Page 1 of Good Time Boyfriend
ChapterOne
Heath
There was nothing like the view of the Rockies in Denver, Colorado. Okay, there was nothing like the view of the Rockies anywhere. I used to live in Portland, Oregon, so I knew trees and mountains and stunning. However, seeing the mountains and trees in Portland without a cloudy or rainy sky didn’t happen often. Oregon was beautiful, but Colorado? It called to me. Maybe it was just the novelty of it, since I had only lived here a year, but I didn’t think so.
This was home now, despite everything that happened when I had first moved here.
I hadn’t moved here for the mountains. Hadn’t moved here for the sunny days, high altitude, dry heat, or blizzards. I’d moved here for family. A family that I was determined to bring together in a way we hadn’t ever been before.
Of course, that meant I needed a damn job.
“Are you done drooling over the mountains yet? We need to get inside and open up.”
“I just can’t believe they’re real. They don’t fucking look real.”
Ace sighed at my side, but stuffed his hands in his pockets, and looked out at the majestic beauty of the Rockies with me.
I hadn’t realized I would love Denver like this. That it would call to me. And it really did look like someone had painted those peaks and valleys in front of me.
“I still think they look better right after a storm. When the clouds begin to part and they look almost purple.”
I turned to Ace and grinned. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ve been here a year now and I’ve seen every season.”
Ace rolled his eyes before he reached out and squeezed my shoulder. “It’s Denver. You’ve only seen six of the twenty thousand seasons we have. And sometimes six in one day.”
I snorted, but I agreed with him. You could wake up with snow in the morning and end up wearing a tank top by the evening. I was getting used to it—at least I thought so.
“Come on, let’s go open the bar.”
I smiled as I turned towards the building behind us. We were right on the outskirts of downtown Denver. Still in the hustle and bustle and close enough for foot traffic, but also near enough to the train station that there was room to breathe, and you could see the mountains from all sides. I loved knowing where west was, because that was the direction of downtown’s skyline.
“You ready for today? We have a long one.”
I nodded as we stepped into Lost and Found. Before I even decided to move here, Ace had asked if I wanted to join him in a new endeavor. I had owned a bar in Portland, one that had been doing really damn well. I had been the sole owner of the place, and finding and managing staff that could actually keep up had taken a toll.
When Ace asked if I had wanted a change, I leaped on the opportunity. Not just because it was Ace, a man I had known for years, but because Greer was here.
Lost and Found had been Ace’s idea, and I had bought in.
We had lost something growing up, and we needed to find it. That wasn’t like me. I wasn’t sentimental. I was the guy who got shit done because I knew my parents weren’t going to do it. I had done my best to keep my brothers safe. Both Luca and August had gone through hell, and I hadn’t been able to keep the worst from them, and our parents hadn’t even tried.
We hadn’t even been allowed to get to know our baby sister because of our parents.
But that’s what happens when your parents got married and divorced multiple times. Their first divorce was when I was a child, not even ten years old, my siblings were even younger. Of course, August was my twin, but I was the eldest, and I took that role seriously. Luca had been an infant, a baby just learning to walk. Greer was a couple years younger than August and me.
After that divorce, our dad took the boys, and our mom took Greer. Because apparently they had seen both versions ofThe Parent Trapand thought that was a wonderful fucking idea.
That made me roll my eyes to this day but, unlike the movie, there was no happy ever after. Even though our parents got back together, and we had a few years with our sister, trying to get to know her again, I never got to know her as well as I wanted. I was never there to protect her when things got bad, and when our parents got divorced again, they split us up again, like our opinions didn’t matter. We had gone to different schools, and while I had my brothers and they had me, Greer had no one.
When our parents got together for the third time, we had all given up. We were adults, and they couldn’t split us up if they divorced again. Except we had split ourselves up. Greer moved out here to be with her best friend who was originally from the Denver area. They opened a shop of their own, a little coffee and bakery place near a tattoo shop, that kicked ass.
It was time to be with my little sister. Only, it wasn’t going as well as I’d hoped, and it felt like it was my fault. But I didn’t want to think about that.
“You’re all in your head. Are you okay?”
I turned to Ace and nodded. “I’m fine. Sorry. Let me go start setting up.”
“You do that. Grace’s working in the office today, doing paperwork so I don’t have to. I’m so glad I’m marrying an accountant.”
