Mark mutters something under his breath that I don’t pick up. “He’s actually a total asshole,” he says, louder. “His personality is literally the worst I’ve seen in anybody.”
“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to hear what his best friend thinks of him,” I remark. “Let’s get this pair,” I can see the hiking boots fit well on Mark, though he’s totally lost interest in them.
“I was twelve,” I add, when Mark doesn’t speak. “You’re my type now.”
Mark puts his arm around my shoulder. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I confirm, leaning in against his side.
“Where to next? Mine for dinner? Sebastian will be in the library until ten, and Eddie is out with Bethany. There will be nobody to be nervous around.” Mark’s tone changes back to its usual soothing timbre.
“Sounds good.”
After paying and heading out, Mark catches my hand as we walk onto the street. “I appreciate you opening up, Kyle.” I look at his face to see his cheeks have reddened. “Even if I did just focus on the wrong point entirely.” He casts me an embarrassed smile.
If anything, Mark just made the entire conversation easier for me. Lightened it. To the point where I didn’t even feel the heaviness of what I had shared.
Chapter Twenty-One
Without a full party in it, Mark’s apartment is almost as clean as my apartment. Almost. There is a death trap of shoes just inside the front door. Mark stoops down, muttering under his breath as he brings the mess to order.
“Going off what you said, I expected this place to be spotless,” I tease.
“It would be. If I lived alone. You don’t know how happy I was when I stepped into your place and it was clean. And the fridge—all the dinners prepped and arranged so orderly? I almost proposed on the spot,” Mark says with a grin.
While I’m going red, he toes off his shoes and enters the flat. “I’ll get the takeaway menus—Eddie has stacks of them.”
I won’t tell Mark that the reason my place is so clean is pure necessity. I tripped on a hoodie I carelessly tossed on the ground during the early days of recovery and vowed it wouldn’t happen again.
I watch Mark’s disappearing back, then slowly drop my gaze to my feet. I place my hand on the wall for balance and step on the heels of my slip-on sneakers to take them both off. I slide them next to Mark’s and follow him down the hall.
He’s halfway across the kitchen with a stack of papers under his elbow. His dark eyes land on my feet and he misses a step. “You didn’t have to—” he pauses, gaze darting up to my face. “You’re comfortable without the shoes?”
I nod.
“This way.” Mark snags my hand and leads me down the hall to his bedroom.
I pause in the doorway, taking my time to look around. There’s a large king-sized bed pushed into the corner of the room, a flat-screen TV on the wall past the end of it. A simple bedside table, a standard dresser, and then three desks dominate the rest of the floor space. One of them is angled, with sketches of house plans propped up, one has a computer desktop, and the other is empty. There aren’t any pictures on the walls, but I’d expected that from Mark—I imagine the clean space appeals to him more than a framed photo would.
“When I can finally persuade Eddie to stop throwing parties, I’ll get those desks into the living room.” Mark retakes my hand and guides me to the bed. We sit together, going through the options and agree on pizza.
As Mark makes the call, I lean against him, ruminating on the day’s activities. He wraps the arm I nudge around my back and pulls me close to him.
As he hangs up, I nudge him again. “Will you go out with me? In a dating way?” I felt too ambiguous, earlier, promising to try to do better without even knowing what was going on between us. I know how I feel, but there isn’t anything said definitely between us. Mark has been clear that this isn’t a hookup for him, and for me, it is neither a hookup or something I’m willing to let slip through my fingers. I feel like after two years of watching Mark, only now was I getting to know what I’ve been seeing all this time. Mark is a lot more than a handsome face with a cocky attitude.
The hand around my shoulder slips up and Mark cups my cheek as he leans in to press a kiss to the opposite side. “Yes,” he says, no fuss or drama, a thrilled note in the word. He kisses my temple, too. “Even if I have to fight Christopher to do it.”
“You don’t need to fight him,” I object. “I talked to him. He promised to be…actually, now that I think about it he didn’t promise anything.”
Mark chuckles. “I bet he didn’t.”
“Don’t do what you did with Tommy. Chris will win.”
“Not with you taking my side,” Mark replies, that same confident note that I’ve been familiar with for years in his voice. “Want to watch something? Play something?”
I let myself be distracted from Mark’s statement and glance at his TV and game station. It’s been a while since I’ve hung out with anyone and played games. We boot up a battle royale game. Out of practice, I die as Mark endures to carry our team. We’re lying against heaped pillows, and I roll over so that my head rests on Mark’s abs.
Mark frees a hand from the controller to caress my hair, then returns his focus to the TV. I zone out, watching the screen, flicking my fingers idly over Mark’s tummy. He shivers as I touch his navel. I zone back in, tugging at his shirt until I expose his lower abdomen. Mark releases a hard exhale as I trace my finger along the defined v-cut of his muscles, and he fidgets under me. A lump is forming in his trousers.
