Chapter 12 #2
“Ah, I love a farce,” I said after swallowing a mouthful of beer.
Taylor waded through the crowd of friends, acquaintances, and possibly past and future lovers, chatting up everyone in passing, asking questions, keeping that awesome smile on his face, and finally came to the grill, where I had been waiting for him.
“Got a drink? Good,” he said, looking at my beer hand. “So glad you made it.”
“I said I would,” I reminded him.
He finally closed the last of the distance and pulled me into a hug that surprised me so much that I barely had the time to hug him back before he was stepping away. His gaze moved over my face for a second or two, taking something in, and he nodded his approval. “You look very elegant.”
“I smell like wood and smoke,” I said. My shirt had already soaked it up, as had my hair. I could feel it on my skin, or could imagine it, at least.
“You always smell like wood,” Taylor said.
“Rude.”
“It’s your cologne. I like it.”
I noticed Jason’s head spin around to look at Taylor, but Taylor didn’t seem to pay it any attention. “I see Kate’s around,” I said, my voice only a little testy because I was a child, and I couldn’t keep this ridiculous, possessive jealousy down forever. “Are you planning to take that somewhere?”
That was bro talk, right? That was what friends and wingmen would ask.
But Taylor’s eyebrows curved, and he looked at me like I was crazy. “Kate? And me?”
“Yeah,” I said, finding a casual register of my voice. “You seemed to hit it off well at the market.”
Taylor’s eyes narrowed in suspicion before he relaxed and smiled. “We did, didn’t we? Yeah, she’s sweet. And really smart. She makes me laugh. I’d even go as far as to say she makes me feel good about myself.”
My heart snapped in half. Were those not the words he’d used for me? How dare he?
My face must have betrayed me because Taylor punched my shoulder so hard my arm went numb. “Look at her,” he said.
I didn’t. “She’s pretty.”
“Look,” he said, lowering his voice as Bennet and Jason began talking to one another not so far from us.
I looked. Then I looked harder because I didn’t see Kate anywhere.
My gaze moved over the heads of strangers until hers finally appeared.
Well, only one part of it appeared, because most of it was pressed against another face, and there was a hand on the back of her neck, and oh my God, Kate was kissing the friend she’d come here with. “She’s gay?”
“She makes figurines, works with clay, and does woodworking. What did you think?” he asked.
“I…” I looked at Taylor. He knew exactly what I’d thought, and it amused him to death.
“Oh ye of little faith,” he said. “You were jealous. Admit it.”
“No,” I said, but my voice betrayed me.
“You thought I invited my fake ex here to watch me flirt with a girl,” he said, loving every moment of it. I wished he would stop joking about this. He didn’t know, and I couldn’t tell him just how touchy that particular spot was.
“Stop,” I said.
“Nah, I’m never letting you live this down.”
“Come on.” I nudged him, shoulder to shoulder. “It made sense in my head.”
Taylor’s gaze lingered on my face like he wanted to tell me something, but he decided against it. He lifted one corner of his lips into a crooked smile, then drank from the beer bottle.
I drank, too.
The day went on seemingly forever. Taylor was the soul of it, though he loudly advertised the fact that he’d done none of the planning or organizing.
He found time for everyone, found a way to make them laugh, and found something in common with them.
As he moved through the groups, making sure everyone’s drinks were topped and everyone had had a bite, I stood with Jason and observed.
Jason was safe company. He didn’t pry too much, and he knew how to let a silence go on without having to interrupt it. He also knew how to ask a pointed question that tipped you off-balance, but he didn’t abuse that power.
I watched Taylor as he laughed so hard at something Kate had said that my heart clenched. Not out of jealousy, this time, but such sudden, unexpected joy that I couldn’t contain it.
And he laughed harder still, tilting his beer the wrong way and spilling it all over his shirt.
Kate yelped, her girlfriend taking control of the situation and grabbing a napkin from the nearest table, while Taylor simply wore a resigned expression on his face, shaking his head and dabbing the beer from the soaked fabric.
He muttered something to himself, wiping the beer, then undoing a couple of buttons of his shirt and revealing a wet, glistening middle of his torso that made me stop.
Fuck, I thought. I’m not quitting you soon.
As if he could feel my thought, or my gaze, Taylor looked at me, made a whatcha-gonna-do gesture with his arms, then laughed at himself.
People were already leaving, and I made my way over to Taylor, watching him do his buttons again.
Kate and her girlfriend looked like they were saying goodbye, and I reached the spot just after they’d left Taylor alone.
“Do you want to go to my place?” I asked.
I didn’t know where I was going with this.
If all we did was listen to records on my sofa, that would be a night to remember.
“I’m soaked in beer,” Taylor said. It wasn’t a no.
“You’re perfect,” I told him. “I have spare shirts.”
“I stink like smoke.”
“Me too,” I replied. “And I happen to own a perfectly usable shower.”
“Got underwear I can put on?” he teased.
I shrugged. “I bet it wouldn’t be your first time to go commando-style.”
Taylor threw his head back and laughed. “You’re impossible to say no to.”
“What do you mean? You didn’t even try.”
“Fair point. Let’s go, then,” he said.
We managed to say goodbye to everyone before a taxi picked us up. We fell into the back seat with grins on our faces and the stink of spilled beer spreading in the air.
The ride was smooth, though I couldn’t escape this electric feeling between Taylor and me, this sense that something was tugging us one way and the other but was about to give.
Something immovable, some ancient boulder, would move an inch and begin a chain reaction of events that would hardly ever stop.
