Chapter 11
ELEVEN
“Come on, it’ll be fun,” Jake ribbed Nally as they headed back to their apartments from the family supper Robert and Janice had hosted in their apartment. He’d been a little sore after his afternoon with Rafe, in more ways than one, but he’d been able to hide all of it from the family.
“I know it’ll be fun,” Nally said, sending Jake a sideways look as they headed down the stairs. “I also think you’re looking for trouble if you think showing up at the same club where Rafe is out on a date is a good idea.”
“He’s my fiancé,” Jake said, pretending to be affronted by the suggestion. He actually was a little peeved that Nally seemed to think he didn’t have a right to check up on Rafe.
Nally laughed. “Yeah, I know, but also not really,” he said. “He’s marrying you so you can get a visa and he can get an introduction to some big deal glass artist.”
Jake nearly missed the last stair. He’d conveniently forgotten about his part of the deal, introducing Rafe to Hélène Rénard. They’d been enjoying each other’s company so much in the last couple weeks and concentrating on their English countryside idea that neither of them had mentioned Hélène in ages.
He didn’t really need a reminder that the whole marriage thing was a deal and that he would have to live up to his half of it eventually.
“Pretty please?” he asked as he and Nally started down the hall. “It’s Friday night. Either way, a night out in London will be fun. I asked Early about Cupid’s Arrow earlier, and they said it’s one of the coolest places for gay men to hang out in London.”
Nally sighed and turned to face him. “Alright, I’ll take you,” he said, then started walking toward his apartment with a different sort of “just going to collect my keys” energy. “I haven’t had a night out in ages, and if I don’t rub skin with someone soon, certain parts of me will probably fall off.”
Jake laughed, reenergized and bouncing. “What are you, twenty-one? You’re too young for anything to fall off.”
Nally snorted as he reached the door to his apartment. “Fine. I’ll chalk it up to being young and hormonal, then. Either way, there’s bound to be someone at Cupid’s Arrow who wouldn’t mind dandling me on his knee while I called him ‘Daddy’ for the night.”
Jake laughed even louder as Nally ducked into his apartment to get his keys. “I had no idea you were that sort.”
“I’m not,” Nally said with a grin as he came back out again, keys in one hand, man-purse in the other. “But I’m also not above sucking up to a grey-haired bear with a taste for twinks either if it gets me horizontal.”
Jake giggled the whole way out to the car and during the drive to London. He liked the Hawthorne family more and more with each day that passed. They were as far from what he had always thought of as family as could be. Nally was incredibly open about nearly everything to the point where if Jake wasn’t already three-quarters of the way in love with Rafe, he might have tried calling him a good boy and inviting him over to play hide the sausage.
He stopped his thoughts as soon as they started down that path. Not the bit about messing around with Nally. He was a red-blooded gay man in his prime and Nally was a beautiful, glowing twink who apparently liked to have a good time now and then. What gave him pause was the feeling of being in love with Rafe.
It wasn’t actually love, or so he told himself. Rafe had just been exceptionally kind to him when almost no one else had. It was gratitude, friendship, and admiration. The two of them got along and worked well together. Rafe seemed genuinely interested in helping him get over his lying addiction. For the first time in his life, Jake felt like he might not actually have to lie around someone. Rafe would accept him just the way he was.
But it wasn’t love. Love was dangerous. This was…something else. It had to be.
Jake tried every sort of mental gymnastic that he could think of to put the idea of being in love with Rafe out of his mind. He tried to tell himself he was only interested in Cupid’s Arrow because he needed a night of blowing off steam and that it would be funny to show up at the same club where Rafe was on a date.
He told himself that, but as soon as he walked into the loud, vibrant club with its black-painted walls and lurid pink and red neon decorations, like Valentine’s Day was horny and into kinky, and saw Rafe sitting at the bar, his heart gave up its resistance. Fuck it, he was in love with Rafe, and if he could just?—
His thoughts stopped dead, not because Rafe glanced up, met his eyes, and broke into a smile, but because Rafe was holding hands with the gorgeous, muscular redhead sitting at the bar with him.
“Oh, he’s here with Steve,” Nally said, leaning close to Jake so he could be heard over the music. “They’re friends from way back. Steve’s alright.”
