In his head, he reclaimed his leg and pulled it back under the table. Pushed his plate away and leaned back. Thanked Jonah for breakfast and left with a resolve not to waste time waiting on flashes of auburn across the office to make his day more bearable. In reality, he pushed his plate aside and leaned forwards, grinning as Jonah met him in the middle. “Thank you,” he said. “In case I was not clear.”
Jonah smiled too, softer than Sacha’s sharp edges as he moved his own plate aside. “You were clear. I hear what you don’t say, remember?”
“I remember.”
More silence stretched out between them, loaded this time, hot and heavy. Jonah’s lips called to Sacha, soft and pink. He wanted to bite them, and feel them on every part of his body. He was more tired than he’d been for a long time, but with Jonah so close, the binds of fatigue loosened. New energy surged in his veins. Addictive energy. Was this how friends with benefits worked? Or was their friendship clouded by the fact they’d started out pretending to be something more?
Figuring it out was more complicated than Sacha had time for, but the sense that he was in too deep was a cold, creeping wave that felt all wrong against the heat simmering where his leg touched Jonah’s.
You’re overtired. It makes you emotional.
Sacha groaned and sagged back in his seat.
Jonah’s fair eyebrow ticked. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Why do you ask this?”
“Because you look tired and I’m your friend.”
“You are not my friend. We sleep together. That is all.”
“Okaaaay.” Jonah leaned back too, widening the much-needed distance between them. “If that’s how you feel, I should probably get to work, but—”
“But what?” Sacha snapped, already hating himself. “Go to work, Jonah.”
Jonah stared, both brows rising in tandem, hurt colouring the uncharacteristic irritation in his emerald gaze. Surprise, too. Sacha’s harsh words had shocked him as much as they had Sacha. “Are you—?”
Sacha glared.
Jonah shook his head. “Forget it. I get the message. Have a good day, Ivanov.”
He left, ending their encounter so abruptly it took Sacha a moment to remember it was all his fault. That the frigid gust of wind that blew through the café door in Jonah’s wake wasn’t an accident. He’d engineered it. Forced it. And now he was alone again and everything was supposed to be easier.
It wasn’t. And he was having a hard time recalling how and why and when he’d come to the conclusion that it would be. His brain felt glitched. As if it had short-circuited and blasted Jonah with the consequences too fast for Sacha’s heart to catch up. Or he’d dreamt the whole thing and he was about to wake up on his couch with his laptop keyboard imprinted on his cheek.
He dreamt about Jonah a lot.
12
“Pick up, pick up, pick up.” Jonah paced his office, phone pressed to his ear, willing Lily to just answer her phone already. He’d called her three times and her voicemail, however cute, was starting to irritate him beyond belief.
“Hey there, stranger.”
“Finally,” he ground out. “Where’ve you been all morning?”
“Um, I don’t know. Asleep? It’s still the middle of the night in California.”
“Balls. I’m sorry. I forgot you flew out yesterday. I thought it was tomorrow.”
“That’s okay. My schedule changes so often I can barely remember it. What’s up, boo? You sound stressed.”
“I’m not stressed.”
“You’re blowing up my phone on a weekday for a chat? What happened? Is there a Tube strike or something?”
“I don’t use the Tube.”
“Well, you should. That way you’d get to see all your hard work out in the wild. I saw your Superdry billboards in every station from Kensington to Hampstead while I was home.”
“I don’t need to ride the Tube to see my billboards. I walk places too.”
“No, you don’t. You use the gym in your building and take cabs everywhere. Don’t lie to me, Jonah. I know you too well.”
Jonah wasn’t in the mood to point out that Lily was rarely home enough these days to know what his actual habits were. He’d called to sound off about Sacha, not bicker about his non-existent pedometer. “When are you coming back?”
“Christmas Eve. Why? Do you miss me?”
“You know I do.”
“Then you should answer your Skype calls. I’ve buzzed you twice this week.”
“I’m sorry. It’s been crazy at work.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Jonah,” Lily drawled. “It’s arse o’clock in the morning over here. Please don’t tell me you really have called just to talk about the weather. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing’s the matter.”
“Liar.”
Jonah sighed and ran a hand over his unruly hair. It needed cutting, but he lacked the enthusiasm for a trip to the barber. “You were right about office romances.”
“Ah ha! I knew it. So it wasn’t a one-night stand?”
“More like a three-night stand, or four…I can’t remember.”
“Are you in love with him?”
“What? No. Of course not. I just…”
What? How are you going to explain this?
Jonah had no idea, so he went back from the start and vomited out every encounter he’d shared with Sacha until he came to the part where he’d stormed out of the breakfast café.
Lily whistled. “Wow. That sounds dramatic.”
“It really wasn’t. I left for work, he followed half an hour later.”
“How do you know that?”
“What? That he followed me? It stands to reason as we work in the same building.”
“I meant the fact that you know exactly how long it took him. Are you spying on him at the office? Because I have to say, even if things were going well, that’s creepy. Let the man live.”
“I’m not spying on him. I just happened to be near the door when he walked through it.”
“I’m not convinced.”
“I don’t care.”
“No? So answer me again. Why are you blowing up my phone in the middle of the night?”
“I told you why.”
“You told me what happened. Not why it’s upset you so much.”
I’m not upset. But Jonah’s heart wouldn’t speak the words, because they weren’t true. “I’m just…confused, I suppose. We were supposed to be friends with benefits, but the friendship part seems to freak him out.”
“Which part? Specifically?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t realise it was making him uncomfortable until this morning.”
“When you asked him if he was okay?”
“Yeah, I mean, I wasn’t trying to dissect him or anything.” Jonah drifted to the window and gazed out over the city, noticing the Christmas lights more than he ever had before he’d met Sacha. “He just looked like he hadn’t slept all week, so I asked him if he was okay.”