Jet
The day Peytonand I met up the next week, I was actually busy for once. I had an appointment with a local recording studio, just to make introductions and eye their setup, and a meeting with an accountant. I’d been smart enough to save when I was making bank on tour, and now that I was settled, it seemed time to at last move it out of checking.
After leg day at the gym, I barely had enough time to clean the chaos of my apartment before Peyton showed up.
I grinned at him when I opened the door. He was dressed for work in a collared white shirt and charcoal pants, and he looked handsome as hell. “Damn,” I said, holding his eye.
“What?” Peyton chuckled. He pulled me into an embrace. Our chests pressed together, and his beard whispered against my neck, which ratcheted up my horniness another couple notches.
“Just thinking about all the things we’re going to do together.”
Peyton laughed and kicked his loafers off. “You’re not the only one,” he mumbled.
“Can I offer you anything?” I stepped back into the kitchen and shoved my hands in the pockets of my jeans. “Beer, wine, tea…”
Peyton stroked his beard. “A tea sounds nice, actually. Do you have a chamomile?”
I furrowed my brow. “Just black and green, sorry.”
Peyton chuckled as he shook his head. “Right. Of course.” He leaned back on his heels, a slight, nervous energy ticking through him. “Sorry.”
Fuck, why did I still find that energy so tempting? Like a loose string, begging me to tug on it.
“What are you sorry about?”
“I realized on the way over here, I don’t know how people are supposed to act when they’re just getting together to hook up. Every other time we’ve fooled around, it hasn’t been planned.” He adjusted his glasses. “This is one of those things where I feel a little clueless,” he admitted.
“Luckily, you have a good teacher.” I turned to the fridge, then pulled out a bottle of beer and a can of fizzy water. “Which one?”
Peyton adjusted his glasses. “Beer sounds good.”
I switched out the fizzy water for a second bottle, then nodded toward the living room. “Let’s get comfortable.”
“See? That was smooth.Let’s get comfortable. Asking if you had chamomile, not so much.”
I laughed. “I should have chamomile. I drink it sometimes. Anyway, what, are you trying to impress me that you’re cool now?”
“Aren’t I already too late for that?”
I popped the tops off the bottles, then handed one off as we each took our seats on the couch, our bodies facing each other. “Luckily, I couldn’t care less about cool anyway. You’re charming and sexy.”
“So I hear.”
I clinked the bottom of my bottle against his, then took a swig. “Anyway, you’re fine. Like I said, I’ve seen it all.”
Peyton tilted his head to the side. I saw that his eyes were glancing over the framed posters and records I’d scattered across the wall. He always had this way of paying close attention that felt flattering, like a sign he actually cared about me.
“About that,” he said, turning his eyes back. “Out of curiosity, how much experience, precisely, do you have?”
I blinked. “Like, my number?”
“I guess, yeah,” he nodded. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
I thought about it. “Well, I don’t really think it would be possible to count, but let’s see. I probably hooked up with like, three people a week, on average? So that’s like a hundred-fifty a year.”
Peyton blinked, his eyes flashing behind his glasses, then nodded. “For how many years?” he asked steadily.
I shrugged. “About a decade, give or take.” I leaned back against the couch, keeping it cool but still watching his reaction. People could be judgmental about this kind of thing, and even though I didn’t expect that of Peyton, I was still curious to see how he processed the information.
