Fucking. Vance. Chastain.

If they weren’t locked in a bathroom stall together, Aaron would have kneed him in the fucking groin. The shitty excuse for a man had ruined his life when he was in his senior year of high school, and it felt like a mockery of all the hard work Aaron had put into fixing his reputation that he was back in town… and that Aaron had been kneeling for him all over again.

“Shit,” Vance said, always the poet. Aaron scowled at him. His cheeks hurt from how deeply he was frowning.

“Yeah, shit is right.” Aaron wiped the cum from his face and flicked it into the toilet with a shake of his hand, no longer turned on by how messy and wild his fling had been. He’d been expecting a no-strings-attached night of debauched fun, and instead, he’d crossed paths with the only man in the universe who he couldn’t stand.

He’d let that man come in his mouth and shoot all over his face. Great. Just great.

“You were, um… bigger back then,” Vance said, like it could excuse his sins.

Aaron saw red. “Excuse me?”

“I’m not saying that you were fat—”

“You need to leave.”

“I’m just saying that you looked different back then. Like, your face was different, and your build, and… well… I didn’t recognize you at all. If I’d known it was you, I wouldn’t have pulled you into the bathroom with me.”

“You need to leave,” Aaron said again, harsher this time. “And by leave, I mean get out of town. You haven’t lived here in over a decade. You need to get out. This is my town now. You left.”

“So did you!”

“Only until I could show my face around here again. I’ve been back for almost as long as you’ve been gone. This is my home. My house, my business, my friends, my family. What do you have here, Vance, except for someone you tried to crush under your heel?”

Vance sighed. He didn’t look sorry in the least. “It’s not like that, Aaron, babe.”

“Don’t babe me.”

“I didn’t do it maliciously.”

“How the hell do you spread someone’s sex tape against their wishes unmaliciously?” Aaron demanded. If Vance didn’t shut up soon, he was going to start swinging his fists.

“I didn’t mean for it to go public.”

“You shared it. It didn’t get leaked.”

“But I didn’t mean for it to get out like it did. And besides, babe, it didn’t go viral. It only stayed inside the town.”

Aaron pursed his lips. He didn’t know if Vance was ignorant, or if he was being a dick on purpose. If Aaron took into consideration his history of dickish behaviors, he was willing to bet that it was the latter. “This town is my life. It is where I was born, where all my friends are from, and where I plan to spend my future.”

“And here you are now, spending your future here,” Vance said with a tiny smile. “You made it happen even though the video got out.”

“I had to leave for three years before I could show my face around here,” Aaron snarled. “If I hadn’t worked so damned hard, and if I hadn’t had thick enough skin to suffer the humiliation of coming back to town knowing everyone had watched me sucking your dick while you remained blissfully anonymous behind the camera, I wouldn’t have ever been able to come back. You almost ruined me.”

“But I didn’t. You pulled through.”

“You’re missing the point.” Aaron pointed at the bathroom stall door. “Unlock it, leave the bar, and get the hell out of town. I don’t ever want to see your face again.”

“I just moved here. I signed a lease.”

“Then break it.”

“Not happening.”

“Then stay the hell out of my bar, and out of my life,” Aaron snarled. He liked to consider himself even-tempered and good-natured, but Vance had taken advantage of him once, and he wouldn’t allow it to happen again. He was glad he hadn’t brought Vance home before asking for his name — he could only think of how sick he’d feel knowing that he’d let Vance fuck him. Vance had done a good enough job of doing that without ever getting his dick involved. “I don’t want to see you around town, I don’t want to hear about you from any of my friends, and I don’t want to know what you’re doing, or why you’re doing it.”

“That’s a tall order. Prescott isn’t a big place. We’re going to run into each other again sometime.”

“Then make sure if you see me, you’re the one who leaves. You owe me that, after what you did to me.”

“Baby, I didn’t mean to.”

Aaron clenched his fists. “You’re not allowed to call me that anymore.”

Vance sighed. He looked at Aaron with his damn sparkling blue eyes and his puppy dog pout, and Aaron felt himself start to lose his edge. Vance knew how to disarm him. The man had always exuded charisma, but he’d amped it up since he’d left Prescott for bigger, better things. The new bad boy look Vance had adopted only made it that much more effective. “You sure are setting a lot of rules for me, considering you want nothing at all to do with me. What is it, Aaron? Do you own me again, like you did back then, or am I nothing to you? Because if I’m nothing, then you don’t call any of the shots. Not a single one of them.”

Aaron was three seconds away from breaking down the bathroom door, and it didn’t matter to him if Vance was in the way or not. He wasn’t falling for Vance again. It had been a mistake when he’d been in high school, and he’d paid dearly for it. It was just as big of a mistake now.

