Chapter 11 #2
“I want to do more than just kiss you,” I say. “Like . . . it doesn’t have to be now. I’m happy with this for tonight . . . or however long you need, whatever . . . but fuck, I’ve been imagining us in some . . . situations.”
Pi laughs, then traps his bottom lip between his teeth. He cradles my face with both hands and kisses my lips softly, tenderly, as though forcing himself to take his time and make the most of every second.
“We’ll go slowly. We’ll go at your pace, because otherwise I’d have you bent over this side table,” I say.
“Fuck!” he says.
“Yeah, shit, sorry. Prime example of Exhibit A.” I’m already ballsing this up. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I’m fine with doing what we’re doing now. Kissing and whatnot.”
“Don’t be sorry. I like it. I like it when you say stuff like that.” He shifts his hips from left to right, evidently gauging the firmness of my dick. I’m still pitching a tent. Pi’s warm breath rushes over the exposed skin on my neck and collar. “Do you want me to make you come?”
“Oh my god.” Why are those words so hot? “Yeah. Yes, so fucking badly.”
He smiles, and his eyes flick down my chest to the front of my joggers. “So should we . . .” He takes a sharp inhale and lets it out shakily again. “Get . . . them . . . out, and like . . .”
I laugh, but I don’t recall a single time I’ve ever felt more ready for a moment to unfold. It feels like a dream. Better than a dream. It feels like all the times I switched off the lights in my bedroom, lubed up my hand, and brought up the mental image of Pi in the showers.
I can’t even bring myself to say the word “yes.” I open my mouth, but no sound comes out. Pi’s fingers reach out towards my waistband. My heart stops beating, and I’m praying I don’t bust the second he touches me.
BANG BANG BANG!
I’m pretty sure a bomb just went off outside our hotel room. Either that, or someone is using the meaty part of their fist to smash the solid door against the jamb.
BANG BANG BANG!
“Shit!” Pi yells, tearing his fingers away from me and holding his hand over his heart.
“Alright, you pair of absolute bin bags? You coming down for food or what?” It’s Abs. “What are you two even doing in there?”
“Jesus, fuck, shit,” I whisper, trying to calm my heart rate and breathing. Out for four, hold for four, in for four. My boner is not going down.
“Harry, you smelly cunt, some of us like to shower before dinner,” Pi yells. He doesn’t spare me a look before marching over to the door and throwing it wide.
I hastily position myself behind the set of drawers. It doesn’t quite cover my junk area so I grab the room service menu and hold it open. Pi snorts.
“Why’s it so dark in here? You’re not even showered yet,” Abs says. I swear his eyes flit down to the front of Pi’s joggers.
Pi digs his hand into his pocket. I think it’s a move to hide his erection, but he draws out his key card and slips it into the power slot on the wall. The lights blink on overhead and poke me in the eyeballs. I hadn’t realised how dark it had become, or how late.
Abs narrows his gaze at me, “hmms” to himself, and then his eyes grow wide. I can see the “Aha!” forming in his brain. We’ve been rumbled already. I’ve got blue balls and now I’m about to get a grilling from Harry fucking Ellis. Great.
“What the fuck?” he says, pushing into the room.
Pi looks at me, panic etched into every single line on his face. If Harry hadn’t figured it out yet, Pi’s glance is nothing more than an admission of guilt.
“Okay, okay. I know what you two’ve been doing?” Abs says.
“You do?” The words squeak from my throat.
He walks right up to me and pokes me hard in the chest. “Yeah, I do. And I can’t believe you’re doing that . . . without me,” he adds.
“You . . . wait, what?” This time there’s nothing but confusion in my tone.
Abs holds his hands out like he can’t fathom how selfish we were being when we kept him from our fun. “Why the fuck would you leave me out?”
“You want to be involved?” I ask Abs, but I’m looking at Pi. It’s not that I don’t find Harry attractive, it’s just that . . . No, actually it is that. I’m not attracted to Harry. In the slightest. I have no interest in this arrangement. At least not while I’m this sober.
“Of course I want to be,” Abs says.
“Help,” I mouth to Pi.
“What about Orlando?” Pi pleads.
“Huh?” Abs literally scratches his head. “Well, I guess we could video call him, but it’s probably best kept between teammates, no?”
Pi looks at me and forms the silent words, “What the fuck?” I hear his Australian accent in my mind.
“You two are gossiping about someone on the team, aren’t you? I don’t want to be left out. I always fucking get left out.” Abs places his hands on his hips.
“Gossiping?” I say.
As Pi shouts, “Yes! Gossiping. Of course we were gossiping. What else would we be doing?” The nervous laugh he finishes on should be Abs’s final clue, but he hasn’t seemed to notice.
“Who is it, then? Who’re you talking about?” he demands. “Oh, fuck, were you bitching about me?”
“No, no. Uh . . . Gadget, actually,” I say and immediately regret my choice because now we’ll never get him to leave.
“Greaaat,” he says, drawing out the word. His eyes grow wide with excitement, and he stretches out his fingers in front of him like he’s limbering up. “What’s Mr Perfect done this time?”
Pi pushes his best friend by the shoulders towards the entrance whilst clicking his tongue. “We’ll tell you, but I still need to shower. Meet you downstairs in ten minutes, okay?”
“I’ll save you a seat.”
“And one for Eggs.”
Harry flashes both of his middle fingers before leaving, and Pi shuts the door. He turns to me, his eyes travelling down the length of my body. I step forward, collapse the menu, and toss it onto the bed. I’m soft again.
