Page 57 of Total Creative Control

“And what’s that?”

“Join in. If you’re drunk too, you won’t care.”

She sighed. “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

Neither did Lewis, but what choice did either of them have? Unlike Hippolyta, they couldn’t walk away from Charlie and chalk it up to experience. Not if they wantedLeeches: USA to happen.

So Lewis would be there for drinks at fucking five, no matter how on edge he still felt, and no matter how much he’d have preferred a repeat of last night, eating fish and chips on the beach with Aaron.

* * *

After inhaling the snacks Toni had given him, Lewis managed to power through a good hour and a half of productive work before taking a shower and dressing for dinner in a fitted black shirt and trousers.

At five minutes to five, he left his room and knocked on Aaron’s door.

Aaron answered quickly, as though he’d been waiting. His eyelashes flicked down as he gave Lewis a quick onceover, and Lewis did the same, taking in Aaron’s white grandad shirt, tweed waistcoat, and jeans. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to his elbows, a chunky watch on his left wrist. Lewis’s gaze got stuck there for a moment before he managed to wrench it back to Aaron’s face, only to find the other man watching him half-curiously, half-warily.

“Hi,” Aaron said huskily.

“Hi,” Lewis returned. His mouth felt weirdly dry. “Did you have a good afternoon?”

Aaron shrugged. “It was okay. I went for a long walk. You?”

“Slept and got some work done.”

“And—” Aaron paused, adding carefully, “Are you—? That is, is everything okay?”

Lewis felt his cheeks warm. “Of course. Everything’s fine.”

“Right,” Aaron said, too quickly. “Good.”

Lewis cleared his throat. “We should go and get Toni. For someone who claims to be so chilled out, Charlie’s incredibly anal about everyone being on time.”

Aaron gave a chuckle that sounded forced. “He does like to run the show.”

They headed down the corridor, not looking at one another, and Lewis hated the weird awkwardness between them. After the morning’s events, it was inevitable, he supposed, but why should that be? Why was it that, when something so intensely, unexpectedly intimate happened between two people, it seemed almost to blast them further apart? To make it even harder to be close to them?

Or maybe that was just Lewis.

Mason had told him several times that he had intimacy issues—and Mason wasn’t the only one who’d expressed that view over the years—but Lewis had always shrugged such comments off. It was only now, walking beside Aaron, that it struck him that that it might be an actual problem because the idea that this could affect his relationship with Aaron permanently was fucking unbearable. There weren’t many people in this world that Lewis gave much of a shit about. The sad truth was, most people he could take or leave. But somehow, Aaron was one of the very few who had slipped under his invisible barriers, and now the thought of losing their easy intimacy was unendurable.

He had to get things back on the right footing again. Re-establish their fragile boss-PA-sort-of-friends-but-not-quite dynamic.

Toni’s door opened before they even reached it. She wore a purple, halter-neck, maxi dress that was simultaneously casual and glamorous. She’d ditched the glasses for contacts and wore huge gold hoops in her ears.

Aaron gave a low wolf whistle, and she winked at him.

“Sexy lady,” Aaron said, grinning.

“You look quite dapper yourself.”

“Dapper?” he protested, laughing. “You make me sound about seventy.”

Toni laughed. “I can’t callyousexy—even though you are. You’re twenty years younger than me. You’ll think I’m after you!”

“I’m here too, you know!” Lewis grumbled, stupidly irritated by this mutual admiration society that he appeared to exclude him.

“Yeah, well, you can shut up,” Toni replied.