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“I’ll still leave her a nice tip. What do you say?” It was the last time he was going to ask, and his chest warmed when he saw a small grin creep over Percy’s gorgeous lips.
“I do have a hotel nearby. If you’re keen.”
Hell yeah. He was keen.
CHAPTER THREE
Once upon a time, Percy had been a laid-back sort of man. Not the coolest. He had a diary full of childhood trauma from being bullied by the spoiled twats that went to school with him and decided anyone with glasses and liked to read was worthy of mockery. But once he got into secondary, he made friends with similar interests, and people stopped giving a shit about who was a nerd and who wasn’t.
He got an after-school job at his neighbor’s curry shop, cutting and wrapping naan for takeaway orders, which gave him enough pocket money to hang out with his friends so he didn’t have to admit how poor he was. And he’d earned enough to help Penny buy new clothes every now and again so she didn’t have to stress their mum out about how little they had.
Percy’s childhood was fairly shit, but he didn’t even realize it until he was an adult with a master’s in architecture, a business loan, and several investors who believed in his vision. By twenty-six, he had droves of wealthy clients from all over the UK and EU clambering for his office designs. He funded Penny’s university education and her wedding—and subsequent divorce—and set their mum up in a small cottage with no stairs in Cornwall, where she’d always wanted to live.
Things should have been perfect. And they were, for a while. But he should have remembered that even the good things weren’t lasting.
The shit-storm started the night Percy let one of his interns set him up on some ridiculous dating app. That was the beginning of the end of the man Percy had become—confident and full of his own self-worth. All because of a date with a man called Evan, who had a pretty smile and gorgeous hair and a way of making Percy feel very small and worthless—like he should be grateful every day that Evan still wanted him.
It took four years, six months, and three days for Percy to finally realize he was worth so much more than Evan had tried to convince him he was. And even then, Percy was still reeling—still trying to decide whether or not Evan actually had a point about him. Maybe he was worth just a little bit less than everyone else.
But he had the confidence to leave, at least, so he sold his flat and moved to Glasgow, working out of his offices there. He spent months licking his wounds and hoping that one day, he’d wake up and his dreams weren’t about the shit-show that had been his relationship.
Of course, apart from getting therapy, Percy threw himself into work, clocking seventy hours a week for the next three years and praying that things magically get better.
At the very least, his workload made it so he didn’t have to think about the life he’d escaped while he was conscious. But it was also likely the sleep deprivation that was behind his decision to open the US office the moment Penny said she was going to make her stay there permanent after the adoption looked like it was going to go through.
“Lila’s Deaf,” Penny had said on one of their phone calls—early morning for him, late at night for her. “I’ve already put my name down for sign language classes so she can understand me once I’m allowed to have her full-time. The other homes she’s been in…Christ, Percy. They’ve been a bloody nightmare. Say you’ll do this with me? I want her uncle to be able to speak with her.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he told her. “I’m already online looking up lessons so I can get started.” And that, at least, wasn’t a lie.
Percy had always been the sort of man to give himself to a project a hundred and ten percent. It was why he’d been so bloody wrapped up in Evan without seeing all those little red flags waving until it was far, far too late. But he didn’t need to think twice about Penny and his soon-to-be niece, so he had his assistant get a contract for private BSL lessons.
Then he had his manager start the ball rolling on opening up a US office.
The rest was history.
Or, well, the rest led him to embarrassing himself in a Deaf café because he couldn’t for the life of him ever remember learning that Americans used a different sign language.
And that horrific day led him to the moment on a coastal, temperate night, walking three blocks from a bar to his hotel room with one of the most attractive men Percy had ever met in his life. A man who was so gorgeous he had no business wanting Percy. But Wren did. He’d been flirting all night, and Percy was so ready for this next step.
He was shaking with nerves because the last time he’d been with anyone, it had been Evan—a sort of goodbye shag, in a way. God help him, but he remembered every second of it too. It had been late. Evan had been gone for three—maybe four—days, and Percy had been wallowing in their half-empty flat.
He’d known in those wee hours before the front door opened that it was well and truly over. He couldn’t keep living with Evan’s cheating, and his contempt, and the way he sort of got off on making Percy hate himself. And in truth, he hadn’t actually expected to see Evan again.
Then he’d come through the front door.
He remembered the feeling in his gut when he turned his back on Evan, sliding into the bed. He recalled with far too much clarity the feeling of Evan tracing lines up and down Percy’s spine the way he loved.
And then his soft voice whispering in his ear about how much he missed him and what a shit he’d been.
He was weak in that moment, and he gave in. He let Evan fuck him face-to-face, drank in all the words that fell from his former lover’s lips like a waterfall. He was soaring and on the verge of crying as he came. His resolve to let things end was damn near shattered.
Then Evan went to sleep facing away from him, the way he always did, like he couldn’t stand to admit he and Percy were sharing a bed.
He hadn’t touched Percy again. He was gone in the morning, and so were most of the things he’d left behind. It killed him knowing he might have let Evan stay—that he might have let it go on and on for those crumbs of affection that Evan was only willing to give him when shit was hitting the fan. He’d lost his ability to feel brave and confident.
Was it his decision to move, or had Evan done it to prove that he could have made Percy stay? It was something he was still working through in therapy, but he wasn’t sure he could come to a conclusion. Not without knowing—not without asking Evan, and he’d rather die than ever speak to his ex again.
A sharp tap on his arm had Percy jumping half a foot into the air, and he turned to see Wren staring at him with a deep frown. “Are you okay?” Wren asked, his voice a deep, thick rumble.
