Chapter 14
fourteen
. . .
Drew expected to be racked with regret as soon as the alarm he’d set for an insanely early hour the next morning went off.
He’d had sex with a man. A man he was growing serious feelings for.
A man who he’d set out to deceive the world with for the sake of his career. Because his girlfriend had told him to.
The situation was bizarre enough to have its own movie, though whether it would be a comedy or a horror film, he had no idea.
As sleep left him, far too quickly, thanks to the blaring alarm, Drew was surprised that the only things he felt were deep, pulsing satisfaction and regret that he had to leave Lee so soon.
“Do you mind if I use your shower again?” he asked a drowsy Lee, who might not have been completely awake. He’d showered quickly after their initial post-sex snooze the night before, but he needed to do a more thorough job that morning before heading to set.
Or facing Jessica.
“Hmm? Oh, yeah,” Lee said, rubbing his face and stretching awake.
Drew smiled at the sight, his heart feeling way lighter than it should have.
“You’re cute first thing in the morning,” he spoke what was in his heart aloud without a single shred of awkwardness.
It was the truth, and even if he hadn’t fully come to grips with the new part of himself he’d just unlocked, facts were facts.
Lee burst into a lazy grin and covered his face with one hand. “Stop,” he said. “I’m really not good in the morning.”
“I beg to differ.”
“You’re the one who’s still smoking hot, regardless of the fact that it’s—” He twisted to look at the clock beside his bed. “Geez, Drew. It’s five in the morning. Who gets up this early?”
“I have a seven o’clock call, which means the car will be at the apartment to pick me up by six-thirty, and I wanted to give myself plenty of time to get there and get ready.
He wanted to give himself time to deal with Jessica if he had to.
Who was he kidding? He would definitely have to deal with Jessica. He wanted to make it clear that they were over, that they’d been over for a while, before he did anything else.
“Let me get up and make you some coffee while you shower,” Lee said, still morning-fuzzy.
Drew kissed him quickly, then rose and headed for the shower.
In so many ways, he couldn’t believe this was his life now.
He’d had full on sex with a man and it had been the best he’d had in years.
He liked that man to the point where he wished the two of them could spend the day, the week, the indeterminate amount of time going forward together, laughing and talking and getting to know each other.
But he had to get to a television production set so he could star in a big-budget show alongside actors who had been celebrated in the business for years.
Was this really his life?
It was wild that the best part of it was the man who stood at his kitchen counter, fixing coffee in nothing but a pair of sweatpants, his hair standing up at odd angles.
“I can drive you back to your apartment once you’ve had your coffee,” Lee said, handing a mug over with a smile once Drew joined him in the kitchen.
Drew took the mug, his eyes popping wide. “You own a car?”
“Of course I own a car,” Lee laughed. “I’m going to need it to drive down to my mum’s house in Kent later.”
“You have a mom in Kent?” Drew continued his teasing surprise, feeling warm down to his toes, even before he took a sip of the excellent coffee.
Lee laughed. “I do, in fact, have a mum in Kent.” He grabbed his own mug from the counter, then leaned back against it, watching Drew with sparkling eyes and a flush on his cheeks as he took a sip.
He grew more serious when he said, “It’s my brother Dan’s birthday on Tuesday.
The first one since he passed. Mum and I are having a little birthday and life celebration this afternoon, though it’ll mostly be tears and heartache. ”
“I’m so sorry,” Drew said, turning to lean against the counter by Lee’s side.
More than anything, he wanted to offer to be there for Lee, to support him in what had to be a painful time.
He wanted to hug him and ask him more about his brother and be a sounding board, in case Lee needed it.
But as much as he wanted to jump ahead in their relationship, whatever it was now, he had to pace himself.
They didn’t really know each other that well yet.
“It was always going to suck,” Lee sighed, cradling his coffee mug and staring into space for a moment. “Cancer is a cunt.”
“Yes, it is,” Drew agreed. He had a few distant family members who had struggled with it, and an uncle who had died of lung cancer, but no one as close as a brother.
The mournful moment was not what he’d expected as the two of them stood side by side, drinking their coffee, but in an odd way, it did more to bring them together than all the sex in the world could have.
Well, maybe. Drew was still very interested in exploring things between the sheets with Lee. It sucked that that would have to wait for another day.
