“Yeah? More blowjobs?”
David was incorrigible.
“Ass.”
“I’ll take ass too.”
Despite his resolve, Farzan started laughing, which seemed to be what David had been aiming for.
He gave Farzan a wide, toothy smile. “You looked like you could use a laugh.”
“Laugh, yes. Wine out my nose, not so much.”
“Point taken.” David bit his lower lip. It was so full, and Farzan wanted to kiss it again. But no. That wasn’t why he was here. “Anyway. I could really use a study buddy.”
For a moment, Farzan wondered if David was thinking about kissing too. But then he glanced to his right, toward the kitchen. Farzan followed his gaze.
A short woman with broad shoulders and a shock of brown hair was studying David, arms crossed. No. Studying the two of them, her head cocked to the side and her thin lips pursed.
David sighed and lowered his voice. “Actually. I could really use a friend.”
Farzan and Daviddidhave chemistry, but chemistry didn’t have to mean sex. Or even romance. It could mean lots of things, including friendship, and Farzan liked that idea.
“Works for me.”
David offered his hand. “So. Friends?”
Farzan shook it and tried very hard not to remember the way David’s fingers felt in his hair, or pressed against the back of his neck, or wrapped around his dick.
“Friends.”
seventeen
David
Friends.
He could work with that.
Hedidneed friends. If for no other reason than to get Jeri off his back.
Though friends with benefits would be better.
And if he felt a little twinge of something more, of being inordinately happy when Farzan had shown up at Aspire, well, he could tamp that down. Anything that might happen between them had a built-in time limit. Once David passed his test, he was out of here.
In the meantime, though, he had flash cards to study and blind tastings to do, and having a friend would help.
Helping Farzan in return would be good, too. The raw determination in Farzan’s eyes… that was something new. Something exciting. David wanted to see where it led.
Monday morning—the day of their first friend date—David did a long-overdue house cleaning. Back in his JPMorgan days, he’d had a cleaning service, but he’d given that up when he moved back home, convinced he could handle it. And he had, up until he started living at the base of Mount Flash Card.
After lunch, he picked up his dry cleaning and dropped off his glass recycling. Thank god for Ripple Glass: he went through bottles at a terrifying rate. When he got home, he sorted out his wine fridge (separate from his wine cellar downstairs) and washed his spit bucket, throwing out the wine-stained photograph of Ronald Reagan at the bottom and replacing it with a fresh one. His old wine shop in Chicago had used a photo of a different, more tangerine-tinged ex-president, and yeah he had been awful too, but David loved getting to spit in the face of the president who’d let the AIDS crisis run rampant and killed off a generation of his queer elders.
Fuck that guy.
David showered and moisturized—hard to miss how much Farzan liked the smell of his skin—but waffled on what to wear.
One of his work suits was definitely overkill, though he hadn’t forgotten the way Farzan had practically salivated over him. And he had a heather gray one that showed off his assets nicely. Then again, when it came to showing off his assets…
