"Lex, come to Cade Creek. You'll love it here. I promise."

Lexter Mathis smiled as he reached for his drink of whiskey then took a long sip before setting it down on the table again. "I'm not sure Cade Creek is a town for me, sir."

He was a big city boy. Small towns gave him hives.

"Drop the sir crap, Lex," former Senator Wilson Khor II said. "You don't work for me anymore."

I chuckled. "Yes, sir."

"Seriously, Lex, come to Cade Creek. I could really use your help. This damn committee has great ideas, but very little organization. We need someone with your knowhow, your connections." Wilson chuckled. "Hell, we need someone who can spell correctly."

"I don't know."

"If the committee gets too boring for you, you can always work with Jayden down at the newspaper."

"Not a chance in hell."

Wilson laughed, but Lex knew the man understood him. He might have been Wilson's assistant, but the guy had never treated him as help. He'd been treated as a friend, which was one of the reasons he was so loyal to Wilson.

He just didn't know if he was ready to move to Cade Creek.

"Just think about it, Lex. I know you've been searching for something new since I retired and I really think this committee thing is something you could sink your teeth into. The guys who serve on it are all good men. They are just not sure how to accomplish the things they hope to accomplish. They could use some help."

"I'll think about it." That was all he could promise at the moment. He wasn't sure what direction his life was headed in, but he was almost positive it wasn't Cade Creek. "Hey, look, I need to go. I'll call you next week."

"All right, Lex. Stay in touch."

"Say hey to Jayden." He still couldn't believe Wilson had married another man. The former senator was a handsome man. If he'd know Wilson was gay, he might have made a play for him himself.

Or not.

He had a few rules he tried to live by. Close to the top of that list was the one that said he didn't date his boss unless he wanted to look like an idiot. It was mixed right in there with his rule about not dating a straight man.

Lex shoulders slumped a little as he slid his phone back into his pocket then picked up his drink again. He felt as if he was at the beginning of something, but unable to take the next step to get there. He just kept waiting for some sign of where he was supposed to go from here.

Although he'd had several offers, he knew he didn't want to work for anyone in politics again. Wilson Khor had been the last great politician as far as he was concerned. The rest of them could all go rot.

He'd even had a few offers from corporate CEOs, but he really didn't want to work for them either. None of them had been right. It wasn't the money. He had plenty of that. Wilson had paid him very well to keep his life in order. It was the job descriptions he'd been given.

Lex considered himself less of an executive assistant and more of a life coordinator. When he worked for Wilson, he kept the man's life in order, doing everything from making sure his suits were picked up from the dry cleaners to assisting him with research into impending senate votes.

He basically kept Wilson's life organized, and he was good at it.

Damn good.

It was his own life that he sucked at. Well, not the organized part. He had been told more than once he should have been diagnosed with OCD. He could get a bit obsessive with some things, like his clothes. He hated his clothes not being clean and neat. He was almost fanatical about it. He had reasons, but he tried not to think about them too often.

He sucked at figuring out where his life was headed. He had his dreams and then he had reality. They didn't often mix together. He long ago learned to lock his dreams away and only bring them out every now and then, look them over, play with them a bit, then pack them away again and face reality.

And reality was a real bitch.

Lex looked up when a glass of amber liquid was placed on the table in front of him. "I didn't order this."

"The guy at the bar did."

Lex glanced toward the bar. The place wasn't jumping yet, but there were at least five guys sitting at the bar. "Which one?"

"Dark brown hair, pale pink shirt and grey suit, sitting at the far end."

Lex didn't even have to look. "Please thank the gentlemen for the drink, but take it back."

"You don't want it?"

Lex held up his glass. "One drink is good for me."

He never, ever, accepted a drink from someone he didn't know or he didn't watch the bartender make. He'd had a friend accept a drink from a stranger once when they were in college and he'd been drugged and raped. Lex wasn't about to let that happen to him.

"Are you sure?"

Lex smiled up at the waiter. "I'm sure."

The waiter shrugged, picked up the drink, then carried it back to the bar. He carried over to the guy at the end of the bar and set it down in front of him before leaning in to talk to him. Lex knew he'd made the right choice when thunder clouds crossed the man's face.

"Crap," he whispered to himself when the man got up and started across the room toward him. He so didn't need this shit right now.

Well, he never really needed it.

Self entitled pretty boys with more money than brains were a dime a dozen in Washington D.C. Hell, they practically grew out of the woodwork. And they always thought they were the best thing since pre-canned beer.

They weren't.

"Hello, sweetness."