Chapter 2 DIEGO #2
“Yeah. So did you,” he said with the most obnoxiously sweet smile. Ugh, that dimple, too. The stubble wasn’t thick enough to hide it. Genuinely fucking unfair.
I straightened up. “Please. I’m a goddamn mess.”
“You got anyone?” He asked as he fell into step beside me. “A boyfriend?”
“Ugh.” I sighed. “I had a cool polycule for a while, but there was this one toxic guy—long story. Ruined the whole thing for me. And then there was this older guy, but he got super controlling. Like, I’ve got a list as long as my arm of romantic failures.”
“I just have the one, pretty much. But it failed really hard.” And yet he laughed.
“Yeah, it kinda did.” I smirked. I didn’t know what the fuck kind of woman cheated on a smokeshow Prince Charming like him, but whatever. Her loss.
“Thanks.” He opened the door for me again, grinning. “That makes me feel way better.”
“That’s what I’m here for, babe.” I popped the cigarette butt into the garbage before gliding past him and back into the sickly purple swirl of the wedding.
And only then did I realize that he might not have been asking about my relationship status just to confirm that I was, in fact, a goddamn mess.
But his mother was waving him over to talk to someone, so I shot him one last smile and went back to the dance floor, where Kacey was making an absolute ass of herself as expected.
Had to do everything myself around here.
I slid back into the rhythm, chatting it up with the guests and generally doing my job. But Kacey had to fuck it up the second she noticed me. She stomped over, saying, “Where the fuck were you for the cake cutting?”
I frowned and stepped off the dance floor, out of the way, and gestured for her to do it too. “Jesus, Kace, don’t cause a fucking scene in the middle of the Electric Slide.”
“Don’t be flip.” She glared. “We were looking for you.”
“Obviously I went out to smoke.” I tried to be patient, but god, she was exhausting sometimes. Reminded me of that micromanaging older guy I’d dated earlier in the year, weirdly enough. Drake. Ew.
“For how long?” Her voice rose, probably so I could hear her over the music, but it was getting shrill and people were starting to look.
“C’mere,” I suggested, waving her toward the family table.
She stomped after me, face red.
“I didn’t know you needed me for it,” I said once we were out of the middle of the fucking room. Normally I would’ve just ignored her, but there was nowhere to hide. “Sorry.”
“You’re supposed to be helping us with everything.”
“Okay, what do you need help with?”
“I wanted you to take our picture.”
“Isn’t that what the photographer is for?”
“For social media right now!”
“Okay, look. Here comes Kelly; let’s do it now. Gimme your phone.”
“It’s too late.” Kacey glared.
I winced. So, so glad I hadn’t grown up with them; yeah. Not that Francisco had been a barrel of laughs either, but at least he mostly did his own thing and left me the fuck alone.
I was trying to think of how to escape when Kelly approached with a worried look on her face. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Is everything okay?”
“It’s fine,” I said. I did not say: Your sister’s just having her obligatory drama whore moment of the evening. But I sure fucking thought it.
“He missed the cake cutting,” Kacey insisted, pretty much stomping her foot.
“Okay?” Kelly frowned, at least as confused as I was.
“And he missed the Champagne toast earlier.”
I winced. “Are you stalking me?”
“It’s not funny, D. This is Kelly’s day, and you’re fucking it up.”
“Ooookay…” I held up both hands and began to back away slowly.
“Kacey, he’s doing exactly what I asked him to do,” Kelly said patiently. I could see how badly she wanted to roll her eyes.
“I think he’s being a petty little bitch,” Kacey snapped, giving an ugly little limp-wrist gesture for good measure.
I stopped backing up. Set my jaw. Insults, whatever; that’s just sibling shit. This was something else. “Excuse me?”
Kelly had seen it too, clearly. “Kace—”
“Always whining about how you hate coming back here, and you’re the only sad little gay in town, and no one even wants you here. It just makes you insane that Kelly found a man who—”
“What in the fuck?” I demanded.
“You need to go get some air,” Kelly said sharply, yanking on Kacey’s arm to turn her around. “I asked Diego to get people dancing. He did. And he’s a great dancer. What is your problem?”
“Don’t think it’s me that’s jealous about your man…” I sing-songed, even though I knew, I fucking knew it was a mistake the second it was out of my mouth.
Kelly face-palmed.
Kacey turned bright red. “You ungrateful, bitchy little motherfu—”
“Hey,” said a deep and—for the moment—angelic voice suddenly at my side. “You guys okay? Need help with anything?”
I couldn’t even look at Taran because I was afraid I’d grovel in thanks if I did. I did not need the full strength of Kacey’s rage on me in public, and definitely not at Kelly’s wedding, but I couldn’t just shut my fucking mouth.
