Page 24 of Best Man (Close Proximity #1)

“I do that all the time.”

“Name the last time, and it can’t be if it was just a polite response to someone’s joke so you didn’t make them feel bad.”

I think hard and finally shake my head. He nods in satisfaction. “Exactly. Zeb, you’re a snarky, sarcastic bastard but you conceal it with mostly everyone apart from a few.” He lifts his fingers and counts. “Me, Felix, and Jesse.”

“Max,” I say on a long sigh.

“No,” he says passionately. “You’re more alive with that boy than I’ve ever seen you before.

You laugh and you’re animated and just here.

In the present with the rest of us mortals.

I don’t want you to lose that and go back to being responsible Zeb who’s too bothered about other people rather than himself.

You put yourself too much in their shoes when you should be kicking your own footwear off and dancing on the odd table. ”

“I can’t help being responsible,” I protest. “That’s a good thing.

And my responsible boring side tells me that I shouldn’t do this with Jesse.

He’s lovely, Max. He’s warm and kind and funny.

He’s quick-witted and clever. Why should someone like that be saddled with me?

I’m forty-four. I’m twenty years older than him, for fuck’s sake.

Any glamour he sees in me at the moment will have long worn off by the time I’m sixty and he’s only forty. ”

“Or maybe it won’t,” he says quietly. I stare at him, and he gives a small sigh.

“Maybe it will never wear off. You don’t know that, Zeb.

You’re so focused on what’s going to happen down a long road that you don’t stop to look at the scenery around you.

” He pauses before shooting me a quick intense glance.

“He could die tomorrow, you know. I’ve seen death.

” His eyes darken. “Far too many times with people I’ve cared about.

Jesse could be knocked down by a bus or have a heart attack or fall down some stairs or–”

“Shut up,” I hiss. “Don’t say that.”

That dark gaze of his sharpens and a look of astonishment comes over his face. “You care about him?”

“Well, of course I do,” I say desperately. “He’s my employee and–”

“Shut up, fuckwit. You actually care about him.” I open my mouth and he makes a sharp gesture with his hand. “Oh my God, this is better than I thought.”

“How is it better?” I say fiercely. “Nothing can come of this.”

“So you admit it?”

I stare at him for what seems like an eternity.

Then I give up because Max has always won a stare-out.

Even as a teenager he had preternatural patience.

“I do care for him,” I say slowly. “I want the best for him, and the best is going to be someone younger and less damaged.” I think of all the things Patrick flung at me in our last major row when I’d come home and found him in bed with his best friend.

Hours of shouting. Mainly by him. I remember the criticism and steel myself.

“It’s good you know what’s best for everyone, Zeb,” Max says, popping the last piece of toast in his mouth. “Maybe you should give the Tory party a ring and see if you can sort out Brexit. Or maybe ring up the Kardashians and ask them to stop taking pictures of themselves.”

He sits back, obviously abandoning the argument of how good I am with Jesse. As much as I wanted him to shut up, I now immediately want him to start again and list more reasons why I should be with Jesse.

Instead I make myself relax. “Maybe to the first, but the second is hopeless. Mankind was doomed as soon as the first camera was invented.”

After breakfast, I wander the hotel looking in every room downstairs, but Jesse is nowhere to be found.

Max had refused to tell me where he’d gone and said I deserved to wonder because I was a shithead.

He’d then informed me that he wasn’t stopping at the hotel any longer because he couldn’t bear to watch me being a twat and stated his intention of buggering off home.

I’d given him the two-finger salute, and we’d parted with a fierce hug as normal.

When I come to the function room, I find twenty people standing by easels in front of a huge floral display. I look around but don’t spy Jesse. It doesn’t surprise me, as he’d come out in hives if he had to spend this long standing still. However, I still slump in disappointment.

“What are you doing?”

I spin round when I hear Patrick’s voice and sigh inside. I could do without this. “Just looking,” I say slowly. “You not painting?”

“Not fucking likely. I’d rather eat my own testicle with a rusty spoon.” I shake my head, and he looks around. “Lost your little twink? Need a hand looking for him?”

“I don’t need your hand with anything,” I say evenly. “And please don’t call him that in such a derogatory tone.”

