23. Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
Quinn
After they both got their feet back under them and their heads on straight, they ambled back to the bathroom. Jake drained the tub and Quinn turned on the shower. They both needed to at least rinse off. Especially Jake, given where Quinn finished. There was nothing to be done for the bed sheets, but Quinn helped him get the cum washed off his back.
They wrapped themselves up in plush white bath robes and laid out on the bed next to each other. The TV played softly in the background, showing off a bunch of jewelry they could buy for the low, low price of way more than it was worth.
Jake sighed. “Thanks for coming. To the hotel room, I mean. I take credit for the other cumming.”
“I started literally doing that in my sleep when I was twelve, but sure. You can take credit.”
Jake’s grin lit up his face and he slung an arm over Quinn’s shoulders, then brought his hand up and scrubbed his knuckles briefly across Quinn’s scalp. “You’re a little shit.”
“Only sometimes.” Quinn sighed and looked at him. In the dim, shifting colors from the TV screen, Jake was somehow even prettier than usual. His hair was still damp and stuck up in weird places around his head. It was longer than it looked when he had it all styled into place. The hollows of his cheeks caught all the deep parts of the color, and the highlights swam across his forehead and the bridge of his nose. Somehow, the deep blue of his eyes was almost untouched by the light quality. They still bore down on Quinn, endless and bright all at the same time.
Quinn glanced at the TV screen. A middle-aged man showed off a rose gold ring with a large, pear-shaped green stone surrounded by smaller white diamonds. The volume was low, and he’d missed the info that flashed across the screen. It still caught his eye. “That’s hideous.”
Jake tilted his head, then nodded. “Yeah. Not my choice. Maybe if it was on silver? Or a ruby or something a different color if they want to keep the rose gold.” He tutted his tongue. “You dropping hints? Feels a little early for engagement.”
“It is. But if we get there, don’t get me that ring.”
“Deal.”
Quinn shifted, leaning his head against Jake’s chest and shoulder. “I should get up and get going at some point.”
“Well, I’m not stopping you.”
He wasn’t. Quinn stayed put anyway. “You haven’t told me much about your life back home. Not to pry—”
“Open book. I know plenty about you at this point.” Seemingly without thinking about it, Jake stroked his fingers softly through Quinn’s hair as he spoke. “It’s not exciting, though. When we had the channel, we did a ton of work around Pine Point. Slimmed down the options for work a lot, so I generally have to go out of town for carpentry jobs. I might play a little more Armored Spirit than I implied, but I still feel like I never have time. I like to go thrifting and antiquing a lot. Really, any chance for some retail therapy is good in my book.”
Quinn nodded. “Plenty of thrift stores around here, or up in Chicago. Maybe we can go some time.” He nuzzled into Jake a little deeper. “And I knew you were bullshitting me on Armored Spirit. I bet you’re some kind of semipro player or something.”
“Hardly. I just don’t have the headspace to get involved in too many new series. I still watch the same TV shows I did when I was in my teens and twenties. You know. Always feels like a whole-ass commitment that I’m not ready for.”
“I’ll hook you up with some good games any time you want.” Quinn closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. “You know what I always liked? Playing RPGs with someone else in the room.” Another deep breath. “I remember in high school, my friends and I stayed up way, way too late trying to get to the shirtless cut scene in Veins of Honor IV.”
Jake chuckled, the sound rumbling and vibrating through his chest and into Quinn’s back. “I remember that. I may have bought a few pieces of bootleg fan art of Silvaeus at a con when I was young.”
“A con?” Quinn snorted. “Nerd.”
“Guilty as charged.” He kept stroking Quinn’s hair and it felt so nice, so peaceful. Quinn yawned, so he only caught the back half of Jake’s sentence. “…we can play it and check in across the country?”
Quinn didn’t need the first part to put the gist together. “Any game, any time.” Those fingers on his scalp felt so nice, and the bath robe was soft against his skin, holding in all his warmth. “I’ll make a list and we’ll work something out.” He started thinking through his own backlog and wishlist, trying to figure out what would be good. I think Veins of Honor is still going. There’s that western one with the Cthulhu monsters. Or Magestone.
RPGs drifted through his mind as Jake continued to speak, his voice fading into a low rumble, then finally to nothing.
Bang bang bang.
Quinn jerked awake and his mind clunked the pieces of the puzzle together. Not quickly, but it did the job as he looked around. It came together a chunk at a time to form the whole picture.
One: he was decidedly not in his bedroom.
Two: Jake was asleep next to him, barely opening one eye.
Three: They were both naked and the room smelled like cum.
Four: Someone was knocking at the door.
Five: oh god.
“Jake.” He barely breathed the word, just in case someone might hear him. A little nudge in the shoulder, then a little more, then a couple light slaps on the chest.
Jake’s eyes fluttered and his tongue darted out over his lips. After a few seconds, his vision focused on Quinn.
Bang bang.
“Jake, come on!” A voice from the other side of the door. Quinn couldn’t place it through all the muffling and his own nerves, but it had to be someone from the show, right? Someone who was about to find out what had happened.
“Bunny.” Jake slid out from under the covers, tucking them in around Quinn’s waist roughly before darting into the bathroom. He came out, pulling on his underwear, then opened the door.
Quinn froze, begged the universe to melt him into a puddle, tried to make himself as small as possible. But Jake slipped out into the hallway wearing basically nothing, closing the door. Protecting him from being seen indisposed.