Maybe it was the beer. Light as it was on the alcohol content, I felt like my muscles were looser and my tongue, too.
We stepped out of the car in front of my building, and Taylor followed me up to the door, then into the hallway, and up the stairs to my apartment. As we entered, still quiet and quietly aware of this strange shift happening, I closed the door behind us with a soft thud.
It was evening already, and turning on the lights bathed the living room and Taylor in amber and golden hues, making him look all warm and wonderful.
“A shirt?” he asked.
“Right,” I said, taking my gaze off his face and walking into my bedroom.
I found a clean T-shirt and took it back to the living room while Taylor looked around.
I watched him stand there, his back turned to me, and I knew with visceral suddenness that I wanted him, wanted him however I could have him.
And I knew, also, that it wasn’t as impossible as I had believed all this time.
See, Taylor had all but said so. He’d come back to me, invited me out, and teased me mercilessly about thinking Kate was of interest to him. He knew the depths of my soul, the secrets in my heart, and the desires I could hardly keep hiding forever.
“Take your shirt off,” I said, fist closing tightly around the T-shirt in my hand.
Taylor turned around and looked at me. “Is it a dare?”
“Does it matter?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I’m going to do it, anyway.” He reached for the top button and began to undo them in order, revealing more and more of his torso as each button let go.
The sculpted physique, the exquisite lines of his definition, the tan of his olive-warm skin, the golden shadows below his muscles, and the cheeky look on his face as he shrugged the shirt off to reveal the broad, round shoulders all made me stop.
His shirt fell on the floor as my gaze followed it. It rose then, along the denim of his pants, to the brown belt, and then the narrow waist, moving over his Apollo’s belt, over the thin, dark hair of his happy trail, and along his abs.
“And the shirt?” Taylor asked.
My gaze snapped to his face, and I saw it, all of it, glimmering with amusement.
He knew he was being watched, options were being weighed, and his worth was being assessed.
But that wasn’t entirely true. I knew his worth already.
I knew it from the night he’d danced in this very room.
So I moved the shirt behind my back. “No.”
One side of his mouth lifted. “You know, I had a feeling you might do that.”
“And I have a feeling I’m being dared,” I said, taking a step toward him.
“Preposterous,” he said, but he took a step toward me, too.
“Tell me,” I said. “Plainly. Simply.”
“Nothing’s plain, Harrison. It couldn’t be less simple.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Taylor took another step toward me, closing the distance between us until we were inches apart, and I could smell the smoke on us both and feel the heat of his body on mine. Taylor pulled the side of his lower lip between his teeth, then hardened his gaze, locking it on my face.
“Alright,” he said. “I’m confused. Like, a lot.
And when I’m around you, things start to seem a little simpler.
And I don’t have the words to describe it, but…
” He moved an inch closer to me, so close that a shudder passed through me uncontrollably.
“But maybe I don’t need words at all. Maybe I’m just a coward, hiding behind the jokes. ”
“You’re not a coward,” I said automatically. He wasn’t.
“Then why am I still hiding behind the illusion of a conversation?” Taylor whispered. “When we could stop talking altogether.”
“Because I asked you to tell me.”
“Ask me something easier, Harrison,” he said, almost pleading.
My throat closed, and I forced myself to swallow. My breath was shallow, but so was his, his chest rising and falling only a little. “Show me, then.”
Taylor gave a small nod, as if he were relieved that I had finally asked the right things.
And he didn’t hold back anymore. He didn’t hold back at all.
The inches of space between us disappeared, and he pushed into me like he wanted to pin me against the wall, but I was bigger, stronger, and he couldn’t move me, so he simply pressed himself against me as his mouth crushed mine, and the T-shirt dropped from my hand, and my fingers found the heated skin of the sides of his torso.
I didn’t stand there in confusion this time. I didn’t just take it, surprised and wary and lost in it. I held him immediately and kissed him back, letting him know what it felt like to be kissed by a man who cared for him. Because that was how he was kissing me, too. That was what it felt like.
He exhaled through his nose, quick and hard, and kissed me harder. It was an aggressive, competitive sort of kissing, and I gave him the game, matching him and taking it a notch further, my fingers sinking into the soft flesh of his waist as I yanked him closer, feeling his crotch against mine.
I drew a deep breath and remembered, embarrassingly, just how much smoke there still was in my clothes and hair and on my skin, and it made me pause.
“Don’t,” he whispered.
“Wait,” I said.
“Don’t tell me not to kiss you,” Taylor said. “I don’t think I can stop.” His eyes were still closed, his voice dreamy and distant.
I laughed softly. “It’s just that I desperately need a shower. I can’t let us make out for the first time and stink like this.”
Taylor opened his eyes, and there was a mischievous look on his face as he considered it. “Let me shower with you,” he said. It almost sounded like he was working up the courage for it, like he was testing himself.
“Oh, I dare you to shower with me,” I said.
His eyes lit up. “You dare me,” he echoed. “I never say no to a dare.”
“I know.” I took a step back, reluctantly letting go of his body. I turned away, then took a step toward my bedroom and heard his footsteps following. He’d only hesitated for a moment or two.
I didn’t know what this meant. I didn’t even know if it was real. But I knew that he wanted it, and I wanted it more than I could put into words, and besides, talking about it was the one thing Taylor didn’t want to do.
So I undid the buttons of my shirt even before I’d stepped into the bathroom, and I shrugged it off and leaned into the shower to let the water run before I turned back to the door, where Taylor stood with a devilishly handsome expression on his face and pupils so wide they made me want to melt.
And I reached for my belt.