“Of course I do. I was too drunk todrive, not function.”
Benito leaned against the doorframe and thrust his hands in his pockets. His phone—singular—and his car keys were on the chest of drawers beside him.Where’s his other phone? Did he even have it last night?
NowthatMickey couldn’t remember, and not because of the rum he’d drunk before Jaiden had cut him off. Or the crazy-hot blow job he’d woken up to. But because apparently his brain had cherry picked the details of their latest encounter, and all Mickey clearly recalled was the relief in his soul when he’d looked up to see Benitoright fucking there.
“What’s the matter?”
“Hmm?” Mickey snapped his gaze back to reality. “What?”
Benito pushed off the door and came to the side of the bed.
Mickey sat up.
Benito crouched in front of him and frowned. “Are you okay? I mean, like, really? Last night was pretty heavy.”
“It wasn’t, actually. I’m years into this journey, and what happened last night was fucking tame. I do know better than to medicate cravings with booze, though, so I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t apologise to me. I don’t deserve it.”
“Why not?”
Benito’s gaze shuttered, then slid over Mickey’s shoulder, staring past him at the window. “I don’t know. I just don’t.”
The bubble they’d created overnight began to deflate. Mickey eyed Benito’s shower-damp hair and itched to comb his fingers through it, but the heartfelt yearning was ten minutes too late. “I’ve never asked you straight up,” he said. “Maybe I didn’t want the answer, but we can’t hide from it forever.”
Benito said nothing, and tension blanketed the room, settling deep in Mickey’s bones.
He leaned forward and found Benito’s hands, tangling their fingers together. “This might not make much sense to you, but I have to know what it is. Whatever you’re into, I have toknow, okay? If we’re gonna keep seeing each other, I can’t live with the fucking wondering. I can’t—fuck. I just can’t.”
Benito sucked in a shaky breath and tore his stare from the window.
The apprehension in his gaze was killer. Mickey shivered, and every moment they’d shared till this point seemed to hang over a gaping cliff. “Tell me,” he whispered. “Please.”
Desperation flashed in Benito’s dark eyes. He took another breath; then something seemed to shut him down. Iron gates went up, and whatever he’d been about to say died a fiery death. “There’s nothing to tell,” he said flatly. “I ran with a bad crew in London, but I don’t do that shit anymore.”
“Sure about that? Because—”
“Fucking hell.” Benito rocked back on his heels. “Why won’t you listen to me?”
“I am listening,” Mickey said. “I’m just trying to tell you it’s okay if there’s more to it. I know I said I couldn’t be around road life anymore, but maybe I overreacted. Or it’s something I can work on. I just don’t want any bullshit between us.”
“It’s not bullshit. How many times do I have to tell you I’m a broke taxi driver?”
Benito spoke low, but his words echoed in the quiet room all the same, and another shudder clutched the base of Mickey’s spine.
He repressed it, swallowing down the roiling mass of doubt and fear that bloomed in his chest. “I’m sorry,” he blurted. “I told you already I’m a paranoid freak, and it gets on top of me sometimes—”
Benito silenced him with a kiss, a fierce clash of lips that took Mickey back to the night they’d met. When they’d been strangers in an unfamiliar room, about to jump into the abyss.
No parachutes.
Freefall.
Some days Mickey was still falling. Others, he’d crash landed already and fucked everything up.
They broke apart, panting. Benito’s gaze was bottomless.
Fierce.