16. Donovan
SIXTEEN
DONOVAN
The built guy I’m talking to is telling me about his weight routine, which I’m honestly interested in since I get bored doing the same routines all the time. But my attention’s only partly on him. The rest is on Beck, who’s still on the dance floor. The burger he devoured seems to have given him a boost of confidence, because he no longer seems like he’s “bad at bars.” He’s shimmying and shaking to the beat while the guy who got him on the dance floor watches, clapping and hollering appreciatively. Beck’s flushed and smiling.
“I’m all in on pea protein right now,” the guy—he told me his name, but I forgot it already—says. “I add that shit to everything.”
“Hmm.” Beck’s dance partner seems to be introducing him to another man and they’re forming a little group.
“You wanna dance?” the pea-protein enthusiast asks.
“Huh?”
“You seem really interested in what’s happening over there,” he says, pointing to the dance floor. “I’m not much of a dancer, but I could give it a shot. Or we could go somewhere else to talk—somewhere quieter. I live a couple miles away.”
“Oh.” I look at him, giving him my full attention for the first time since we started talking. He’s attractive, in a gym-rat way, and he smells good, like clean laundry. I drank my beer and Beck’s, too, and I’m working on my third. It would be easy to go home with him and end my dry spell tonight.
But I’d have to leave Beck behind.
“Let’s dance,” I say, draining most of the rest of my beer before I can overthink my decision.
Pea-protein guy follows me willingly, and we get on the floor just as the beat ramps up. He’s not lying—he can’t really match the tempo of the music, which makes me wonder how good in bed he could be. I could find out—but as I catch sight of Beck in the modest crowd, his hands on someone new’s hips as they move back and forth in sync, I realize I don’t want to.
Beck’s as good at dancing as he is at everything else. The lights in the ceiling must be on some kind of timer, because they’re cycling through all the colors of the rainbow, making the disco ball throw panes of red, orange, yellow, green onto the crowd. I should be getting my hands on Mr. Hard Body, but I can’t tear my gaze away from Beck, watching his face flash blue, purple, pink.
He’s radiant.
And I want him.
I think the last beer must have gone to my head because dragging Beck home right this minute and taking him to bed seems like the best idea I’ve had in a long time.
“I think I’m going to head out,” my dance partner says, leaning close to be heard over the music. “You want to come with?”
I should say yes. There’s a reason I don’t hook up with guys like Beck, and it’s not just because we’re roommates. It’s because hooking up with someone who I actually like, actually care about, is too hard. Too painful.
Pete’s voice in my head says, “Aidan was eight years ago. Move on already.”
Maybe it’s pathetic to still mourn a relationship that’s been over that long, but it’s less that I’m still sad and more that I’ve become so used to short-term hookups that I don’t know how to do anything else anymore.
But it could be different with Beck. Our living situation is over at the end of the summer. Then we’ll both walk away—I’ll go back to the city, to my career, and Beck will, well, maybe he’ll stay here, but he knows that I won’t.
Maybe we could have fun together in the meantime.
I clear my throat to turn down the offer, but he’s already gone. I feel bad for half a second, but honestly, it’s a relief to thread my way through the dancing bodies and find Beck. Now he’s dancing with a dark-haired guy with blue eyeshadow and painted-on jeans.
I hover for a second. Maybe this is stupid. Maybe Beck doesn’t want me like I want him. Maybe he’s too smart to get involved with someone as emotionally unavailable as me.
But when he catches my gaze with his, I push away my nerves. This is just Beck. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he says back, sounding amused. He doesn’t stop dancing with the guy, who pays no attention to me.
“Can we—” I stall out, not sure what I want to ask for. A dance? A ride home? Hand jobs in the bathroom?
He raises his eyebrows, and the disco lights flash again—red, orange, yellow. By the time they get to blue, I blurt it out: “Are you ready to leave?”
He looks surprised. “Already?”
“Who’s this?” The guy he’s dancing with looks me up and down, his pierced tongue peeking between his lips.
“He’s my roommate,” Beck says, still sounding amused.
“He’s delicious,” the guy says, invitation in his eyes.
I watch Beck’s face carefully, but he doesn’t move to agree or scoff at the guy’s description of me. Damn him and his poker face.
“Sorry to interrupt,” I say, though I’m not sorry in the least. I tug on Beck’s arm and he lets go of pierced-tongue guy.
“What’s going on?” Beck says, following me a few feet away, nearly off the edge of the dance floor. “I thought you had big plans for tonight.”
