“Let’s go meet your friends and sell them on this relationship,” I said firmly, grabbing my cane from beside the bed, projecting a confidence that I had been nowhere near feeling a few moments before.
Xavi
I barely heard what Rowe said. I was too busy trying to pick my jaw up off the floor at the sight of him in a suit.
A white suit would be showy on most people – a little bit too much. But it perfectly complimented Rowe’s tanned skin, and the sleekness of it contrasted against the short stubble across his jaw and chin, the slightly messy look to his dark hair. He’d swept his hands back through it with water from the tap, letting it swoosh back from his forehead.
One minute in the bathroom, a quick change into a cheap suit and styling with only water, and he already looked a million times better than I ever could.
Some people got all the luck in the genetic lottery. I wasn’t one of them, but clearly, Rowe was.
“Ready?” he prompted me, and I realized I’d been staring.
I cleared my throat. “Right,” I said. “Let’s go.” I turned to head for the door, rushing, keeping him behind me so he couldn’t see my face again.
I needed to get myself under control. Looking at him in that suit had sent a tongue of flame through my belly, but it was pointless. Ironically, out of everyone here, Rowe was the one who was most off-limits. I was paying him to be here with me. Having sex with him would be probably the lowest point in my already low-bar life.
“How about your friends, then?” Rowe asked. He sounded breathless already. I half-turned and saw he was racing to keep up, his cane tapping rapidly but almost soundlessly against the deep carpet.
I sighed and slowed down, turning my head. We couldn’t quite walk side by side in the corridor, but at least I could walkwithhim instead of rushing off ahead. “Okay,” I said. “The sarcastic Korean one is Ace. We used to fuck. It didn’t mean anything.”
Rowe made a coughing sound and I gave him a sideways glance over my shoulder. If that shocked him, he was going to be doing a lot of coughing and spluttering this weekend.
“Used to?” he said, eventually.
“Yeah, well, he’s with Brody now. The one in the leather jacket. He’s always wearing that stupid leather jacket. I bet he showers in it. I bet he wears it to the wedding tomorrow.”
“Noted,” Rowe said, and I couldn’t tell whether he was amused by my description or just by me. “Which ones are the grooms?”
“The redhead and the tall one,” I said, then hesitated. “Well, actually, there’s three tall ones. Thereallytall one is Caleb Coleman. That’s Cade’s brother. Cade’s the redhead.”
“Isn’t Caleb Coleman a football player?” Rowe asked.
I looked back at him in surprise. “I didn’t know you were interested in football.”
He shrugged. “Just a habit, I guess. My Dad was into it. I keep a passing interest in his memory. It’s not intentional. I just pay more attention to it than I would if it wasn’t for him.”
My attention snagged on the past tense, and an icy feeling hit my gut. Rowe had lost his father, then. There was a strange kind of casual grief in his voice. It must have been a while ago, but he wasn’t fully over it. I swallowed, trying to keep the realization out of my voice. “The other two tall ones are Aiden and Olly. They all played college football together, only the other two were shit at it and Caleb was the only one who got a pro contract.”
Rowe snorted. “They couldn’t have been that bad if they got to play in college.”
“Whatever, I don’t know sports,” I shrugged. “You can tell Aiden and Olly apart by who they’re standing with. Aiden can’t be surgically removed from Cade and Olly’s standing with the curly-haired guy. Keaton. He’s my best friend.”
“Oh?” Rowe asked. “Wait, is he the one who stayed with you in high school?”
Another surprised glance back. “How do you know that?”
“You talked about it at work,” Rowe said. “He got kicked out by his parents for being gay, right? You told that story when you were ‘educating everyone’ during Pride Month.”
I could hear the air quotes in his voice even if he didn’t make them with his fingers. My own pride stung. I thought everyone had been listening to my stories, actually getting educated. The straights in our office had oohed and aahed. And Rowe had sat there silently the whole time, getting on with his work instead of joining in.
Like a nerd, I’d thought at the time.
But, no. He was silent because he thought I was an idiot.
“Well, whatever,” I said, the word hanging sour in my mouth as we entered the elevator. “Anyway. Olly doesn’t talk much but Aiden does, and he always says the wrong thing at the wrong time, so there’s that, too. And Olly’s already wearing a wedding ring because he’s married to Keaton. Caleb’s got this girlfriend, Aubrey. Then there’s, like. Caleb and Cade’s parents, I guess. And Aiden’s parents. They’re all cool so far as I know. There’s a couple of other football guys who aren’t as big, and the rest, I don’t know.”
“Okay,” Rowe said. He took a deep breath in the silence of the tin can we were traveling downwards in. “Ace who you used to fuck, his boyfriend Brody, Cade and Aiden are getting married, Keaton’s your best friend and his husband Olly doesn’t talk much. Caleb Coleman has a girlfriend called Aubrey and he’s Cade’s brother, and the rest are people who aren’t your friends anyway. Eight people I need to remember.”
