Chapter 12
But when his fingers curl into mine, I can’t seem to pull away. “Really?” he asks.
There’s something so gentle in his voice, something so real, that all I can do is nod, and it feels so freeing to be able to admit it finally. Yes.
Removing my hand from my mouth, I whisper, “I can’t stop thinking about you. I just can’t. I’ve never been this way before, about anybody. Guy, girl, client, friend. I should go.”
“No.” Ryan clasps my hand in both of his now, urgent. “Greg, please. I like you, too.”
The thought terrifies me. Pushing back my chair, I shake my hand free from his and stand. “I can’t,” I tell him. “I’m not…I mean, this isn’t…I just—I have to go.”
He catches me before I reach the door. I feel his touch on my shoulders and, when I turn, I find myself in his arms, caught in a strong embrace. “Greg…”
“I can’t do this,” I whisper. “I like you—I do, and yes, I like you like that, but I’m not gay. I’m not.”
“You don’t have to be,” Ryan whispers back.
I try a different approach. “I have clients booked out for the rest of the week. I can’t fall for one guy. I need to keep these appointments. I need to make money—”
“I’ll buy out your whole week,” Ryan assures me. “Tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after. If you like me—”
“I do,” I sigh. Damn it, I do
His perfect mouth curves into a seductive grin. “And I like you. I know I want you, and onlyyou. The thought of any other man touching your body makes me want to just cry. So cancel all your appointments, and schedule me in instead. Let me buy up all your free time. I want to be the only man to please you from now on. Just name your price.”
The thought is terrifying, but it’s exhilarating, too. He wants me all to himself. I don’t know what to say, even when every fiber of my being wants to crow in triumph.
Me! Yes
But I can’t let myself get carried away. Taking a deep breath, I try to steady my pounding heart. It’s hard to do, though—the closeness of his body has my blood racing and my thoughts bound out in a whirl.
“We’ll start small,” he whispers, leaning towards me. His words fan my cheek and tickle my skin. “How much for a kiss?”
Before I can respond, his mouth closes over mine. They’re tangy and sharp from the spices in the dinner, but when he parts my lips and licks between them, a sweetness fills me like nectar. His tongue is warm and soft and gentle, tasting me, testing. When I don’t resist, his kiss deepens, and he draws me to him like the very breath he needs to live.
I give into him wholly, savoring our first kiss and hungry for more. The labels straight and gay no longer have any meaning to me. The only word that feels right between us is love.
THE ENDHot Merchandise
It’s almost eight o’clock on a Friday night, one hour left until the mall closes, and the music store aptly called Da Hot Spot is jumping. Hip hop music pounds from the sound system, rattling the windows and drawing a young crowd. The aisles are jammed with kids, mostly high school age and up, rifling through rows of CDs, jostling each other for a turn at the listening stations, flipping through the poster racks, thumbing through the discount DVDs. Many of them aren’t there to buy anything—they want to be seen, so they stand in small little groups of friends and flick their collars, straighten their jackets, slick their hands through already perfect hair.
In a small city with little else to do, this is the place to be.
At one end of the sales counter, as far from the noisy cash registers as he can get, night manager Bill Jackson is hunched over a notebook, finishing up his leakage report for the week. By now, he no longer notices the din—the music, the chatter, the laughter and shouts and shrieks…he’s deaf to it. In his mind, he’s already skipped ahead to a time when the store empties out, the gates come down, and the staff cleans up the mess left behind, like a catering crew after a VIP event. The vacuum needs a new belt, he remembers, making a note of it on a stray slip of receipt paper close at hand. And the speaker behind the poster rack sounds a little scratchy, he’ll have to have someone come in to look at that…
“Hey, Bill?”
He looks up to find Angie leaning on the counter beside him. She’s a seasonal employee, only helping out for the Christmas break, but she worked there this past summer when she was home from college and she’s like a walking Wikipedia when it comes to music. The customers love it—if someone’s looking for a certain song but doesn’t know the title or artist, Bill directs them her way. She’s scary good. “A song about a waitress from the eighties?” he heard her say earlier in the evening. “That’s easy. ‘Don’t You Want Me’ by the Human League.” Then later, another customer with a different request—“A girl singing about taking a cab? On the radio now? Try ‘Party in the USA’ by Miley Cyrus or…hey! It might be ‘Waking Up in Vegas’ by Katy Perry. Check that one out.”
Now she stands so close to Bill, he almost thinks she’s flirting. Her arm rests against his and she cups her chin in her hand as she leans down to peer at his notebook. In a nonchalant voice, she tells him, “Don’t look now, but I think those guys over by the new releases are stealing something.”
Of course, Bill’s head swings up automatically and he sees them. Two young African-American guys in their twenties flip through the store’s newest CDs. One wears a long white T-shirt, even though it’s the middle of December and about thirty degrees outside. The shirt hangs down past his waist and, where the hem ends, Bill sees a thin strip of striped boxers above the drooping waistband of the guy’s jeans. His hair is a mess of curls, as if he hasn’t bothered cutting it for a few months now, and the end of a hair pick sticks out from it at a jaunty angle.