“You used to live in that world, too. And you looked outside it.”
“Guess I did.”
“See anything interesting out there...?” Damon teased softly.
Rian flushed, his lashes flickering as his gaze darted searchingly over Damon’s face, before he looked away. “...yeah. I think I did.”
It hit Damon, then, that he was still holding on to Rian’s shoulder, that slim curve fitting comfortably into his palm, fine articulated bones pressing against him and body heat soaking into his skin.
And they were alone in his apartment.
Again.
Only this time a kiss they hadn’t spoken of and so much more stood between them, and Damon couldn’t ignore the charge in the air and the heaviness in his gut.
He pulled back quickly, sliding off the arm of the chair and standing. “You want something to drink?” he tossed over his shoulder, rubbing the back of his neck. “I could put water on for tea.”
“Tea would be nice, thank you,” Rian said faintly at his back, after a pretty long damned pause. “I... Damon, what do we do now?”
“We wait.” Damon checked the coffee pot, then lifted out a soggy filter full of grounds and dumped it into the trash. “You can go ahead and use my laptop to send that email, if you want.”
“Sure.” The whispered sound of typing, quick-fire patters and clicks, followed...and then, quieter, more hesitant, “But... I...” The rattle of typing stopped. “I wasn’t just talking about Chris.”
Shit.
Tension caught Damon up in an iron claw, but he forced himself to keep moving, keep focusing on practical things. Spraying a little food-grade cleaner into the filter basket and wiping it out, so the water passing through wouldn’t pick up the lingering flavor of coffee; rinsing out the already-clean glass carafe just in case; filling it from the sink and using it to top up the tank in the back of the pot. Mundane things. Ordinary things. Anything to keep from dreading what he knew Rian was about to ask.
“You weren’t?” he answered carefully.
“You. Um.”
Here it came.
He could feel it barreling toward him in the audible intake in Rian’s breath; in the strain in his voice.
“Damon, you kissed me,” Rian said. “And I kissed you back. And then you wouldn’t talk to me for a week.”
Damon winced as he flicked the pot on to heat. He suddenly couldn’t shake this need to keep moving—pulling down two mugs from the cabinet, rummaging in a countertop bin to see what kind of tea he even had on hand.
Then again, he’d been like this all week.
When the reason he hadn’t even been able to talk to Rian was because every time his thoughts ran up against the memory of that kiss, his brain came to a screeching halt and refused to process everything that came after. How Damon felt about kissing Rian. How he felt about Rian kissing him back. What it meant, what he...what he wanted, when he just...
He couldn’t fucking want anything from Rian.
They were so far apart on the spectrum of lived experiences they couldn’t even fucking see each other from opposing shores.
Being physically attracted to a pretty thing didn’t mean shit. Nor did it mean shit that said pretty thing was physically attracted to him, either. It couldn’t be more than that.
Because Damon wasn’t about to let someone like Rian Falwell break his heart.
He tried to keep his voice even as he ripped the foil packets off a few bags of plain black tea, when right now didn’t seem the time to ask Rian if he’d prefer mint or orange spice or some other blend. He’d probably get a throw pillow lobbed at his head. Though he was bracing for one anyway as he said, “...do we really need to talk about that?”
Rian let out an irritable little huff. “Kind of seems like a relevant topic, yes.”
“Nah.” Fuck, it wrenched deep in his chest to say that so casually, but he forced himself to keep it light. “Don’t you ever read romance novels? Sometimes two people just get so pissed off at each other they can either punch it out, or kiss it out.” He shrugged. “I don’t like punching people. So kissing is the better option.”
He expected yelling.
Possibly a little bodily harm.
He didn’t expect the stunned silence that followed, and fuck, he hoped he hadn’t just flippantly crushed something fragile. Like capturing a butterfly in his palm...then closing it into a careless fist.
He turned back to face Rian, only to find Rian staring at him incredulously over the top of the laptop, while the sound of the coffee maker—hissing and sighing and trickling as it began to boil water into the carafe—filled the space between them.
“You read romance novels?” Rian spluttered.
Damon arched a brow, then jerked his chin toward the bookshelves under the window; clearly Rian hadn’t noticed the spines when he’d been twirling around Damon’s space before. “Yeah. They’re good,” he said. “Problem?”
Rian blinked, then inclined his head, gaze drifting along the wall, and he leaned forward to set the laptop on the coffee table before twisting himself sideways in the easy chair, kneeling on the seat with one hand braced on the armrest, another stretched out to run his fingers over a few of the well-worn, well-read paperbacks.
“Not at all,” he said absently. “Only wondering if you’d lend me some.”
Now it was Damon’s turn to stare. And Rian glanced back at him, eyes widening slightly, a puzzled knit to his brows.
“What?” he asked a touch defensively. “Art is art, no matter its form, and literature is art.”
“Uh-huh.” Some of the tension left Damon’s shoulders, letting him relax a little, shifting to lean his back against the edge of the counter. “Sure. Pick out whatever you want. I’m not a library, so no due dates.”
“Mm.” Rian seemed utterly absorbed in perusing the spines, though he stopped on the Reluctant Royals trilogy, tugging out A Princess in Theory and cradling it gently in his hands, looking down at the cover with such clear curiosity and interest that Damon didn’t expect the next pointedly mild, “So that’s all it is, then? We make each other so angry that a kiss was a safe outlet to vent that frustration.”
Inwardly, Damon groaned. Outwardly, he only shrugged. “Seems like all it needs to be.”
“Intriguing.” Rian lightly ran his delicate fingertips over the cover of the novel, following the coils of mauve concentric circled patterns against the bright teal of the heroine’s dress. “I’ve heard enough about these books to know...in that trope, isn’t their anger just a mask over their attraction? Don’t they usually end up falling into bed, then falling wildly, torridly in love?”