Page 21 of The Bartender Special

Benny’s stomach went from hot, swirly, and appreciative of Jack’s cologne to sinking to his fuzzy-socked-up feet. He abandoned his attempt at a position of power and fast-walked to his bedroom where he’d flipped his phone over in defiance the night before.

Judging by the heavy footfalls behind him, Jack followed.

Benny’s sinking stomach managed to crash through the metaphorical floorboards once he turned his phone right side up and double tapped the screen.

“Oh. My. God.” A wave of déjà vu nearly bowled him over. Benny turned, open-mouthed, to the bartender he’d only officially met the day before. “Thirty-two text messages. Five missed calls.”

Jack looked entirely too smug for someone standing this close to a potential disaster.

“Apparently, Miss Pain in the Ass Robertson made a post about us,” he said. “Me being Guy and also me accepting your love. Everyone is going nuts about it. Just take a trip through some of your socials. I’ve personally never had so many friend requests in my life. That’s not saying anything about the thirsty DMs that have flooded my inboxes. Some of them were so creative, I’m thinking of printing them for my coffee table. I’m not sure about how many people are calling me ‘daddy’ though. Am I really old enough for that to be a thing yet?”

Benny wasn't even going to look at his socials. No way. He'd already turned off social media notifications on his phone the day the blog had gone viral.

And he'd done that for one reason and one reason alone.

It stressed him the hell out.

Planning parties? Events? Other people’s life milestones?

That was different.

That wasn’t social. That was work.

But going viral for being a person?

That was an onslaught of noise, attention, and opinions from people he grew up with to people he barely knew to strangers.

That had been too much.

That was why he needed to breathe.

That was why he’d hidden in Arbor Bay.

Jack, maybe finally reading the room, spoke a little less harshly than before.

“If you still want to back out, we can, but I think it might be more messy than if we hadn’t kissed.”

“If you hadn’t kissed me,” Benny deadpanned.

Jack shrugged.

“We can blame that—you can blame me—all you want, but we both know you were drowning in a Carol sea and I was just trying to help you float.”

“And now if I say that, I’m as good as shipwrecked.”

Jack snorted.

“See? We can do this. We’re already using some seafaring analogies together.”

Benny ignored the humor and scrolled through his text notifications, hoping to not see one in particular.

That hope sank to the bottom of the ocean, analogy continued.

The text was from Rizzie Caplan.

“What is it?” Jack must have moved closer. The smell of cologne wrapped around Benny with startling speed, just like the mental leash image.

Benny, giving up, sighed.