“You’re nothing to me,” he said. “But—”

“No buts.” Vance grinned his frustratingly charming grin and unlocked the bathroom door. He maintained eye contact with Aaron. “Not unless you want to share your fine one with me. If you don’t want anything to do with me, then that’s fine… but you don’t get to tell me what to do. You don’t get to tell me where I can go, or what I can do, or any of that shit. You’re not the mayor, or my landlord, or the owner of this bar. You’re not going to tell me where I can and cannot go.”

“And where was that mind-set when you shared the video with the world?” Aaron asked. He watched as the door swung open. He wanted nothing more than to push past Vance and disappear into the night, but at the same time, he didn’t want to touch Vance more than he already had. He’d need a shower. No. He’d need three showers. One to get off the base level Vance grime, one as a deep clean with intense exfoliation, and then one to try to clean his seriously filthy soul. He couldn’t do much about his throat and stomach unless he swallowed some charcoal — which he didn’t have — so he wondered if vodka would do the trick in a pinch. Probably. Getting drunk in the safe quiet of his own home sounded like a dream after what had just happened.

“I didn’t mean for it to blow up like it did,” Vance said softly. He sounded regretful, but Aaron didn’t believe it. If Vance cared, he never would have shared the video in the first place. It had been an intimate moment between them. Aaron had thought that not sharing his sex tape was an unspoken rule, but he guessed with Vance, he had to be crystal clear about even the simplest shit. “I showed one person, babe.”

“If you don’t leave, I’m going to start throwing punches,” Aaron warned him. “I don’t care how many people you meant to show. The fact is that everyone in town ended up seeing it.”

“And I’m sorry about that.”

“I don’t think you could ever be sorry enough.” Aaron stepped forward, hoping Vance would back down, but he didn’t. Instead, Vance thinned his lips and looked into Aaron’s eyes with worry, like he cared about him. That was rich.

“I’ll never be sorry enough because you’ll never give me a shot so I can prove it, will you?” Vance asked. “No matter what I say, and no matter what I do, you’ll never see me as changed.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“Then why should I keep groveling if you’re not going to treat me fairly?”

Aaron’s hands trembled. His body was so tense he thought he might explode. “Because I deserve sympathy. You don’t. You did a heinous thing, and even if I never forgive you, if you’re truly repentant for what you did, you’d grovel naturally. You’d listen to what I say when I say to leave me the hell alone and give me the space I deserve. You wouldn’t try to waltz back into my life like we never broke up, and like you never left town without saying anything to me.”

“We were broken up. Why would I have to tell you I was leaving?”

“Do you practice being this infuriating, or does it come to you naturally?”

Vance sighed. He continued to block the open bathroom stall door. “You know, Aaron, it’s not good for your blood pressure for you hold onto so much rage. You’re allowed to be upset, but the world has moved on. We’re different people now — entirely different people. You grew up so much that I didn’t even recognize you. If I’d known it was you I was hitting on back there, I would have backed off. It never would have happened out of respect for you — even if you are the hottest man in Prescott.”

“Don’t even start trying to win me back.”

“I’m just giving you the facts. You are the hottest man. There is no contest.”

The conversation was devolving into a dumpster fire, and Aaron wasn’t in a good enough mental state to take it. He tried to push Vance out of the way, but to his horror, Vance grabbed him by the arm and held him in place.

“Don’t touch me,” Aaron grumbled. He tried to tug his arm away, but Vance held him still.

“If you want to go out in public, you’re going to need to look like you didn’t just blow me in the bathroom,” Vance said softly, almost tenderly. He ran his thumb over a high part of Aaron’s cheek, and Aaron was disgusted to feel him clear away cum he hadn’t noticed. “You’re hot as hell when you’re screaming at me with my cum all over your face, by the way… but I’m not sure it’s a look you want the rest of the world to see.”

“Go to hell, Vance Chastain.”

“I already did, baby, and it was called Los Angeles. But I’m back now, and I’m going to make things right. Maybe not with you — not if you don’t let me — but I’m not letting it hold me down any longer. I’m flying free.”

“I don’t care what you’re doing — all I care is that it’s far away from me.”

At last, Aaron pushed past Vance. He stormed across the bathroom and pushed his way out a second before a startled looking young man tried to open the door.

“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,” Aaron mumbled as he passed. “It’s full of absolute garbage.”

“One man’s trash,” Vance’s voice called out, haunting him, somehow making it over the music playing from the bar’s stereo system.

Aaron scowled and kept walking. He didn’t have time for old scars, traumatic memories, or Vance Chastain. He was already uncertain of himself as it was. With a promising new job and towering expectations, he had enough worry on his plate already. A blast from his past was the last thing he needed. So much for a good time tonight. But even if he spent the night alone, in bed, with a handle of vodka, it would be preferable to spending it with Vance.