewalk.

He was out. That was all that mattered. He’d shaved, ironed
a shirt, left the house and not looked back.

But it turned out there was at least one guy in the bar
intriguing enough to snag Adam’s attention. A guy in the corner he’d never seen
here before. A guy who, frankly, looked as if he just might not realize he was
in one of Nashville’s more understated gay hangouts. Six-one, maybe, and big.
Muscular-big. Thirty-five or forty or somewhere in between, with a shaved head,
strong features, snug tee shirt.

And hallelujah, just like that, Adam had managed to forget
about David for a whole twenty seconds!

He settled into that familiar, contented barroom boredom,
laced with the heady spice of romantic possibility—or at least the possibility
that he might one day be in the mood for romance again—more intoxicating than
the shot. Felt like being twenty-five again, the night new, slate clean.

Adam wasn’t particularly looking for romance or sex, merely
a little proof he could feel that spark for someone who wasn’t David, maybe
give someone else a little spark. He stole another glance at the corner,
finding that proof, feeling that crackle.

The guy was playing pool, ostensibly by himself, though the
look of deep concentration on his stern face made it seem as though he were
matched against some invisible adversary, and a tough one at that. He cued up
and the balls scattered with a sharp
snick
, colors bouncing and rolling
and settling. The guy seemed to pick solids for himself, sinking the three then
stalking the five.

Adam drank half his beer without tasting it, caught up in
the man’s intensity. The most magnetic, dangerous charisma he’d encountered in
a long time. He was Adam’s type to a tee. A type that hadn’t really ever given
him much, aside from grief. Oh and incredibly hot one-night stands, back when
he’d been into those.

David hadn’t been Adam’s type, and possibly
because
of that reason, they’d lasted eight entire months. But when the giddy momentum
of the honeymoon phase had waned, wasn’t that maybe, just
maybe
, because
Adam’s interest had waned? He sure as hell hadn’t looked at his ex and felt
this electric jolt. Not in ages, maybe not ever.

Then again, a shot of bourbon and three weeks’ heartache
could very easily be blowing things out of reasonable proportion. And into
large, muscular proportion.

Now Adam was in danger of staring, or drooling, and over the
guy in the bar who looked least likely to invite a casual chat. He took a
cooling drink of his beer and gave the rest of the room a scan.

Some cute guys, but none who struck him as both approachable
and worth approaching. Too boyish, most of them. Too
cute
, too like
David. He was well over his lusting-after-college-guys phase, his libido
matured, and he wanted men now, real
men
. He’d caught himself
cataloguing such specimens in the street and on TV and at the gym, the final
month or two of his relationship. A guilty pang came with knowing David’s
feelings would be hurt if he could have heard those thoughts. Adam shook it
away. He’d been a good partner, through the fun times and the boring ones. He’d
had wandering eyes by the end of it all, but never wandering hands or heart or
intentions.

But now. Now he was free to wander with any body part he
felt like.

Damn, the liquor was working.

As the beer too began to loosen him up, he decided, what the
fuck did he have to lose, chatting up the scary, sexy guy? A
no-thanks
,
that was all. And he’d just gotten through a hard breakup; a
no-thanks
to end all others. His ego wasn’t crazy fragile. He could handle a snub from a
hot stranger. And who knew? Maybe it’d go better than expected and he’d wind up
handling something far nicer. He drained his beer and headed for the bar, fishing
a few bills from his wallet.

“Another summer?”

“Please. And two bucks in quarters?”

The bartender poured the drink and opened the register, and
his gaze jumped to the pool table. “Good luck,” he said, slapping the coins on
the wood.

Adam meandered to the table, setting the change on the rail.
The guy gave him a cold glance then lined up a shot. Adam backed off a few
paces to watch from a casual distance, sipping his beer.

It became apparent after a minute that the guy was indeed
playing against himself, taking turns, following protocol, methodical. Not just
killing time and waiting for a challenger.

“You looking for a game?” Adam asked.

“Already got one, mate.”

Oh fuck, British. Might as well tug a shirt over Adam’s head
emblazoned with,
Will Pay Cash $$$ Now to Blow You
.

No, bad. No blowing strangers of any nationality, not the
first night Adam met them. Flirting, kissing, the exchanging of numbers
perhaps, but not the more personal bodily fluids.

Adam shoved aside the distracting thought of this stranger’s
more personal bodily fluids to ask, “Who’s winning?”

A tight little smile told him the guy wasn’t in the least
bit charmed.

“Well, quarters say I’ve got winner.”

The man set his stick on the felt, knocking balls out of
place. “You can have the whole fucking table if you want it that badly.”

He felt his brows rise. “Hey, forget it. I was just trying
to flirt. My mistake.” Adam gathered his coins and left the guy to the company
he so clearly preferred.

