Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
ROZEN
Henry Saunders had to be a hallucination. All those drinks and the raunchy mood of the club must really have gotten to me and caused this feverish birthday hallucination. There was no way this was real. Because he was leaning back against the bar in sexy as fuck gray sweatpants and a tight black tee shirt, with tattoo sleeves of colorful Celtic dragons that ended a couple inches below his elbows. I had never seen them before and every time he moved his arms, they writhed and slid with the slinky shifts of his lean muscles. It was a proven fact that tattoos made someone ten times sexier—and secret tattoos made someone a thousand times sexier. Add in his bedhead that looked so soft and perfect to twine around my fingers, and I was a messy goner.
“Nuh uh,” I told myself, but I was sobering up and I knew I was lying. I knew it wasn’t a hallucination either. If it were, he’d be all up on me, but he wasn’t paying any attention to me.
I had never ogled Henry Saunders before. Well, except the first time he’d smiled at me, flashing fucking dimples so deep I saw them even through his artful brown stubble. But that didn’t count, it had just been a reflexive ogle of a sexy man I’d hoped was flirting with me.
Why was he looking so relaxed over at the bar? I’d watched a lot of hornballs go up to Henry to shoot their shot and he’d been relaxed about them all. This time, it was Timmy Souza. No shade on Timmy, he was nice, but he was a man. Henry should be squirming in awkwardness like he had when he realized what I’d meant when I called Deston a daddy.
Clearly I had to up my game here.
I sauntered back over to the bar, so not even looking at Henry as I slid in to wait my turn.
“Coffee for Rozen, please, Kal,” he said, suddenly behind me and filling the air with his body heat and warm cinnamon smell, hnngh , which was the only reason my mouth watered.
The bartender sent him a slutty grin and made for the coffeemaker like there weren’t any other customers, and I glared daggers at him when he put the coffee down.
“I’m not drinking this,” I protested.
“You keep stopping dancing to look off into space like you’re asleep with your eyes open,” Henry informed me with a smile and a holier than thou attitude, goddammit. “You need it.”
No way I could tell him I’d actually frozen completely every time I caught sight of him.
“Like you could dance any better than me asleep on my feet,” I scoffed, challenging him before I took the coffee, not because he’d said so, but because it smelled good.
“You sound like a corny dance movie,” he said.
“Oh,” Timmy said, sounding fucking crestfallen as he butted in, “hey, Rozen.”
“Don’t worry, Timmy, I’m an impossible act to follow,” I chirped, grinning at him with more teeth than was strictly necessary, especially since he really was nice. But I couldn’t seem to reign myself in and pushed further, “Plus you’re barking up the wrong tree with Henry.”
A contrary spark lit up Henry’s eyes. “You have a lot of ideas about me.”
After I polished off the coffee, I poked him in the bicep. “A lot of ideas is why I’m a way better trust advisor than you, Saunders. My instincts are spectacular. Stupendous.”
“Is that right,” he deadpanned.
Heat licked up the back of my neck and flickered low in my stomach. “Damn right.”
“Let’s dance then,” he told me.
He strolled toward the dance floor like he was absolutely sure I’d follow.
He found an empty space on the far edge of the dance floor, looking at the other dancers like he didn’t want to be anywhere near them. So I planted myself undeniably inside his personal space bubble with my chin jabbed up in defiance, but he didn’t bat a fucking eye.
Fine, he didn’t know what was about to hit him.
Spinning to face away from him, I dropped it low and bounced on my heels.
I rubbed my ass over his body on my way up.
I didn’t give him all my best moves one right after the other, I spread them out across the three-minute techno remix, sprinkling in more basic moves, while he just stood there like he was unimpressed. Narrowing my eyes, I sidled in and said, “You can’t win if you don’t even fight.”
“I’m too busy dodging your flailing elbows to dance,” he taunted me.
Gasping in outrage, I hissed, “I don’t flail , you asshole!”
“Mmhm,” he said as though he couldn’t care less.
Then he started to dance. Just a little roll of his body, just a little shift of his shoulders, but I instinctively moved with him right away before I locked it down to stay stock-still. Damn it, he was such a good dancer, not flashy or intentionally seductive, just enjoying himself.
I glared at him like his ability to dance personally offended me.