While Lee went to get dressed so he could drive him back to the apartment, Drew checked his phone.
Unsurprisingly, Jessica had texted around midnight the night before, asking when he was coming home.
He took a deep breath and decided not to reply to the message.
He would deal with it face to face in less than an hour anyhow.
“Ready?” Lee asked, coming out of his bedroom fully dressed and groomed and heading straight for the table where he’d left his keys.
“Just one more thing,” Drew said, putting his empty coffee cup in the sink and his phone in his back pocket before crossing the room to Lee.
Once he reached him, he cupped the side of Lee’s stubbly face and kissed him, surprising himself with how free that kiss was.
“Thank you,” he said once he pulled back. “For a hell of a lot of things.”
Lee’s smile was soft and sweet, yet somehow still managed to fire Drew up. “Any time,” he said, then turned to open the door.
The cozy, sexy feelings of the night lasted through the quiet car ride, right up to the gate of the apartments, where Lee dropped Drew off.
“You sure you don’t need me to stick around in case there’s trouble?” Lee asked, half joking.
Drew laughed, although it didn’t feel like the time for jokes at all. “I’m a big boy,” he said. “I can handle this on my own.”
“Yes, you are, and yes, you can,” Lee said with just enough innuendo to have Drew smiling again.
He wasn’t quite brave enough to lean over and kiss Lee goodbye. There could be paparazzi anywhere, and even though the world believed he and Lee were dating, his true feelings and the real nature of whatever was growing between him felt way too personal for him to share it with the world yet.
Still, it was harder than he’d thought it would be to get out of the car and walk away from the one person he wanted to be with just then.
It was even harder when he let himself into his apartment and found the lights on, the TV playing some morning news program at a low volume, and Jessica asleep on the couch, still in the clothes she’d had on the night before.
Drew set his keys in the dish on a table beside the door and took a deep breath, rubbing a hand over his face. Nothing that was about to happen was going to be pretty, but he would do the best he could to be open, honest, and to minimize the damage.
He started by shrugging out of his leather jacket, draping it over a chair, and gingerly sitting on the edge of the couch by Jessica’s legs.
“Jessica,” he said softly, resting a hand on her calf and shaking it a little. “Hey, Jess.”
Jessica made a soft, mewling sound, then yawned and twisted to look at him. For half a second, she smiled. Then she must have remembered she was pissed off at him.
“Where have you been?” she asked, her voice and body still heavy from sleep as she pushed to sit on the other end of the couch. Her glare would have been cute and kittenish if it wasn’t a precursor to what was sure to be a ton of real hurt and anger in just a few seconds.
“I spent the night with Lee,” Drew said, upfront from the start. She wasn’t going to like what he had to say, but he wasn’t going to give her any reason to say he wasn’t being honest with her.
“You could have called a taxi to bring you back here,” Jessica said with a frown, not putting the pieces together yet.
“No, Jess,” Drew said, heart feeling like it was beating in his throat. “I mean, I spent the night with Lee.” He looked directly at her, hoping she would figure it out without him painting a picture.
“You just said that,” she huffed in exasperation, standing and heading into the kitchen. “I’m surprised he put up with you after you were such a jerk.”
Drew squeezed his eyes closed and waited a few seconds before standing. He couldn’t tell if Jessica was being obtuse on purpose to avoid the conversation that was about to happen or if she really didn’t get it.
“I’m sorry if you felt like I was a jerk last night,” he said, hoping to start the conversation well by validating her feelings, even if she was the one who had behaved questionably. “That wasn’t my intention.”
“I don’t like it when you throw yourself around with fans,” Jessica said, turning to face him once she’d gotten a glass of water from the tap. “How do you think that makes me feel?”
Drew leaned against the kitchen counter, kind of the way he had at Lee’s place, but with an entirely different set of emotions coursing through him.
Jessica drank her water and did everything she could to avoid looking at him.
As soon as she set the glass down, she walked away from him, heading for the bathroom.
“Jess, stop,” he said, trying not to lose his patience with her. “You know we need to talk, and you know what the conversation is going to be about.”
Jessica stopped and made a squeaking sound. When she turned back to Drew, she looked like she was about to burst into tears. “I came all the way back here to be with you,” she said, voice tight.