“Just enjoying my wedding day. Thanks for coming,” Kelly said with a fake-sweet smile.
Taran replied with a million-dollar grin. “Taran. Our moms play mahjong together. Congratulations.”
Before Kelly could reply, Kacey jerked out of her grasp and shrilled, “Are you kidding me right now with this, Die—!”
“You wanna dance?” Taran said, holding out one hand.
I froze. The Electric Slide was over, thank god, but now it was something slow-dancey. I looked at Kelly, wondering if he was asking her. Even though the hand was extended toward me.
She gave me a significant look and jerked her head toward the dance floor. “Go.”
Kacey opened her mouth to unleash something else vile, probably.
Taran grabbed my hand and pulled me out onto the dance floor. “You don’t have to,” he leaned in close to say. “Just thought I’d return the favor.”
“How much of that did you hear?” God, my cheeks were burning up. It was bad enough Kacey had to flip out on the regular, but for her to do it in public? In front of my hot ex-situationship who had broken my teenage heart and was maybe kind of flirting with me? Fuck me, man.
“Enough to know it’d be pretty funny if someone walked up and asked you to dance at that exact moment,” he replied with a chuckle. “And not her.”
I laughed, sudden and surprised. “Shit! That is pretty funny.”
“No offense, but your new sister is kind of a dick.” He slid his arm around my waist.
I was still laughing, but the easy way he pulled me close made my head spin. Fucking Christ, what was even happening tonight? Stupidly, settling one hand against his warm, hard chest, I said, “Yeah, she doesn’t like it when everything isn’t about her.”
“Is she gonna turn it on Kelly now?”
“Kelly can handle her,” I said.
Then all the air left my body as he put his other arm around me and pressed his whole front into mine.
I might even have gasped, the feeling was so overwhelming.
He used to be stacked, yeah, but he always had a tiny waist in school.
Now he was thicker around the middle, more solid than he used to be—from twink to twunk in eight years or less.
He smelled like laundry detergent and shampoo, nothing fancy, and his hair brushed my cheek when he leaned in to whisper, “I don’t do this much, so you gotta show me how. ”
I leaned my chin on his shoulder, where it fit just right, and realized everyone was looking at us. Not openly—in most cases—but just sideways, little smiles or frowns or whispers darting around the loud as fuck reception hall. “Everyone’s watching,” I mumbled.
He pulled back slightly, so he could look down into my eyes—goddammit, he was still taller, yep. His crinkled slightly at the corners behind those hot-ass stockbroker-looking glasses. “They’ve been watching you all night.”
“Right, but…” I cleared my throat, which suddenly had my heart lodged in it again.
“I’m good if you are,” he said.
Words I never thought I’d hear from him, that was for goddamn sure. I flushed even hotter because I was sure he could feel my heart pounding against my ribcage. Managed a nod, but just barely.
He leaned forward again, rubbing his stubbly cheek against my temple. I slid my arms around his neck and narrowly resisted an urge to bury my face in it and inhale him like a line of hard-bodied cocaine.
Was I a complete fucking idiot who never learned? Absolutely.
Was I gonna enjoy dancing openly with this incredible fucking snack of a man? The man who’d tormented my teenage years by sucking me cross-eyed, making me fall for him, and then treating me like a dirty secret he couldn’t wait to get rid of when it was time to go to college?
Obviously.
“You okay?” he asked after a full thirty seconds of silence between us. Just my heartbeat against his and his hands at the small of my back and mine dangling over his superhero-sized shoulders.
“Yep,” I managed, then laughed at how tight my throat felt and sounded. “This is exactly how I expected this night to go, Kovacs. Didn’t you?”
His lips brushed my ear, just barely, but enough to give me goose bumps. His breath was hot and smelled like whiskey. “I wouldn’t have presumed. You do look really, really good tonight, though.”
“I know,” I lied. Couldn’t let it slip, couldn’t let him know how everything inside me was going soft and squishy. Well, everything except my dick, which was one-hundred percent hard. I arched my back to pull my hips away.
He put one hand on either side of my hips, thumbs just beneath the belt, and held me close. I almost panicked that I was about to make this shit really weird, but then I realized it was his cock, hard behind the zipper of his tailored flat-front pants, pressing into my belly down low.
Oh shit. Oh shit, oh fuck, this was happening. I felt that sickeningly familiar sensation of all sense and reason leaving my body the second Taran fucking Kovacs paid my sad little gay ass the tiniest bit of attention. “You’re about to make me a liar,” I whispered.
“How?”
“I swore I’d never do this again.”