Page 97 of Total Creative Control

But it seemed that seeing Aaron with Tag had finally fired up his latent capacity for jealousy. Then again, maybe this wasn’t the first time. Looking back, it was pathetically obvious that the antipathy Lewis had always felt towards Colin—who was objectively a fairly inoffensive guy—had also been jealousy.

Lewis scrubbed his hands over his face. This was crazy. He’d come here tonight determined to dowse the flames of his infatuation with Aaron, and instead he was stoking the fire.

Shit.

Was this a mistake? It probably was, wasn’t it? He was leading Aaron on, giving him the wrong idea. But what the fuck was therightidea?

“You okay?”

Lewis whirled around to find Aaron watching him warily. He had his robes bundled up under his arm, a dark bomber jacket zipped up over his sparkly t-shirt. If it wasn’t for those smoky eyes, he’d look like an ordinary guy walking down the street.

Except that Aaron would never be ordinary to Lewis.

“I’m fine,” Lewis said, and it was, weirdly, true. All the questions swirling around in his head dissipated when he gazed at Aaron, and Aaron gazed back, those grey eyes careful and assessing. Knowing.

A car swooped up to the kerb, and they turned. It was their Uber.

They got inside. The driver nodded a greeting, but didn’t say anything, and since he didn’t have the radio on, the whole journey was accomplished in an oppressive silence that seemed to ramp up the tension that had been building in Lewis all night.

It was a relief when they finally arrived. Climbing out of the car, Lewis followed Aaron to his front door, watching as he took out his keys and opened up to reveal a flight of stairs leading up to his top-floor maisonette.

“Straight ahead,” Aaron said, holding the door open for Lewis to precede him.

There was only one door at the top of the stairs, so Lewis went through, stepping into the dark interior, followed by Aaron, who switched on the light.

At which point Lewis nearly jumped out of his skin. “Fuck!”

There was a man standing in the corner, tall and dark and threatening and…

… it wasn’t a man. It was a life-size cut-out of…Skye Jäger?

“Jesus Christ,” Lewis gasped, pressing a hand to his chest. He felt like a gigantic idiot. “I thought that was a real person.”

Aaron gave a helpless laugh. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so used to it, I forget it’s there.”

Finally, Lewis laughed too, a strange, relieved sound. “Where the fuck did you get it?”

“In an auction at a convention,” Aaron said, his smile a bit embarrassed. “It was before I started working for you. Jay was there, but I’d actually gone hoping to meet you.”

“Me?”

Aaron rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah,” he said softly. “You were supposed to be there, but you called off.”

Lewis cleared his throat. “I’m sure Jay made a pretty decent consolation prize.” He turned back to the cut-out and noticed there was writing on it in silver sharpie. Moving closer, he bent down to read the words aloud. “Congrats, JägerMeister, you definitely deserve this! Jay Warren (aka Skye) xoxo.”

“JägerMeister?” Lewis said, looking over his shoulder.

Aaron flushed deeply, his expression suddenly agonised.

“Oh,” Lewis said, understanding dawning. “That’s your pseudonym?”

Aaron closed his eyes. “Lewis—”

Shit. This was really killing the mood.

“Forget I said that,” Lewis said quickly, walking back to Aaron and smoothing his hands over his shoulders. Aaron met his gaze, an uncertain look in his eyes.

Christ, he was… really lovely.