Chapter 27 Will #2
Gould is still embroiled in a fight with his friends.
Hands and arms are being waved around. Mat’s at my side, and I’m weighing up whether we should have another drink or head somewhere else.
The tightly woven throng of guys around us is panting and heaving, pulsating in time with the music.
I lean down to ask Mat what he wants to do next, but something catches my eye before the words leave my mouth.
The sea of guys part, separating as if they’re privy to a sound or alarm I can’t hear.
They make space for something. Someone. I see the back of him first. A glint of long shiny hair and a sheen of sweat glittering down the curve of a spine.
He turns, and as he does, I swear the music slows down.
The tempo changes. The beat is no longer just in my chest. It throbs in every part of my body.
He’s bare-chested, wearing combat boots and ripped black jeans that cling so low on his hips, my breath catches as my eyes run down his body.
He’s lean but hard. Slight but insanely defined.
Shadows slice into his arms and chest. He moves like water.
Rippling and flowing. The space around him crackles like it’s electrified.
Petrified. Every eye is on him, but no one dares touch him.
The strobe changes, washing his features in pink and then violet. His hair is black. Blue-black. He has large, intense eyes, a thick forest of lashes, and fleshy lips that soften the angles of his face.
A rough, dry sound finds its way out of Mat. Without looking at me, he drops a hand against my chest, tapping deliberately once and then twice. A recognizable motion, a well-known gesticulation. A tried-and-true gesture that says, Incoming, bruh.
Or is it a warning?
Either way, I don’t move. I stand frozen, watching as the guy dances.
He tilts his head back, neck arching hard and abs contracting as he does it.
His hips move in time with the music. No, not in time with it.
Through it. The music moves through him.
He and rhythm and sound aren’t separate things.
They’re one. His hair falls into his face as the beat changes and whips his body from side to side.
He reaches up slowly and tucks it behind his ear before going still and rewarding a particularly ardent admirer with a tolerant quirk of his lips.
Mat tenses, pressing a few fingers into the small of my back.
The crowd around him parts, and he starts moving toward us.
I lean heavily back against the bar. Mat leans heavily against me.
The light changes again. Purple to blue.
It hits his beautiful face and bounces around his cheekbones, glinting off his could-cut-ice-on-it jawline.
The fullness of his lips and the gentle curve of his cheeks are in such stark contrast with the musculature of his body that my dick pulses hard in confusion.
He saunters over, coming to a stop right in front of us. He’s literally standing two feet away. I have a strong urge to look behind us to make sure he’s not here for someone else, but I can feel the bar digging into my back. There’s no one behind us. He’s here for us.
Twenty feet away, he was an entity. Up close, he’s a force.
He’s outrageously pretty. His eyes are darkly lined and intricate purple flames flicker out at the corners, shimmering like moondust when he blinks.
I’ve watched enough of my girlfriends doing their makeup to know there’s more to the whole process than you’d think, but I’ve never seen anything like this. This is next level. It’s art.
“At ease,” he says, smiling sweetly and flicking his eyes up from my throat to my mouth in a way that makes me feel the exact opposite.
His voice is deep. Deeper than I expected it to be.
It seems to come from his sternum, rumbling through his windpipe, forming a low growl when it comes into contact with the back of his tongue.
“Now, now, boys, there’s no need to panic.
You’re both perfectly safe. You can unclench those tight virgin asses—I can tell you’re straight. ”
Mat moves like lightening, shoving his arm around my shoulder and jerking me close to him.
“We’re, uh…” Mat starts and then seems to lose his way. “He’s my…”
“…t-together,” I finish for him.
“…boyfriend!” Mat says at almost the same time.
Mat looks up at me triumphantly. So pleased with himself for finding the word. I stand stiffly beside him for a second, trying not to cringe visibly at what asses we’re being, and then I quickly put my arm around his waist and lean toward him.
Yep. Tweedledee and Tweedledum have nothing on us.
“Boyfriends, huh?” says the force, rolling the word around in his mouth a lot more than the situation warrants. “Is that right?”
Mat and I bob our heads up and down emphatically.
“And how long have you boyfriends been together?”
“Long time,” says Mat.
“Feels like forever,” I say.
