As the electronic front doors parted for me, I hesitated, realizing I didn’t even know his name. He saw me and waved me over, waiting out front just like he said, sitting on the biggest, loudest motorcycle I’d ever seen in my life. It apparently went with the boots.
“Let’s walk!” I yelled over the noise of the engine, hugging my arms across my chest. “It’s just across the street.”
“Are you serious?” He frowned. “Come on, hop on!”
“I can’t ride on that thing!” I hated admitting it, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
“How come?”
“Long story.” I took a step back from the bike as he revved the engine.
“All right.” He rode the motorcycle into a parking space and I walked over to meet him.
“So what’s your name?” I asked as we started across the parking lot.
“Jonah,” he replied, pocketing his keys. “You’re…” He glanced over at me and made a face. “Tybalt? Really?”
“Ty,” I corrected, rolling my eyes and reaching for my name tag. I always forgot about it. I unpinned it and slid it into my pocket.
“Hot-headed?” he asked, putting his arm straight out in front of me to keep me from crossing the street and I smiled at the gesture. We weren’t near an intersection, and Denny’s was directly across, so we had to essentially jaywalk.
“Me?” I laughed, a sound that surprised me. How long had it been since I laughed like that? “I’m more kitten than tiger.”
He gave me a quick, sideways look, but there was a bit of heat in it and I flushed, hurrying after him across the street.
“I just thought…you know, Tybalt, from the play…” He opened the door to Denny’s, holding it and waving me in. “So your mother was a Shakespeare fan?”
“You read Shakespeare?” I watched him signal the hostess. Her eyes widened slightly and lit up when she got a look at him—not that I blamed her. The man was like a walking god in denim and motorcycle boots. But I couldn’t help the stab of jealousy I felt when she came over and greeted him, touching his arm, laughing and tucking her hair behind her ear as she led us to a table.
Me, I couldn’t be so obvious. I sat across from him in the booth and hid behind my menu until she went away with our drink orders—a Coke for me and an iced tea for him—our hostess now doubling as waitress. I wondered bitterly if she’d traded someone for our table.
“‘Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once,’” Jonah quoted, folding his menu and sliding it behind the salt and ketchup.
I blinked at him over my menu. “Are we filming a reality TV version of Pulp Fiction? Are you going to pull out a gun and start talking about righteousness and furious anger?”
He laughed, a deep, rumbling sound. “Julius Caesar might have lived if he’d had a gun.”
“You’re certainly well-read.” I raised an eyebrow at him and tried to study my menu. The words were swimming.
“Well…” He shrugged and I was almost pleased to see him looking a little embarrassed. “Actually, I just know that one quote. I thought it was cool back in high school, cowards and valor and all that. I probably just said it to impress you.”
I didn’t say anything as the waitress set down our drinks and tried, again, to flirt with Jonah. He smiled and nodded and told her to come back for our order and I sat there, feeling very pleased with myself for no reason at all.
“My brother’s name is Romeo,” I admitted, peeling open my straw.
“Oh no, you’re kidding me!” Jonah grinned. “Do you have a sister named Juliet?”
“No sisters. Thank god she just had us two.” I snorted. “So is there a story behind your name? A whale, maybe?”
He chuckled, squeezing lemon into his iced tea. “No whales. No brothers or sisters, either. Just me.”
“Your parents?”
He shook his head and shrugged, his eyes on some distant point as he drank. “They’re dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
The appearance of the waitress again kept me from moving past perfunctory platitudes.
Jonah ordered. “Southwestern skillet. Extra spicy.”
And so did I. “Chocolate chip pancakes. Extra syrup.”
I think the waitress finally got the hint, because she disappeared quickly this time.
“Sweet tooth?” Jonah remarked as she left.
“I’m afraid so.” I smiled.
He appraised me slowly. “Doesn’t show.” His gaze moved heatedly, darkly down, pausing at my mouth and I had a feeling he was wishing the table wasn’t in the way of his assessment.

“Fast metabolism.” I shrugged.

“What do you weigh?” He leaned back in his seat, draping his arm across the back of the booth. His bicep was twice the size of my own. At least. “One-fifty?”

“I’m probably half your size.”

He nodded. “Just about.”

“I could never bulk up,” I admitted, sipping my Coke. “I tried pretty hard, too, back in college. What’s your secret?”

The waitress arrived, carrying a tray, and started setting dishes down. Jonah was eating before she’d even set my syrup on the table.

“Well, the military helped,” Jonah went on, ignoring her altogether, his mouth half-full of eggs. “But it’s probably mostly genetics.”

I spread butter liberally on my pancakes. “You’re in the service?”

“Was,” he corrected, waving the waitress away when she went to refill his iced tea.

I hid a smile as I poured syrup. “Army?”

“Navy.” He swallowed, those striking blue eyes sharp again. “What about you? I don’t imagine Wal-Mart is your chosen career path?”

“No.” I shrugged. “But it pays the bills for now.”

I waited for the next obvious question—what do you do? I didn’t want to talk about college, a wasted engineering degree, which would somehow lead to my life with Don and Katie. No, I really didn’t want to talk about any of it.

Instead, Jonah surprised me with a less obvious but even more shocking question: “So, are you out?”

I swallowed a sticky mess of doughy chocolate chips, washing them down with a long drink of Coke that tasted like battery acid and made my eyes water. “Mostly,” I admitted, recovered enough to answer. “Family and friends, but…my job, not so much. You?”

“I, uh…” He grinned, looking sheepish. “I was an equal opportunity sorta guy for a long time. But I’ve sort of narrowed my field of interest over the years.”

I snorted, pushing the pancakes away from me. I was entirely too full already. “Being gay in the Navy is a rather frightening stereotype.”

He winked, scooping up the last bit of his eggs with a spoon. “The Village People just liked the uniforms.”

“Well, I don’t blame them,” I replied, winking back.

His laugh, like everything about him, was irresistible. Then he surprised me again. “I want to take you home.”

His words completely disarmed me and my cock throbbed when I looked into his eyes. I had to admit, I wanted it too. If it had been ten years ago, even five, I probably would have. Instead, I said, “I have to get back to work.”

“I know. Me too,” he agreed, wiping his mouth with a napkin, his eyes never leaving mine. “But I still want to.”

“I’d like to come home with you.” Yes. God, I wanted it, too. What harm was there in the admission? But the silence that followed was dangerous. In that silence, we were already on his bike, back to his place, clothes and trepidation both dispatched. During that pause, we had already sucked and fucked our way to a blissful oblivion. I couldn’t let it go on. Clearing my throat and reaching for the check, I said, “Well, I have to punch back in…”