Ice and fire collide in his chest. He moves instinctively to grab the glass of wine by his place setting, and then retracts his hand. He’s numb enough already.
Gwen leans into him on his left while Beth’s hand slips intohis on the right. “Want to play Spot-the-Slosh?” Gwen whispers. “First one to see five parliamentarians asleep wins ten quid.”
Bobby lets out a startled laugh, earning a look from Aunt Cordelia. There’s someone speaking at the podium on a dais at the front of the room. Bobby feigns attention, while nudging Gwen, who snickers quietly.
He can’t quite prevent his eyes from flicking over to James. He doesn’t want Gwen to punch his lights out. He wants the last week to be a nightmare—to wake up back in his childhood bed, James wrapped in his arms.
Punishing James won’t give him back the magic of that week. Won’t make James any braver. Won’t make Bobby any more worthy of his affections. It would just make everything worse.
He blinks as James turns and meets his eyes. In the dim light, the bags beneath James’ eyes are more pronounced. His face is open here in the darkened room, a flash of a more haggard reality flitting across his features. God, Bobby wants to be so angry, but when he looks at James—
James’ gaze skitters to the left and his eyes widen. He rises abruptly, muttering something to Uncle Dashiell before hurrying out of the room. Bobby stares after him. Running, again? He can’t even sit at the same table as Bobby now?
Not that Bobby thought there was hope for some... romantic reunion, but even sitting in the same space is too much? What, are they never to see each other again?
“Bobby,” Gwen whispers.
He slowly tears his eyes away from James’ empty seat. Gwen jerks her chin to the left. He follows the movement to the next table over and finds himself under Lord Raverson’s gaze.
A sick relief pulses through his chest. Maybe James wasn’t running from him after all, at least not this time. But that leaves him alone in this room with Raverson. As they stare ateach other, Bobby takes in his hollowed cheeks, the way his suit hangs off his frame even when he’s seated, his overlong hair. The past weeks haven’t been kind to Raverson either, but Bobby has no idea why. Only that it can’t bode well for any of them.
Raverson narrows his eyes, and Bobby sits up straight. He has to look impenetrable. He won’t cower, not here, not now. One of them has to stand tall against Raverson.
So he holds Raverson’s look until Raverson clenches his jaw and looks away. But nothing’s been solved. He and James still have—
“You should go after him,” Beth whispers.
Bobby flinches, that tightness in his chest turning into a pulsing ache. They still have to prevent the blackmail, somehow. But if he gets up now, Raverson will—
“I need the loo,” Gwen says abruptly. A little overloud, so the table turns to look at her.
Beth elbows him. “I’ll, uh, escort you,” Bobby says, rising and holding out his hand. Uncle Dashiell gives him a small smile and Bobby forces himself to smile back.
He helps Gwen up and together they hurry out of the banquet hall, that damn parliamentarian still droning on from the front of the room. Bobby pushes open the door to the entry hall and follows Gwen out into the red-carpeted foyer.
James isn’t there.
Bobby gnaws on his lip, letting Gwen guide him silently toward the side hall off the entry. Perhaps she really did just need the loo, after all. And at least that will give him a few minutes to calm his racing pulse. Between James and Raverson, it feels like he’s been put through a laundry mangle.
He follows Gwen down the side hall—how she knows this building and he doesn’t is a mystery he’s too tired to parse rightnow—and then down a short staircase that opens onto another hall. They round a corner and find James Demeroven hovering outside of the water closets, wringing his hands, his hair mussed, eyes a little wild.
He looks up as they approach and they all just stand there staring at each other, frozen. Their tryst in the hedges flashes across Bobby’s mind, images of them in bed, James’ handsome face hovering over him. All those talks by the lake, holding hands while they went walking. The hours laughing and kissing. The way it felt to have James naked and wanting and—
“I, um, actually do need the loo,” Gwen whispers awkwardly. She hesitates for a beat, and then squeezes his arm. He watches in a daze as she skirts around James and disappears into the ladies’ room.
Which leaves Bobby and James alone, at the end of a hallway, by a set of water closets, yet again.
Bobby wants to run. Bobby wants to shove James up against the wall and kiss him. Bobby wants to shove James up against the wall and shake him.
He thought he knew heartache in school, when flings ended, when boys he fancied didn’t fancy him back. But he’s never known this feeling—like having his heart strangled by a gripping fist just staring at James’ wide blue eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Six
James
He thought that standing up to his stepfather was the most terrifying thing he could do this season, but he was wrong. Standing in this corridor with nothing but white walls and aged wooden floors to distract him, staring at the man he loves—the man he abandoned—is the worst thing he’s ever had to do.
Bobby looks just as handsome as he did that day in the hedges. His well-fitting suit hugs every inch of his muscular chest and his hair is lightly mussed from the rain outside. He is resplendent, despite the bags under his eyes, and James cannot have him.
