Special Delivery: Special Delivery, Book 1 (27 page)

“Come on,” Randy teased. “He ain’t
that
good.”

Sam lifted his eyebrows. “You know this from experience?”

Randy’s eyes danced. “Yep.”

It was a blow, but he’d walked into it. Of course they had experience. This was the guy Mitch was still hung up over. Sam attempted to cover his sensitivity with a shrug and a boast. “Well,
I
think he’s that good. So the answer is still no.”

Randy seemed amused. “Aw, baby, you’re a
pet
. Well, why didn’t you say?”

Pet? Sam frowned at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“He give you a name? A nickname?”

Sam could sense the trap rising up around him, but he didn’t understand it. He kept quiet.

His silence only egged Randy on. “No? Well, that was usually my specialty. I’ll call you Peaches.”

“Sam?” Mitch called out.

Sam felt guilty even though he had no idea why, his blush deepening at the sight of Mitch. His lover’s face was wooden as he glanced back and forth between Sam and Randy.

Sam ran his fingers through his hair.
Don’t let this go weird. You can do this. Show him.
“Mitch, I’m out of clothes. I need a washing machine, and probably something to wear in the meantime.”

“I’ll give you something—” Randy started to say, and Mitch turned on him, going from wooden to furious in half a second.

“Randy, you stupid fuck.” He waved an angry hand at him. “Goddamn it, why the hell are you here?”

“Looking for you, you big faggot.” Randy punched Mitch mildly in the arm. “I like your boy. Bring your shit to the house, and we’ll play while we wait for the wash.” When Mitch started swearing again, Randy only grinned. “I got your bike in the garage, if you recall. Unless you plan on running Blue bobtail around town?”

Mitch rubbed his neck, looking bottled, nervous. Sam didn’t know if he wanted to kiss him or hit him. There was something else there too in Mitch’s expression, and as soon as Sam saw it, he wished he hadn’t.

Longing. Sam saw longing.

Sam turned to Mitch, too tired to keep this up. “I don’t care where we go,” he lied. “I need to have clean clothes, like, yesterday.”

“Get the dirty stuff and toss it in a garbage bag. Bring anything you want to have around with you for the next few days.”

“We’re staying that long?” Sam asked, surprised and a little afraid.

“I have no fucking idea.” Mitch stalked off.

Sam rolled his eyes, then ducked inside and started to pack.

He had most of the dirty clothes in a garbage bag and was trying to decide if he should bring something for Mitch or anything to eat when the door opened. He held up a pair of jeans and glanced over his shoulder. “Mitch, do you want— Oh,” he said, when he saw Randy standing there.

Randy gave him a lewd grin and a wave. “Just came to help you, Peaches.”

Sam tried to look busy. “I think you came to piss him off.”
And scare me.

“Oh, that’s an added benefit.” Randy leaned against the bathroom door and ran his eyes up and down Sam’s body. “Baby, you are sex on legs.”

“And you’re really gross.” Sam tossed his iPhone charger into his pack.

“You’ve got sass. That’s good. Mitch’s boys usually don’t have sass.”

“I’m not his boy.” Sam added a pair of Mitch’s underwear and socks to the charger.
According to him, anyway.
“And I’m not a
pet
, either, whatever the fuck that is.”

“Seriously?” Randy stood straighter. “You two aren’t fucking?”

“Seriously, you can go wait outside.” Sam debated on the bag of jerky, then tossed it in too.

“Naw, he’s too pissy about you, and you’re the little lady in here packing up his shit for him. You’re a pet.”

“Hey.” Sam turned on him with a fierce smile. “You know, I don’t need laundry after all, so why don’t you get the fuck out.”

Randy held up his hands and whistled low. “Baby, put the gun down. Jesus, maybe the two of you aren’t fucking, if you’re both this uptight.”

Sam bent down to the fridge, poking for more mineral water. He took out a yogurt too, and a spoon. He packed the water, but he grabbed a spoon and ate the Yoplait.

“We keep fighting.” He regretted his confession instantly, but he was unable to stop talking now that he’d begun. “Since Durango.”

“Shit—you been with him that long?”

