Ben laughs, then leans in, sea-blue eyes dancing. “But tell me this: would you have been devastated if I hadn’t turned up, Charlie?”
“Um…” My face warms, which I hope is enough of an answer for him. How embarrassing. I haven’t reacted like this over someone in ages. Years, in fact.
He reaches out a hand, catches my jaw, and moves closer, his lips a fraction away from mine. And in that moment, everything but him and me falls away. I don’t think I’m breathing, but I close that electric distance as the hair on my arms stands up at the thrill of him.
We kiss.
His mouth is soft, far better than any brioche that I’ve tasted.
I suck on his bottom lip. He makes a sort of feral sound, shudders in my arms. I’m not sure if it’s a gasp or a groan or something entirely otherworldly, but he’s just as caught up as I am. His fingers dig into my wrist. I press against him, close enough to smell his cologne, and quite possibly a hint of crushed coffee beans from the stockroom, but that might well be my overactive imagination.
I catch his jaw to kiss him more deeply, the thin leather of my gloves pressing against the radiating heat of his skin. Ben responds just as hungrily, teasing me right back, his lips brushing mine.
Right now, there’s no street. No London. No shoppers weaving around us as the snow falls. Just us, and the rise of our breath cold enough to see when we finally pull away.
Eventually, I come back to my senses, dazed. I look at Ben, who’s flushed under his freckles.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he whispers.
“Arsehole,” I murmur back affectionately. This man. He’s playing with me. Fine. Two can play, right? For the sake of the evening’s entertainment. “And you? Would you have been devastated if I hadn’t turned up?”
“Absolutely,” Ben says without a moment of hesitation, dead serious. He runs a hand through his blond hair, his knitted wool hat in his other hand.
I shiver. He’s gone and done something funny to my insides. I don’t know what that is exactly, if it’s the first siren song of a new addiction far stronger than caffeine, a new sort of high that comes from tasting him, of thinking back to our earlier break in the stockroom. He’s something else. Euphoria courses through me, both terrifying and thrilling. It’s not a comfortable feeling, like I’m outside my skin and raw and—
Just fucking stop.
One night. That’s it.
Someone brushes past me, and I realize we’re standing in the way of the stream of shoppers moving past us and someone trying to get into the studio.
“Rehearsal was all right?”
“Yep,” Ben says. “Getting ready for our next tour soon. After the holidays.”
See, there you go. Reality and real life.
And then we’re off in a snow-covered London. Ben takes my hand. Startled, my instinct is to pull away, but he smiles, and I let out an unsteady breath.
Snowflakes drift down, stilling the hum of the vast city’s frenetic heartbeat, quieting things down even at this time of day. The snowfall is fresh and bright, too soon to be browned by traffic and smog. Right now, it’s magic, and maybe it’s the snowfall that’s brought Ben to me. Or maybe Ben brought me the snow. Whatever it is, this combination is intoxicating.
And then an alarming thought sinks in: I just hope when the snow melts, it won’t take Ben with it.
…
Soho is bustling.
Which is a fair point most of the time, it being small but mighty and packed with history. Add snow, and it’s more chaotic than usual. Traffic still snakes by, but enough snow’s falling now that it’s starting to officially alarm the commuters who are alarmed enough in the first place, and there’s a fraction less traffic than usual as people start home to escape the snow. Give it another hour with snow falling like this, and traffic will come to a standstill. I can only imagine what it’s doing to the tube and trains, but Ben and I are on foot. It’s the only plan we have so far. It’s the only plan I’m capable of.
We’re walking. Holding on to his hand has kept me tethered to the earth. Otherwise, I’d probably drift up somewhere into the clouds, past the smog and pigeons and airplanes. I’d float high over London, looking down, and if I was up there with Ben, I’d be a happy man indeed. Like this, there are no troubles to deal with or problems to face. A brilliant distraction, even if it’s temporary. Especially because it’s temporary.
My hangover’s now a distant memory, probably also helped by the fact I drank a couple of liters of water after getting back from our stockroom tryst. Jasmine made me eat something solid—soup and a sarnie, she’d said, to keep up my strength. Her grin had been big enough as though she’d been the one getting laid. Clearly, she’d known what we’d gotten up to. I pray she hadn’t heard us. Well, even if she had, I’m not sorry. Ben is far too hot to be sorry about.
Just one night.
He squeezes my hand and I come back to reality as we walk.
“Where are we going?” I ask, coming out of my daze.