If Nally was trying to make him feel better, it failed. The only thing worse than Rafe hooking up with a stranger he randomly met at a club was him getting cozy with an old friend. One that Nally, and probably the rest of the Hawthorne family, liked.
“Let’s go say hi,” he said, trying to sound chipper and teasing when his heart was beating so hard against his ribs it stung.
Rafe shifted away from Steve as Jake and Nally approached, but it was too late. Jake couldn’t unsee the two of them holding hands.
“What are you doing here?” Rafe asked, standing to greet them. Steve stood as well, though his smile was brittle. Someone wasn’t happy about having their date interrupted.
“I could ask you the same thing,” Jake said, falling back on what he knew best. “I didn’t know you would be here.”
Rafe’s tense smile faltered. “Yes, you did.”
Jake ignored him, shifting to offer a hand to Steve. “Hey. I’m Jake. I’m a friend of the Hawthorne family, over here visiting them for the summer. And you are?”
Steve grasped Jake’s hand and nearly squashed it. “I’m Steve,” he said, staring so hard at Jake that Jake wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d burst into flames and turned into a puddle of ash on the club’s shiny floor. “I’m Rafe’s date.”
Nothing about the introduction was reassuring. Steve couldn’t have made his intentions clearer if he’d whipped his dick out and peed on Rafe.
“Should we grab one of the tables?” Rafe asked, nervously reaching for a half-finished drink on the bar.
“Nah,” Jake said, brushing the movement away. “Nally and I are here to dance. You boys have fun with your little date thing, or whatever this is.” He wiggled his fingers at the two of them.
He was being an ass, but he couldn’t help it. Seeing Rafe with another man was horrible. Especially since Steve was gorgeous and built and probably had his life together a thousand times more than Jake ever could. Steve was the kind of guy Rafe should be with.
“You’re turning green,” Nally said as Jake dragged him out into the middle of the happy, throbbing, writhing group on the dance floor.
“Must be the lights,” Jake said, then grabbed Nally and twirled him. “Let’s dance!”
Dancing wasn’t a solution, but it burned off some of the anxious energy that had Jake feeling like a toy that had been wound too tight. He liked dancing and was pretty good at it. More than a few of the other guys on the dance floor noticed him and shimmied over to bump and grind with him in time to the music.
It wasn’t ideal, but it was reassuring. Someone wanted him, at least. They only wanted him for one thing, though. That wasn’t as fun as he used to think it was. It wasn’t what he really wanted. What he really wanted was for Rafe to ditch Steve and come out to the dance floor, push aside the guy who was half an inch from rubbing his obvious erection against Jake’s backside, and take his place.
Instead, Rafe continued to sit at the bar, listening intently to whatever Steve was saying.
At least, he was pretending to listen. Jake wasn’t so sure. His gaze kept darting out to the dance floor. He knew what Rafe looked like when he was actually engaged in something and he had a pretty good idea of where his fake-fiancé’s attention really was.
That idea proved true when Steve gave up whatever he was saying and gestured toward the dancers. Rafe nodded, and the two of them got up and came over to join the crowd on the floor just as the song changed.
Jake laughed at the stiff way Rafe danced. He couldn’t tell if it was the nerves of the moment or if Rafe was always that awkward, but it didn’t matter. He left Nally shimmying in the middle of a threesome of bears in leather and made his way over to Rafe and Steve.
“Come on,” he called out over the noise. “You can do better than that, baby.”
Rafe snapped his head up from where he’d been watching his feet and frowned. Maybe “baby” wasn’t the best pet name for him, but that wasn’t why Jake had let the word drop, and Rafe probably knew it. Rafe’s face flushed, and Jake hoped it was because of memories of their afternoon.
“You dance well,” Steve said, sidling closer to him as he grooved to the music. “For an American,” he added.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” Jake called out in reply, face smiling and eyes shooting daggers at him. “For a limey.”
Steve’s smile pulled so tight it might have been a grimace. Jake didn’t really care. He felt like he was defending his territory, and he was going to do it without holding back.
“Nally says you and Rafe go way back,” Jake said, shifting to grab Steve’s attention. Rafe had turned slightly to the side to engage with a guy who danced with even more exuberance than he did.
“We do,” Steve said. “We go way back.” His words said one thing, but his tone was as much a declaration of dibs and intent as it was possible to get.
