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Mitch’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “What answer?”
“Why didn’t you show up the other week?”
Mitch and I stared at his and Hunter’s entwined fingers. Such a simple touch, yet it made their faces glow like the New York City skyline.
“I’m sorry. I”—he glanced uncomfortably at everyone around the table—“I’m really sorry.”
Hunter played with Mitch’s fingers, looking into his eyes. “Look, you can talk to me okay? I know things aren’t ideal. I expect there to be issues. Just let me know what they are, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Lean in, I have something else to tell you.”
With a curious frown, Mitch leaned in. Hunter cupped a hand behind his neck and drew him closer still, as if to whisper in his ear. His lips brushed against Mitch’s jaw, then swiftly to his mouth. Their kiss wasn’t delicate in the least. Hunter locked him into a tongue party that had Mitch moaning and crumpling toward his lap.
With a murmured laugh, Hunter slapped Mitch’s ass and pulled back. “More of that on Saturday, after a date. What do you say?”
Mitch gulped and nodded, touching his ass in wonder. “I mean, no, I can’t.”
Hunter stilled his hands on the arm of his chair and a strange desire to pat him came over me, but I reined it in.
“Wait, this is coming out wrong,” Mitch said. “I’m leaving for home at the end of the week. My sister is getting married, and since Thanksgiving is next week, I’m taking the whole week off.” He bit his bottom lip as he continued, but I got the feeling there wasn’t much enthusiasm behind his next words. “Will you maybe come to the opening party of the 32nd floor of the Cathedral of Learning? With me? As a date?”
Hunter needled a finger into one of the netted holes of Mitch’s T-shirt and drew him in again. “You betcha,” he said with one last nip at his lips.
Mitch floated back to his position behind the bar, and Hunter drank his lemonade with the most enthusiasm I’d seen yet. I snuck a sip to make sure it hadn’t been spiked. Nope, unless plain ol’ good mood counted.
When we twisted and turned and rolled our way out of the bar, he asked about my work and the article I was intending to write for the chief.
“Sounds okay,” he said, unlocking the van.
“Just okay?”
“I mean, I’ve read your work. You’ll make it awesome.”
Once we were settled and strapped into the van, Hunter rested his arms on the steering wheel and looked over at me. “I just—”
“What?”
He started the car and reversed. “You said you didn’t think you were doing it just for the position at your dad’s company.”
He had heard me then. I’d just assumed it wasn’t worth acknowledging. A slight twist in my gut had me swallowing hard. I liked that he listened.
“That’s right,” I said, counting each wave of light rolling over us from the lampposts we passed. “I never thought it bothered me, but I want him to recognize me. See me as someone worth getting to know. I think I’ve associated winning the spot at his company with a chance for him to do that.”
The waves of light were coming slower now; Hunter must have lowered his speed.
“I get it,” Hunter said, his thumbs tapping against the wheel as if he were deep in thought. “I’m sorry for dragging you away from your work tonight.”
I rubbed my hands together, jamming them for warmth between my thighs. “I was probably too tired to produce anything of quality, anyway. Thanks for the distraction. Which reminds me”—I tugged at my seatbelt strap—“I’m gay, or—heavily leaning toward males.”
The van lurched, throwing me forward a couple inches; the seatbelt locked hard across my chest.
“When did you figure that out?” Hunter asked, regaining his control and smoothly turning toward home.
“There were a few signals from the start, so I decided to test my theory out.”
Hunter zipped onto College Street without indicating. I could just make out my apartment from here, its teal trimming a funky dark green in the night.
“Go on,” Hunter said.
I picked at the belt across my chest while I described my findings. “Things felt better with Quinn than they ever have before, and since the weekend I’ve been looking at guys differently. I think I can now say I am empirically more sexually attracted to males than females.”
Hunter raised one sharp eyebrow and gave a smirk that could land a mark in the dark. “Go back to the bit about Quinn.”
“Speaking of,” I said, gesturing out the window toward the path leading to my apartment. Standing opposite each other, arms widely gesturing as if in the middle of a row, were Shannon and Quinn.
Hunter slowed down just before our place, applied the brake, and leaned back in his seat, threading his fingers behind his head. “Well, you don’t see that often,” he murmured.
