Ellery Mountain 3 - The Carpenter and the Actor (4 page)

“Want to get a coffee?” Kieran asked. He was still in what he liked to think was mild shock. Gone were the scruffy hair and the beard, and in their place was a man who defined gorgeous. From the tip of his dark, styled hair to the toes of his scuffed sneakers this guy was ticking every single one of his boxes.

Kieran didn’t know what to say. Was that a yes or a no? He cursed his inability to read signals. Was the fact that Jason was smiling and hadn’t walked away a good thing? Or not?
“Actually, lunch.” Jason clarified. “Want to join me for that?”
Lunch? That involved much more than idle talk over a coffee that lasted ten minutes. Lunch meant deciding, ordering, waiting, eating and all the way through talking. Kieran could so get behind that.
“Cool,” he said. Then, gesturing for Jason to go first, he followed him across the street and into the diner. Walking behind Tall and Sexy certainly had its benefits. Those jeans may have been tatty and baggy, but they were ripped just across the line where butt met leg and the tempting crease there was going to fuel a few fantasies from tonight onward. Jason looked back at him expectantly then strode to the table right in the back corner. Kieran wasn’t going to argue—he liked that table out of view of everyone else.
Monique sashayed over to the table and laid two menus in front of them.
“So as to get this out of the way, and because no one else will ask so mine will be unique, would you be willing to sign my order book?” She thrust it in front of a bemused Jason who, after only a moment’s hesitation, took the book from her and the pen she offered and scribbled his name on the cover. “Thank you,” she said. “Now, guys, the special today is meatloaf, mashed potatoes, black-eyed peas and cornbread with peach cobbler to finish. What drinks can I get you?”
“Coffee, please,” Jason said, “black.”
“Coffee for me too,” Kieran said.
She marked the details in the order book then moved back to the counter.
“I am so sorry,” Kieran said instantly. “Monique is kind of in your face.”
“If I’m honest,” Jason began, “it’s weird that people haven’t been asking for my autograph, or a photo. I’m so used to it that when it doesn’t happen, my fragile actor ego is smashed and I cry.”
“Seriously?”
“Nah, I’m messing with you.” Jason chuckled. “Although I do get a lot of requests and sometimes just having a dinner where I get a chance to eat while it’s hot is a rare thing.”
“It must be hard,” Kieran said. He couldn’t imagine being under a microscope like that. It was bad enough that everyone knew who he was in this town, much less the fact that his dad was the mayor.
“Not at all,” Jason said equally. “Part and parcel of the job I love doing. I find times to get some space. In Ellery no one is hassling me, or wanting me at all. It’s kind of refreshing.”
“It’s a good town. So, does your heating work okay now? I made sure to tighten everything down there to make sure nothing came loose, but sometimes the fastening comes away from the pipework and there you have it—or don’t have it—no water. The last cabin it happened at, we had a flood where the water was pumping back up into the room. I said to Daniel we’ll probably need to replace all the systems eventually. It’s not a matter of money, more of time, and Ellery Cabins isn’t my main job. I also work with wood. Furniture and so on. Not restoring but actual building stuff, like cabinets and closets. It’s good work, but I’m not in the big leagues yet.” He stopped and took a breath. Then realised what he had just done.
Jason had his mouth open to talk and Kieran was suddenly ashamed to realise he’d done his normal trick of talking at someone about nothing in particular.
“The heating is fine,” Jason asked. There was a quirk to his lips and Kieran could feel embarrassment rise in him.
“I tend to talk too much when I get nervous. Hell. When I get excited, nervous, sad, angry. I guess I just…talk too much.” Kieran added that to qualify the whole problem. He didn’t want Jason focusing on the nervous part of it.
“So why are you nervous?”
Hell, he focused on the nervous part. Great.
When all that blurted out of his mouth was, “You’re gorgeous and intimidating,” Kieran really wished he’d let his brain get ahead of his mouth sometimes.
Monique placed coffees on the table then waited to take their order. Kieran hadn’t even looked and he indicated Jason should go first.
“The special please, and the pie,” Jason said.
“Me too,” Kieran added. He couldn’t even remember what the special was. Jason had that effect on him. Monique left and suddenly Kieran had to face what he had said.
“I intimidate you?” Jason said quietly. “I know sometimes people get star-struck. I’ve seen it happen.”
Kieran could have cut his tongue out. Jason had sadness permeating his voice and he had been the one to put it there.
