Page 27 of Solid Foundation
Chapter Thirteen
Jake
“Fuck yeah!” Slade sank the final ball of the game into the corner pocket he’d been aiming for and celebrated by polishing off his beer and crushing the can before tossing it into a recycle bin Axton kept nearby.
Axton took the loss well, rolling his eyes and flipping Slade off good-naturedly.
“Go again?” Slade asked.
Axton shook his head and passed his cue stick to Knox. “You go. I’m tired of losing.” Knox stepped up readily and Axton took a seat next to me on the battered old couch that sat nearby. “How’s things?”
I looked at him wide-eyed, worried he’d told someone, and tilted my head toward the guys. “Did you—?” When he shook his head, relief washed over me. “Things are good.”
“Yeah?”
Dropping my voice to a low murmur, I glanced over at Slade and Knox to see if they were listening. Slade was telling a story about how he’d gotten poison ivy on his ass a few years ago ona camping trip, and Knox was cracking up. They were definitelynotlistening in on our conversation. “I guess you could say I’m seeing someone.”
At that exact moment, though, Slade’s monologue ended, the room fell silent, and both Slade and Knox looked directly at me.
“You’rewhat?” Knox asked.
Slade had a smirk on his face a mile wide. “Hell yeah, you are.”
Shit. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I narrowed my eyes at Slade.
He shrugged. “It means congrats. I don’t think you’ve dated someone in the, what is it, ten years we’ve been friends?”
Knox nodded in agreement. “Yeah, man. That’s great news. What’s her name?”
Heat blazed in me in record time. My neck and throat were hot, my face was warm, even the tips of my ears were burning. I scratched my neck and stammered, trying to think of a response. “I… uh…”
Axton put his hand on my shoulder. “Fuck off, you two. He doesn’t have to tell us shit.”
“No,” I managed to get out. I didn’t want to hide it. Even though we hadn’t put a label on what we were doing, there was definitely something between Max and me and I wanted to be able to be honest about it to my friends. “Hisname. Max.”
Slade nodded in approval. “Cool. Do we know him?”
“Isn’t Max the bartender at that strip club you used to like?” Knox asked Slade.
“No. That was… Mark? No, Matt.”
“Oh, right.” Knox nodded in agreement, satisfied for the moment that they’d remembered the name. I hoped they’d drop it from there, but no such luck. Knox turned back to me. “What’s he like then?”
In for a penny, in for a pound, I decided. “Bossy, but good at it. He’s the lead producer on the show, actually.”
Slade grinned. “Nice. Keep going.”
“Uh… Determined. A pain in my ass sometimes, because he’s so damn focused on getting what he wants. At work, I mean. But he’s a really good guy under all of that.”
“Big dick?” Slade’s smirk was back.
My eyebrows shot up. “What?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, man, what do you ask someone who’s dating a guy? If you were seeing a woman, I’d ask how she looked, if she had great tits. Seemed fair.”
Axton snorted and rolled his eyes. “Okay, moving on. So when do we get to meet him?”
I let out a shaky breath. “Slow down. It’s literally been, like, two days.”
