Chapter 9
“I draw the line at a lot of fun,” Ren muttered to himself as he got up off the couch at the knocking on the door, remembering Seth’s message from earlier in the day. “Unbelievable.”
He already knew that Seth was going to make him work for it.
He wasn’t even particularly upset by that fact.
He could take it slow.
Theoretically.
The truth was, he just didn’t want to. He’d had a taste, finally, and now he was primed and ready for more. He wanted Seth under him and on top of him and next to him, and in every single goddamn way that mattered.
If they had to pretend to watch a movie first, chastely sitting next to each other on the couch for two hours to get there, Ren was willing to do it.
He was a little afraid of just how much he was willing to do to get there.
Glancing over at the mirror next to the door, Ren gave himself a quick once-over.
His hair was perfect. His face . . . well, that was usually perfect by default.
His plain white t-shirt didn’t do anything to detract from it.
He’d almost considered wearing his tightest, skinniest jeans, but at the last second, decided that while he was desperate, he didn’t have to look that desperate.
Instead, he’d put on a pair of jeans with an ugly tear at the knee. They’d been a pair of his favorites, and he hadn’t wanted to throw them out, so he’d kept them for quiet nights at home.
Just like this one.
And hey, maybe Seth had a secret kink for exposed knees.
He pulled open the door.
Seth was standing on his front stoop, wearing an olive-green utility jacket, and a pair of jeans.
He wasn’t hot. He just wasn’t. Except no matter how many times Ren told himself that, that zing that went up his spine—excitement mixed with hope and attraction and a desperation to know—always happened anyway.
His fingers tightened on the edge of the door.
“Lorenzo,” he said, drawling out his name so that it contained far more than the normal three syllables. “Good to see you.”
“Come on in,” Ren said, and couldn’t help his intake of breath when Seth took a step forward, right into his personal space.
He’d assumed that he’d have to work all the magic he possessed to eventually get Seth naked tonight. Maybe Seth was going to make it easy on him and they’d just get naked right away.
But then Seth stepped right around him, heading from the tiny foyer into the attached living room with its big, comfy couch.
“When are you going to start calling me Ren?” he asked as he followed him to the couch.
Seth shrugged off his jacket, laying it on the arm of the sofa, exposing his chiseled biceps, dotted with freckles.
Because like most redheads, he most definitely had freckles.
Ren had had too many fantasies about pressing his lips to each and every one.
“I like calling you Lorenzo,” Seth said. He didn’t sit, just stood there, looking at him with those soulful greenish-gray eyes. Ren could never figure out how eyes so cool could feel so warm when they fell on him.
“I hate it,” Ren said. Not quite true—but he wasn’t going to let Seth get away with it. Of course, he was letting him get away with it.
He’d let Seth get away with just about anything.
Except not having sex with him.
“Right,” Seth said, and grinned.
Ren had had many men in his apartment to “hang out.” But none of them had ever made his palms sweat with just a smile.
“Do you want something to drink?”
“Are you going to have something?” Seth wanted to know.
Ren hadn’t really thought about it, but now that he did, maybe a beer wouldn’t go amiss. He was nervous, or maybe just excited, and he wasn’t used to feeling this way.
“I was going to have a beer. You want one?” Ren said, heading into the kitchen. He liked this loft particularly because all the gathering rooms flowed together—living room, kitchen, dining room. Only his bedroom and Gabe’s and the bathroom were separate.
“Sure,” Seth said, and Ren saw out of the corner of his eyes as he wiped his own palms on his jeans, as he finally settled down on the couch.
Not on one end. In the goddamn middle. So there was nowhere Ren could sit that wasn’t right next to him.
Okay, Ren could get behind that.
He grabbed two beers, and after opening, carried them over, setting Seth’s on the coffee table in front of him.
But Ren took a large gulp of his right away, before setting it on a coaster, and then settled onto the couch right next to Seth, their thighs brushing together.
He cleared his throat, forcing the tremble in his fingers to still. “You want to watch something?”
Seth smiled, slowly. “I’d like that.”
Any other time, with any other guy, Ren would’ve leaned over and kissed him. Because they weren’t here to watch anything other than him.
But Seth really wanted to know him. He wouldn’t have pretended to be Jake if he didn’t.
What if there was nothing for Seth to know? What if he was only a very pretty, but empty vessel? Good only for a night of pleasure, but nothing deeper?
