26. Worth the Hall Pass
26
WORTH THE HALL PASS
Nate
That night after a team dinner, it’s yoga time in the room. I’m no yogi but the practice keeps me limber enough, so I try to do a few minutes every day.
As I blast some Amelia Stone, I move through warrior, then down to cobra while the British pop star’s honeyed voice serenades me. I’m downward dogging it as she sings about meeting a lover after dark when the door swings open.
“Remember what I was saying this morning?” Hunter shouts in a declaration.
“Gaston was a dick? Sausages are life? You want to climb me like a tree?”
From my pose, I watch his feet move across the room.
“The answer is—” Hunter stops short on the carpet. I crane my neck, looking up. Hunter’s staring salaciously down at me. He points at my ass. “Put me in that position. Don’t hog the downward-facing dog all to yourself.”
Laughing, I pop up. “Was that really what you were going to say?”
He tosses a messenger bag on the floor. “Thereabouts. Get back in the saddle. That’s what I was going to say.”
I close the distance between us, loop an arm around his waist. “You don’t want to go out to a club?” I nuzzle his neck. Shaking his head, he moans a no . “Hang with your mates?” I lick his jaw as he murmurs a nah . “See a band?” I nip his earlobe, then wait for his response.
His lips coast to my ear. “Fuck me and feed me.”
Fifteen minutes later, I’m feeling limber as fuck as I bend him over the bed, sink into him, and fuck him till we’re both a hot, sweaty, blissed-out tangle of downward dogs.
After we clean up, we flop onto the bed, and order yellowtail rolls, hamachi, udon noodles, and seaweed salad from room service. Then we turn on a movie, but we don’t make it past the opening credits before Hunter lifts a brow. “So, Amelia Stone?”
“Her voice is sex in musical form,” I say.
“She’s pretty foxy too.”
I picture the svelte redhead pinup. “If you like that,” I tease.
Hunter glances my way, chews on his lip. “I do. Does that bother you?”
“No. Why do you ask it like that?”
He looks even younger than his twenty-four years. “I guess…because I didn’t know if it would. I have no idea how these things work.” He points from me to him. “I mean, I have friends who are gay, and all. And in relationships with men. Shit. I mean. I know this isn’t a relationship.” His cheeks flush. “Oh, fuck me. I should stop speaking.”
He’s such an interesting mix of confidence and insecurity. Of outgoing and shy traits.
“When did you realize you were bi?” I ask gently.
“Earlier this year. I’m a baby bi. I know that’s probably super unappealing.”
I scoff, gesturing to the bed, the room, me . “So unappealing I convinced you to be with me for a week,” I say, then focus on Hunter. “I’ve dated bi guys, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m gay, but I do understand that orientation is a big, wide, beautiful spectrum, and I don’t have a list of requirements like you must only like dick . So, it doesn’t bother me that you think Amelia Stone is hot. I also have eyes, and I can tell when a woman is pretty. I get it, Hunter.”
“Yeah?” he asks, his shoulders relaxing.
“I do.” I drape an arm around him and pull him closer to me on the bed. “Also, I’m super glad you figured out you were bi before you met me.”
“Yeah, that was one of my more brilliantly timed discoveries,” he deadpans.
A few minutes later, room service raps on the door with the late-night Japanese fare, and I take the tray, thanking the waiter.
Hunter arches a brow as I return. “So, hotel food is suddenly acceptable?”
“Oh, yeah. There’s a sexy guy in my room I want to spend time with. Didn’t even want to research places to DoorDash, so I gave myself a hall pass for hotel food.”
He blows on his fingers. “This baby bi is worth a hall pass.”
So worth it.
The next morning, I walk Hunter to work again. “You live in Bloomsbury, right? Is it far from here?” I ask as we pass the teddy bears in tartan at the department store.
“I do,” he says breezily. “It’s either twenty minutes or an hour, depending on the whims of London traffic.”
I laugh. “I hear ya. What about the sister you mentioned yesterday? Does she live here?”
He shakes his head. “Harlow’s in New York, and she’s very Manhattan. Knows all the ins and outs of the city, can tell you what to eat, where to shop, and what to see in any part of the city.”
“Sounds like my sister, only trade New York for Los Angeles. Are you two close?”
“Definitely. When I was younger, I actually spent summers in New York. We were city explorers together,” he says, then his voice tightens. “My mum lives here in London, and Harlow’s mum—Harlow’s my half-sister if we’re being technical—was American. I think living with my sister only during the summers kind of made us besties as well as siblings.”