“That’s nice,” Jake said. “Rafe and I met at the Corning Museum of Glass, when we were both artists in residence. I’m sort of a big deal in the glass world.”
“Is that so?” Steve moved closer to him, like the two of them were either in a dance-off or about to grind right there in front of everyone. “How big a deal?”
“Did you see the latest issue of Art Digest?” Jake said, putting on his smuggest look. “They did an entire profile about me and my latest collection.”
“Fancy that,” Steve said, losing his smile.
“Yeah,” Jake said, grinning harder. “Plus I just sold a piece to the Met for a quarter of a million dollars. When was the last time you sold something you’ve made from scratch for a quarter of a mil?”
Steve frowned and lost his rhythm. As much as Jake felt like he’d scored points in the competition for Rafe, his stomach twisted hard over the way he’d done it. He was supposed to be giving up lying. It didn’t matter what some guy in a club thought of him. Rafe had already committed to helping him, and he trusted Rafe not to go back on his word.
It was Steve he didn’t trust.
“All that money is going toward our wedding,” Jake said as casually as possible. “We’re thinking a spring wedding, but the way immigration laws are over here, we might need to make it sooner.”
“Wedding?” Steve stopped dancing entirely. Rafe noticed something was wrong and stopped dancing as well. He stepped closer, his expression questioning. “Are you marrying this bloke?” Steve asked him.
“Um.” The syllable was barely audible over the music, but Rafe didn’t need words to give Steve the answer he was looking for. His expression did it all.
“You agreed to come out tonight with me, but you’re engaged to this guy?” Steve raised his voice and jerked his thumb at Jake.
“It’s a long story,” Rafe said.
That was it. Steve shook his head and immediately left the crush of dancers.
“Steve, wait!” Rafe called after him, chasing him over to the bar.
“What did you do?” Nally asked just behind Jake’s shoulder.
Jake twisted in surprise. He hadn’t noticed Nally approaching him. “I just mentioned to Steve that Rafe and I are engaged.”
Nally shook his head and rolled his eyes. “I knew you were only coming here to cause trouble.” When Jake smiled broadly in reply, Nally laughed and said, “You’re on your own now. I’ve got bigger sausages to fry,” before turning back to the guys he’d been dancing with.
Jake grinned, then dodged around the guy trying to pull him into a dance to follow Rafe and Steve to the bar.
“—told me you were engaged,” Steve was in the middle of telling Rafe with a scowl. “It would have saved us a lot of time.”
“I’m sorry,” Rafe said. “It’s all pretty new, and we’d made this date before the engagement happened.”
“You could have told me the other day, at the Renaissance Faire, and saved us both the trouble,” Steve said, pulling out a credit card to pay his tab on the unit the bartender held out to him. “What did you think was going to happen here tonight?”
“Not this,” Rafe said, almost too quietly to hear, as he rubbed his face.
Steve laughed and shook his head. “Bye, Rafe,” he said, sticking his card back in his wallet. “Maybe I’ll see you sometime after the wedding.” He sent Jake a withering look, then turned to go.
“Well, that was awkward,” Jake said, sliding into the stool across from where Rafe had just sat heavily.
He expected Rafe to glare at him or tell him off. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Rafe gave him the finger and left the club the way Steve had. Instead, he gestured for the bartender and ordered a drink.
“Do you want anything?” he asked Jake.
Jake opened his mouth to say he couldn’t, he was six months sober, or to make up some other story to hide the fact that he had no money, but he thought better of it. “I can’t,” he said. “I’m broke.”
Rafe nodded. “It’s on me.”
Jake winced. “I can’t let you buy me a drink when I just ruined your night. And yes, before you ask, I came here deliberately to ruin your date because I don’t like the idea of you going out with another man.”
He sucked in a breath as soon as the words were spoken. It was a relief to get them out and a triumph that he’d been able to be honest, but he still felt like holy hell was about to rain down on him.
Rafe shrugged as he gave the bartender his order, then shifted to face Jake. Their knees bumped together, but neither of them tried to move away.
“I’m glad you showed up,” Rafe said, though he grimaced as he did. “I didn’t really want to be here with Steve anyhow. He’s right, I should have told him the other day at the faire and canceled the date then.”