Ren swallowed hard. He didn’t really believe that. But it had been so long since he’d had to show anyone anything but the barest sketch of who he was.
What if Seth learned who he was and was disappointed?
“Did you have something in mind?” Ren asked.
“Why don’t you put something on that you like?” Seth said. “You watch TV, right?”
“Of course I watch TV,” Ren scoffed. He grabbed the remote and turned the TV on, switching to Netflix, clicking on his profile instead of Gabe’s.
Except . . . then Seth neatly plucked the remote out of his hand before Ren could navigate to something innocuous.
Something that he wouldn’t mind Seth seeing.
Like one of those fancy sports documentaries, or maybe even one of those high-brow dramas that he always meant to watch, and never made time for.
“What are you doing?” Ren demanded, trying to grab for the remote, but all he succeeded in doing was closing his fingers around air, and then falling forward, bracing a hand against Seth’s chest.
Seth’s very, very firm chest. Ren wouldn’t mind taking some more time to explore just how firm it was, especially without his gray t-shirt on. Again, with any other guy, at any other point, Ren would have distracted him by leaning that last few inches in and pressing his mouth to Seth’s.
But kissing, which had begun to feel a little rote and routine, didn’t feel that way at all with Seth. It felt precious and hard-won, a promise he didn’t want to treat lightly.
Ren didn’t know what exactly he was promising, but it turned out that didn’t matter.
“Oh, look at this,” Seth crowed in delight, as he scrolled down, and then over, through Ren’s recently watched list. “You like . . . romantic comedies?”
“Good romantic comedies,” Ren said defensively, even though he knew there were plenty of people—even his cousin!—who would argue that there was no such thing.
When Ren glanced over at him, Seth’s expression was amused, but it wasn’t clear if he was laughing at Ren, or with him.
“I don’t know the difference,” Seth said.
“Like what makes a good one? A bad one? An indifferent romantic comedy? Like this . . . what’s the difference between The Ugly Truth and .
. .” Seth glanced at the screen, reading one of the titles there.
The last one Ren had watched, incidentally. ”Set it Up?”
“A lot of things,” Ren said between clenched teeth. Why hadn’t he just browsed the cable TV, the channels they only kept so that Gabe could watch ESPN and make sure every time he ran into Chase Riley or Spencer Evans, he wouldn’t embarrass himself?
No, he’d set himself up for this embarrassing revelation.
“Okay,” Seth said, setting the remote down on the coffee table, like it was a peace offering. “I get you probably don’t want to tell me.”
“You think?” Ren retorted. This was exactly the kind of thing he’d been dreading. But then, if he and Jake had kept talking, he probably would have ended up confessing this particularly dirty secret.
He’d have trusted Jake with it.
He could trust Seth with it.
Taking a deep breath, Ren turned to him. “I know this is probably confusing.”
“Confusing how?” And like Ren had hoped, there was no judgement in his eyes. Just curiosity. Like he wanted to know him. Really know him. Just like Jake had said he did. Just like Seth had said himself when Ren had figured out his deception.
“Well, I don’t do relationships, right, and I watch all of these.” Ren picked up the remote, and telling himself it was just like pulling a Band-Aid off, began to scroll. “That would confuse a lot of people.”
“Lorenzo,” Seth said, so patient and kind it kinda broke his heart. “I’m not most people. I know we’re still getting to know each other, but you gotta know, that’s never going to be me.”
His fingers were trembling again, and he pressed them harder into the plastic of the remote. It probably had something to do with the emotion in Seth’s eyes.
It seemed particularly silly that either of them had ever assumed they could just “hang out” with “no pressure,” because it was them.
“Maybe you’re not confused,” Ren said, “but I want to say this, because I don’t always understand it myself. But it . . . it feels good? I like to feel good. These movies, with their optimistic outlook and their makeover montages and the guaranteed happily ever after, they make me happy.”
“Okay.”
Ren sat there, anticipating more for a long moment, before he realized that there wasn’t any more coming.
Maybe that was all that mattered to Seth: that he was happy.
“I haven’t ever told anyone this before,” Ren said, before he could stop himself. “You’re the first.”
“Were you going to tell me before I found out?”
“I would’ve told Jake,” Ren said, before he could overthink and not mention the elephant in the room. “Not right away, maybe, but eventually. I liked—like—him, and I trust him.”
The skin around Seth’s eyes crinkled when he smiled. “Lucky for you,” he said, leaning in, his tone warm and low, “he’s here, right now.”