Page 5 of Tribute Act
When he set his bottle on the bar, I said, “Thanks for the beer. I’m Nathan by the way.”
He smiled. “I’m Mack. Pleased to meet you.” Was that a Scottish accent?
I swallowed. “Likewise.”
“So,” he said easily. “Are you looking for some action tonight?”
Christ. There was direct, and then there was direct. Distantly, though, I heard myself say, “Yeah. How about you?”
Jesus, his eyes. I wondered if he actually felt sad right now, or if the impression of melancholy was just an accident of genetics—that slight tilt, and the dark, melting colour.
“Oh, definitely,” he replied, a distinct smile in his voice. “Hopefully we’re after the same thing—what exactly is it you want?”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Did he want specifics? “Well, to blow off some steam, I suppose.”
I was just playing for time with that one, but he smiled as though I’d pleased him. “Sounds like we’re on the same page.”
Are we?
He leaned towards me, and I thought he was going to kiss me right then. Disappointingly, though, he stilled before our lips touched and said, “Shall we . . . pay the bathroom a visit?” He raised an eyebrow in teasing enquiry.
God, I was into him, my cock stiff as a board at having him so near. Even so, my stomach knotted up at his suggestion. I wasn’t into sex in club bathrooms. No matter how hot it sounded coming out of Mack’s mouth, I knew once we got there, I’d probably start hating it, feeling self-conscious and watched.
“No?” he said, at whatever he saw on my face.
I met his gaze. “Maybe somewhere . . . a bit more private? I’m not much of an exhibitionist.”
He didn’t seem to find that too absurd, just asked calmly, “Are you asking me back to your place?”
I made an apologetic face. “I’m staying with a friend tonight, and I think he’s about to get lucky, which means I’ll be on the living room floor . . .”
He seemed to think about that, watching me in silence. At last he said. “Well, I’m at a hotel—we could go there if you don’t mind a walk. It’s on the outskirts of town, though.”
I swallowed against sudden nerves. Whispered, “Sounds good.”
“Okay,” he said, offering me a crooked a smile. Then he lifted his beer, drained it, and set it on the bar. “I’m ready to go whenever you are.”
I found Gav and Adam on the dance floor. They both had their T-shirts off already, Gav’s smooth, wiry chest pressed up against Adam’s broader, more heavily muscled one. Adam didn’t look too pleased to see me, till he realised I was heading off—then his smile was huge. I pointed out Mack, who was standing at the doors waiting for me, and promised to text Gav the name of the hotel. Then I jogged back to Mack and we left.
We walked through town, across the busy centre, and out past the residential suburbs. We walked right out to the edge of town, into that odd no-man’s-land of roundabouts, slip roads, and industrial units that surround so many British towns. It wasn’t a landscape for pedestrians. Pavements were dispensed with and the few drivers we saw stared at us curiously through their windscreens as we cut across grass verges and clambered over traffic furniture till we reached the big, soulless discount hotel where Mack was staying.
We entered the tiny reception area, nodding a hello to the bored clerk at the desk, passing banks of vending machines stuffed with snacks, dead-looking sandwiches, and toothbrushes on our way to the lifts.
“I’m on the fourth floor,” Mack said as we entered the lift. It was only then I realised how little we’d spoken on the way out here. Mack had apparently been content to walk along in silence, and strangely enough, I hadn’t felt the need to fill that silence, as I usually would with someone I didn’t know. There was something oddly restful about Mack. He had a laid-back vibe that made him easy to be around.
Hearing his voice now, though, in the hushed silence of the hotel, brought me out of the comfortable daze I’d fallen into.
I glanced at him as the lift doors swished open and we exited onto the fourth floor. “Is that a hint of a Scottish accent I hear?”
“A bit of one,” he confirmed, though his tone didn’t exactly invite questions.
I followed him down a long snaking corridor to room 443, watching as he shoved the key card in the slot, opened the door, then stepped aside in an old-fashioned way to let me precede him. I felt slightly disconcerted by his manners, but walked past him as invited. The lights came on a moment later, the circuit completed by Mack inserting the key card into the slot by the door that closed slowly, heavily, with a quiet click of finality.
It was a surprisingly nice room for a budget place, dominated by a huge double bed. There was only a narrow strip of floor space around the bed, but who needed floor space with a bed that big? There was a decent bathroom too and a TV mounted high up on the wall.
A battered rucksack and a guitar case lay abandoned in the corner. Stuff had spilled out of the rucksack onto the floor, a scrambled heap of fabric and toiletries, like Mack had been rifling in there for something. The remains of his dinner—a fast-food meal—littered a small table near the TV. The tea and coffee tray had already been ransacked, a little pile of tiny milk cartons torn open and upended on the table, two used tea bags slumped against each other like tiny wet sacks. Mack crossed the room to flip on a lamp in the corner, then killed the main lights. When we got to the stage of taking clothes off, I’d be glad of that.
Mack approached me, his expression watchful and serious. Really, he had ever such a nice face. Something in my chest twisted just looking at him.