Chapter 11
“That was a long-ass day,” Ren grumbled, collapsing onto the bench of the picnic table holding his cousin, Ash, Tate, and Alexis.
“It wouldn’t have been so long if you hadn’t played hooky yesterday,” Gabe teased.
“You let Ren out of your sight?” Tate asked in a pseudo-shocked voice. “Really?”
“You guys need to hire some help,” Alexis pointed out sagely.
They probably did need to hire some help, especially if he was going to continue to sneak over to Seth’s for long afternoons spent in bed.
“I’d ask if you believe it but . . .” Gabe said, “Ren said he was taking a, and I quote, ‘a quick break for a late lunch,’ and came back, looking moony-eyed, three hours later.”
Ren felt absolutely zero regrets.
“You were fine. It was a slow afternoon. And I got back in time for the dinner rush,” Ren said, taking a drink of his beer.
“Barely,” Gabe said, shaking his head. “And you didn’t even answer your phone!”
“I was a little busy,” Ren said.
Tate laughed. “I just bet you were. So, is Seth coming tonight?”
“To the music?” Ren felt a frisson of . . . something . . . it wasn’t exactly uncomfortable, but it wasn’t comfortable either, go up his spine when Tate asked. It was exactly the way Tate would ask Gabe if Sean was hanging out tonight. Or someone might ask Alexis about Jackson.
“Yeah, the music,” Gabe said, looking at him like he’d grown three heads.
In everyone’s minds, he and Seth were linked now.
It should have made him squirm more than it did. The truth was, Ren didn’t know how he felt about it.
“I’m not sure,” Ren said, and then, thankfully the subject changed, Alexis starting to tell a story about a customer today who’d ordered fifty gyros for his entire office.
What Ren did know was that he liked Seth a whole goddamn lot.
He knew he wanted to see him again, as soon as possible.
What he wasn’t sure about was being the subject of everyone’s watercooler talk, and the no doubt endless ribbing that would take place the first time they saw him and Seth together.
When he’d gotten back from Seth’s finally, and Gabe had stopped gnashing his teeth and throwing things around, annoyed that he’d been gone for over three hours during a workday, he’d correctly guessed what they’d been up to.
It hadn’t exactly been difficult to guess what he’d been up to.
But if Ren had asked Gabe to keep it a secret, he would have.
Morettis, even when they were pissed off, looked out for each other.
He hadn’t. It hadn’t even occurred to him until later, when he’d seen Ash this morning, and he’d shot him a knowing look and congratulated him.
So, everyone knew.
It was why when Seth had asked him what he was doing tonight, he’d said he was probably just going to go home and go to bed.
And he’d intended to, before Gabe had insisted that he join him for a drink, and to enjoy the music with some of the other guys.
When he’d walked over here, Ren had nearly pulled his phone out of his pocket and told Seth that his plans had changed. That he’d be hanging out here for awhile, if he wanted to join.
He didn’t know what stopped him.
They had agreed to keep it casual; they didn’t need to see each other every day. The problem was that Ren wanted to see Seth. He’d never felt that way before. Once sex was over, he’d always been happy enough to say goodbye.
But he hadn’t wanted to yesterday, and he felt the loss of Seth next to him tonight, particularly.
He’d have invited Jake to this without a single thought.
So what was stopping him now?
Ren pulled out his phone, when he heard a voice behind him, light and teasing.
“So this is what going to bed early looks like?”
He turned and Seth was standing there, a grin on his face. Not looking disappointed at all to see that Ren wasn’t quite where he’d said he’d be.
Ren shrugged, relieved that most of the group was still occupied with Alexis’ gyro story.
“Gabe guilt-tripped me, and after yesterday, it wasn’t all that hard,” he admitted.
“Not surprised, but I’m glad I came anyway, even though I kind of wanted to sulk at home,” Seth teased, sliding onto the empty bench next to Ren. He didn’t hug or kiss him but the look in his eyes—that was enough.
Seth was a private guy, and maybe someday Ren would find out why that was, exactly, but he’d never imagined he’d be big into PDA.
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Ren said, meaning every word of it. He bumped his thigh against Seth’s. Felt the reverberation of just that single touch through his whole body. “I was actually just about to text you, tell you to come over.”
The corner of Seth’s mouth quirked up, and even though Ren was hardly a PDA fan either, he wanted to lean in and kiss it right off Seth’s lips.
But if he did, they’d never escape the notice of the rest of the table, who were all thankfully still distracted by the end of Alexis’ story.
“I know it’s not very casual . . .” Ren trailed off.
“Casual is whatever you want it to be,” Seth said. “And I wanted to see you, too.”
