Prologue #3
Ross gazed at him, the expression on his face making it crystal clear that he’d heard it too. That much was obvious, but for once, he must have decided to let it slide.
“Then why are you avoiding each other, still?”
Seth tilted his head. “You weren’t even around back then. Can you say still in that scenario?”
“Yes,” Ross said seriously. “I can.”
“Okay, well, fine, I guess we are avoiding each other, but I don’t know why.”
Ross’s gaze was sharp. “You don’t know?”
“Okay, probably because he’s pissed off that I turned him down.”
“I turned him down,” Ross said frankly, “and so did Lennox. And he’s not avoiding us.”
To illustrate his point just about perfectly, there he was, standing now with Lennox and Ash, talking and laughing like nothing was wrong.
He’d not done that once with Seth, not since the first day they’d met and everything had gone to hell almost as soon as it had begun.
“He’s . . . well, maybe I’m avoiding him,“ Seth said. Partially true.
“Because you’re . . .” Ross shrugged. “I’m not good at this under the best of circumstances, but you two are beyond me. I can’t even guess, but I’d assume it’s not because you’re mad at him for you deciding not to sleep with him.”
“Of course not. That would be ridiculous,” Seth said. But there was something in that thought that resonated deep inside of him.
Was he in fact annoyed and frustrated and a little bit bitter that Ren had chosen the path he had and refused to budge from it? Even for Seth?
Oh, absolutely.
It was completely unfair for Seth to be pissed off for his lack of flexibility, when Seth hadn’t exactly bent to Ren’s demands either.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t, still.
Still.
Okay, it was ridiculous that three months had passed, and they were still circling around each other. Seth couldn’t deny Ross’ point—not when Ross was staring at him like he’d just said everything that needed to be said.
He stood. “Okay, you’re right.”
Ross smiled. “See, that wasn’t too difficult.”
They joined the group surrounding the firepit.
Ash and Lennox were there, as well as Ren and Gabe. Seth didn’t know where Sean had gone, but he wouldn’t be far, not with Gabe here.
Ren glanced over and Seth swore his gaze slid right over him, like he wasn’t even there, like he didn’t even exist. He had a temper; he’d learned the hard way to control it, but it still spiked inside of him.
Hot enough and high enough that he wasn’t going to take this.
Lorenzo couldn’t just pretend that he wasn’t here, the same way he’d been pretending he wasn’t here for the last three months.
“Hey, Ross,” he said to Ross, specifically, even reaching over and patting him on the shoulder. “Good to see you again.”
That was another thing, Seth thought, trying not to inwardly seethe, Ren touched everyone. Friendly, happy, sweet touches. His cousin, Sean, Tony, even Ross. But he’d never touched Seth.
How could he, when he was in the middle of pretending he didn’t exist?
“Lorenzo,” Seth replied back, cutting Ross off, not letting Ren get away with any of his usual bullshit. Usually he went along with it. But tonight, he was through pretending.
Ren looked surprised. Then his gaze swept from the top of Seth’s head down to his toes, in a leisurely, possessive, and ultimately dismissive, way that had his temper spiking again.
“Seth Abramson,” he finally drawled. “Nice to see you around.” Implying, with only his tone of voice, that actually the opposite was true.
Seth knew he had banged up Ren’s pride. But hadn’t Lennox and Ross done the same thing to him? Why was only he singled out for Ren’s dislike?
He still wants you.
The thought surfaced, unbidden, in Seth’s mind, but it couldn’t possibly be true.
But nothing else explained why Ren would still be so mad months later.
He wants you, and you want him. It would be so easy . . .
It would be so easy.
And it would get him nothing in return, except probably a spectacular night and a bruised heart in the morning.
Then why did he feel so compelled to call him on all his bullshit?
“I thought you’d forgotten my name,” Seth said casually.
Ren raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“You’ve spent the last few months pretending I’m not around. Makes sense you’d have forgotten all about me. But I guess not. Guess I’m still on your mind, even if you won’t acknowledge I exist.”
It was the verbal equivalent of a mortar shell, knocked right into Ren’s walls.
Because he had them. Seth had spent enough time watching him, listening to him, that he knew they existed.
He wanted to see the guy behind them, the real Lorenzo, but Ren didn’t lower them, at least never in Seth’s vicinity.
Maybe not in anyone’s vicinity. But Seth saw enough, just little tantalizing glimpses, that he knew there was a whole other person back there. It was stupid and pointless for him to want to know that other man, but he did, all the same.
“Maybe you’re just beneath my notice,” Ren said, and yeah, that was more than a little mean.
But maybe not unwarranted. Seth had hurt his pride, maybe Ren had the right to hurt his in return.
“Oh, we both know that’s not true,” Seth said gently.
Ren looked caught.
Ross put a hand on Seth’s shoulder, surprising him. “Neither of you are going away, because I like both of you. So figure it out.”
Trust Ross to cut right through to the heart of the matter.
“What is there to figure out?” Ren said, a little recklessly, his dark eyes wild.
“Maybe we should start over,” Seth said. He wasn’t idiotic enough to extend his hand for Ren to shake. He hadn’t touched the man yet, and he knew it was better that he didn’t. His self-control was only so good. “Hi, I’m Seth Abramson.”
Ren eyed him uncertainly. He rarely looked anything other than completely and utterly confident, so Seth knew how much this exchange had cost him.
The cost was a knife that cut both ways, and his own composure was more than a little rocked.
“Ren Moretti,” he finally said shortly.
He didn’t say it was nice to meet him.
Seth understood; the idea behind this was to break the standoff, to make them both more comfortable existing in the same friendship space. He wasn’t dumb enough to believe that it would fix everything.
They were both going to still want the exact same thing—and also two different things, at the exact same time.
“I think I’ll call you Lorenzo,” Seth said, just to see Ren’s eyes flash again.
That right there was why they’d never be friends.
He couldn’t resist his own worst impulses when it came to this man.
“See?” Gabe inserted himself into the awkward silence. “You two can actually be civil to each other. There’s hope for world peace, yet.”
Except that Seth knew, as he watched Ren take a drink from Sean’s hand, that nothing had really changed.
And nothing would, not until this attraction finally burned itself out.