I flipped him off even though he couldn’t see it through the wall. “Can I take a quick shower? Contrary to what my former best friend said, I don’t drool, but I am sweaty.”
“Okay, but you really don’t need to just to go for a ride.” He smiled and fuck me, it did bad things to me.
Thank God I’d worn a jock. “Maybe not, but I need one before we eat anyway. I won’t take long.”
I didn’t wait for him to answer and practically ran to the bathroom. He might say it wasn’t necessary, but there was no way I was going to sit inches from Henry without a shower.
Henry didn’t need me to navigate; the directions were already programed into the car’s GPS when we got in. I tapped on the screen when he asked me for directions and the way his ears turned pink was adorable. Yes, he’d been busted, but the fact he made up a reason to let me ride in the car was super nice.
On the way home, he dropped the pretense he needed directions. Free from my ‘obligation,’ I got to soak in the amazing interior. The leather was soft and perfect, nicer than any furniture Trevor and I owned. My fingers brushed over the real wood inlay on the dashboard and admired how perfectly it fit with the rest of the interior.
The car was more a work of art than a mode of transportation.
“You’re really a car buff, aren’t you?” Henry asked.
I wasn’t sure I qualified as a “buff” since I’d never owned a car, but I loved to look at them. “That might be a bit extreme, but I’ve always liked nice cars. As a kid I collected diecast model cars.”
“Nice.”
They were until my asshole brother stuffed M80’s in them and blew them up for shits and giggles. “The closest I get is when I go to auto shows. Alex and I went to the D.C. show last month and they had a Quattroporte. They wouldn’t let anyone sit in it though.”
“Is Alex your boyfriend?”
In the fantasy land where I lived, Henry sounded unhappy I might have a boyfriend. Of course, he couldn’t be more wrong. “Hardly. He’s a friend of my grandparents who’s taken on the role of surrogate father when my own decided he didn’t want a faggot son.”
Which came outwaytoo angry.
“Sorry about your dad, but good on Alex for being a friend.”
Wasn’t that the truth. “He’s a good guy. He moved to D.C. a couple of years before me and Trevor and helped us figure out where to live.”
“It’s nice you had someone here to show you around.” He squinted at the GPS which looked like it had malfunctioned. “Do I stay straight?”
“Are you?” Holy shit! I hadn’t meant to ask that out loud. “Ignore me I’m an idiot with no filter. Yes, we stay on this road for about a mile.”
The stupid navigation systemhadto fizzle out the same time as my brain. Now I needed a good reason to stay in my room.
“Gotcha.” He shifted gears. “And no, I’m not straight.”
His answer sent a jolt through me, but I squashed it as much as I could. His orientation didn’t matter. He was Trev’s cousin. Play cousin? He was something to Trevor and that made him offlimits. “You didn’t need to answer me. As Trevor will tell you, I say inappropriate things when I’m nervous.”
Henry glanced over, smiled, and then returned his attention to the road. “It’s totally fine. I’d have mentioned an ex-boyfriend at some point.”
I’d learned to ignore the burst of hope I felt every time a hot guy was nice to me. Just because he’d made a point of letting me know he was gay and single, didn’t mean he was interested in me. “Thanks for giving me a ride. This is way more amazing than I expected.”
“You should feel the ride on the highway.”
The double entendre was impossible to miss. This could go two ways. I could flirt back, or I could stick to the clinical. I knew what I wanted to say, but he was still related to my roommate and best friend, however remotely, so I took the other path. “I read it’s the best luxury car when it comes to handling and agility.”
“Exactly right. Maybe one weekend we can go for a drive, and you can see for yourself.”
Henry was making it difficult to ignore his not so innocent flirting. Maybe he was just being nice, but that sounded like he was asking me out. And I wasn’t going to go there with Trev’s cousin. No matter how hot the guy was. “That’d be awesome, but don’t go to any trouble.”
“Definitely no trouble. I love to poke around new places.” He paused and glanced over. “If you’re free this weekend, I was thinking of going up to Frederick. They have a lot of antique shops and other interesting places to explore.”
Nothing ambiguous there, he’d asked me on a date. And I totally wanted to accept, but I still had a tiny, little, enormous problem. “Let me see if Trevor’s free and I’ll let you know if we can go.”
Henry stiffened. Probably because he remembered I lived with his cousin and things could get awkward fast. “Sure. Let me know if you two are free.”