“I didn’t mean that kind of intimidating,” Kieran began to explain. “I mean, I’m a motor-mouth, everyone knows that. I start talking and the only way to get me to stop is to put a hand over my mouth. I do it to fill the space so that things don’t get awkward. I don’t want you thinking I am a giant dork, so to stop that I talk, which makes me into a giant dork, which then means—umph…”
Jason had reached over and placed a hand over his mouth. Kieran could move his lips and let his tongue dart out and taste the warm skin.
He could. He wanted to.
He didn’t.
“Like that?” Jason said innocently. Then he grinned. “I hate silences. So fill away.” He dropped his hand and Kieran had to stop himself from crawling over to Jason’s side of the booth and climbing his fine body like a monkey on a tree. Jason McInnery had touched him.
“You have my permission to do that any time you need to,” Kieran said wryly.
“So tell me about the guys I’m meeting tonight,” Jason said. He sipped on the coffee that had been left and grimaced. He placed it down and shook a small packet of sugar into it.
Kieran attempted to focus on that and not on the fact that apparently Jason was meeting guys. Probably fit, sexy, not at all dorky guys.
“Sorry?”
“Your cop friend, he invited me to a thing you do on a Friday. Beers? Do I not have the right night?” Jason looked confused.
Then Kieran realised exactly what the other man was talking about.
“Sorry, I didn’t know you were coming.” He concentrated on his coffee and for a moment there was silence. Jason cleared his throat.
“I don’t have to, if it will make you feel uncomfortable,” he said.
“What?” Kieran snapped to the here and now. “No. That’s great. You’ll get to meet Daniel’s guy Luke. He’s a teacher at the high school and only came through for a visit, but he stayed.”
“I already met Daniel.”
“Yeah, he said he’d been up to visit you.”
“He looks kind of fierce,” Jason commented. “All dark eyes and broody looks.”
Kieran swallowed at the description. Jason sounded impressed with Daniel. Looking down at his hands, he considered that if Jason liked tall and tattooed and just ever so slightly bad boy, then Kieran, all cute and short and blond, was not going to be on his list. Never mind.
Hell, who was he kidding? He was disappointed.
“That’s Daniel,” Kieran said. “Then there is Max, Finn’s other half. He’s a volunteer firefighter, a good guy.”
“Is he tall, dark and dangerous as well?”
“Max?” Kieran hesitated. How did he describe Max? “He’s tall, way taller than Dan, six three, I think, and he’s strong, with blond hair, and he has very pretty blue eyes.”
“I bet they’re not as stunning as yours.”
Silence.
Kieran looked up and blinked at Jason. Had he heard right? Had Jason actually called his eyes stunning? He couldn’t have heard right.
“Sorry?” he asked. If Jason had said something different then he needed to re-hear, and if he had commented on Kieran’s eyes, then Kieran wanted to hear it again.
“Your eyes are really blue,” Jason said simply. Kieran sat back in his chair as their food arrived and when Monique had left he leant forward again. He should maybe say something about Jason’s eyes, which were a changeable hazel and currently looked very green in this light. But how did he do that? Jason was used to being ogled and fawned over. Kieran didn’t want to appear to be the weird fan who spouted the usual crap. Instead he thought it was probably best that he change the subject altogether.
“When do you get back to LA for filming?”
Jason took the change in subject in his stride. “Another two weeks. That’s how long I’m at the cabins.”
“That’s good. Maybe you can come to more than one of the Friday meet-ups.”
Jason swallowed a mouthful of meatloaf and grinned. “I plan to. In fact, I have a lot of plans for the next two weeks.”
Kieran coughed and reached for his coffee to soothe the burn.
“You okay?”
Why had the words from Jason’s mouth sounded like he was coming on to Kieran? “Mustard hit the back of my throat,” Kieran explained.
“I’m hoping we can start tonight, then you could show me around Ellery on your downtime.”
“I don’t have a lot of that,” Kieran said immediately.
What the hell? Why do I do that? I have a sexy man almost waggling his eyebrows with suggestion and I am acting like I don’t care.
“What I mean is that I would love to.”
“Cool.” Jason resumed eating his dinner but stopped after a few mouthfuls. “Look, Kieran, I only have a short time here…”
“Okay?” Kieran waited for Jason to finish. Normally the guy didn’t have issues with cohesive talking so why was he struggling now?
“I like you.” Jason said that so simply.
Kieran waited for the
but
. The one he usually got.