“Wow. Okay,” Jake said, surprised by the level of honesty they were both showing. “Maybe I should have ordered a drink after all if we’re going to sit here dropping truth bombs all night.”
Rafe grinned. It wasn’t an outright laugh or something garish and fake. It was just a sweet, warm gesture of genuine affection that made Jake feel like he was walking on cloud nine. His heart beat hard and fast, but for a change, it wasn’t with anxiety or the sick dread of wondering if the lie he’d just told was the one that would unravel everything for him.
“The whole time Steve sat there talking, I was thinking about you,” Rafe said once the bartender delivered his drink and he’d taken a gulp. “I didn’t want to be with him, I wanted to be with you.” He paused, staring into Jake’s eyes with an intensity that squeezed Jake’s chest and had him silent for once. “I want to be with you,” he repeated.
“I want to be with you, too,” Jake said, too quiet in the din of the club for Rafe to actually hear him.
He didn’t need to hear. The sparks crackling between them said enough. They said everything, but Jake slipped his hand over Rafe’s as it rested on the bar anyhow.
The club seemed to melt away, and all there was in the world was Rafe’s warm, inviting eyes and full lips. Jake wanted to kiss Rafe so badly that he licked his lips. He wanted to feel Rafe over him, under him, every which way. He wanted the two of them to snuggle together on rainy days and spend Christmases in matching feety pajamas, opening presents with the rest of the Hawthorne family.
“I think I love you,” he blurted before he could stop himself.
“Let’s get out of here,” Rafe said, standing and leaving his half-finished drink on the bar. “There’s a hotel right across the street.”
Jake didn’t have to be told twice. He stood, and for extra flare, he grabbed Rafe’s drink and threw back the rest of what was in the glass.
He was not expecting straight whiskey, and instead of making a beautiful, movie-worthy exit, Jake coughed and wheezed and doubled over, trying to suck air into his lungs around the burn of alcohol.
Rafe laughed and scooped an arm around him, dragging him up and propelling him toward the door. “Lightweight,” he joked as they breezed outside to the busy street.
“I wasn’t expecting it,” Jake said, his voice still hoarse. “I can hold my liquor.”
“Right,” Rafe said.
They made it as far as the street corner before Rafe grabbed Jake by the front of his shirt and pulled him in for a searing kiss. If the alcohol wasn’t already spinning his head, that kiss would have done the job. He threw himself into it, grabbing Rafe in return and groaning low in his throat as he kissed Rafe back. They were in a trendy part of London, so it didn’t matter that they were in public. They weren’t the only gay couple making out on the sidewalk either.
As soon as the light changed, they hurried across the street to the incredibly swanky-looking hotel. Jake had to stop again once they were just outside the entrance to pull Rafe back into his arms for another kiss. It was absolute heaven. For all his questionable plans and interference, it was turning into the best night of his life.
Jake was vaguely aware of the hotel door opening beside him. He didn’t think anything of it until Rafe suddenly pulled back from him and blurted, “Oh my God, Hélène Rénard!”
Jake gasped and spun away from Rafe in a panic. Sure enough, Hélène Rénard had just stepped out of the hotel wearing black leather jeans, a silver, silk shirt, and a flowing wrap in a Japanese style.
“Hélène Rénard,” Rafe repeated, stepping after her as the woman moved to the curb and glanced around, like she was waiting for a car to come get her.
She noticed Rafe and turned to them with a banal, impersonal smile. “Yes?” she asked in her smokey, French accent.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Rafe Hawthorne,” Rafe said, stepping over to her like he was approaching a temple. “And, of course, you know Jake Mathers.”
Jake froze. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe as Hélène Rénard turned to him and blinked.
“ Non ,” she said, making the word sound vaguely like a question. “I do not believe we have met. Jake Mathers, did you say?”
Jake swallowed hard and peeked at Rafe.
Rafe’s adoring smile had already started to fade. Jake watched in horror as his hopes and dreams crumbled as Rafe’s expression turned questioning, then understanding, then furious.
“You lied,” Rafe said, barely above a whisper. “You told me a big, fat lie to convince me to marry you. You don’t know Hélène Rénard at all, do you.”
Jake could only shake his head and pray that Rafe didn’t abandon him.