CHAPTER TEN
Ezra
Why the fuckhad I invited this man back to my flat?
Was I trying to make myself miserable? Or was I going for the record in shit decisions? Did my brain somehow think I needed more mess and chaos in my life? Because it certainly fucking felt like it.
Danny had looked like he was about to be sick when I’d knocked on the window of his car, and my heart had sunk because I’d known kissing him was a bad idea but I’d done it anyway.
“Here,” I said, handing Danny a small glass of vodka as I sat down on the worn armchair opposite the sofa. “Drink it slowly.”
Danny sniffed it cautiously. I wondered if he’d ever had neat vodka before. I assumed so, given what I knew about sportsmen in general, but I guessed it was likely to have been cheap, shitty stuff where the focus was less on taste and more on how quickly it would get someone wasted. “Do you have any mixer?”
“Sure, there’s some orange juice in the fridge. Help yourself.” I smiled blithely, gesturing in the direction of the kitchen. IfI’d offered him Belvedere, then I’d have been offended by his question, but Shane had drunk it all and I was down to my bottle of Absolut, so I cared less about Danny adding things to it.
“Cheers,” he said, and I kept my eyes on his arse as he walked through to the kitchen, admiring the way he looked in the shorts slung low on his hips. He’d look so cute in a slutty little pair of daisy dukes, or a jockstrap, or even a thong. That pretty round arse of his deserved to be properly shown off.
“This is nice,” Danny added as he came back, his glass now filled with orange juice, a large ice cube bobbing in the middle. He was looking around the room and pretending to admire the furniture, because I couldn’t imagine anyone truly liking the awful beige walls and worn cream sofa that looked like it belonged in a student flat.
“You don’t have to be polite,” I said, sipping my drink. “It’s a shithole.”
“I’ve seen worse.”
“So have I. But it doesn’t mean I want to live in them.”
Danny raised an eyebrow and sipped his own drink, sitting forward on the sofa and resting his elbows on his thighs. “Did your ex get your place in the divorce then?”
“He won’t if I get any say,” I muttered darkly.
“So what, you walked out, and he got the house until you go to court?”
“Something like that. I don’t want to talk about it.” I fixed my gaze on him as I crossed my legs and leant back in the chair. Something was digging into my spine, but I refused to move on principle. “I’d rather talk about you.”
“I thought you said I didn’t have to,” Danny said, another pout forming on his plush lips. Did he even realise he was doing it? Or was it a reflex? Either way, it was too fucking tempting and I shouldn’t have been fixated on it.
“We don’t have to talk about your emotional turmoil.” Or the fact that kissing me seemed to have sent him spiralling despite his cocky attitude. “But I still have questions. And you’re the one who wanted to have this conversation, so I assume you have some too.”
I sipped my drink again, watching him closely. There was a slightly nervous bounce to his leg, and he was twisting the glass in his hand, his eyes not meeting mine as he pulled his bottom lip between his teeth. An uneasy feeling crawled under my ribs, slithering against the bones and making me wince as I became painfully aware of its presence.
Pushing myself to my feet, I moved over to the sofa and sat down beside him, our legs not quite touching. I didn’t want to crowd him, but I also didn’t want this to feel like a job interview. We weren’t discussing a contract, and sitting apart with me watching him had sharpened the lines of the power dynamic between us, making them flare like neon lights in the dark.
“Nice watch,” Danny said, gesturing lightly with the glass at the timepiece on my wrist. It was one of my favourites, a vintage Maurice Lacroix that I’d gotten from an antique warehouse about four years ago.
“Thanks,” I said, offering him a warm smile. “I have a bit of a thing for nice watches. They’re my weakness. I really should stop buying them, maybe even sell a few. Then I might be able to afford the extortionate fees my solicitor is charging me. And buy a decent sofa.”
“If you want your house back, you probably want to pay the solicitor first.”
“I suppose, and in the meantime, my arse will just have to suffer.”
Danny chuckled and wiggled slightly in his seat. “I don’t know. I’ve sat on worse.”
“So have I, but my back has decided my days of sitting and sleeping on shitty sofas are over if I want to be able to function the next day.”
“At least you don’t have a roommate,” Danny said. “It could be worse.”
“The bar would have to be in hell for me to have a roommate.” I was not sharing my space again unless I had to. It’d been my first ground rule after catching Reed shagging two of our neighbours in our bed, and now I finally understood that expression old straight men were so fond of about a man’s home being his castle.
If I could have a drawbridge and a moat, I would have strongly considered it. Although the aesthetics of the rest of the house would have to change to match, and medieval gothic had never been my style.