But I like brunets, but I like taller guys, but I don’t top, but
…
“And I’m hoping you like me too.”
“You’re a friendly guy—”
“I don’t mean in that way.” Jason placed his cutlery down on the table and Kieran followed suit. He gave himself credit that he didn’t squeak in surprise when Jason placed a hand flat on his. “See, I’ve not been in a good place recently. My brother. Filming. Decisions and my family. And sometimes I get lonely. Do you know what I mean?”
Kieran knew exactly what he meant. Lonely was porn and an early night. Kieran had friends, but they were meeting their own guys, which was great, because that is what he wanted for them, but he sometimes felt like he was the odd one out. Not that the others did anything to make him feel like that—it was his own stupidity.
He realised he had carried out that entire monologue in his head and Jason was looking at him expectantly.
“I know what you mean,” Kieran replied softly.
“Then the first morning, when I woke up determined to wallow for three weeks, you landed on my doorstep. All sunshine and blond hair and blue eyes with your toolkit and that tight T-shirt. I’ve been thinking—I know you’re gay, you know I’m gay, I’m here for two more weeks, and if you like me then maybe you’d consider getting together for a while.”
“A while? For sex, you mean,” Kieran said.
“Not just for sex. I like you. I’d like to get to know you. What do you say? Starting tonight, when I go to the cop’s house for beers, maybe we could talk some more, or ramp it up to kissing.”
In his head Kieran was a startled rabbit. He even imagined a thought bubble over his head with the word ‘
meep
’ in it. Kissing Jason McInnery?
“I’d like that,” he finally said. There was no way he was screwing this up. No way he was going to lose the chance of tasting the man opposite him.
Jason leaned in a little and Kieran unconsciously copied the move until he could hear Jason whispering low and urgently, “I want to taste your lips and your skin. I’ve wanted it since I saw you ass up, down the hole fixing the heating. I wondered what you would taste like, and it was the first time in months that I had really felt anything.”
“I want to kiss you too,” Kieran forced out. “Way too much.”
“Tonight then?”
Kieran didn’t know what he was promising for tonight, but he knew what he had signed up for. Two weeks of kissing and sex with Jason freaking McInnery. Well. It may not actually last the two weeks. They might get into bed and not be compatible. Lovers that Kieran had had saw him as the real bottom in a relationship just because he was five nine and slim. They couldn’t get their heads around the fact that actually Kieran liked to switch, and that sometimes he wanted to be the one calling the shots.
He turned his hand over under Jason’s and entwined their fingers briefly before moving to pick up his cutlery again.
“Tonight,” he said.
Appearing satisfied with Kieran’s answer, Jason resumed eating and every so often looked up to smile at Kieran. Anticipation shot through Kieran and he wondered how he was going to last until tonight for kisses. Looking at his watch, he realised he had overshot his meeting by ten minutes. After hurriedly swallowing his coffee, he threw down enough money to cover the meal.
“I’m sorry,” he explained. “I have a meeting. Do you think you can find Finn’s place?” “I have GPS in the rental.”
“Don’t bother with that, I’ll come get you at seven. His place isn’t far from the cabins.”
“See you then.” Jason looked up at him with heat in his eyes and Kieran was left with a cock so hard he could swear he’d shred his shorts. Fuck. He was going to have to attend a meeting with his dad sporting the hardest erection since he’d lusted over Eben Adamson in his last year at school.
Kieran desperately wanted to say something clever and witty so that Jason would be dazzled with the fact that he was an intelligent person. Instead all he could come up with was “Later” and a smile.
Then he left.

Jason finished his meal and pulled out some cash from his wallet to cover his part of the bill. Monique took the money and stopped for a short chat about the weather, of all things. Jason didn’t know what he had been expecting but it wasn’t the casual acceptance that people had for him here. Maybe he should look at buying a place here. As an investment. He could hire someone to look after it when he wasn’t there. Kieran maybe.

And that led him to thoughts of the man he’d just sat opposite for the past half-hour. He couldn’t believe he’d actually convinced the sexy young man to spend time with him. In fact, Kieran had seemed keen. He didn’t appear to look at Jason as an over the hill letch and that was in the plus column. The only unsettling thing was a brief flash of disappointment in Kieran’s eyes when he’d said the simple words ‘just sex’. Jason wanted more than that—he needed to feel alive after so many months of drifting along. Kieran struck him as exactly the sort of man that could make Jason get his head out of his ass. Maybe being with him would make Jason shave every day at least. That would be a good start.