He laughs incredulously. “What the hell is the matter with you? You need to chill out, Zeb. You’ve got even more uptight, if that’s possible, since you’ve been with him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Oh , I’m ridiculous,” he says, still giving me that smile that makes him look like a tosser. “I think that title might belong to the middle-aged bloke sticking it to a twenty-something.”

I spin round and something in my face must warn him, because he steps back quickly.

“You need to shut the fuck up,” I say quietly but so forcefully that he blanches.

“I’m getting very fucking tired of the way you’re talking about Jesse.

He’s my guest, and if you don’t like him, then there’s a simple solution. We can both fuck off.”

“You’d go with him? You’re my best man.”

I stare at him. “What bit about him being my date are you getting confused about?”

“Please. He’s like a fucking chip wrapper. Easy to dump. ”

I open my mouth to say something I’m pretty sure I won’t regret, and then we both turn as Frances comes up next to us. “What are you two boys talking so intently about?” she asks with an edge to her voice.

I smile innocently at her. “Patrick was just saying how he really wants to do some painting.”

Patrick scowls at me but immediately pastes a smile on his face when she turns to him. “That’s wonderful, darling. I’ll put you next to your mother.”

“Ouch,” I mouth and then smile at both of them. “Well, I must be going,” I say cheerfully and make my escape.

I stop outside the function room. Jesse isn’t coming here, so where to next? A sudden horrible thought occurs to me. Has he already been back and collected his stuff? Maybe he’s caught the train home.

Once that occurs to me, I’m consumed with the desire to know.

I bolt up the stairs and let myself into the room.

It’s filled with the eerie murky gloom of a summer storm, the light turning everyday objects almost extraordinary.

The wind blows outside, flinging the first few drops of rain at the window.

The room is tidy because housekeeping has been in. I rush over to the wardrobe, flinging it open and then subsiding with a sigh of relief when I see his clothes jammed in there in a disorganised mess.

A crack of thunder shakes the air and a few seconds later there’s a flash of lightning. The room fills with the intense sweet scent of rain on dry earth.

I look around, filled with sudden despair.

Where is he? What if this is it? What if last night’s wild events are the only time that I’ll ever be with Jesse?

It’s only when I think it’s over that I realise how much it meant.

I shake my head. I’ll go downstairs and wait in the foyer.

Lunch will be served soon, and he won’t miss that.

I turn, and it’s only then that I notice the steam coming from the bathroom door that’s slightly ajar.

“Jesse?” I call but it’s drowned out by another crash and rumble of thunder. The lightning follows quickly after, so the storm must be overhead. I push the door open and promptly lose the power of speech. All I can do is stare .

The French doors onto the balcony are open, letting in the scent of the storm which mingles with the green tea aroma from the bath.

The wind blows the gauzy curtains back and rain patters onto the balcony, encroaching into the room and dampening the tiles.

The huge copper freestanding bath glows in the strange storm light but no more than the man inside it.

He’s on his front, his arms holding onto the edges as he stares out of the window.

All I can see are his wide shoulders and the sleek muscled planes of his back leading down to the globes of his arse which are just above the waterline.

All that sleek olive skin glows in the light, so for a second my fanciful mind passes me visions of the way the gods used to come down to Earth to tempt mankind.

He turns to look at me, and I dismiss the notion. No god ever used that cross expression to tempt someone.

“Here you are,” he says almost casually. “I wondered when you’d turn up.”

I lean back against the sink and cross my arms over my chest, trying to conceal the fact that they’re shaking slightly. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

He shakes his head, the ends of his hair spraying water over high cheekbones that have become flushed. “And yet here I am.”

“Well, I never thought you’d be in the suite.”

“Why?” He laughs. “Oh, because you binned me in here this morning.”

“What a terrible expression. And I never binned you. I just said it was a mistake that couldn’t happen again.”

My words trail off, and he shakes his head again. “Like I said. Binned.”

I’m trying valiantly to pay attention to his words but all I can see are those tight arse cheeks, and my head is filled with the sounds of the sex last night and the way he felt when I pushed into him.

It was sex unlike anything I’ve had before.

A connection that I’ve never shared with another person.

I realise that he’s watching me with a sardonic expression, and I open my mouth, but he shakes his head.

“Here’s what’s going to happen, Zebedee. ”