And Thad had to reach out and squeeze his thigh for that.
CHAPTER NINE
Graham felt a little shaky as he hitPlayon the movie. It was an action movie Thad had mentioned he wanted to see.
Tonight was going well so far. Thad was here and he was flirting with Graham, and he knew this was a date and seemed to be into it and …
And shit, what did Graham do now? He’d been so worried about getting to this point and what could happenafterthe movie, he hadn’t thought about what was going to happen during it.
He nervously crunched a tortilla chip.
He was hungry. His stomach had been in knots during dinner, so he hadn’t eaten as much as he needed. This wasn’t the lean protein of a slice of raw salmon or anything … but there had to besomeprotein in nacho cheese. Was there even real cheese in nacho cheese? He wasn’t sure.
For a little while, they ate in silence, watching the movie.
The room was dim and cozy with the flickering of the faux candles and the mound of pillows behind them. The surround sound setup was pretty sweet too and Graham was glad he’d had the speakers delivered to the hotel. They were small enough he might start carrying them on every road trip.
He glanced over to see Thad’s gaze glued to the screen, the small red and white container of popcorn and Reese’s Pieces resting in his lap.
He must have felt Graham’s gaze on him because he glanced over and smiled before looking back at the screen.
Graham felt a little shaky.Damn, that smile was kinda lethal. He’d seen Thad deploy it, but not usually straight at him.
Graham was so in over his head here.
He looked back at the screen. Yep, things were still being blown up. And who was the guy running from the explosions again?
After he’d finished the nachos, candy, and taken a few swigs of orange soda, he cleaned his fingers on a napkin and tossed it in the trash. When it was gone, he regretted it. He had nothing to do with his hands.
Except …
Graham glanced over again to see Thad laughing at something on the screen. What had Tom said about holding hands? That was something people did at the movies when they were on a first date, wasn’t it?
Why couldn’t Graham remember what dating was like? It shouldn’t be different from anything he’d done before but somehow he couldn’t stop getting all up in his head about it.
Wait. What if his palm was sweaty?
Graham swiped his hand across his thigh, then settled it on the bed between their bodies. Thad glanced down, then looked back at the screen. Ahh fuck, maybe Graham had misread …
A moment later, Thad’s hand landed on his, warm and heavy. He threaded their fingers together and squeezed once, still watching the movie.
Oh! Graham felt an odd, buzzy sensation start up in his skin when he didn’t pull away. Oh, it had worked! They were holding hands!
Graham smiled to himself at the thought of big, bad Thad Racine, the guy most people in the organization were wary of, holding hands and watching a movie all cozied up in bed with a throw blanket in his lap.
For a little while, Graham sat there, reveling in the simple touch as he tried to focus on the movie again.
“So, what’s with the candy in the popcorn?” Graham asked a while later, when it was clear this movie was mostly explosions and car chases, and he wouldn’t be missing much if he stopped paying attention to it and started paying attention to his date.
And the upside of watching this in a hotel room instead of a movie theater was there was no one around to shush them for talking.
“What? You’ve never tried it? Oh, you’ve been missing out,” Thad said with a soft laugh. He held out a little bit of the mix, offering it to Graham to take from his fingers.
Graham swallowed hard.
“Or, uh, here,” Thad said with a frown as he pulled away and held out the container. “You can get your own. Probably more sanitary, anyway.”
“No,” Graham said. “I want it.”