Ren relaxed. “Oh, did you?” he said, deploying his best flirtatious tone.
The one that never failed to get him exactly what he wanted.
It hadn’t worked all that well on Seth so far, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t try it.
“I thought me asking what you were doing after work was pretty transparent,” Seth said lightly.
“I . . .” Ren dropped his voice so nobody would overhear. “I didn’t know how you’d feel about everyone knowing.”
Seth did not look bothered at all. Instead, he looked amused. Someday, Ren thought, he would stop being surprised by this man. “I assumed they’ve known for awhile,” he pointed out.
“I mean . . .” Ren cleared his throat. When did he become squeamish about sex? He’d never been. Not once. Not even when he’d been a skinny fifteen-year-old virgin. “They know about yesterday.”
“And?”
Ugh. Ren felt stupid now, caught out using painfully uncool euphemisms. “Nothing, I just know you like to be private, but this group . . . not much is private with them.” Ren stopped himself before he actually apologized for not asking Gabe to keep his trap shut.
“It’s fine,” Seth said. “I know how they are.”
Seth reached down and set a hand on his thigh.
A big, warm hand. A hand that had done all kinds of glorious things to Ren just yesterday.
Ren could go for a repeat of more than a few of them.
“Seriously,” he said, his tone lowering, his expression sincere, “it’s not a big deal. Unless it is for you . . .”
“No, no, of course not,” Ren said. Then he laughed. Totally at himself. “God, this is stupid. Why am I being so stupid?”
Seth smiled. “You’re not. You don’t usually do this kind of thing, right?”
“You know I don’t.”
“Then it probably feels a little weird. But it’s fine. I’m good, you’re good.”
“Oh,” Ren said, leaning in a little closer. “You’re definitely good.”
Seth’s smile widened. “You keep talkin’ like that, I’m going to have to show you again.”
“No complaints from me.” Ren had known they’d have sex again. He’d known it before they’d even had sex—he’d even said it, out loud—and the actual sex had been so good that he was sure they’d both assumed it, but hearing Seth say it, and saying it himself, really brought the knowledge home.
They were doing this. Whatever this was.
“Alexis Constantine Papadopoulos,” a voice growled from the other side of the table.
Alexis had just finished telling his story about the huge box of gyros and Tate was laughing, and Gabe was smiling.
The one person who didn’t look amused was Tony.
He was standing at the head of the table, and looked particularly outraged, even for Tony.
“I don’t think I even knew Alexis’ last name,” Ren said in a hushed whisper to Seth.
“I did,” Seth said. “But not his middle name, that’s new.”
“That’s because you’re obsessed with all of us,” Ren teased. “Most of all, me. I bet you know my middle name.”
“Domenico. Maybe we should all be calling you Dom instead of Ren,” Seth said with a grin.
“Tony, what’s going on?” Alexis asked, confusion knitting his brows together.
“What’s going on?” Tony threw his hands up dramatically. “What’s going on? How can you ask me that?”
Everyone—but especially Ren—always said that Gabe was the most dramatic. He liked to call him the King of Feelings to piss him off especially, but the truth was, Tony got into his feelings even harder than Gabe.
And he was definitely in his feelings right now.
“What’s going on?” Lucas popped up behind Tony on cue, as if he knew his boyfriend was on a rampage and he’d arrived not to stop him but to watch.
“He,” Tony said, pointing right to Alexis, “got poached and didn’t even tell me!”
“Oh, that,” Alexis said, rolling his eyes. “He wasn’t really serious. In fact, he was kind of . . .”
“He’s not the only one,” Tate inserted wryly. He glanced around the table, and yeah, a lot of them were nodding.
In fact, all of them were nodding.
“What?” Tony’s voice was strangled. “You all got poached and nobody told me?”
“How did you find out?” Ash wanted to know. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d freak out. And yeah, there’s definitely some freaking out going on.”
“You, I don’t want to hear from you,” Tony said, pointing fingers again.
“And for the record, the only one who told me was Jackson, and it wasn’t even on purpose.
He thought I already knew!” He shot a dirty look at Alexis, who looked a tiny bit ashamed.
“He wanted to know what I was going to do about this guy who was trying to poach all my food trucks away from me! And I could just sit there and question him stupidly, wondering what the fuck he was talking about.”
“None of us even considered it, that’s why we didn’t tell you,” Tate said, so reasonably it almost sounded true.
Almost.
“Well, Gabe took his card,” Ren said.
“What?” Tony faux-gasped. And yeah, he was totally usurping Gabe’s throne right now in a major way.
“Not seriously,” Gabe said, shooting Ren a glare. “Not on purpose!”
“Oh, yeah, it accidentally fell into your pocket,” Ren said.