Chapter 16
“That was a fucking incredible meal,” Ren said, leaning back. “I thought, why should we come here and eat, the Funky Cup has plenty good food, but I’d forgotten that Ross did the menu here.”
“And, there’s this view,” Seth said, pointing out the admittedly incredible view of the city from the roof of the bar.
Ren had heard from Ash, who’d heard it from Ross, who’d heard it from Shaw, that the rooftop tables were hard to come by, and that the Fickle Cup had actually started taking reservations for them in the evenings.
But when they’d gotten here for a late dinner, a suggestion that Seth had made two days ago, they’d been immediately whisked upstairs. Which meant that either they’d gotten really lucky—or much more likely, that as soon as Ren had agreed it was a good idea, Seth had called and made reservations.
Not exactly casual.
But then, it felt like not much they were doing anymore could be termed “casual.”
Ren wanted to be mad about it, but he hadn’t actually succeeded in summoning that particular emotion yet.
Instead, he was feeling a whole bunch of other ones.
Ones he wasn’t comfortable putting a name on yet.
But, Ren reasoned, he wasn’t in a hurry to put a label on anything or as Ross said, to figure their shit out, and it didn’t seem like Seth was either, so why potentially fuck up a pretty fantastic thing?
“It was a good idea.” Ren hesitated. “A great one, actually.” It had also definitely been a date. But he hadn’t protested once. Not when Seth had suggested it, not when they’d been on it, and not even when Seth had paid for their meal and drinks.
And, he was definitely not going to protest if they went back to Seth’s place and ended up having some more incredible sex.
“Thanks,” Seth said with a genuine smile. A happy smile.
He was happy. Ren was happy.
Another reason why it would be stupid to mess this up.
Ren toyed with the edge of his empty glass. “The view is incredible, but frankly, there’s another I like better.”
“Oh?” Seth’s eyes flashed with heat.
“You, naked, on a nice, comfortable horizontal surface,” Ren said in a hushed tone.
“I like that idea a lot,” Seth said. “A nice conclusion to the evening?”
“Nice?” Ren batted his eyelashes. “Who said anything about me being nice?”
Seth chuckled and stood.
Ren was about to do the same when a voice stopped him in his tracks.
“Seth? Seth Abramson?” It was a friendly voice—a little too friendly. A little too glad, if Ren had anything to say about it. “I can’t believe I fucking ran into you here.”
Seth was smiling too. Not as warmly as he’d just smiled at Ren, but when the guy—who was tall, broad-shouldered, with dark hair and nice blue eyes—came over, he seemed pleased to see him.
“Good to see you,” Seth said, and they didn’t hug. Or shake hands. They just stood there and assessed one another.
This was how Ren knew they’d hooked up.
They’d be a lot more apt to touch each other if the last time they’d touched each other hadn’t been during sex.
This wasn’t an old military friend or someone he’d known before, back east.
No, this was someone he’d met in LA.
Someone he’d hooked up with.
Ren plastered the friendliest smile he could onto his face and rose. “Hey,” he said, tucking himself under Seth’s arm. They were not usually this touchy-feely. But Ren didn’t even hesitate. He pressed a proprietary hand right over where Seth’s heart beat steadily.
“Ren, this is . . .” Seth stammered a bit, which was unusual for him. Unless . . . oh my God, Ren realized. He doesn’t even remember his name. He had sex with this man and didn’t even remember his name.
That was the kind of thing Ren did!
Not Seth.
Never Seth.
If he did, then why wouldn’t he have had sex with Ren when he’d propositioned him all those months ago?
“Brandon,” the guy said, and reached out, with an understanding tilt to his smile, and shook Ren’s hand briefly.
“Nice to meet you,” Ren said, barely refraining from baring his teeth at the guy.
It would have been easier if he hadn’t been handsome. Or personable. Or they hadn’t clearly only had sex.
“Well, see you around,” Brandon said and turned and walked away.
Finally.
It was probably unfair of Ren to be annoyed, considering the guy had exchanged less than twenty words with them, but still.
“That was awkward,” Seth said with a laugh. “And not as fun as running into your ex-hookup, who wanted to have a threesome with us.”
Ren wanted to be amused, like Seth was, like Seth had been when they’d run into Carl. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t at all. He felt . . . did he feel jealous?
Not once in his life had he ever felt jealous of a lover before. How could he feel jealous, when he’d never gotten close enough to be possessive.
“Yeah, so funny,” Ren grumbled. “I don’t think he wanted you to be laughing about his threesome offer.”
