L. A. Witt - Rules 1 - Rules of Engagement by L.A. Witt Read Free Book Online Page B

dated a guy once that didn’t realize he was gay—not bi, mind you, gay —until he was almost forty.”
    “Damn, that must have been an eye opener for him.” “No kidding.”
    Watching my fingers on his tattoo again, I was silent for a moment before I looked at him. “So how the hell did you know I was— well, whatever I am—before I did?”
    “You mean when I came onto you in the parking lot?” “Yeah.”
    Shrugging, he said, “I didn’t. I saw someone who was attractive, and I went for it.” He paused. “I wanted you the second I saw you, but it took me a while to figure out whether you’d be receptive to it. It’s always a risk approaching a guy that could be straight, because sometimes the response is a bit more hostile than just a rejection.”
I cringed. “I can imagine.” Then I ran my fingers through his hair. “So what gave it away?”
    He smiled. At first I thought it was the cocky, knowing look I’d come to expect from him, but there was something distant in his eyes for a moment. Something nostalgic. Finally, he said, “When you went for the eight ball. Your hands were shaking, and you kept licking your lips.”
“I was doing that the whole game.”
    The smile turned into a grin. Ah, there you are, my cocky friend . “You had that game in the bag,” he said. “It was an easy shot. You could have dropped that ball with your eyes closed.” He wetted his lips. “I’d never seen someone so nervous when he knew he was going to win.”
    I laughed. “I had a feeling you were sizing me up. I just didn’t know why.”
“You’re right.” He leaned in to kiss me. “I was.”
“So you knew, when you came out to the parking lot—” “I didn’t know what was going to happen.” His smile turned almost shy. “I was just hoping.”
     
I touched his face and drew him in for a long, gentle kiss. “I hope you weren’t disappointed.”
    “No.” He ran his fingers through my hair. “I’m definitely not disappointed.”
    W
HEN I walked into the club the next night, most of the crowd was centered around the pool tables. I vaguely remembered a few faces from the night I met Brandon, but they definitely remembered me.
“Hey! The challenger is here!” one guy in a backwards baseball cap said.
    “Oh, sweet!” said a blonde who was, I was fairly certain, the girl who had challenged Brandon right before my game with him. “Maybe someone else will win for once.”
    “We’ll see, won’t we?” I said, chuckling as I shouldered my way through the crowd to the signup sheet. As I put my name down and signed the “I understand the rules and all of that bullshit” blank next to it, I scanned the list. There were about a dozen players already signed up, and second from the top was Brandon. My heart jumped when I saw his name. I had to laugh. In the column where he’d written his name, his handwriting was perfect, but his signature was little more than a “B” followed by a hint of an “S” and a sharply angled line. The kind of quick, to-the-point signature that said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I read the fucking rules, whatever.” Flawless on one side, flippant on the other. How very Brandon.
“I suppose I should have left that second place spot open for you.” His voice startled me.
     
Looking over my shoulder, I grinned. “I don’t know. I think your name looks pretty good right where it is.”
     
There went the cocky grin. “You just want to be on top, don’t you?”
     
I winked. “Always.”
    He clapped my shoulder, a perfectly platonic heterosexual gesture except for the quick, deliberate brush of his thumb across my arm. “May the best man win, then.”
“Assuming you don’t let me win again, right?”
     
He snickered. “Dustin, you won that one fair and square. I may lose sometimes, but not without a fight. I never let anyone win.” “You’d never throw a game if the stakes were high enough?” “Please. I’d fight to the last ball even if my own mother’s soul was