“Since Iowa.” Sam ate more yogurt. “Fuck. Forget I said anything. You’re only going to be an ass, I can tell.”

Randy looked stunned. “I’ll be damned. You
aren’t
a buffalo, are you?”

Sam was really starting to hate the word. He tossed the yogurt in the trash and his spoon in the sink. “Go away, please.”

“Seriously.” Randy was earnest now. “Are you two—together?”

“I have no idea.” Sam zipped the bag shut and did one last check around the cab. Had he packed the right stuff for Mitch? Should he have even bothered? He glanced at the bathroom, thinking about his shampoo, but Randy blocked the way. He shouldered the pack. “Fine. If you won’t leave, I will.”

But as he tried to walk past, Randy grabbed him by the arm. Sam stiffened and fought him. Randy’s hand closed over Sam’s crotch, and Sam froze, half in terror, half in a sort of shocked arousal.

“Peaches.” Randy nuzzled Sam’s neck with the scruff of a beard, and Sam shivered and got hard.

Randy felt the shift, too, and groped him boldly. “I’ll give you five hundred dollars if you let me take you off right now and fuck you.”

The eroticism of being held captive and fondled by a stranger was washed away by those words, which hit Sam like a bucket of cold water. He wrenched himself away, and Randy laughed. But just as he got ready for an angry retort, Randy held up his hands, and something in his smile caught Sam.

“You aren’t a hooker, Peaches. But you are somethin’ sweet. Now I get why the pair of you are so funny.” He ran a finger down Sam’s cheek, and Sam flinched, but only after he remembered that was how he should react. Randy chuckled. “Oh, baby, this is gonna be an interesting couple of days, I can tell that now.”

Sam pulled away, and when Mitch came into the cab, Sam was torn between relief and panic, almost running into him in his efforts to get away from Randy. “I packed for you. But I don’t know if I got the right stuff.”

Randy laughed, and Mitch glowered at him. “Whatever you brought is fine. Let’s go.”

Randy pinched Sam’s ass as he left the cab, and he grabbed it when Sam jumped. “Real interesting,” he whispered, then slapped Sam’s rump and stepped out into the parking lot.

Chapter Nineteen

Randy didn’t flirt with Mitch, which was what Sam feared. No, Randy flirted with Sam.

At first nothing happened. Three feet from the rig, Sam remembered his mother’s ashes, and once he had them, Mitch drove Old Blue to wherever it was he would store her for the next few days. This left Sam with Randy, and that was when the game began.

“Come on, Peaches.” Randy put his arm around Sam’s waist and led him in the opposite direction. “Let’s run away quick before he comes back.”

Sam detached himself and put significant distance between them. “Are you going to do this the whole time?”

Randy grinned. “You make it too easy and too fun.” He didn’t grab Sam again, only spun his keys on his finger and smiled to himself as he nodded toward the beat-up pickup that made the one in Denver look like it had come from the showroom floor.

“Do all truckers only drive pickups when they aren’t in a rig?” Then Sam realized his assumption. “Wait—you
are
a trucker too, right?”

“Yeah, though I do other things too. Not all truckers have pickups, no, but after riding up that high all the time, it’s hard to go crawling around on your belly.” He opened the door with his key, slid across and unlocked the other for Sam.

It was a bench seat, but Sam quickly realized when Mitch was inside, they’d be crammed close, and he could only imagine what Randy would do. He lingered in the doorway, wincing at the sun. “Hotter here than in Colorado. A lot.”

“You’ve been in the mountains, so yeah, this is gonna seem pretty warm. Nights still get cool, though.”

“Not in Iowa. It stays muggy and hot all night.”

“Well, with you there, I’m sure it does.” Randy patted the seat beside him, leering. “Get on in here, baby, and let me get to know you better.”

Sam didn’t move. “Are you always like this? Seriously?”

Randy said nothing, only patted the seat again. Sam stood there until Mitch came. When he slid across the seat, Randy grabbed his thigh, squeezed it fast, then leaned over to murmur in Sam’s ear. “Peaches, I get much, much better than this.”

