Page 3 of Inferno
No one falls in love at first sight. No one sees a complete stranger and suddenly knows deep down in their soul that that’s the person they’re going to spend the rest of their life with. And yet as I stare at the beautiful boy sitting at a table opposite a woman, I know it. I know that he’s mine and that I’ll never want anyone else for the rest of eternity.
I can hear Danny talking on the phone to someone beside me, but I’m too consumed with the boy to really pay attention.
“Shit,” he growls.
“What?” I mutter, my gaze fixed on my boy through the window. “What did he say?” I ask.
“She’s. Mine,” Danny says, his voice low and possessive.
The aggression in his voice breaks the spell that has kept me focused on my boy, and I snap my head around to look at Danny, my brow furrowed in confusion.
“She’s. Mine,” he repeats, angry eyes boring into me, like he’s making sure I hear and understand what he’s saying.
“Who?” I ask.
“Parker. She’s mine. Eyes off.”
It takes me a moment to realize that the girl sitting withmy boymust be Parker, and that right now my friend thinks I’m staring at his girl. “I’m not looking at her,” I admit, unable to resist my boy’s pull any longer, and turning to look through the window again.
“Then who?” he asks, his voice confused. From my peripheral vision, I see his head moving from side to side, scanning the faces of the people at the other tables.
“Him,” I admit, my voice barely a whisper.
I regret my confession the moment I’ve said it, but it’s too late to take it back now. Even if I wanted to, it’d be impossible for me to hide what I’m feeling.
“Him?” Danny questions, not disgust but surprise radiating from his voice.
Slowly dragging my eyes away from the window, I turn to Danny.
“Fuck, it got you too, didn’t it?” he asks, his lips curved into an amused smirk.
“What got me?” I question. But I know what he means, I just don’t want to say it out loud. I don’t want to admit that I just fell in love with a stranger at first glance.
“The Barnett bullshit. You took one look at that guy, and you haven’t been able to look away. I didn’t even know you were gay.”
“Bi,” I correct, not that it really matters. My sexuality is my business, and no one else’s.
“Who cares?” Danny says flippantly. “You’re gone for that guy after one look. I honestly thought all the Barnett love-at-first-sight stuff was bullshit, until just this minute, because I just saw it fucking happen.”
“His name is Henry?” I question, remembering Danny saying it earlier when he was losing his shit, thinking Parker was on a date.
“He’s twenty-two, a temp, and gay,” Danny says, relaying information aboutmy boylike he’s reading it from a fact sheet.
“Twenty-two,” I say under my breath. Fuck, he really is just a boy, barely a grown-up and thirteen years younger than me. “Too young,” I whisper.
“Nah, it’s not that big of an age gap,” Danny says, dismissing the argument I’m having with myself like the age gap is completely inconsequential. “Let’s go say hi.”
He’s excited now, the feral, furious energy from only moments ago gone and replaced with his usual golden retriever happiness.
“No,” I hiss, horrified at the suggestion that I go in there and allow myself to become even more infatuated with my boy than I already am.
Danny’s brow furrows in confusion at my refusal. “I’m going in there, so you are too. Why wouldn’t you want to? He’s yours.”
Danny declares that the boy is mine, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. His certainty is jarring, because as much as I want to, I can’t claim him. I can’t pretend like this desire I feel is more important than my boy’s free will. “He’s not mine,” I protest weakly.
“Dude, do I have to repeat back to you what you told me this morning?” he asks, arching a triumphant brow at me.
Cursing, I remember the conversation we had earlier. He’d been considering walking away from Parker and not trying to be anything more than her friend, and I’d told him…