Ren caught sight of Seth’s surprised expression right before they headed down the stairs. “Wait,” Seth said, hurrying to catch up. “Is everything okay? You’re not . . . you’re not mad?”
“Not mad,” Ren said as they walked through the bar and out the front door.
“But you’re something,” Seth persisted.
Ren shoved his hands into his pockets. He knew he shouldn’t be anything.
It was completely unfair that he had hooked up with plenty of guys—guys they were apt to run into, just like they’d run into Carl—and Seth had barely flinched, except to be amused that Carl had wanted a threesome.
But the moment Ren came face-to-face with one of Seth’s hookups, he went all Hulk rage monster about it.
“I’m just confused,” Ren finally said. “You said you didn’t do hookups. But that was clearly a lie, because we just talked to one of them.”
“Actually, I specifically said that I wouldn’t do a hookup with you,” Seth clarified quietly. The amusement had disappeared from his face, replaced by a serious earnestness that made Ren want to squirm.
“Why not?” Ren asked, even though he regretted the question the moment the words came out of his mouth. Because he had a very good idea of what Seth was going to say.
It was the same exact goddamned reason why Ren didn’t do this, the whole dating thing, but he was doing it now.
Willingly.
“I knew the moment we met that we couldn’t just share a night,” Seth said softly.
All that earnestness in his gray eyes. Ren was torn between melting and being even more annoyed.
“It would never have been enough. You were laughing, at Lennox or Gabe, I don’t even remember, but I knew then that I couldn’t have just the tiny part of you that you doled out to all those guys, and then move on. ”
“Oh.”
Ren wanted to be pissed off. It would have been the more comfortable emotion.
But he wasn’t. Not at all.
He was . . .
Something.
Something he did not want to look too closely at, even though it was currently flashing in his head, lit by bright neon, and nearly impossible to avoid.
“I want to be angry with you,” Ren said.
“But you’re not.” Seth was smiling at him again.
“No, not at all,” Ren said, and then he was smiling too. Laughing, even. At how ridiculous this all was.
He’d been jealous.
“Listen,” Seth said, through chuckles, “I do need to say something else serious, if you think you can handle it.”
“First, do you want to take an Uber or we can walk . . . it’s not that far to my place.”
Seth’s eyes darkened. “Is Gabe home?”
“I don’t think so, but if he is, we can kick him out,” Ren said.
“Alright, let’s walk. It’s a nice night,” Seth said, and together, they turned down the next street.
It was about a mile and a half to the loft, and Ren’s idea had been to work through whatever this was, this burning in his stomach, before they got there.
Then they could have sex without him being so distracted by it.
By what it meant.
“Spring’s nearly here,” Ren said. “The one-year-anniversary party is in two weeks.”
“Feels like longer,” Seth observed, and then paused on the sidewalk, turning to Ren. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I want to say it, anyway.”
Ren thought, then don’t say it, but instead what came out of his mouth was, “Okay, then I want to hear it.”
What had happened to him?
He didn’t know, and he wasn’t very happy about it. But at the same time, he was incandescently, brilliantly, wonderfully happy.
“I never did that many hookups. Mostly . . . mostly I did them when I first came to LA, before Lennox and I started the business together,” Seth said.
“This isn’t supposed to sound like an apology, but it wasn’t what I wanted.
I knew from when I was young that I wanted a real, solid relationship. One I could count on.”
“Why?”
“Why was I so convinced that was what I wanted? Because I never had it growing up. My mom, after she and my dad divorced, she dated a whole bunch of guys. They were always serious, always here to stay . . .” Seth let out a sigh, like he was a kid again, and he’d just been punched in the stomach again. “And they never were.”
“You want someone who sticks,” Ren said.
“Yes.”
Can you be that guy?
The answer was painfully simple.
I want to be that guy.
But he’d never done it before.
“I hooked up because I was lost and bored and probably drinking too much,” Seth said wryly. “But when I met someone I really liked, I wanted more. That’s why I didn’t want to just hook up with you.”
“I understand,” Ren said, and he did. Better than he’d imagined he would.
It hadn’t just been Seth being a stubborn ass, the two times he’d turned him down. He hadn’t been rejecting Ren, but what Ren was offering.
Of course, if he’d known the truth back then, Ren wasn’t sure it would’ve changed much. He would have still been stuck in his ways—in your rut, Ren heard Gabe’s voice say in his head—and he would have rejected any serious overtures that Seth might have made.
“I keep trying to think if there’s any other secrets you should know,” Seth said, with a small smile on his face, “but I think you’ve managed to wiggle most of them out of me.”