Chapter Seventeen
Eliot didn’t let himself look up from his computer screen until he’d made his noon deadline—with just fifteen minutes to spare. He’d known that he was stretching himself thin by agreeing to go out with Danny after he’d already agreed to write this article, but he’d managed to do both without having to compromise on either.
He sat back and picked up his phone to see if anyone had tried to get in touch with him while he’d been tuning everything out to work, and smiled when he saw a message from Danny.
Glad you thought so,he responded,we should do it again sometime.
I was thinking Friday night, Danny texted back almost immediately. That didn’t necessarily mean he’d been staring at his phone waiting for an answer, but it was nice to think that he’d been expecting one.
If someone had told Eliot just a handful of weeks ago that he’d be grinning and blushing over getting attention from a hockey player, he would have laughed at them. Now…
Well, now he was grinning and blushing. His heart soared as he tapped a reply into his phone.
Deal,he sent, not wanting to make Danny wait again.
I’ll cook,Danny promised.
You don’t need to sell it to me, I’ll come over.
Okay. Did you get your work thing done?
Just finished. For the record, I had a great time last night, too. In case that wasn’t clear.
Eliot smiled to himself as he thought back to the night before. Not just to the sex, but to the moments in-between and after, when they’d both been exhausted and satisfied and happy to curl up beside each other, talking softly until they’d both passed out.
He was paying for it today, and looking forward to going home and straight to bed the moment he got approval on his article from Ben, but Eliot couldn’t bring himself to care. Danny was worth it.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this happy,” Meg said from behind him, making Eliot jump. He hadn’t heard her approach, too lost in his own thoughts. “What gives?”
“I stayed over at Danny’s last night,” Eliot said, unable to stop himself from smiling stupidly. Meg was right—he’d rarely been this happy in his life.
“You didn’t look like this the last time that happened,” she responded.
Eliot’s stomach sank. He was supposed to have slept with Danny before. He’d practically said that to the rest of the world.
“Uh.” Eliot panicked, thinking desperately of a way to cover up the mistake he’d just made.
“We, umm, we were taking it slow,” he started. “But Danny was afraid that if people knew we were together but not, y’know,together, his teammates might give him crap about it.”
That was a terrible cover up, but it was the one he was stuck with now.
“And I really like him,” Eliot added. “So please don’t tell anyone?”
He gave Meg his best sad puppy look. Danny’s was better than his by a long way, but Danny wasn’t here.
Meg looked at him suspiciously, but then nodded. “Secret’s safe with me,” she said. “I don’t actually care about your sex life.”
Eliot wanted to ask why she’d interrogated him, then, but he realized that was panic talking. Meg didn’t mean any harm, she’d just been making conversation, and now he was being weird.
“Sorry,” Eliot said.
“You get that article finished?” Meg asked.
Eliot nodded. This was much safer territory. “With a few minutes to spare, even.” He smiled wryly.
“Sounds about right. I’ll let you get back to work,” she stepped away from his desk and turned to walk away without another word.
Eliot couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he’d just said something really stupid. He couldn’t afford to forget that he and Danny had been pretending to be together since long before they actually got together.
