Chapter 5 #2
Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe the hopeful twist in Lee’s gut had been right and Alex’s demonstrative ease with Marco did mean something, and the roundabout way Alex had suggested that he and Lee share a room did, too.
It’d be a terrible idea, though. Hooking up with Alex based on the rush of their win and the imaginary buzz of non-alcoholic beer. Truly, truly terrible. Their friendship, if that, remained fragile at best, and throwing sex into the mix could easily make it implode.
So, yes. A terrible idea.
Too bad that didn’t seem to matter at all when Alex knocked and Lee’s traitorous heart skipped a beat.
He pulled the door open and Alex slipped past him into the room, a pillow and a sheet bundled up in his arms. After glancing up and down the corridor to find it empty, Lee closed the door and turned.
Alex was spreading his sheet out on the side of the bed that Lee had cleared for him, stripped down to a T-shirt and a pair of boxers, and Lee felt a tad awkward still wearing the clothes Alex had ordered for him some days ago.
They fit Lee nicely according to both Alex and Lee’s own assessment of himself in the mirror, but they were tighter than what he would have chosen for himself.
Jeff’s brother seemed to have appreciated the look. Maybe Alex had too—Lee resembling a bit more the boys Alex would have hung out with at Harrow School.
“You already brushed your teeth?” Lee asked, lingering near the door.
“I’m all done, yeah.” Alex pulled off his T-shirt and dropped it by the side of the bed like it was any other night, the two of them on their respective sides of the same room. When he slid under the sheet, Lee switched off the overhead light, leaving only the warm glow of a bedside lamp.
What now?
Slowly, on quiet feet, he rounded the bed and sat down on his side before he started on the buttons of his shirt. Behind him, Alex heaved a dramatic sigh. “And thus ends the one time I see you in clothes that actually flatter you.”
Lee turned his upper body, letting the corners of his mouth tip up in response to Alex’s smirk. “Why do you care, anyway?”
“I like to improve the aesthetics of my surroundings,” Alex said grandly. “Call it community service.”
“You’re so full of shit,” Lee told him, and maybe it came out a hint too fond because Alex’s smirk softened into a gentle smile.
“Hey.” The protest lacked heat. A moment later, Alex crossed his arms behind his head, biceps distractingly on display, the sheet pooling somewhere around his waist. “It’s kind of nice not to be alone after the day we’ve had.
I mean, Jeff’s got his brother and Oliver’s got his wife, and we’ve at least got each other, you know? ”
Humor colored Alex’s words, and it wasn’t anything tangible, didn’t exactly constitute Alex making his opening move, but it left the door ajar for Lee to get a foot in.
Facing away from Alex, he finished unbuttoning the shirt and slid it off his shoulders, careful to keep his voice neutral.
“So how come you’re single—thought I saw some pictures of you with a girl a while back? ”
Alex’s answer was delayed by half a second. “Grace? Yeah, we broke it off some months ago. Things just fizzled, you know.”
Lee got up to drape the shirt over the back of a chair, glancing over his shoulder at Alex before he started undoing his jeans. “And you haven’t dated since?”
“No. Didn’t seem to be much point.”
“How come?” Lee folded the jeans and placed them on the chair as well, then turned to face Alex in just a pair of boxer briefs. He thought he saw Alex’ s attention dip for a blink of an eye, but it was too quick for Lee to be certain that he wasn’t just seeing what he wanted to see.
Alex shifted slightly. “Well, there are a couple of women my parents want me to meet, so…”
“Your parents want you to meet some women?” Lee repeated blankly, pausing by the side of the bed.
“Not like an arranged marriage,” Alex hurried to say. “Just… to consider whether there might be something there. Eventually.”
Uh.
“Your parents picked out women you should meet, to see if you’d want to marry one of them? And then—what, your families will go to war together?” Lee knew he was staring at Alex, but seriously, what the fuck. “What century is this?”
Alex sat up against the headboard, sudden tiredness etched into his features. “Look, no one is being forced into anything, okay? It’s not that different from friends setting you up on a date with someone.”
“Except friends want you to have a good time, not improve the family gene pool or… I don’t even know.
Complement your parents’ apple orchard with some cherry trees that belong to the family of the bride, I guess?
” Christ, Lee had known that Alex’s father was a traditionalist based on the sheer amount of snobbery the guy spouted into any microphone that would hold still for him, but this took tradition and sent it right back to the Middle Ages.
Also, so much for Lee’s little theory that Alex might have been looking for a different kind of celebration.