“Do you . . .” Damn, how do I say this without sounding pathetic? “Wanna continue where we left off?”
He takes longer to answer than I can almost bear. “Yes. I do.” I try to keep my expression neutral. “But maybe we should wait until after dinner. I want to shower, and . . .” He doesn’t finish his sentence.
Abs is unsuccessful at bagsying us seats with the rest of the team.
They all sit at a long table beside the window and most are already tucking into their starters.
Pi and I are ushered to a separate two-seater table next to a roaring open fireplace.
Some of the lads see us being placed together like a couple on a date and wolf whistle.
“Can I get you some drinks, fellas?” a waitress asks us. Her name tag reads Marie.
“Two Diet Cokes, please. A surf and turf with a side of mac ’n’ cheese . . .” I glance over at Pi. “And a ten-ounce sirloin, well done, with mash, not chips,” I say.
Marie seems impressed. What she doesn’t realise is that we always stay in this particular chain of hotels and the menu rarely changes, and while I’ll happily give anything a go, my Australian friend here will opt for the same thing each time.
“And what’re you having, Pi?” I add.
Marie laughs and collects the menus that we haven’t even bothered looking at.
“Am I that predictable?” Pi says as soon as Marie’s left.
I pretend to think about my answer. “Yeah.”
“Damn.” He scratches his moustache. “When did you decide you wanted surf and turf?”
“I guess I didn’t know what I wanted until the words were on the tip of my tongue.”
“I’m forever in awe of how . . .” Pi looks over to the cracking fire.
“Off-the-cuff? Impulsive?” He shrugs. “How little you think about things before you do them. I don’t mean that in a bad way.
It’s just that I’ll internally debate myself over the tiniest decisions, sometimes for years, before I make a choice.
You’ll rock up somewhere and you’re like, ‘Yeah, I’m feeling like eating a cow and a lobster.
’ I respect that. I wish I had that kind of spontaneity.
I have to read the menu in advance and agonise over every single option, and even then I panic. ”
“Except here, because you always have the same,” I say.
“Right, because even though the surf and turf sounds . . . like an adventure, it’s not worth the risk. I know the ten-ounce sirloin, well done, with mash instead of fries. It’s safe. I . . . I dunno . . .” He shrugs and lets his thoughts drift elsewhere.
“Last year I went to Disneyland Paris with Logan,” I say.
“It was only for three days, and he was only five, but it was my first time taking him away on my own. Our first holiday, just the two of us. I didn’t know you needed to make reservations like six months in advance.
I didn’t know we could’ve applied for a disability access pass thing so we wouldn’t have to queue for so long.
I forgot the airport transfers. Forgot the dining plan.
I went in and ad-hocced the whole weekend. ”
“See, that’s amazing, that’s what I’m jeal—”
I interrupt him. “It was awful. We went in August, over his birthday. It was too hot. The parks were at capacity. It was so chocca that we could barely move. We wasted so much time queuing for shit. And finding food that an autistic five-year-old would eat in France was a fucking ’mare.
In short, I should have planned better. I should have invested a few hours beforehand doing research.
There were so many avoidable meltdowns, only because I always jump headfirst into things, rather than waste a single second organising.
Regret and hindsight are very real side effects from being so bull-headed. ”
Pi hums to himself. “We’re the opposite ends of the spectrum.”
“It’s like what happened at Halloween,” I say. “I didn’t think any of that through before . . . you know.”
“But that turned out okay?” Pi’s eyes widen. “Unless you regret it?”
“No. No, I don’t. I just . . . hope it doesn’t ruin how things are between us at the moment, or risk . . . more.” I can’t look at him. Not only are we putting our careers on the line by potentially making training and game days very awkward, we could end up trashing a six-year-long friendship.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” he says, glancing over his shoulder at the Cents lads sitting at the long table by the window. Abs is next to Gadget, swirling his spaghetti and scowling. “We have two choices, then, I guess.”
I raise a brow.
“We pretend that it never happened. That we never kissed—twice—and hope everything goes back to normal. Never bring it up again. Keep things strictly professional . . .”
“Or?”
Pi lets out a slow, controlled breath. “Or we just . . . see where it takes us . . .”
I realise I’m staring at his mouth, so I drag my eyes upwards to meet his once more.
“We tell no one,” he starts.
“Obviously.”
“And we meet up occasionally and . . .” He pinches his smile between his teeth. “Settle our differences?”
“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” I say.
He swallows. I watch his Adam’s apple bob and rise in his throat. “We should—”
“Two Diet Cokes?” Marie says, annihilating the moment. Probably for the best. I don’t want to get hard at dinner in front of my entire team.
“Thank you,” I say as she places them down.
“Your food will be out shortly.”
For the rest of the meal, Pi and I talk rugby and discuss tomorrow’s match against Leicester.
It’s a deliberate attempt on both of our parts to keep our minds off each other’s parts.
It only half works. I keep remembering the feel of his lips against mine, his hot minty breath, his body pressing me against the sideboard.
I love Megan, I really do, but I’ve never been as physically attracted to another person as I am with Pi.
Perhaps it’s because it’s a little taboo. Teammates probably shouldn’t be regularly playing tonsil tennis. Or perhaps the feeling is simply because he’s a he. My first he.
Or perhaps it’s Pi himself.
But I want him so badly I could throw up.
I won’t, because I’ve got a cast iron stomach, but he makes my insides feel .
. . gooey, soupy, or like they’ve been removed and put back in the wrong order.
He makes them feel upside down, and I know the only way to right them again is to just go with the flow and snog him a bit more, and also maybe snog his dick.