When the song was done, his expression shifted into a smirk. “Your instincts are drunk. I’m an awesome dancer and I’m so offended that you thought I was worse than you.”
I rolled my eyes, but then they darted to his chest and rolling hips and I licked my lips.
Henry coughed suddenly, snapping me out of it to tell him with a haughty sniff, “My instincts are sober as a judge. I assure you, not many straight men can dance.”
He laughed, his hand clapping over his stomach. “I get it now,” he said breathlessly. “You thought bringing the straight guy onto the dance floor of a queer club was going to scare me off.”
When I scowled, putting my hands on my hips in total indignance, he only laughed harder.
My scowl froze in confusion, my mind screeching to halt, when he glided a few steps closer to me, much closer than straight men tended to get to each other. Then he trailed a finger down the column of my neck, the featherlight touch rocketing through me, his pretty eyes following his finger. What in the sweet ass hell was happening right now? Either Henry was more secure in his heterosexuality than any man I’d ever met in my life and wasn’t threatened or worried about our proximity or anyone misreading his touch as… sensual , dammit, or Henry was…
He angled in to murmur in my ear, “Trouble is, all your ideas about me are wrong, honey.”
No way had I misread him.
His eyes had flown away from Deston and his man kissing so fast his eyeballs must have gotten whiplash. When Rochelle had her baskets of Pride merch on the reception desk every June, he’d never taken any of it to put at his desk. He’d gone to happy hours everywhere but at the low-key gay bar around the corner from the office. I was great at reading people, damn it.
That fucking eyebrow raised again as he slid his hands into his sweatpants like they were his finest suit pants, stretching the fabric across his big bulge. Shit . I jerked my eyes back up.
Now he was giving me that fucking smirk again too.
“You’re not straight?” My stupid voice must have been shot from all the singing and shouting tonight, because it cracked halfway through. I may have thought I was sobering up a minute ago, but now I could feel my head swimming and my emotions were wobbling all over inside me on a sea of lemon drops. Hastily I corrected myself, “I mean, whatever, I don’t care.” I circled my finger around in front of his chest, then poked at his stomach and pec as I reasoned, “Your signal must be jammed if I misread you. Can you read me as a chaotic queer?”
Henry batted my finger away from where it was still poking at his pec with a huff. “I don’t have a signal , Rozen, I’m not a radio. None of the men I’ve dated or slept with thought I was straight. Unless I’m trying to date you or sleep with you, why would I care if you know I’m gay?”
“I’m totally fuckable!” I huffed back at him.
“You’re totally missing my point,” he said.
“No, I’m not,” I argued, huffing right back at him, so offended. “You said you’re not trying to sleep with me, and I’m saying I’m totally fuckable. Who wouldn’t want to sleep with me?”
I almost got distracted realizing that we were still dancing.
“My point is,” he started. He swept his hands through his hair in frustration, or I assumed it was frustration because of his tone of voice, but really I was mesmerized by the way he did this subtle, humble body roll at the same time. “That it’s rude to say my signal must be jammed.”
That made me feel a tiny bit like shit about how rude I’d been. Yeah, I was loud and proud, but I knew better than to act like everyone else needed to be. I definitely hadn’t meant to imply he wasn’t queer enough. But fuck, he was the last person I’d ever expected to see here, and I was sweaty and still a little bit drunk, although that was fading fast now, and my nipples were out!
“Trust, but verify, Saunders,” I piped up, grinning triumphantly as I found a way out of the awkward moment without having to apologize. “I know how competitive you are, so I wouldn’t put it past you to play some gay chicken with me.” When he rolled his eyes at me for probably the hundredth time tonight, I plowed on, “Don’t overthink. Who was your first crush?”
“Kevin Delgado,” he shot back inside a heartbeat, “but you can stop right there.”
He took out his phone, swiped and tapped around, and then turned it around to show me… his Grindr profile. I couldn’t help but gawk at the total thirst trap of his profile picture, featuring his ‘90s heartthrob blond-streaked brown hair falling around his cheekbones, all those tattoos, and a more cocksure smile than I would have believed from him. Before I got my fill, he tapped on the messages section to show me there were conversations in there, as if the existence of the app and a profile on his phone wasn’t proof enough. My teeth gritted when a new one popped up right before my very eyes, with the preview, Hey hottie. Want to blow you in bathroom now.
