“What kind of beggar woman rocks up at the front door of a palace? That’s like a Big Issue seller getting pissy because the queen doesn’t carry cash. Also, the Beast’s got his own dungeon. I respect a man with all the conveniences.”
Nik tried to laugh again, and it came out like a rusty gate in a gale.
I winced for him and eyed my wine guiltily. “Um, can I get you something? You sound grim.”
“Sounds worse than it is.” He shrugged in this noble I’m going out for a walk and may be some time sort of way. “I just feel bad for letting the telethon down.”
“We’re doing okay. And I spoke to this guy named Caspian Hart, who’s apparently super-rich. That could come to something.”
Nik’s eyes went wide. “Caspian Hart? Seriously?”
I made what I hoped was a modest, l’il ol’ me gesture.
“You don’t know who he is, do you?”
“Of course I do! It said on the sheet. He’s like a finance guy or something.”
“Arden, he’s a big deal and famously unapproachable. He’s the second youngest self-made billionaire on the Forbes list. He’s been on the cover of TIME and everything.”
“Well, y’know, so’s Donald Trump.”
“And,” Nik added resignedly, “he’s really hot.”
Ah. That was more like it. I put down the wine bottle and reached for my laptop.
“I mean, if you’re into dicks. Literally and metaphorically.”
“He wasn’t a dick. A bit…intimidating maybe. But I guess if you’re that awesome, you would be.” My cheeks were getting warm just remembering the conversation. “He was kind to me, actually.”
“You’d have to be a monster not to be. It’d be like kicking a kitten.”
“Excuse me, I’m incredibly sexy and— Oh my God.” The results of my image search had just popped up.
“You are such a letch.”
Peeping at Nik over the top of the screen, I gave him double eyebrows. “Shit. I invited him to the dinner as well. What if I have to talk to him and look at him at the same time?”
“I guess it’ll tear a rift in the space-time continuum and we all die.”
Okay—I deserved that. I laughed, blushed a bit at my own ridiculousness. “I bet you anything I end up making a complete idiot out of myself.”
“People like that are insanely busy. He probably won’t even make it.”
Yes. That was a good point. And it would save me a lot of embarrassment.
Except I couldn’t help feeling disappointed too. I mean, not just because he was gorgeous—I was shallow, but not that shallow—but because…Meh, I was probably reading too much into it.
But it would have been nice to meet him.
Hear that soft, unexpectedly shy laugh in person.
“So”—Nik broke into my daydreaming—“are you going to be working or do you want to watch Luke Cage?”
I checked the clock on my computer—it was past ten now. Hardly worth starting revision. Although, let’s face it, it was that kind of attitude that got me into this mess in the first place. “Is there room under that duvet?”
“Always.”
I settled the laptop on the table, fired up Netflix, and snuggled in next to Nik. “You’re not contagious, are you?”
“Only if I snog you.”
“Hey, it’s possible. You might be overcome by base lust and unable to keep your tongue out of me.”
He flung an arm around and pulled me closer—he smelled slightly like an ill person, but also cozy and familiar. “Yes. That’s definitely a real danger that you’re in right now. With Mike Colter right there.”
“You mean, you’re gay for Mike Colter but not for me?”
“Shhh.”
I’d had this …almost-maybe-actual crush on Nik for basically ever. It could have damaged our relationship, but in my experience, there were two kinds of straight boys in the world: the ones who were terrified that being liked by a gay meant getting bummed the moment they let their guard down and the ones who were comfortable enough to be into it.
Nik was in the second category.
And, honestly, there were probably two kinds of queer boys as well: the ones who had wholesome, healthy relationships with other queers and the ones who preferred to be in love with people they couldn’t have because they were slutty commitmentphobes.
I was also in the second category.
A friendmance made in heaven.
Chapter 3
Okay, how do I look?” I turned away from the mirror over the sink and struck a pose.
Nik’s expression was carefully neutral. “Honestly? Like a kid in his dad’s suit.”
The post-telethon dinner was black tie and I didn’t have the right kit, so I’d borrowed Nik’s. Not completely grasping the impact of Nik being six foot four and an athlete. When I was pretty much the opposite of that. “What if I rolled the sleeves up?”
“Don’t you fucking dare. That’s my best tux.”
As I walked across the room, the trousers slipped ominously down my hips. I tightened the rainbow canvas belt I’d hidden under the cummerbund and managed to stave off disaster.
Nik winced. “Do you really want to meet important alumni looking like that?”
“It’s not that bad.” My hair was having a small rebellion of its own. I’d quiffed six ways to Sunday but the whole thing had fallen sideways like a drunk on Saturday night. But fuck it. Caspian Hart wasn’t coming anyway. Not because of a single conversation.
He’d probably forgotten about me the moment he’d put the phone down. And I wasn’t going to be…sad or disappointed or messed up about it. Nope. Not even a little bit. The amount of time I’d spent Googling him probably counted as immersion therapy anyway.
He wasn’t all that. Okay, he was fairly—well, very—good-looking, but he wasn’t…photogenic really. He never smiled. Always the same flat stare, as though he regarded the camera as an enemy, his body caught at a moment of artificial stillness: a tiger about to spring away through the long grass.
“I’m telling you,” Nik was saying, “it is that bad.”
I waved a hand, implying that he could—if he so chose—talk to it, and picked up the bow tie he’d laid out for me. Turning up the collar of Nik’s dress shirt and slipping the silk around my neck, I abruptly remembered I had no idea how to tie the thing. The last time I’d had to do this had been matriculation and it hadn’t gone well. Maybe because I’d still been drunk from the night before. Or maybe because bow ties were bullshit.
I messed with the ends, crossing them over each other and moving them about randomly, as if this would miraculously make a bow appear under my chin.
Nik sighed. “You don’t know how to do that, do you?”
I shook my head.
“Come here.”
I went there and Nik stood up, pushing my hands out of the way. And then, just like that, his confidence seemed to desert him. We’d always been fairly snuggly, but this was different somehow: my eyes turned up to Nik’s, him frowning down at me, a piece of black fabric twisted between his fingers, so close to my throat that it felt like a promise or a threat. “Shit,” he muttered, “it’s hard to do it backwards.”