Wes sat at a quiet table in the corner of Bottom’s Up, Hidden Creek’s most popular gay bar, and watched the world pass by.

Couples filtered in through the night. Older, more established couples left by nine or ten, just stopping in to join co-workers or friends and let off some steam. Younger couples arrived later and stayed later, too, sometimes until last call. They had more to prove, to each other and to the world. And, to be completely fair, there wasn’t a ton to do in Hidden Creek after hours.

Wes had always been a man who made his own fun, though. He’d learned to do it from a lifetime of living in this small town, and lately, a revolving door of men looking for a night they wouldn’t soon forget but wouldn’t be pressed to remember, either. Tonight he couldn’t say he was in the mood to steal some fresh-faced young man away to the bathroom and give him a taste of what was to come if he decided to take a chance. Tonight he just wanted to drink and stew and forget that the whole day had ever happened.

He’d lost a patient.

It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. He wasn’t fucking infallible, as much as some people might think he was. Some of the staff whispered about the streak he’d maintained for nearly a month. Twenty-eight days, not a single death on his shift. But it wasn’t something to brag about. In a small town like Hidden Creek, it should be the bare minimum, and if he lost anyone, it should be someone who was beyond help. Someone who’d lived a full life and was ready to meet their maker.

Not a nineteen-year-old boy who’d barely had enough time to experience anything.

He’d arrived in respiratory distress, and Wes had done everything in his power to clear the boy’s airway and get his lungs to work properly. It hadn’t helped. The patient stopped breathing completely and went into respiratory arrest. He lost consciousness from the lack of oxygen, then later went into cardiac arrest. A trifecta of shit hitting the fan. Wes had tried to revive him long past the time when the rest of his staff had called it, but it was no use.

Toxicology reports showed a high amount of opioids in his system, along with a high blood alcohol level. Senseless? Absolutely. Intentional? He had no idea. All Wes knew was that he’d ordered a pair of nurses out of the room after they’d commented on how awful it was; how something like this should have never happened in Hidden Creek. But it had been happening in so many rural areas that Wes knew it was only a matter of time before it struck here, and anyone who thought differently was delusional.

He lifted a single malt glass of Lagavulin Scotch to his lips and drank slowly. Smooth, fiery liquid slid down his throat with a burn that hurt so damn good every time. Tomorrow was another day. Tomorrow, he’d make sure every member of Hidden Creek Memorial’s staff knew the score when it came to overdoses and things that would “never happen” in their town. But tonight, he was going to drink his whiskey, and he was going to wallow.

It wasn’t like Trevor Malhoney was the first patient he’d ever lost from completely preventable causes. It wasn’t the worst, either, though Wes was reluctant to rank the loss of life. But in terms of deaths that personally affected him and shattered his life into millions of tiny, irreparable pieces? That honor went to someone else.

He took another long drink and stared out at the bar’s patrons with a disinterested sweep. There were plenty of singles at Bottom’s Up, intermixed and sometimes intermingling with the couples. Wes had a keen eye for spotting single men who were desperate for a satisfying fuck—and nothing else. Men who wanted to raise the stakes; do something out of their comfort zone. That was his type when it came to one-night stands. Men who would feel slightly ashamed of how wantonly they’d acted the night before, but not enough to try and deny that it ever happened.

Normally, Wes would have searched out exactly that kind of entertainment for his evening, but Bottom’s Up was crowded mostly with locals tonight, and he wasn’t interested in turning any of his one-night stands into two-night stands—despite the lust-filled looks he was getting from a couple of men dressed in too-tight jeans.

Other than a cursory stirring as his cock recognized a good fuck, they didn’t do anything for him tonight. He was “too far up his own ass,” as Adrian was fond of saying.

Wes’ heart squeezed painfully at the memory, and he drowned out the feeling by finishing his glass and ordering another round. As he waited, he pulled out his phone and thumbed through his social media accounts, noticing a Grindr message from Swishy Like Wine that he promptly ignored. He scrolled past tweet after tweet, post after post, nothing catching his interest.

As his mind wandered, though, he heard something far more captivating than anything his so-called friend circle could manage.

“We stopped sleeping together a little bit after the engagement.” A young man—late twenties at the most—spoke to someone slightly older with similar features. A brother? “She told me she wanted it to feel new again.” An intoxicated snort followed this. “Such a load of bullshit. She just wanted to fuck Mike without a guilty conscience.”

Interesting. He might as well have been left at the altar. Wes was willing to bet anything that this Mike was a friend, too. It fit the narrative too well for him to be some stranger.

“Man. What’d you do when you caught them? I mean, were they—”

“Fucking right in front of me?” the first man offered. From the bitter look on his face, Wes knew the answer. “Yep. I got a good look at Mike’s hairy ass as he plowed my fiancée. Great stuff.”

The younger of the two tossed back a drink and Wes took that moment to admire his form. The alcohol kissed lips that looked soft and pliant. Just thick enough to suck on with some satisfaction. The strong muscles in his throat worked as he swallowed, and Wes imagined the man on his knees and swallowing something else entirely. His dick twitched in his dark pants, and he let his gaze drag slowly over the rest of the man’s body.

He had a lean build, fit but not the type that frequented the gym. His job must have involved some kind of exercise, or he was a runner. Lithe limbs and a tapered body supported that idea, and when the man shifted a certain way on his stool, Wes got a tantalizing look at his tight ass, cruelly confined in a pair of jeans. A rumble caught in his throat, and he very nearly had to adjust himself under the cover of the table as he thought of all the things he’d like to do to that body.

Wes could slip away with him to the bathroom, lock the door and shove the slender man up against it, so that luscious ass stuck out to greet him. He could slip his arms around the stranger, one hand sliding under his shirt, the other moving down to grip his dick through his pants while he ground his own leaking cock against the man’s ass. He could turn him around, ease him down to the floor and unzip his fly before feeding his cock to his partner’s wet, waiting mouth…

He nearly groaned as the fantasy played itself out in his mind, and this time he did have to shift in his chair to ease the painful erection somewhat. This little lost pup of a man had given no indication of being interested in men, but Wes was eager to find out, and he’d made more than one supposedly straight boy realize they were incredibly bi. Opening up a whole new world to them was like performing a public service, and he would be oh so happy to service that man.

The dreary mood he’d come into Bottom’s Up with slipped away, and Wes found himself fixated on the out-of-towner and biding his time until the man was alone.