And maybe buying me some time. A fire burst through the freeze and Quinn chucked the covers off, then bolted for the bathroom and closed the door. The panic made his limbs feel floaty, but he slid on his boxers with minimal fumbling, then his pants and his shirt. “Where the fuck are my shoes?” He scanned the counter where his clothes had been gathered, nothing. The floor, nothing.
Back out and he saw them at the foot of the bed, socks stuffed into them. He sighed and put them on as fast as he could. He messed up the knots a couple times and had to re-center, but got them on. Cover story, cover story, cover story. He could only think about the night before, more of the memories coming back to him the longer he sat. Jake in the bath, touching his love handles, his tongue lapping, him finishing on the bed, Quinn finishing on him…
Focus. He looked around the room as though it might provide him some inspiration or prop he could lean on. Okay. Nothing. I came to talk about the gaming room. That’s believable, right? He didn’t have anything more specific, and Jake would have to pick up the details for him, but it would work.
The door opened and he jumped off the bed and leaned against the wall, as if Bunny might see him sitting on the edge of the bed and piece everything together. If anyone saw them together, that was bad. Quinn didn’t have the time or the bandwidth to examine why that was the case. His stomach just tightened when he thought about being found out.
Jake walked in and closed the door. He looked Quinn up and down. “Are you trying to look natural?”
Quinn hesitated, then nodded. “Is it working?”
“No.” Jake headed over to his suitcase and pulled out a change of clothes, then stripped down and started getting dressed from the bottom up, apparently unbothered by being seen naked after just one night together. “You can relax. We’re heading over to the house, and if I don’t get down there, I’ll get left behind and have to fend for myself for my ride.” He glanced at Quinn again and a smile pulled at his lips. “Your shoes are on the wrong feet, and your shirt’s backwards.”
Quinn glanced down and, sure enough, he could see his tag sticking out of the neck hole and his feet were the wrong shape. “I was in a hurry.”
“Didn’t want Bunny to see your junk, I get that.”
I’m not sure that’s it. Quinn swallowed that comment and headed into the bathroom to fix himself up. Shirt on right, then he sat on the toilet to fix his shoes. It didn’t take long, and then he just sat and looked at himself in the mirror, trying to piece together what had happened.
Sure, getting seen naked by anyone without meaning to wasn’t awesome. Triply so with someone he’d have to spend time with, who was working on his house, who he didn’t really know that well yet. That explanation didn’t feel satisfying, though. Something deeper nagged at him, scratched at the inside of his gut.
It hit him like a lightning bolt and his stomach clenched. If anyone else knows, it’s too real. Having fun was one thing. He knew he wouldn’t just get over Jake straight away when he left, but he could compartmentalize well enough to ride out the pleasure of being around him. Gaming, making out, sending dirty pics…whatever they did last night.
If Bunny or Ozzy or Aras or whoever else walked in and saw the evidence, smelled the room, put everything together, that was public. That was a relationship, even if they didn’t define it as such. Breaking the sequestration they had going on felt too big.
A knock at the bathroom door. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. You can come in.” Quinn jumped up and started the sink, running his hands under it as the door swung in. Jake came up next to him.
His brows knitted together. “You good? You seem pretty freaked.”
“Rude awakening is all.” Standing next to Jake, with cool water running over his hands, it was easier to set everything else aside and just focus on being there, existing in the moment. “I think fight or flight kicked in, and punching Bunny and running didn’t seem like the best choice.”
Jake nodded. “She’d kick your ass. No offense, but desk-jockey versus a woman who hauls lumber and hangs drywall and pours concrete—”
“She pours concrete?”
“With help. Not a one-person job. But we put in her whole back patio and her steps ourselves, and she did most of the work. Point is, don’t pick a fight with Bunny.”
“Noted.” Quinn splashed some water up onto his face, then toweled and scrubbed the sleep away.
“How are your muscles?”
Quinn nodded and looked back at Jake, rolling his shoulders and cracking his back. “Better, actually. Considering we should have worn ourselves out after the bath, I’m pretty impressed with the Epsom salts.”
“Sorry again about last night. I swear, I don’t usually have that problem.”
Quinn kissed him on the forehead. “Not a problem. If you cum fast, that just means we can go another round that much sooner next time.” All so easy, so simple when they were alone.
Jake chuckled, then backed away. “I don’t want to interrupt, but I kind of need to pee before we get going.”
Quinn nodded and stepped toward the door. “I can get going anyway. Have to get back to work.”
“Work.” Jake sighed and fixed him hard with his gaze. “Really consider what you’re doing, and take breaks if you need. There’s no reason to subject yourself to bullshit like that if it’s just going to hurt, you know?”
Quinn smiled and stepped out. “I’ll take it under advisement.” He closed the door, then went for his wallet and keys and slipped out into the hotel room. Maybe I should take that more seriously. They would understand if he needed help on a job that big, right? And everything to do with the job set his teeth on edge.
“Quinn?”
He froze and whipped around to see Ozzy walking his direction, the widest smile possible on his face. The world shattered, then came back together, then shattered again.
“Ozzy. Hi.”
He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Were you in Jake’s room?”
“Discussing the house. He had some questions about the gaming room and I offered to come over instead of trying to do it over the phone.”
“Right.” His eyes narrowed, then he chuckled. “Easier lie to sell when you’re not wearing the same clothes as yesterday.”
Quinn’s body barely worked, but he forced himself to silently turn and walk toward the elevator bank.