Page 29 of Merry & Bright
Rob chuckled. “Go and sit down while I get you a drink,” he suggested, and sidled past me, giving my arse a quick grope on the way.
I headed for the gap at the table Rob had left between Ben and Freddy’s new boyfriend.
“Hey, Quin,” my ex greeted me as I climbed over the bench to squeeze in beside him. “Glad you made it, man. It’s good to see you at last.”
Ben and Leon had been off on their travels again, and I hadn’t seen them since our last encounter in the street a year before.
“Good to see you too,” I replied, returning his smile.
“I thought for sure we wouldn’t see you tonight,” Ben continued. “Not when Freddy said you were working when she called.”
“Oh, he’s not so bad these days,” Freddy interrupted from the other side of the table, smiling. She looked at me and raised a single pierced brow. “Did you get your reports finished?”
I shook my head. “Nah. I’ll sort the rest in a few days’ time. I just want my first placement to be—”
“Perfect,” she finished for me. “I know. But don’t worry, they’ll love you.”
“Placement?” Ben asked.
I turned back to him. “I’m changing career—I’m in the middle of teacher training just now. The reports I was doing are for my first placement.”
Ben’s jaw dropped and I laughed.
“Budge up,” Rob said cheerfully behind us and everyone squeezed up another impossible fraction. Somehow he managed to winkle his way into the tiny space Ben and I created between us while carrying several bottles of beer, a stack of glasses and what looked like about ten bags of crisps. As soon as he sat down, he began doling out his wares, pouring a glass of beer for me and chucking bags of crisps around the table.
Once we were all settled again, Ben leaned past Rob to catch my eye again.
“I’m really surprised, Quin.”
“What’s this?” Rob asked, glancing between us.
“I told him about me doing teacher training,” I explained.
“Quin wanted to be a teacher when we were first together,” Ben added, then looked at me. “But after you started with the consultancy stuff—well, I’d have put money on you sticking with that. You were always so committed to that job.”
“Yeah,” I said, smiling wryly. “I was. It took me a while to see that it wasn’t really right for me.”
“What changed?” he asked, and without thinking, my gaze went to Rob.
“Oh. Right,” Ben said. He even gave a little laugh, but when I looked at him, I saw he looked sad, and I felt shitty for a moment, till Leon turned to him and said something in his ear and his sad expression melted away, replaced by a bright smile.
It was fine. Ben was fine. Blissfully happy, in fact. But later, I found myself dwelling on that moment as I hovered at the side of the dancefloor in Space, watching a group of my friends dancing.
I was so absorbed in my thoughts that when a pair of hands landed on my waist, I jumped at first, only to relax an instant later into Rob’s familiar touch, sighing as he plastered himself against my back and rested his chin on my shoulder.
“Hey, Beautiful,” he murmured in my ear. “Why aren’t ya dancing?” He rocked his hips against mine to the beat of the music.
I chuckled, canting my head to the side to give him access to my neck. “I’m a terrible dancer. I have no rhythm.”
“You do when you’re dancing with me,” Rob said as he nuzzled me. “I keep you on track.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “You do. My pace is all off without you. I get lost.”
He licked a stripe up the side of my neck, making me shudder. My cock was so hard right now. I pushed my hips back, welcoming the answering thrust of his hips.
“You’re an all-in kind of guy,” he muttered into my ear, making me shiver. “Totally committed to whatever you’re doing. I love that about you.”
And he did. He actually loved the very thing about me that had made me a shitty boyfriend to Ben and a thoughtless boss and a career-obsessed dickhead. Because it was the same thing that made me want to be the best teacher I could possibly be and that made me love Rob with all my heart.