Mason rolled his eyes. “You’re as bad as my crew, aren’t you?” He headed out the door, flicking off the light switch as he passed. “Come on.”
They headed out into the lobby. Mason stopped by the front desk to hand over the key card for the meeting room, and then they jumped into the elevator. David was doing his level best to keep himself composed, but it was only the two of them, and with the mirror at the back of the carriage, he was filling his senses up with Mason. His cologne, his brazen hair, the way his jeans cupped his ass, the way his chest filled out his shirt. All of it, constantly, and now they were heading up to Mason’s hotel room. For innocent reasons, sure, but up to his hotel room nonetheless.
The door opened and, as Mason led him down the hallway of the seventh floor, they were getting closer and closer to David’s hotel room. Of course they would be relatively close. Homescapes would have reserved a block of hotel rooms for the job to get some kind of discount.
When Mason stopped, a laugh slipped out of David’s mouth. “Shit, we’re neighbors.” He pointed to the room not right next door, but on the opposite side of the hall, one door down.
“Well then I don’t have to worry about you getting lost on the way home.” He unlocked his room with the card and stepped inside, then held it open.
David walked in and, unsurprisingly, was met with an almost exact copy of his own hotel room. The only difference, other than the view being considerably worse in Mason’s room, was the suitcases at the foot of the bed. They were a matching trio of steel blue, hard-sided cases, lined up from smallest to largest. They wouldn’t have struck David’s attention all that much, except for the fact that they looked brand new. “You’ve been traveling around for how long, now?”
Mason raised one eyebrow at him as he plugged in his laptop. “I guess…about four months? Two weeks per job, plus a little travel-time between each stop.”
“What secret magic have you used on your suitcases to keep them looking this nice?”
It was apparently Mason’s turn to laugh, then stop himself. He shook his head, and his reddening cheeks were clearly not from embarrassment this time. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t be laughing at you. It’s just not what I expected anyone to notice.” He was still chuckling when he tucked his messenger bag into the space between the dresser and the desk, fitting it in almost like it was somehow designed to fit his specific bag perfectly. “When we got the signing bonus for the show, I sprung for some better luggage. Knew we’d be flying around, so I wanted some stuff that was extra durable.” He walked over and rapped on the side of the largest case and it sounded like knocking on a protective suit of armor. “Have to pack a touch lighter to avoid weight fees, but they were worth it. And they don’t scuff.”
David nodded. “They should give you a commission. You’re talking me into buying them.”
“I’ll let them know.” Then Mason’s body seemed to turn in on itself and David’s tension spiked. Had something gone wrong? Had that somehow been the wrong way to go about the conversation?
Before he could try to redirect or ask if everything was fine, Mason spoke up again. “So, how do I do this?” Again, he patted his midsection. “You might have guessed, I don’t exactly have an extensive modeling career to draw on.”
Chapter eleven
Mason
AlmosteveryinchofMason screamed to find a way out of the situation he’d voluntarily agreed to. The thought of simply allowing David to stare at him, try to capture him and see every little flaw he had made Mason want to rip his skin off. Honestly, ripping his skin off would probably be a great out.
But it wasalmostevery inch. His eyes were very happy to keep this going. The longer David stared at him, the longer he got to stare right back at David. He was in a much less flamboyant outfit than the first day, but he still looked incredible. Usually, Mason would bemoan a guy in baggy jeans. They lefteverythingto the imagination, and when he was looking for eye candy, that was not what he was after. But on David, they played up the runway model angle that he had going for him. The choice was so deliberate, paired with the color-splashed long-sleeve shirt.
His eyes were fine with it, and six other inches down south were pretty happy to have David in his hotel room, but he wasn’t going to focus on that. That would just be the nasty, rotten cherry on top of a crappy sundae if, while David was staring at him so intently, he got a hard-on.
“You don’t need to, like, pose.” David sat cross-legged on the bed and opened his sketch book. “I know it’s weird but pretend I’m not here? Just do what it is you need to do and I’ll draw when inspiration strikes.”
“And what if what I normally do is practice naked flamenco?”
“Then that would be a hell of a subject matter for a drawing.”
A tiny bit of the pressure eased from Mason, although he kicked himself for bringing up nudity. It wasn’t helping either of them. It was the sort of joke he might have made around the rest of the Pine Point crew, but he didn’t have stupid crushes on any of them.
Masondidhave things to do, so he swallowed once, then pulled his laptop out of the bag and plugged it in. “Just don’t blame me if you die of boredom. I’m the least interesting member of the crew.” He logged back in and opened the spreadsheet, and simply did his best to not focus on David sitting on his bed.
His best was not very good, but he tried anyway.
After a few minutes of typing stuff into his spreadsheet and checking the information against the note he’d jotted into his phone, he heard faint scratching off to the side. Mason didn’t want to make it obvious, so he pretended that he needed a pen from out of his bag so he could turn and check.
David was oblivious already, chewing on his bottom lip, sketchbook propped up against one knee and pencil sweeping over the surface of the page. Mason knew he couldn’t see what David was drawing from this angle, so he didn’t even try, but his stomach gave a tiny flutter all the same. Now that he apparentlywasn’t being stared at, there was something exciting about someone wanting to draw him. More than that, though, Mason liked the image of David there, doing art in the same room as Mason. Mason didn’t have an artistic bone in his body, so he was always fascinated by the process.
A process he couldn’t watch. David wasn’t paying direct attention in that exact moment, but he would be eventually, and Mason didn’t want to be caught watching. So he pretended to scribble something down on the hotel-provided notepad, then went back to his management and his spreadsheet. He’d actually cranked through quite a few tasks, since there really wasn’t much for him to handle on the job site. Jake and the contractors had things under control. He marked off the design collage, and he marked off a dozen phone calls that Eliza had assigned him—with big thanks to him for being willing to take stuff off her plate while she was dealing with the finale and gearing up for more projects soon to come.
Once he got all that marked, Mason opened his journal, then froze as the program spun up. He only calmed after the file opened and he saw the white text where he’d left off, unreadable on the screen…and then changed the text he wastypingto white as well. No need to raise suspicions, and if he misspelled something, he was the only one supposed to be reading this. As long as he was fine with the typos, what did it matter?
Also, he would go back in and fix them once he was alone.
It took way longer than normal for Mason to get comfortable typing, even though David was still silent, aside from the rustle of paper and the scratch of his pencil. Eventually, he managed to start documenting his day, including how absolutely confused he was by the mess of emotions running through him. He was uncomfortable. He was uncertain. He was ashamed. He was happy.
And he was unfortunately too turned-on for the situation. A guy was in the same room as him and he was trying not to bust the seam of his jeans. It was ridiculous, but Mason had long ago decided that in the journal, at least, even things he thought were ridiculous got written down.