Annoying how he only wanted to get fucked by him all the
more, after that little run-in. Pack that away in the jack-off vault, filed
under
Get bent over a pool table by that British asshole from Hadley’s
.
Might just use that one later this evening, in fact.

He took a seat at the far end of the bar, thinking his
rebuffed attempt to mingle was a sign it was too soon. He’d chat with the
bartenders instead. Still good practice, just being out again, talking to guys
instead of hiding at home, babying his wounds.

After a few minutes, the sting of failed flirtation faded,
and Adam was proud to find he’d managed to keep his eyes off the pool table
jerk with little struggle. Then a beer was plunked before him, his current one
barely half done.

“Wow,” he said to the bartender. “I really look that in need
of it, huh?” He reached for his wallet but it was waved away.

“It’s from that guy,” the bartender said, nodding.

In the split second it took to turn his head, Adam was
already guessing which of the cuter guys he hoped had bought him a round. But
to his shock, it was the huge Brit, who was now standing with his unreasonably
large arms crossed over his chest in the middle of the floor, gaze glued to the
television behind the bar.

“Oh. Well, thanks.” He blinked at the glass then squinted at
the barman. “You didn’t let him spit in it, right?”

A laugh. “No. You’re safe.”

Was he, though? Adam wondered with a glance at the large
man. The beer clearly didn’t come with a side of conversation—the guy was
thoroughly, maybe
willfully
immersed in whatever was playing on the TV.
Too distracted for Adam to even raise the glass in a polite thank-you gesture.
Oh well. The drink itself was probably just a cursory apology, no thanks
needed.

He sipped his half-drunk beer, peeking sideways now and then
but finding the other man wholly preoccupied. Then, after maybe five minutes of
that nonsense, their eyes locked. They locked and they stayed locked, until the
stranger finally dropped his crossed arms and strolled over.

“Thanks,” Adam said, lifting his glass.

“No worries. Sorry for being a dick before.”

“Everyone gets to be a dick sometimes.”

Neither spoke for an awkward moment then Adam decided to
attempt to lighten the mood. “You know this is a gay bar, right?”

The man smirked for the thinnest second, and nodded. “Only
gay bar in town where they show rugby.”

Adam glanced at the TV and nodded. “Before you get too misty
for your homeland, I think it’s mainly for the uniforms.”

Another tight smile, if a grudging one. “Good a reason as
any.”

“You feel like sitting down?”

The guy contemplated it then accepted the invitation,
sliding onto the closest stool. He kept his eyes on the bottles or the mirror
behind them. Intense eyes, Adam noted, maybe blue, maybe hazel, tough to tell
in the glow from the neon beer signs.

They sat in heavy silence for a minute or so then a truck
went cruising by on the street, country music blaring.

The stranger shook his head. “I bloody hate this town.”

Adam nodded. “Me too. But I had to suffer through high
school here, so I get to say it.”

A wry smile, devoid of amusement.

“What’s up your ass?” Adam asked. “Or are you always this
cheerful?”

“Breakup.”

“Ah. Fresh?”

The man checked the bar clock. “Five hours?”

Danger, danger.
Still—big, angry man with an accent,
on the rebound? Stupid ideas didn’t get much hotter than that one. And Adam was
still basically on the rebound himself. “I had one of those, three weeks ago.
You dump, or get dumped?”

“I cut him loose. But he hasn’t exactly been making me feel
welcome in his life, the past few months.”

Adam made a grim, commiserating face. He realized he had two
glasses before him, the other man none. “What’s your misery drink?”

“Pint of bitter.”

“That’s like an IPA, right?”

He nodded. Adam caught the bartender’s eye and ordered a
Dire Wolf.

The beer was delivered shortly and the stranger gave a
broody little nod, and they tapped glasses. “Cheers.”

“To moving on,” Adam offered.

“To running the fuck away.”

“Even better. Do you have a name, or should I keep thinking
of you as That Grumpy English Asshole?”

Finally, a real smile. “That’s not the worst thing I’ve been
called. But Stephen’s fine.” He offered a hand and Adam shook it.

“Adam. Are you Stephen, or Steve?”

The grip tightened to the threshold of pain. “Stephen, if
you value your fingers.”

“Stephen,” Adam confirmed, and the shake concluded without
grievous injury.

His surly companion took a sip of his beer. “My old man’s
Steve. And I’ve got no interest in turning into him anytime soon.”

“Gotcha. What brought you to the States?”

“My ex.”

“So what’s keeping you here?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely nothing,” Stephen said, gaze cast
thoughtfully down at the shiny wood of the bar. “Decent-paying job’s about all
that’s keeping me from running for the airport. Can’t say I’ve got the same
waiting back home, so who bloody knows. I don’t even know where I’m staying
tonight, let alone next week or next month.” He carefully centered his drink
before him on the coaster. “This is all I’m going to focus on, for right now.”

“You guys were living together, then?”

“Yeah.”