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He gave Chris a small smile. “Hi,” he murmured.
“Hi…” Chris smiled back, just as small, just as unsure. Silence hung in the air as they both looked awkwardly at each other. “Coffee?” Chris asked eventually, somehow finding the will to move.
Jamie nodded. “Sure.”
Chris tried not to notice the way Jamie’s body moved as he walked towards the kitchen counter and pulled himself onto a stool. He poured the fresh, hot coffee into the mugs and pushed one over to Jamie.
They stared down into their beverages, at a complete loss at what to say, at how to start. Part of Chris wanted no more than to reach over the counter, take Jamie’s face in his hands and kiss him. But he didn’t really know if that was what Jamie wanted. Had the night before been just the product of the earlier incident, of the sudden increase in sexual tension between them, or had they been slowly building up to this day by day?
Chris opened his mouth to say something, but Jamie jumped in first.
“Chris, I…” he began but was in the same instant cut short by the loud buzz of the front gate intercom. Jamie frowned and set aside his coffee, sliding from the stool and padding barefoot out of the kitchen and through the hall. A moment later, he appeared in the doorway and leaned his shoulder against it.
“That was my Aunt Helen at the gate and currently on her way up the driveway,” he said with a rueful grin. “She wants to take me out today.”
Chris breathed out, his stomach unknotting slightly, and nodded. “I’ll go get dressed,” he replied, picking up his mug to take with him as he went upstairs, passing so close to Jamie in the doorway that he could smell yesterday’s cologne and the scent of sex still clinging to him. Chris bit his lip and forced himself to keep walking so that he didn’t pin Jamie to the doorframe and repeat last night’s actions in the light of Aunt Helen walking through the door at any moment.
This was good, he thought to himself as he ran the shower and gathered together clean clothes. This meant that he had a whole day to collect himself, collect his thoughts, and try to figure out what to do before he was alone with Jamie again.
* * * *
Aunt Helen was Jamie’s dad’s sister. She had married a Broadway producer at nineteen and was widowed by thirty, inheriting millions in fortune. These days, Helen spent her time flitting around her very extensive social circle, staying just shy of being an alcoholic and lavishing attractive young men with gifts when it suited her. She was smart, she was sharp, and she was witty. She was one of Jamie’s favorite people on the planet, except she always tended to get a little too pushy when it came to his love life.
Helen breezed into the house, decked out head to toe in Chanel, and gave him a warm smile as she pulled him into a tight hug. After a second, she pushed back and wrinkled her nose, holding him at arm’s length as she looked him up and down with a raised eyebrow.
“Well…somebody certainly had a time of it last night,” she said with amusement. “I take it that the poor unfortunate soul you were doing it with has been turfed out already?”
Jamie rubbed the back of his neck. “You could say that…” he murmured. There was no point trying to deny it—he could even smell it on himself.
“Well, you can get your filthy ass in the shower and smarten yourself up, young man,” Aunt Helen replied. “Because they certainly won’t let you into Sushi Yasuda looking like you just got fucked in the back alley.”
Jamie laughed, then ran upstairs for the fastest shower of his life, throwing on whatever shirt and pants combination came out of the closet first. By the time he got downstairs again, Chris was waiting in the hallway, earpiece in, and back in full Secret Service agent mode with Aunt Helen circling him like a panther. Jamie bit back a grin.
“This one’s nice…” Aunt Helen mused. “Cuter than the last one,” she added in a side whisper before turning to Chris. “And what’s your name, young man?”
“Chris Roberts, ma’am.”
Chris was trying to keep his eyes firmly forward and Jamie could tell that he wanted to look in his direction.
Aunt Helen raised her eyebrows. “Does he come in packs of four?”
“Careful, Aunt Helen,” Jamie replied, selecting a jacket from the hallway and slipping it on. “The White House takes sexual harassment charges against its staff very seriously.”
“Damn…” she replied lightly before giving Chris a wicked smile and turned to link arms with her nephew.
Jamie met Chris’s eyes for a second. They were both trying so hard not to laugh.
Aunt Helen dragged him to the best sushi restaurant in town, plied him with sake whilst she threw a million questions at him. All the while, Chris stood not too far away and watched and listened. Jamie had been about to talk to him regarding what had happened between them the night before when Aunt Helen turned up. He’d been so nervous, seeing Chris standing there in the kitchen, making coffee in his underwear, looking slightly bashful and absolutely gorgeous. Jamie had wanted to say that he was sorry for taking advantage, that he didn’t want Chris to lose his job. But Chris was standing there in the restaurant, looking at him and smirking as Jamie tried his best to answer Aunt Helen’s quick-fire questions and all Jamie wanted to do was kiss that smirk off Chris’s face.
“So, I called your mother, and she tells me that you’ve been in the Hamptons for two weeks. Two weeks, Jamie, and you never called; you’ve not visited. You’ve been on TV, apparently—I obviously missed that one. She says you’re getting discharged from the army. Do you know what you’ll do? I’m sure your mother can get you a position on her staff—you speak all those languages fluently, I’m sure you’d do splendidly in the State Department. Or press liaison—you know how good you are with those vultures; you handle yourself beautifully and you have the political experience…”
Chris was actually fucking laughing at him! He had his hand clamped over his mouth, shoulders shaking with mirth. Jamie bit his bottom lip to hide the smile tugging at his own mouth as Aunt Helen continued.
“…and I hope you’ve not been sleeping with that Victoria girl again.”
“No, Aunt Helen.”
“Good. Never liked her—piggy eyes.”
