His teammate swung around, and clapped both hands down on his shoulders. “Hey, it’s okay to be nervous. Everyone’s first time is a little scary,” he said with patronizing sympathy.
“What? No. No, it’s not myfirst time.”
Gavin tilted his head. “You sure about that?”
“What – yes. Yeah, I’m sure. I’m not” – he hissed the last – “a virgin.”
Gavin grinned, and winked, the bastard. “Sure. Don’t worry. I’ll pick you out a real nice one.”
A real nice one, Francis reflected. What a gentleman.
Before he could protest further, he found himself behind a screen, sitting in a wide chair, a half-naked, curvaceous girl introducing herself as Dolly.
He held up a hand as she put her hands on the chair arms and leaned down, trying to thrust her breasts into his face. “Wait! Wait. Sorry, um…”
She cocked her head, confusion pulling at her plucked brows.
“Sorry, sorry, just, um. Dolly, wasn’t it? Hi, Dolly. I’m sure – I mean youarelovely, it’s just…”
She cocked her head to the side, smile breaking slow and full of promise. “You nervous, baby? Don’t worry. I’ll take real good–”
“No, no.”
Her expression froze. Clearly, she wasn’t used to being refused quite this vehemently – or refused at all, probably.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “You’re beautiful, but I’m just…not interested.”
She straightened, and studied him a moment, all her seductive grace giving way to a practical air that he much preferred. “If you’d rather have one of the guys–”
“No, no, just.” He fished a handful of cash out of his pocket and thrust it toward her. “Just a few minutes alone would be great, honestly.”
She shrugged, disinterested, tucked the money inside her bra, and left him.
He hadn’t lied to Gavin: he wasn’t a virgin. But casual sex had always felt cold, awkward, and unpleasant for him. The perfunctory trading of orgasms was even less appealing when he knew that money would change hands, and that she would be faking.
And when he still, despite all his best efforts, couldn’t get a certain grumpy Knight out of his head.
He wound up outside, leaning back against the building with his face tipped up to the falling snow and ash. Gavin finally staggered out, pink-faced, beaming, and shaky-legged.
He clapped Francis on the shoulder with a wordless exclamation, sex-drunk and satisfied. “How was she?”
“Fine,” Francis said, unable to scrape together a smile.
It didn’t matter; Gavin was oblivious. “See? I told you.”
They bought sandwiches at a food stall, and wandered back to where they were supposed to meet the others. Rose and Lance had obviously gone off together, and Rosemighthave looked a little less sour than she had a few hours ago.
When Tris joined them, Francis took one look at him – and his stomach dropped.
He knew without being told where the other Knight had been. For one, his shirt was buttoned up the wrong way, and for another, his hair was rumpled, and his face flushed in a way it normally wasn’t. His expression was forbidding, and he refused to meet Francis’s gaze, and that was fine, wasn’t it? It didn’t matter if Tris went off and paid for sex, because he certainly didn’t want to have sex with Francis, and it wasn’t any of his business.
It stung, though.
~*~
Despite the obliging, eager attentions of the prostitute who’d introduced himself as Blue, and having come twice, Tris couldn’t fall asleep when he stretched out on his borrowed bunk that night. Despite physical fatigue, his thoughts wouldn’t settle, and he rolled from one side to the other, teeth gritted against the dark – against something that felt an awful lot like guilt.
He was stronger than this, damn it.