When he caught sight of it, he grimaced and closed the app immediately.
“Guilty pleasure?” I asked innocently.
“You obviously love hookups, but they’re just not my style,” he said with a small shrug, not looking guilty at all, or judgy either if I were being honest with myself. “Every few months I get a little lonely and open the apps, and then get some… forward messages and… yeah, no.”
A smile that was definitely a smidge high and mighty took over my face.
He held up his hand in a stop sign gesture, shaking his head in exasperation, but there was a teensy grin buried in his stubble while he said, “Yeah, I know, you’re the king of forward messages, and very forward propositions over the phone. I’m just a relationship person.” Before my face was even halfway twisted up in reaction, he was chuckling lightly. “I know it’s not popular, or whatever, to be looking for a forever man, to share a home and fill it up with love and laughter and maybe a couple dogs. It’s definitely not flashy. But I like to keep it simple.”
“Stupid,” I added.
“Did you just call me stupid?”
My eyes flew wide as I waved my hands wildly. “ No . I was finishing the phrase. KISS?”
Henry leveled me with a devastating blank look. “Now you want me to kiss you?”
Now I was hopping from foot to foot and waving my hands wildly. I might have been enjoying the competitiveness of our back-and-forth tonight, but I wasn’t a dickbag who called people stupid or demanded kisses. “Keep it simple, stupid. You know? It’s a, like, it’s a saying, and you said the first part, so I finished it, but I guess you weren’t saying the saying.”
“How is it that you’re so perfect at work and you’re such a mess right now?” he asked, and I stuck my nose up in the air and didn’t bother answering, since the answer was clearly because I’m drunk . “Let’s keep it simple and just dance until the right Henry gets here, okay?”
My bottom lip pushed out in a big fat pout without my permission. Why was I pouting? Even though I had to admit it was maybe kind of okay to hang out with Henry, I would rather be hooking up. Right? Even if I’d totally forgotten to text the right Henry earlier, distracted by a bunch of texts from Greg. Why else would I even be here after my friends had taken off, flirting and dancing and drunk, and calling Henry, if not to hook up because hookups were awesome? It was much hotter than one person forever, laughter, and a couple of dogs—my brother and I had agreed happily ever afters weren’t for us when we were kids and we were always right.
“Ooh,” Henry exclaimed as a new song picked up, “I’m obsessed with this song!”
He tossed his hair and did a mesmerizing body roll like he was a K-pop god.
It’s always the quiet ones , I thought with a tiny groan of pained appreciation for the way he moved, picking up what he was throwing down.
It was impossible not to get swept up in the simple joy of dancing with a good partner—good dancer , I meant—someone who held their own and was in sync with me at the same time. We might as well have been completely alone, dancing without getting dirty even though my body grew hotter and needier with every song that played. It was just because of those damn body rolls and that damn hair and those damn tattoos. It couldn’t be sexual tension rising between us, because there was no way Henry was into me on any level—he wanted a forever man and was scandalized by Grindr, for fuck’s sake. I’d look for a forever man when hell froze over, and I wasn’t attracted to client-thieving coworkers anyway.
My cock was only hard because he was sexy and I was still drunk enough to freely admit it in my head, while his hard cock could only be a natural, blameless physiological reaction.
He didn’t seem bothered by the situation in our pants, so I didn’t let it worry me either.
Suddenly the music stopped and the lights came up.
Henry and I blinked owlishly against the unexpected brightness, and we looked around in surprise, seeing that the club was nearly empty. I looked at my watch and saw that it was two.
My heart started racing at the idea of the night being over, but I had no idea what to say.
Luckily Henry did, saying unapologetically, “Too bad the right Henry never showed up.”
Jumping on that, I said cheerfully, towing him over to the bar to get his hoodie back from the bartender who gave me coffee, “Guess you successfully ruined my night like you schemed, Saunders. A decent person would feel bad and take me to Alma’s Diner for apology food,” I tossed out like I really didn’t care, but I so fucking did, I didn’t want this night to end.
“So generous of you to admit that I’m a decent person,” he said.
I held my breath, waiting for the rest of his response.