It's beautifully damning, really, and Jake clings to my forearm before looking over my shoulder. “Should I make us something to eat? Or are you thirsty?”
There are jokes to make, but I behave. “I was kidding about the snacks and drinks, but if you want something, I don’t mind.”
“There’s wine. Or I’ve got plenty of liquor, too. Or there might be—” He stops and sighs. “I’m not actually sure what you like other than the beer I’ve seen you drink and the pitcher of sangria you shared with me.”
“I like everything.”
The exaggerated wink I give him is enough to crack something that we needed to break, and he chuckles as he slips away from me. “Of course you do.”
I watch him pull a bottle from a rack built into the island, a corkscrew from a drawer, and two glasses from where they’ve been recently washed, and he looks as good opening and pouring wine as he does anywhere else. I’d told him that the chance to be so many of his firsts is a fucking privilege, and it certainly is, butthisis a privilege, too. This chance to watch an ornery biker—onewho’s been all Guinness and leather for years—skillfully open a bottle of pinot noir and hand me a glass while he’s barefoot in his picture-perfect kitchen.
The black bleeding into his light eyes suggests something far less refined, and I’m all too happy to accept that too, grateful for the toast he offers me now.
“To friendship?”
“To friendship.”
We sip and stay apart all over again, and there’s probably some risk of me leaving him right here if we don’t figure out where else to go. With anyone else I’m fucking, I’d already be bent over the island, or maybe the couch or a desk or the dining room table. With any friend I want to get to know better, I’d be sitting next to him by the firepit and asking questions until sunrise. Jake is everything at once, and I don’t think I’ve ever known the friends and benefits to be so evenly matched.
My next sip becomes a gulp.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Jake sighs. “And at this point in my life, it’s not a feeling I’m used to. The uncertainty.”
“You’re not uncertain aboutwhatwe’re doing, though. You're not having doubts about whether you want to do it.”
“Not at all. But now we’re in my kitchen, and there’s nothing in our way. No bruises and bleeding. No trivia night or hospital meeting. No gallery crowd. And with nothing to stop me, I’m not sure how to get to the other side of this.”
“This?” I ask.
“Wanting you to touch me again and not knowing how to askfor it.”
I close my eyes and force them open again because he needs me to know whatI’mdoing, and while everything he just explained seems backward—having nothing in the way should make it easy to get anywhere we want to be—it’s exactly why I was hesitating, too. We’re going into this both greedy and careful, and however contradictory that feels, it’s arousing as fuck.
And more than a little terrifying.
There’s a second I consider setting our glasses aside just to touch him right here. He wants it. He asked for it, if only by admitting that he doesn’t know how to. If I took his wine away and opened his mouth with mine, we’d be ready for everything else within seconds. I could be back in my car in half an hour, and home another thirty minutes after that.
Could be and won’t be, because I wrap my hand around the bottle of wine instead and nod toward the stairs. “Do you mind if I bring this to your room?”
“No.”
“Then lead the way.”
Jake takes another sip first, then he pads across the kitchen, and I follow him wordlessly. As soon as we’re in his bedroom, I set the bottle and my glass on his dresser, and he turns to watch me leave my phone, keys, and cards there, too. He drinks while I pull my socks off, eager to feel his ridiculously soft carpet beneath my feet. I stop without undressing any further, grabbing the bottle to top both of us off before I move across the room and help myself to the balcony door. It’s mid-October and the night iscool, but the goosebumps on my skin have little to do with the temperature outside.
I want to check Jake’s body for goosebumps too, but I’m still when he stands next to me, and we drink with no need to talk right away, the comfort of it not something I’m used to.
“You like the wine?” he asks eventually.
“Mmmm, it’s very nice. Smooth. Rich. Fruity.”
“Did you pull that assessment straight from your Grindr profile?”
“Rich? No,” I huff, my pointed look between his bedroom and his backyard impossible to miss. “And I’m definitely not pulling anything straight.”
He smiles, then lifts his glass. “Lucy gets a bunch of wine from the resort and sends it to me. I’ll let her know this one’s a keeper.”
“It is,” I agree. “Just holler when you need my opinion on another bottle.”