Four: Someone was knocking at the door.
Five: oh god.
“Jake.” He barely breathed the word, just in case someone might hear him. A little nudge in the shoulder, then a little more, then a couple light slaps on the chest.
Jake’s eyes fluttered and his tongue darted out over his lips. After a few seconds, his vision focused on Quinn.
Bang bang.
“Jake, come on!” A voice from the other side of the door. Quinn couldn’t place it through all the muffling and his own nerves, but it had to be someone from the show, right? Someone who was about to find out what had happened.
“Bunny.” Jake slid out from under the covers, tucking them in around Quinn’s waist roughly before darting into the bathroom. He came out, pulling on his underwear, then opened the door.
Quinn froze, begged the universe to melt him into a puddle, tried to make himself as small as possible. But Jake slippedout into the hallway wearing basically nothing, closing the door. Protecting him from being seen indisposed.
And maybe buying me some time. A fire burst through the freeze and Quinn chucked the covers off, then bolted for the bathroom and closed the door. The panic made his limbs feel floaty, but he slid on his boxers with minimal fumbling, then his pants and his shirt. “Where the fuck are my shoes?” He scanned the counter where his clothes had been gathered, nothing. The floor, nothing.
Back out and he saw them at the foot of the bed, socks stuffed into them. He sighed and put them on as fast as he could. He messed up the knots a couple times and had to re-center, but got them on.Cover story, cover story, cover story. He could only think about the night before, more of the memories coming back to him the longer he sat. Jake in the bath, touching his love handles, his tongue lapping, him finishing on the bed, Quinn finishing on him…
Focus. He looked around the room as though it might provide him some inspiration or prop he could lean on.Okay. Nothing. I came to talk about the gaming room. That’s believable, right?He didn’t have anything more specific, and Jake would have to pick up the details for him, but it would work.
The door opened and he jumped off the bed and leaned against the wall, as if Bunny might see him sitting on the edge of the bed and piece everything together. If anyone saw them together, that was bad. Quinn didn’t have the time or the bandwidth to examine why that was the case. His stomach just tightened when he thought about being found out.
Jake walked in and closed the door. He looked Quinn up and down. “Are you trying to look natural?”
Quinn hesitated, then nodded. “Is it working?”
“No.” Jake headed over to his suitcase and pulled out a change of clothes, then stripped down and started getting dressed fromthe bottom up, apparently unbothered by being seen naked after just one night together. “You can relax. We’re heading over to the house, and if I don’t get down there, I’ll get left behind and have to fend for myself for my ride.” He glanced at Quinn again and a smile pulled at his lips. “Your shoes are on the wrong feet, and your shirt’s backwards.”
Quinn glanced down and, sure enough, he could see his tag sticking out of the neck hole and his feet were the wrong shape. “I was in a hurry.”
“Didn’t want Bunny to see your junk, I get that.”
I’m not sure that’s it. Quinn swallowed that comment and headed into the bathroom to fix himself up. Shirt on right, then he sat on the toilet to fix his shoes. It didn’t take long, and then he just sat and looked at himself in the mirror, trying to piece together what had happened.
Sure, getting seen naked by anyone without meaning to wasn’t awesome. Triply so with someone he’d have to spend time with, who was working on his house, who he didn’t really know that well yet. That explanation didn’t feel satisfying, though. Something deeper nagged at him, scratched at the inside of his gut.
It hit him like a lightning bolt and his stomach clenched.If anyone else knows, it’s too real. Having fun was one thing. He knew he wouldn’t just get over Jake straight away when he left, but he could compartmentalize well enough to ride out the pleasure of being around him. Gaming, making out, sending dirty pics…whatever they did last night.
If Bunny or Ozzy or Aras or whoever else walked in and saw the evidence, smelled the room, put everything together, that was public. That was a relationship, even if they didn’t define it as such. Breaking the sequestration they had going on felt too big.
A knock at the bathroom door. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. You can come in.” Quinn jumped up and started the sink, running his hands under it as the door swung in. Jake came up next to him.
His brows knitted together. “You good? You seem pretty freaked.”
“Rude awakening is all.” Standing next to Jake, with cool water running over his hands, it was easier to set everything else aside and just focus on being there, existing in the moment. “I think fight or flight kicked in, and punching Bunny and running didn’t seem like the best choice.”
Jake nodded. “She’d kick your ass. No offense, but desk-jockey versus a woman who hauls lumber and hangs drywall and pours concrete—”
“She pours concrete?”
“With help. Not a one-person job. But we put in her whole back patio and her steps ourselves, and she did most of the work. Point is, don’t pick a fight with Bunny.”
“Noted.” Quinn splashed some water up onto his face, then toweled and scrubbed the sleep away.
“How are your muscles?”