As they drove through town, Randy pointed out this or that landmark, feature or interesting historical or cultural tidbit, and Sam leaned into Mitch. Mitch draped his arm across Sam’s back. Randy teased Sam, and through him, Mitch. Every time he reached down to shift, Randy’s hand deliberately caressed Sam’s knee, and Sam frequently had to push it off his thigh. Mitch saw it all, and every time he did, his hand tightened on Sam’s shoulder. It was so over the top Sam thought it had to be an act, that Randy was deliberately being the biggest asshole he could possibly be, but Sam couldn’t quite figure out why. He had no idea why Mitch was so quiet either. He’d complained for a few minutes, but now he sat rigid, as if he were waiting for the inevitable, horrible end.

Finally, Sam decided he’d had enough.

“Interesting as this is,” he said after Randy had taken them by their seventeenth wedding chapel, “I’m not kidding about needing to do laundry.”

“Oh, we’re going shopping, Peaches.” Randy’s hand drifted briefly to Sam’s thigh, departing again before Sam could remove him. “Almost there too.”

“My name is Sam.” He moved his legs closer to Mitch.

Randy said nothing more as they drove down the street. Mitch lit a cigarette.

Sam saw a lot of porn shops and seedy bars and more than a few disreputable people eyeballing them as they drove. When a car backfired ahead of them in traffic and Sam stiffened in surprise, Mitch’s arm tucked a little closer around his shoulders, and he bent down to brush his lips against Sam’s temple. “It’s okay, Sunshine. I got you.”

Randy pulled into the parking lot of a dirty place that said DISCOUNT CLOTHING, and Sam stuck close to Mitch as they got out of the car and headed into the store.

He’d thought the place was a sort of thrift store, but once inside Sam saw it was more of a clothing warehouse. Everything was new, and some of it quite stylish, but it was shoved onto racks and shelves in no particular arrangement, either by style or size. Sam tried to find jeans, or any kind of pants really, but after five minutes the only thing in his size he’d come up with was a pair of dress pants. They were nice, but at home he’d have nowhere to wear them. He searched on, wishing Randy would’ve taken them to a Walmart so he’d already be changed.

Randy appeared over the top of a rack of clothing and passed him a pair of folded jeans. “Here, Peaches. Try these.”

Sam peeked at the size, which was exactly right. “Yeah, these are—” He opened them up, letting the legs fall down to the ground, and he turned to Randy, glaring. “How about a pair
not
covered in holes?”

“You said yourself it was warm,” Randy pointed out. “Built-in air conditioning.”

“Free advertising too.” Sam poked his fingers through the gashes underneath the seat.

“How about this. You try them on, and you show Mitch.”

“I’m not buying something this impractical.” Sam pushed them back at Randy.

“You actually are from Iowa, aren’t you? Here, then—you try the jeans on, and if Mitch likes them,
I’ll
buy them.”

“You’re not buying anything for me.” Sam glared at the jeans. “I’d look like a hooker.”

“Yeah, figured you’d enjoy that part.” Randy passed another pair over. “Here. A more sensible pair for your Iowa side.”

These, Sam noted, had no holes, but they did have chains at the pockets and were splattered decoratively with paint along the cuffs, seams and on the butt. After peeking at the price tag, he decided if they fit okay, he’d keep them.

The dressing rooms were on the far side of the store and were little more than sagging curtains over a wall of shakily piled boxes. Randy ushered Sam inside and handed him the jeans one at a time. He also stayed at the gap, clearly intending to watch Sam get undressed.

Sam hesitated over the button of his jeans. “Where’s Mitch?”

“Outside having another cigarette.” He made hurry-up motions with his hand. “Come on. Let’s see what you’re packing, Peaches.”

It was something about Randy’s voice, Sam decided, as instead of demanding Randy get the hell out of his dressing room, Sam simply undid his jeans and pushed them down over his hips, averting his eyes so he couldn’t see Randy watching. When Randy murmured appreciatively, Sam’s ears burned, but he kept getting dressed, looking at the floor, boxes of stock making up the walls—anything but Randy’s face.
Mitch wouldn’t leave you with him if he wasn’t safe,
he tried to tell himself. Except he was pretty sure nothing about Randy was safe.