I hear just as much in what he doesn’t say as what he does—he’ll do nearly anything to avoid talking about his dad. But I’m glad he’s comfortable sharing some details of his family with me. “And do you get along with your mom?”
“She hasn’t totally given me a trolley full of issues, and for whatever reason she thinks I’m the bee’s knees, so yeah. I do,” he says, and I crack up at his Britishisms. “Also, she wants to take us to dinner.”
Whoa. Hello! “She does?”
He winces apologetically as we pass a block full of gorgeous Victorian homes. “Well, when she heard I went and got married, the first thing she said was Can I take you two out to dinner ?”
“My mom said the same thing. Well, she wanted to know when she could meet you.”
He laughs. I do too, like it’s a ridiculous idea. Then we’re quiet for a beat.
Should I offer to meet her? Except that’d mean lying to her in person, unless he wants her to know the score about our marriage. “Hunter,” I say carefully, setting a hand on his arm.
“Yes?” His tone is strained again.
“I’d love to meet her, but I don’t want you to feel like you have to lie to her about… us ,” I say.
He scratches his jaw, seeming lost in thought. “I know what you mean. Maybe it’s easier not to.”
I nod, accepting that answer. “Maybe it is.”
“But you’d like her. She loves sports and music,” he says, upbeat again. “I learned American football from her. Her dirty little secret is she never liked our football.”
“I already love your mom. Soccer sucks.”
And I kind of wish I could meet her. As we pass a tube entrance, Hunter says, “Your sister lives in Los Angeles? Do you see her much?”
“On FaceTime, I see her a lot. I actually went to see her the day after I met you in June.”
“Because you needed something to do so you wouldn’t miss me so much?” he asks with a playful spark.
I did miss him, but hell if I’m going to admit that. “We visited some amusement parks during the day with her kids then drank wine at night and toasted to being divorced. She and her husband split up recently.” Since it’s not exactly a secret, I add, “She was married to Sebastian Lowe.”
“The Oscar winner? The one who came out after he won the award?”
“Yup. He’s actually a good guy. We all grew up in the same town. There was no animosity when they split. Just no, well, spark.”
“Wow,” Hunter says as if he’s taking in the personal angle on what had been front-page celebrity news when Sebastian came out. “That’s big. How the hell is she doing?” He doesn’t ask how long she knew, whether she suspected, when he figured it out. That’s not my story to tell.
“She’s pretty good, all things considered. They get along for the most part, which is great since they have two kids.”
“That’s good,” he says. “And nice that you were able to commiserate with her and spend some time with wine too.”
“Yeah, wine can be good company. But it’s even better in company with a cute guy,” I say in an invitation to flirt.
But instead, Hunter frowns. “So, you met cute guys while on your wine drinking trip?” His jealous growl is adorable and sexy.
“Nope.” I remember something he told me in Vegas—that I was the first and only guy he’d done more than kiss. I can give him a similar reassurance. “I was saving myself for you,” I tease.
Hunter rolls his eyes. “Right.”
And that was a sarcasm fail on my part. Probably a flirting fail too. “Actually, I mean it, Hunter,” I say, earnestly. “I haven’t been with anyone else since you chucked pie at me.”
His lips curve up, and it’s like he tries to fight off the grin. “I get it. I’m irresistible. It’s hard to find a man who wants to cream pie you and marry you.”
I laugh and when I recover finally, I say, “But it wasn’t a cream pie, Hunter.”
He waves a hand dismissively. “Details.”
Hunter is irresistible, though, so I take his hand and thread my fingers through his. My heart skitters. He didn’t mind PDA in Vegas, or at the airport, but this is his hometown. Guys don’t always want to hold hands. “You good with this?”
“Very, very good with it,” he says.
We walk like that the rest of the way to work as he tells me his favorite parts of the city. We pass newsstands, a shop called An Open Book, where Hunter says he likes to pop in from time to time, then a Mediterranean restaurant with an awfully familiar sounding name. By the time I’ve reached his office, I feel like I’ve not only learned more about his family, but I’ve discovered fun little details about his life.
Plus, we’ve made plans to go out tonight after my dinner. We’re going to visit the coffee shop in Bloomsbury where William got his start. They serve the best affogatos in the evening, Hunter tells me.
“It’s a date,” I say, and it really is.
Finally, I’ve figured out how to tackle romance again—with an expiration date.