Chapter Eleven
“You coulda told me you didn’t have a car,” Isaac said as he pulled up outside Julian’s apartment building. They’d had a great night, and now that it was winding down, he wasn’tquiteready to give up Julian’s company.
“I knew you’d offer to pick me up, and I didn’t want you to go to the trouble,” Julian said, pronouncing his words carefully. They’d finished the bottle of wine he’d brought with him, which meant he’d had nearly half of it himself.
It wasn’t enough for him to be drunk, but it was just enough to take the hard, cautious edges off.
Isaac liked that. He liked Julian warm and relaxed and smiling a lot. Like when they were kids.
It wasn’t the right time to pry, but he could see life had knocked Julian around a little. Nothing major, no big trauma in his past. Just the normal, everyday bumps and bruises that eventually made a person close down a little, harden up. No one got to be a kid again once they grew up.
But Julian made himfeellike a kid again, when he was smiling, and laughing, and happy. Isaac really hoped it was the same for Julian. He clearly deserved it.
“It’s no trouble,” Isaac said belatedly. “You’remybest friend, too,” he added, remembering what Julian had said earlier about watching his matches.
He couldn’t quite put his finger on why that meant so much, but he could tell he’d be dwelling on it for a while. Now that he had Julian in his life again, he was kicking himself for ever letting them fall out of touch.
“I wish we hadn’t lost touch,” he said aloud, while the thought was still sitting there in the front of his mind. “You’re a lot of fun to hang out with.”
Julian chuckled. “You mean I’m a lot of fun to beat at tennis?”
“No.” Isaac shook his head. “You’re fun to play with, though. And talk to. I’m trying to be… open, here. Tell you how I really feel.”
Julian raised an eyebrow. “Wow, andI’mthe one who’s been drinking,” he said.
Isaac rolled his eyes. “I can’t be sensitive?”
Julian opened his mouth and drew a breath, obviously about to make a sarcastic remark, but he let the breath out without speaking, his chest deflating as he did so.
“Of course you can,” Julian said after a moment. “I don’t believe anything they say about you, for the record. I know you better than to think you’re some spoiled brat, or a sore loser, or an entitled asshole.”
Isaac swallowed. He hadn’t realized how much he wanted to hear that, from Julian specifically, but now that he had…
His heart pounded in his chest, the thought of kissing Julian flashing through his mind.
The sound of the car door opening snapped Isaac away from the thought. He wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or disappointed.
“Lemme walk you to the door,” he said, rushing to get out of the car and follow Julian.
The walk was maybe ten yards, and judging by the raised eyebrow Julian gave him, his unusual enthusiasm hadn’t gone unnoticed.
“It’s cold,” Isaac said, as though that was a good reason to leap out of a warm car and into the night air for a walk that took maybe fifteen seconds.
He just wanted to make sure Julian got inside okay. That was it. He’d been raised to do things like that.
Julian burst into laughter as they got to the alcove that contained the front door of his apartment building.
“You don’t think you’re taking this boyfriend thing a littletooseriously?” he asked, his eyes glinting in the dark, the reflection of the street lamp a little way down making them seem so much more alive than usual.
Isaac wet his lips, his heart pounding.
He wanted to kiss Julian. He wanted it so bad his heart tugged, as though there was a cord between them, desperate to pull him forward, crush their lips together, finally feel Julian under him the way he’d thought about too many times lately.
The impulse was enough to knock the breath out of him, his lungs suddenly tight. His stomach lurched, feelings he couldn’t control bouncing around his insides, making everything tight and hot.
“I’m kidding,” Julian said, apparently sensing Isaac’s distress. Thankfully, he hadn’t seen it for what it really was.
Pure, unimaginable need. Not quite lust. Notquite.
