in all this bitterness

It took less than twenty seconds for Nathan to work through what he had to do. He was able to get the bartender’s attention before Jesse and ordered himself a shot of whiskey before closing out him and his girlfriend’s tab as well as her friends and he downed the rest of his pint as well as the shot before the bartender even had a total for him. He pulled out more than enough cash for the tabs and got up before Jesse even had a beer poured for him. Not once did Nathan look in his direction. 

His actions were cool, calm, and calculated. No one except for Jesse would’ve been able to decipher his gestures and Nathan made sure they read stay the hell away from me. Nathan just prayed the feelings were mutual not that he had any idea what the man was feeling. He hadn’t really had the opportunity to ask if he was out. Not that the man really mattered. Nathan was the one who had everything to lose on the line. His entire life could come crashing down before his eyes for fucking up and fucking someone too close to home. Someone who was home. He was as much a part of this podunk town as the bartender, or barber, or wife-beater wearing bastard playing pool in his peripheral vision. Even someone as obscure as Jesse could bring his life crashing down. 

Nathan made his way to the table of girls. He pulled his lady in his lap and explained the situation. He apologized to her for having one too many and he wasn’t going to let her ride on the back of his motorcycle tonight and despite the obvious disappointment on her face she accepted the cab with minimal protest and with a few parting kisses and a promise that they’d get together again this weekend she was off and Nathan was left outside in the cold. The rest of the world either asleep or occupying one of two bars for the night and here Nathan was smoking a cigarette, and then another as he tried to sober up enough to ride home. His full attention on the candy apple red bike of his as he filled his lungs with carcinogen and not the scent of motor oil and testosterone that was flooding into his brain. 

Keenly aware of Nathan’s all-too hasty departure from the bar, Jesse held his own as calmly and collectively as he could as well, fingers mindlessly drumming along the counter in the condensation left behind by drinks long gone. It was that time of night when more empty glasses and bottles were starting to collect on the bar than people, conversations louder than necessary over some kind of terrible house music that was even more unnecessarily louder. But it made for pretending not to notice the sudden absence of Nathan beside all too easy, offering the bartender a small smile and soft-spoken gratitude as he gathered the three bottles of beer up in his hands and made his way towards the back of the bar to turn the drinks over to the men he’d arrived with. 

It was only once he felt hidden under the low lights of the back area with the pool cues cracking over every other sound in the place, that Jesse felt himself release a breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding in. Nathan was hardly his first conquest in this town full of narrow-minded conservatives and God-fearing folk. And he also wasn’t the first to lay eyes on Jesse in public with fleeting panic written all over his face either. It was an encounter he quickly grew accustomed to, leaving the whole town guessing still about him - never quite able to pin him down entirely. Jesse wasn’t even sure what he’d do if any of his past rendezvous were to greet him openly and warmly instead of growing glacial at the sight of him. As comfortable as he felt with himself, the thought of the whole town knowing for sure what he was didn’t exactly scream ‘uncomplicated’ to him. 

It’s easy to live a double life when you’re under everyone’s radar. When you fly so low that your belly brushes up against the wheat in the summer it’s fair to assume that the front you put on is all there is.

Nathan, a man raised on chocolate milk and spankings with “be home before the street lights come on” engrained in his brain would not have a double life. A man who’d been with one girl his entire life. A girl he might as well be engaged to since before she started eying rings on Pinterest with her girlfriends. A girl who moaned his name during missionary and doesn’t mind that he never gives her oral. A girl who Nathan got an associate’s degree at the community college out of town for so one day when they get married at the church where they were both baptized Nathan would have a good job and be able to support his wife and their future baby on one income alone.

That was his life and Nathan wasn’t unhappy. He didn’t hook up with men three hours away. He didn’t experiment at a rest stop in between here and his school and he didn’t fantasize about the Western hero or how he slung his gun on dates to the drive in theater with his girlfriend in high school.

No, that wasn’t Nathan and that never would’ve been anyone’s Nathan if it hadn’t been for a motorcycle.

A motorcycle that until about three months ago Nathan had complete control over when it came to repairs. A bike that hadn’t needed a new fender, or kick stand, or foot rest, or muffler, or to get every cosmetic scratch buffed out. A motorcycle that was the sole witness to Nathan getting dominated in the office by the grease monkey in charge of her while a fresh coat of paint dried––free of charge–– a couple weeks back.

If it wasn’t for a damn motorcycle Nathan wouldn’t be here choking on his beer while his girlfriend giggled off in a booth with her best friends just because Jesse walked through the door. The man who until about three months ago was nothing more than a pariah mechanic no one but little old ladies got their oil changed from and not who Nathan thought about in bed with his girlfriend or late at night when he couldn’t sleep. He was meant to be nothing more than an acquaintance in a small town not the man who could ruin his entire life just by taking up a bar stool next to him.

That didn’t prevent people in this tiny ass town from trying to complicate it for him though. Whispers over his shoulder and side-eyes as he waded through the day had become the norm and he had learned to just be thankful they tended to keep to hushed tones and just outside his peripheral view. The high school days of boys slinging insults or old ladies tsking their tongues at him feeling more like a distant memory each and every day. They say small towns never forget but there’s something about a nice looking face and good manners that makes it easier for everyone to forgive you. There was only a handful of people left in the town now who were still thickheaded enough to ask him why he hadn’t found a nice girl yet. Others either just knew or weren’t sure they wanted to know. Anyone who dared still asked got that same lie he always told himself.

That was part of the whole appeal for this town in Jesse’s mind. It was simple place with quiet, simple people and simple routines. And if he walked into a bar flanked by a few men from the garage, full of oil and grease, a few heads might turn before going right back to minding their own damn business. Simple. 

Except for tonight of course, with a big red glaring alarm hanging over Nathan’s head as Jesse had the misfortune of locking eyes with the other for a split-second, the same heat he’d felt for him a few weeks back in a dark corner of the auto shop prickling at the back of his neck before leaving an icy cold sweat settling across his skin as he desperately tried to beat down those memories with a fucking bat.