The suite we’re staying in is enormous, even bigger and more luxurious than the ones we normally stay in. Jesse wanted enough space between his room and the rest of us when he brings his boyfriend to stay with us. Apparently, he’s worried we might misbehave and make his gorgeous NFL boyfriend uncomfortable.He’s private, he said,embarrasses easily. Don’t tease him.
As if we’d ever do such a thing.
I’m more preoccupied by the man still standing with his back to me, looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the city below, hands tucked into the pockets of his hoodie. His hair has grownout a little longer, and if I’m not imagining things, he’s standing a little taller.
I’m leaning against the pool table, fingers idly tracing the felt edge, pretending to be more interested in the layout of the room than I am in the man who has been at my side since I was eight years old.
Since when am I nervous around Will? I’ve felt a lot of things around Will over the years—safe, angry, desperate, loved, furious, aroused, seen, controlled, protected—but I have never once felt like the butterflies in my gut might revolt. I have certainly never stumbled for words the way I am right now.
Now, my mouth feels dry. My brain feels empty. And those damn butterflies are definitely staging a rebellion.
The silence is starting to make me question everything about myself and the confidence I’ve worked up to talk to him today. “How was your flight in?” I ask cautiously.
“Wet,” he says, turning to look at me over his shoulder. Of course he’s not surprised by my presence. He probably knew the moment I walked in and just let me have my quiet moment.
“Raining in Raleigh, too?”
He nods. “It was rainy and cold as shit all week, but it’s supposed to be almost seventy tomorrow.”
“Figures. If you don’t like the weather in North Carolina…”
“…wait five minutes,” he finishes on cue.
I smile. He smiles. And something settles inside me.
“I missed your face,” I tell him.
“I missed your sharp wit.”
I stick out my tongue, and he grins widely. The tension doesn’t disappear, but it shifts. Loosens a little, maybe. I push off the pool table and grab a cue, rolling it between my palms even though I have no intention of actually playing. My hands need something to do.
Will glances at me, then away again, like he is trying to give me space without fully stepping back. “How was… how are things?” he asks, then clears his throat. “With Alonso, I mean.”
The question catches me off guard. Not because I wasn’t expecting his name to come up eventually, but because of the way Will asks it. Carefully. Genuinely. There is a flicker of pain there, but there’s effort too. He is really trying so hard.
I inhale slowly. “He’s good,” I say, which is true enough. “He’s working a lot. The storm messed up a lot of the landscape where they were filming in Louisiana, so they’ve been focused on filming as much as they can on set in Los Angeles.”
Will nods, accepting the answer without pushing. That alone feels monumental. I open my mouth to tell him more, to explain, but before I can say anything else, the double doors to the rec room burst open.
Naz barrels in, throwing his hands in the air. “Apparently they’re fucking,” he announces. “So we’ve been asked not to leave this room.”
I snort. “Seriously?”
Naz gives me a look. “Cory just showed up with bags in his arms and said the two of them were going to need some privacy before they were ready for company.”
My face contorts. “What, they couldn’t wait until they could get to a bedroom. Are they going to wheelbarrow through the suite with Luc’s dick in Jesse’s ass?”
Will laughs, the sound sharp and surprised, like it slipped out before he could stop it. “Dude looks big, maybe he’s just carrying him upside down with his face in Jesse’s ass and?—”
“Yeah, alright, that’s enough of that. Who wants to do a few shots before they get here?”
Naz pours a single round. We aren’t twenty anymore, and we all backed way off the booze when Jesse quit drinking. We normally don’t drink in the suites at all, but Naz and Will must be feeling the same nerves I am, because none of us hesitates to knock the shot back. The alcohol burns on the way down, familiar and grounding.
I shoot a glance at Naz, wondering what he has to be worked up about, and then to Will, who so far has seemed calm and steady as ever. Maybe I’m the only one drinking to settle myself.
We drift into a game of pool, while Naz catches me up on his grandparents and the progress on his family compound that he started building on recently. Will tells us about calling Blake early in the morning a couple days ago and hearing Emmy in the background. We gossip about whether those two could possibly have anything going on, and honestly, I hope so. Blake needs someone to calm his uppity ass down, and Emmy is the sweetest simp over that man.
“Speaking of getting dicked down by a hot older guy,” Naz says, timely and appropriate as ever. “How’s it going with your Hollywood boyfriend? I heard y’all were all shacked up since the concert got rescheduled.”
