The Hots (mxm)

1. Ice Flower (Alec)

   "Are you crazy?"

   Daniel is gazing at me like I am not a real person but a unicorn. He is rubbing his eyes and persistently blinking, as if this is going to make me contradict what I just said or disappear with my nutty ideas altogether.

   I only shrug my shoulders. Why is he making such a big deal out of nothing?

   "You can not just go in there. A clever person should value his life more. It's a wasp nest," my friend shrieks in disbelief. "That beast will give you a poisonous sting and then suck the life out of you."

   "First of all, it's the spiders who feed this way, not the wasps," I cut him off, snickering at his ashen face. "And second, he is only a man, not a monster. His mother will surely be there too. We just saw her coming from the grocery store. He won't try anything in front of her. Also, what do you think could happen, I mean more than a heated argument? We are not going to throw punches."

   "Yeah, not today," Daniel mumbles with shreds of horror in his voice. "But tomorrow, at work, who knows."

   I can feel the cold shiver running through his body. My best friend is great, and I love him, but he is a total chicken right now. Danny is downright afraid of Sam. The guy is menacing, I admit, but this is too much.

   "You talk about him as if he has ever been violent or something," I retort. "He is just, well... edgy."

   I am not really sure how to describe Sam. He is silent most of the time, meticulously doing his job, pouring drinks, and mixing cocktails for the customers at the bar. At first glance, you can tell that he would rather be left alone. So, we simply never mess with him.

   He comes at nine in the evening and works till three in the morning when we usually close. Not the type of bartender who would socialize with people and listen to their stories. But he is good at his job. Many come to the bar only because of him, especially the women. I wish I could say that patrons flock to the excellent food Danny and I prepare, but there is no denying that the fine-looking bad boy flipping the bottles is the main attraction.

   All we know about Sam is that he won some kind of an international award for the best cocktail by his original recipe. The damn thing is pure poison, if you ask me, considering the amount of vodka it contains. But it is still the most ordered drink at the bar. The name is Ice Flower. The presentation is spectacular with the frozen fruit inside the ice cubes. Some day, I might even gather enough courage to taste it.

   The main cause of Daniel's uneasiness is actually Sam's looks. Everything in him is intimidating. The man is tall enough to be a basketball player, covered in tattoos from head to toes and sporting a constant frown on his face. He also has this ability to cast glares that freeze the blood in your veins and make you feel guilty, having no idea why.

   It is not that he is not handsome. I mean, Sam is hot, like boiling-lava hot, totally drop-dead gorgeous. If he was not so scary and I was not such a wallflower, I would probably be drooling over him the entire time.

   "So, are you going, or your common sense finally returned from Jupiter?" Danny elbows me.

   "I'm going," I firmly state and slide out of his car. He snorts, disapproval written all over his face.

   The moment I step on the pavement, the front door of Sam's house opens and the woman, who we assumed to be his mother, goes out and walks towards a taxi, which is waiting for her near the opposite sidewalk. She gets in, and the car pulls off.

   "Still going?" Daniel shouts behind me since I have already crossed the street. "I don't want to cook on my own tomorrow. It's not so easy to find a second chef in a day."