Danny’s heart did the weird somersault thing again.
Eliot gave him a strange, blank smile, and then laughed as though Danny had said the funniest thing in the world.
He’d clearly been wrong: Eliot was one hell of an actor, and he never should have doubted him.
“That’s probably enough to get us photographed together,” Eliot said, not taking his hand away immediately. “I’ll keep it up until we’re not being watched anymore.”
“You’rereallygood at pretending you’re into someone,” Danny pointed out, still surprised by how believable Eliot’s obviously fake laugh had been.
“I’ve had a lot of practice. Most men I date are actually incredibly boring, but I like sex, and they like believing they’re funny and interesting. We all win.” Eliot smiled wryly.
Danny immediately wondered ifhewas boring, but wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer. He suspected Eliot would be honest with him, and honesty wouldn’t necessarily be what he wanted to hear.
“Would it not be easier to date guys who aren’t boring?” he asked instead.
“There’s a shortage,” Eliot said. “And I’m not that pretty.”
Danny raised an eyebrow. Eliot was incredibly pretty, all long eyelashes and soft pink lips, just enough dark stubble to remind someone staring at him that he was a man.
Not that Danny was staring.
Or if he was, it was for show.
“I’d tell you you’re very pretty, but I don’t wanna make this weird,” Danny said. That was the best possible middle ground between not insulting Eliot and not letting him know that Danny was starting to rethink everything he knew about histype.
“I’ll take that as the half-assed compliment I think it was intended to be,” Eliot said.
Before Danny had a chance to defend himself, a waitress mercifully showed up. In the time it took to order lunch, Eliot would have forgotten about the comment.
Danny hadn’t, though. Eliot had given him a genuine compliment when he sat down, and now he felt like an ass for worrying about making things weird. Complimenting people you weren’t romantically interested in was fine. He knew that.
It was just hard to do. Danny wished he could be a little more like Eliot, a little more comfortable in his own skin. He didn’t hesitate to say exactly what he thought.
“You are pretty, and you can do better if you’re only dating guys who bore you,” Danny said, before he lost his nerve. Saying that out loud made him feel like he’d missed a step going down a flight of stairs.
It was worth it for the look on Eliot’s face, though. He was clearly stunned.
Danny would have liked to think Eliot had underestimated him, but he actually seemed to have a pretty good read on what Danny was like. That had taken all of his willpower to do.
“Thank you,” Eliot said after a moment of silence. “For the record, you don’t bore me. Not yet, anyway.”
Danny chuckled at that. He deserved it for hesitating, and he figured they were even, now. “Well, that’s why I’m paying you to be here. Even if I do get boring, you gotta stick around.”
“You haven’t paid me yet, so you should probably be on your best behavior this time,” Eliot said, pouring both of them a glass of water from the pitcher in the middle of the table.
Now that he was starting to relax, Danny was glad they were sitting outside. The sun was nice, the air was clear, and the sounds of traffic all faded into an undefined blur, soothing white noise.
If this was what pretending to date Eliot was going to be like, he could handle it. It was nice to have some company for once.
“I realized I kind of have to pay you cash, or there’ll be a record of it. You’ll get the money later in the week. Promise.”
Eliot shrugged. “I’m not in a rush,” he said.
Danny knew that wasn’t true. Eliot had let slip in one of their text conversations that he’d had to get his car repaired, and that wasn’t cheap. Danny had his home address now, too, and he knew the area. The rent for a shoebox-sized apartment there wasn’t cheap, either.
Eliot needed the money, which was why he was here in the first place. The least Danny could do was hold up his end of the bargain.
“By the end of the week,” Danny repeated. “I’m not trying to screw you.”