The song shifts to something boppier. I run my hand through my hair, frustrated that I messed up a perfectly good night to pull, and messed up Beck’s game, too. All because I can’t keep my mind off him, even when we spend half our time together as it is.
“I’m an idiot.”
He grins. “What does that have to do with anything?”
I jut out my chin. “Thanks a lot.”
He laughs. “No, seriously. Is everything okay? Are you feeling okay? What did you drink?”
“I’m fine. We don’t have to go if you don’t want to. I just—I thought—” What am I doing? He doesn’t want me. He wants a real relationship. He wants a forever kind of love. The kind I’ve been telling myself I don’t believe in for the last eight years. The kind I thought I once had for myself.
“What?” he asks, more gently.
“I just want to go home. With you.” If I sound tired, it’s because suddenly I’m exhausted. I can’t believe it, but the truth is I’d rather spend a sexless night hanging with Beck, munching on cookies and watching a movie, Cleo curled up between us on the couch, instead of anonymous sex with a pea-protein-obsessed gym rat.
“Oh.” Beck looks a little lost, and I feel like the selfish shit I am.
“But you were having fun. You should dance more. I’ll get another drink?—”
“No.” Beck touches my shoulder and I lean into him involuntarily. “It’s okay. Let’s go.”
I settle the tab and we get back in the car without saying much.
“Sorry. I ruined the night, I guess,” I say, feeling uncharacteristically self-pitying.
“My night wasn’t ruined,” he says, but he still sounds quiet, like I’ve taken the energy out of him. The last thing I want to do.
“That’s a pretty cool place. Sparkle,” I say, in a weak attempt at salvaging a conversation.
“Good burgers,” he says.
“Good beer.”
“Nice people.”
“I guess,” I say.
“What—not up to your New York standards?” He sounds like he’s teasing, but I can hear an undercurrent of insecurity.
“It’s not that.” I haven’t missed New York at all the last couple of days. “I’d just rather be with you.” Shit. That’s both exactly what I mean and not at all what I meant to say.
Beck flips on his blinker, checks his mirrors, then pulls his car into a turnout on the side of the road.
“What—?”
He throws the emergency brake on and puts the gear shift in neutral. “Donovan, you have to stop staying stuff like that.”
I swallow hard. Shit.
“Because if you keep on being so supportive and nice and sweet and acting like my goddamn boyfriend, I’m going to get the idea that you want to actually be my boyfriend. And that’s not good for my mental health, okay?”
“I don’t want to be your boyfriend,” I say quickly. It might make me an asshole, but it’s the truth.
“I know.” In the dark cabin of the car, his face is faintly illuminated by the dials on the dash. He sounds calm, but he looks…sad. “We’re friends. Which is awesome. I’m really enjoying being your friend.”
“Me too.” That’s the truth, too. And while I’m on this truth-telling kick, I might as well confess something else. “I sort of want to kiss you, though.”
I can hear his sharp inhale. “Sort of?” I should know he’s not going to make it easy on me.
“I do want to kiss you.” I owe him that much.
“Just kiss?” he asks, looking not at me, but at the gear shift. Now I can hear the flirtation in his voice and I let go of the anxious breath I’ve been holding onto.
“No. I want to get you off.” I’m dying to know what he looks like when he’s turned-on and coming—is it the same face he makes when he bites into the first still-warm cookie from the oven?
“Anything else?”
“I want you to get me off.” Fuck, I need to feel another body next to mine—it doesn’t have to be anything fancy. I’d happily rub off on Beck in the back seat. For starters, anyway.
“And just to be clear, you want all of these things, and you don’t want to be my boyfriend?”
“Is this a trick question?”
“I’m just wondering what this would be. Friends with benefits? A one-night thing?”
I already know he’s not the kind of guy who wants the latter. The former is a cliche. But not inaccurate. “We’re roommates with benefits,” I offer. “Taking advantage of our mutual attraction for a mutually beneficial arrangement. For the summer.”
“Hey, who said anything about mutual attraction?” Beck says, but I know he’s just giving me a hard time.
“Whatever, you know you want me,” I say. And then I put my hand on his thigh and squeeze. He shivers. “See?”
He bites his lip. “Just for the summer?”
It must be the law school dropout in him that wants to clarify terms before entering into the contract, such as it is.
“Just for the summer. Is that cool?”
He puts his hand hesitantly on top of mine, meets my gaze with his. “Cool.”