“There’s nothing wrong with taking into account someone’s family background,” Alex said. “See whether you’ve grown up with the same values.”
Lee snorted. “Sure.” Since he was starting to feel mildly awkward looming by the side of the bed in just his boxers, he sat down at the foot of the mattress, diagonally across from Alex. “Except that’s the kind of thing you only say if your ancestors can be traced back to the sixteenth century.”
It took a second, then Alex looked contrite. “Sorry.”
“No worries. I’m not currently applying for any son-in-law positions with aristocratic families, so it doesn’t exactly matter.
” And it didn’t, really—Lee had outgrown any self-consciousness about his family background.
Yeah, there’d been a time when he had acted like Brandon was his dad in front of classmates.
But then Brandon had left, and then Nan had died, and then Lee had been too bloody busy holding it all together to pretend for anyone other than the girls.
“Still.” Alex rubbed a hand down his face.
“I guess I’m just trying to say, you know…
Like, arranged marriages were normal not that long ago, right?
It’s only recently that at least in Western countries, we decided to leave something as crucial as marriage to an emotion as irrational as love, and we disregard all other factors. ”
Lee let the statement sit between them for a moment before he shook his head. “Is that your parents talking, or do you actually believe that crap?”
“Well, if you’re such an expert on love, why are you single?” Even though the question carried a challenge, Alex looked tired more than anything else—like his body was just now catching up with the events of the day, adrenaline ebbing away. Lee felt it, too.
“I moved back to the UK, and neither my ex nor I felt like long distance.”
“Doesn’t sound like she was the love of your life,” Alex said, tone still caught halfway between exhausted and challenging. Somehow, the combination slid past Lee’s usual filter and triggered him to correct Alex.
“He.”
Alex’s attention snapped to Lee’s face, the air growing still between them.
“Problem?” Lee asked slowly. He didn’t really think it would be, not after he’d seen how comfortable Alex was with Marco—but Marco wasn’t sharing a room, and presently a bed, with him.
“What? No. No!” Alex shook his head, the dim light darkening the hazel of his eyes to a dull brown. “Just reassessing some stuff. You’re… gay? Or bi?”
Lee kept his gaze on Alex and his chin tilted up. “Gay.”
“Okay.” Another pause, Alex’s frown easing slightly. “So, all right—you’re gay. Which explains why you’re single, I guess.”
“You guess?” Lee huffed out a laugh. “I mean, sure, I spend a lot of time surrounded by fit, athletic men. Too bad they tend to be either teammates or opponents, and very likely straight. Not an ideal situation, all in all.”
Ah, shit. Lee needed to get his brain-to-mouth filter checked—it didn’t take much of a mental leap from Lee mentioning attractive teammates to the implication that Alex would be very much included in that category.
Awkward.
“Too bad they tend to be either teammates or opponents, and very likely straight. Not an ideal situation, all in all.”
Very likely straight.
It was an opening served on a silver platter if Alex had ever heard one.
Except… God. He couldn’t. He couldn’t. First off, he’d never come out to anyone, hadn’t ever explored his attraction to guys beyond acknowledging it to himself and occasionally indulging in aesthetic appreciation of a fit male body—such as Lee’s.
Secondly, if Alex dropped the information now…
Well. He was essentially in Lee’s bed, and it would be hardly surprising if Lee took that the wrong way.
Eventually, maybe, Alex might want to tell Lee about himself. Not tonight, though.
He fished around for a playful smile, found it, and slapped it onto his face. “Okay, so, honesty hour: when you called me pretty boy—did you, in fact, mean it?”
It had been a joke, really just a joke, but Lee’s face tightened. He sat up a little straighter, and Alex nearly let his gaze drop to Lee’s bare chest. Eyes up here.
“Well.” Lee’s tone was painfully careful. “I mean… I didn’t not mean it.”
Alex’s world tilted for a blink of an eye. “Hang on. You were flirting with me?”
“Not, like…” Lee briefly met Alex’s eyes before his gaze skittered off to the side. “Badly, for one. And I didn’t really think… That is… You know.”
Alex was staring, he knew he was, but, just, what? Lee had been flirting with him all those years ago, and Alex had taken it as an insult. “Pretty boy, though?” he asked instead of the dozen other questions flitting through his mind.
Lee mumbled something and scuffed a hand down his face, and was that the faintest hint of a blush, barely noticeable against his tanned skin? Lee Taylor, blushing?
Alex cleared his throat. “Sorry, what was that?”