“It’s romantic.”
I scoff, shaking my head in disbelief. “It is not.”
Cyrus finally sits up straight, folding his arms. “Why? How the hell isn’t it romantic?”
I pause, still awkwardly leaning away from him. “Because all the weight and responsibility of your sexuality is on me, isn’t it? As soon as things go to shit, you’re not ‘gay for me’ anymore—it’ll be my fault you’re gay. My fault that your life is ruined and your family quarrels with you. No thanks, mate.”
“No! I wouldn’t do that to you. It won’t be like that—”
“And what about Pippa?” I ask, incredulous. “You’re to marry her in three months—”
Cyrus grabs my arms and pulls me upright toward him. When I’m close, he uses one hand to thread his fingers against the back of my head while he holds my upper arm tight with the other.
“Will you just—Shit. Can you calm down for a minute? You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to say these things to you—how long I’ve wanted to touch you, you… absurdly clever, perfectly quirky and delightful man.” He leans in, but I lean back this time, still looking at him like he has two heads. I feel as if I’ve entered some upside-down parallel universe.
“Can we please just try?” Cy asks. No, he pleads. His fingers are rubbing against my scalp and his eyes are so soft. He’s never looked at me like this—with such affection and longing. “Please?”
Something inside me wants to give him this. He’s showing vulnerability like I haven’t ever seen from him. He’s my friend—my best mate. I care about him and his feelings. And he was the first bloke I ever had feelings for. My first love, even. My teenaged years were spent either with Cyrus or thinking about Cyrus. Daydreaming about him.
He’s here now, telling me he’s felt the same all along. That he fancies me too and he wants us to try. For some, this is the fairy tale twist. The golden path to a tidy, happy ending.
Not for me.
He’s still holding me when he tries to kiss me again, chasing me as I lean back even further out of his reach. I’m halfway to being flat on my back against the bed when I hear a soft knock against the doorframe. I whip my head to the side and Junichi is there. My heart sinks into my stomach.
“I’m heading home,” he says smoothly, his face unreadable. “Nice meeting you, Cyrus. And Jae, I assume you’ll call me should you need my assistance.” He offers a polite nod, then disappears from the doorframe. Cyrus looks at me with his nose upturned.
“What the hell would you need his assistance for? Who is he to you?”
Panicked and without a word, I pull myself out of Cyrus’s grasp, stand from the bed and yank the sliding door shut behind me as I leave the room and follow after Junichi. Christ my life. Utter shambles. A fiasco.
I come into the living room space just as Junichi is putting his dress shoes on to leave. I’m standing there, but he’s ignoring me. I keep my voice low. “That wasn’t what it looked like.”
Junichi stands, staring at me with his black irises. He says nothing.
“There’s nothing between us,” I say. “I’m not confused about who I want, Jun.”
“What about who you are? Are you still confused about that?”
I take the few steps forward to close the gap between us so that we’re about two feet apart. “I’m… getting there. That will take more than a day, I think. Is that fair?”
“It is.” He looks down at me. His dark irises are totally unreadable, so I tell him as much.
“I can’t read you when you’re looking at me like this.”
He reaches out and takes hold of my hand. My heart warms when he brings it up to his mouth then places a soft kiss into my palm. “You don’t need to explain your actions to me, Jae. You can sleep with whomever you please.”
I raise my eyebrow, triggered. “Can I?”
He breathes a warm, amused laugh into my palm, then kisses it again. He doesn’t answer me, so I go on. “We can’t have sex… but can we still be close like this? Can we kiss?”
He’s essentially making out with my palm now. It’s sexy, but I would rather he did it with my face. He speaks in between kisses. “I never said we couldn’t.”
I scrunch my nose. “We can have a snuggle sometimes?”
He laughs. “Do vampires snuggle?”
“Mm, it’s good. We do it well. Expert snugglers.”
He lowers our hands between us and entwines our fingers. “When can you come to my place to stay?”
“I was thinking this week. But now it depends on how quickly I can send Cy back home. Can I ring you tomorrow for an update?”
He nods. “Don’t let too much time pass or you’ll end up like you were yesterday.”
“Understood… Thanks, Jun.”
I wish I could kiss him—just to confirm that there is no confusion about this situation. But he’s so bloody tall. It always puts me at a slight disadvantage. The minute I reach up and into him, he could just straighten his giraffe-like body and I’m left looking like some git that’s leaning face-first into an open window.
He shifts down and places a soft kiss on my cheek, then presses his forehead into my temple. He’s warm and smells divine. His voice is low and I can feel his breath against my skin. “Good night, sunshine.”
When he stands, he slowly pulls our hands apart. I sigh. That was actually much better than my potentially thwarted kiss. A moment later he’s gone. Only the soothing scent of him remains. I feel like I’m floating as I walk down the hall toward my bedroom. But I’m grounded when I slide the door open and see Cy there, looking surly with his arms folded.
“You know, I read a novel with that title once—I’m Gay for You. It happens a lot in those romance books—which is how my dad found me out when I was sixteen, by the way. He uncovered my stash of erotica.”
I’m standing in the doorway, watching him and scratching my head. I literally have no words. He goes on.
“I always imagined you’d be chuffed to hear me say that, and then we wouldn’t be able to keep our hands off each other. We’d have awkward, bumbling but sincere sex since I’ve never done it properly with another man, then we’d fight my parents and the world at large. It was my dramatic opening line. It was supposed to change everything between us.”