Mat nudges my back in lieu of the high five he’d be giving me for getting our stories straight if the circumstances were different. I don’t dare look at him, as I know for a fact he’s milliseconds from dissolving into panicked giggles.
“Well, isn’t that nice. What a lovely story. I, for one, am totally convinced, and I couldn’t be happier for you,” says the force, and then seems to lose interest, nudging past us to get to the bar.
Mat taps me and then looks pointedly at the mane of glossy black hair beside us. His eyes are round and pleading. Light-brown orbs carrying a clear message. A message I’ve read in them a hundred times or more. A message I couldn’t miss even if I wanted to.
I want him.
Admittedly, the message has always been I want her in the past, but the sentiment is the same. I instantly fall into character as Mat’s wingman. It’s a role I play well. Been playing it since we were fourteen, after all.
The first rule of being a good wingman is have my back now, ask questions later, so I don’t hesitate.
A quick look at Mat assures me he’s in the grip of being severely tongue-tied.
Mat only has two speeds: the life of the party or totally unable to form a full sentence.
The latter happens rarely and only when he meets exceptionally hot girls.
Evidently, it happens when he meets exceptionally hot guys too.
That’s brand-new information, but no matter, I know what's expected. All I have to do is set everyone at ease and then slowly but surely extract myself from the picture.
I lean over to the force, who looks mightily confused as to why the barman hasn’t dropped everything to serve him, and use my low voice to say, “Can we buy you a drink?”
“Hmph, like that is it? Is it one of those longtime, feels-like-forever gay relationships where you go out and pick up guys in bars?”
I smile and keep my eye on the barman, unsure if I’ll be able to deliver my line with the gravity I’d like if I look directly at him. “Yeah, but only when we meet someone so hot we both lose the ability to think straight.”
He smiles a thin bored smile. He’s heard it all. Come-on. Counter come-on. Good lines, bad lines. He’s completely immune. Still, he seems to be partial to free alcohol because he grudgingly agrees.
Our drinks arrive. “I’m Will, and this is Mattie,” I say, introducing Mat by the name no one but me calls him for some unknown reason.
“Will and Mattie.” He raises his glass to us, eyes dancing like he’s pleased about what he’s going to say next. “I’m Trouble.”
“Trouble?” I smile. “Now, why do I feel like that suits you?”
“Believe me, it does. The only name that would suit me better would be Chaos. Or Carnage.”
Mat smiles and lets out a quiet chuckle.
He takes a small step away from me, closing the gap between him and Trouble.
We make awkward conversation for a while, with me trying to hang back to give Mat the floor but him refusing, or unable, to step up and take it.
It’s not the worst performance we’ve ever put on as a duo, but it’s light years from our best.
You’ll just have to trust me on that.
For his part, Trouble watches us thoughtfully, dragging the skinny little straw that came with his cocktail across his bottom lip and finding it with his tongue. He looks like he’s psychoanalyzing us and finding us wanting.
“Can we buy you another drink?” I ask as he drains his glass.
“Another drink? No, thank you. Now if you were offering a brotisserie…or even a manwich, I’d be all over that.”
Mat and I gape at him in disbelief. It’s a strange and very peculiar feeling when a beautiful person tries their best not to laugh in your face.
I crack a tense smile, suddenly unsure what to do with my arms, and ready myself to bow out. It’s clear we’ve been outplayed and outlasted by a stronger opponent.
“Your place or ours?” asks Mat.
I’m taken aback. Not just by the invitation but also by the fact he delivers the line strongly, with certainty and charisma, especially given it’s the first full sentence he’s managed in Trouble’s presence.
Trouble’s eyes spark and light up. The blaze rips through the rest of his features and rearranges them in a way that’s not just attractive, it’s blindingly pretty. Dazzling and glaring, so intense it’s hard to look at him and impossible to look away.
My brain shuts down at that point. I’m aware of myself going through the motions: calling a Lyft and getting into the car.
I’m aware of Trouble in the front seat and Mat in the back with me.
Mat talks to the driver the whole way. Chattering loudly, words spilling over themselves, though I can’t seem to follow what he’s saying.
It all seems far away. Like I’m there but not fully there. Not there like I usually am.
Did we just invite a guy to our place for a three-way?
Is that what happened?
Because that’s what it felt like.