“Forget your shirt. You can talk to me all night with that accent.” He winked, twisting to lean one elbow on the bar and faced him.
“I’m busy tonight.”
“Tomorrow night?”
Fletcher held his lecherous gaze. “All the nights.”
“Tease.” The man took his drinks and swayed off to find someone else to flirt with, reminding Fletcher why he hated the clubbing scene.
After getting his drinks order fulfilled, he made his way through the bouncing throng to find the others. Katy and Leo, and everyone else who seemed to crop up whenever there was a night out, circled around a tall table filled with buckets of ice and bottles. Natalie wasn’t there. She was on a night shift.
Fletcher would have to be the wallflower alone tonight.
“Where’s Heston?” he asked after slipping into the group and downing half his beer in one. He should go slower, the thought of heading back to the bar wasn’t that appealing. Perhaps he could persuade Heston to leave after one drink. But by the looks of the vodka bottle on the tall table in front of Katy, Heston had already made a fair dent in that as well as the cocktails back at the Meridian.
“He’s dancing.” Katy sucked her drink through a straw and swayed side to side along with the beat of the pseudo-pop music. “Don’t be mad, but he drank a fair bit before the evening performance too. They had champers backstage to celebrate the opening night.” She winced.
Fletcher glanced through the crowd to the main dance floor. He thought Heston would be knackered from two rounds on stage and would want to veg at home rather than dancing. Age hadn’t diminished his need to strut his stuff. Finishing the dregs in his bottle, Fletcher caught sight of his boyfriend on the outskirts of the dance floor. He wasn’t alone, though. Nor was he dancing. He was whispering in the ear of another man.
When Heston got tipsy, he got frisky.
Placing the bottle on the table, Fletcher kept his eyes focused ahead. They were both too close for comfort, but he kept calm through the pounding of his heart and prickling skin. There was something familiar about that fella. And when Heston slipped a hand on the other man’s hip and leaned in, Fletcher drew in a harried breath.
With nothing but his own rampant pulse in his ears, Fletcher stumbled through the crowd, avoiding elbows and arses, to approach the scene. Then he stopped. And listened.
“You think he’ll be up for it?” Diego peered up at Heston with sultry eyes. “He doesn’t seem the sort.”
“Leave him to me.” Heston held the Italian’s gaze, his words slurring. Fletcher knew that slur. Knew those tipsy whispers. “I like you.”
Fletcher shivered. “You do?” he asked, voice calm but the anger was rigid in his bones.
“Darling!” Heston moved away from the Italian, but only slightly, and Fletcher couldn’t bear the internal itching. “Look who’s here.”
“I can see.” Fletcher glanced from one to the other. “You like him?” he asked, nodding his head toward Diego.
“And he likes you.” The very suggestion in Heston’s voice caused a sudden pang of nausea in Fletcher’s gut. He’d thought they were over this. He’d thought never again. He’d been wrong. Those two words he’d been uttering whenever Heston mentioned there was someone else interested hadn’t rubbed off the way Fletcher had hoped they would. “You can see how that might work in all our favour?”
“What the feck—”
“Fletcher, darling. One night. One magnificent night. I can promise you that.”
Swallowing those words like acid, Fletcher couldn’t believe what he was hearing, what he was seeing, what was happening. Heston had promised him. Promised him!
The man had led a full and promiscuous life before him and Fletcher had been aware of his past—the club scene, the multiple partners, the alternate lifestyle. But that had been over some time back. And, yea, he’d tried coercing Fletcher into a more open and active bedroom scene when they’d first started dating. But Fletcher had refused. He was a one-man-only lover. Heston had accepted that. He’d asked him to marry him with the foreknowledge that they would be it. The two of them. Just the two of them.
Breathing heavily, he glanced from one wide-eyed man to the other.
It wasn’t about fear. It wasn’t about not knowing what to do. It wasn’t any of that that made Fletcher not want to take up Heston’s continued proposals for an open relationship. It was about the aftermath. It was about feeling as if he was inadequate. That the other man was better. That he didn’t match up and never would. That he, by himself, wouldn’t ever be enough.
And the pain of giving himself to someone who didn’t love him was still too raw.
“Siamo spiacenti, I—” Diego’s Italian was a step too far, regardless of what it meant. And nor could he stand there to accept Heston’s lecherous suggestion when he still swayed beside Diego, sliding a finger down the man’s tie.
“Ye want him.” Fletcher angled his head toward the Italian, gaze bearing into his boyfriend and his accent thickened. “Then ye don’t get me. Make a decision, Heston. Cause ye can’t have both.”
With that, he bashed through, toward the exit, his name being hollered after him. He didn’t stop. He marched through the queue for the cloakroom, into the street where the cheers for one more to be let in pierced his ear drums. He continued on to the Strand, staggering along the busy thoroughfare and didn’t stop until he found a darkened alley way, where he hid against a wall in solitude, allowing himself to breathe again.
His heart pounded. His eyes stung. He trembled as he covered his face in his hands. Was that the most stupid thing for him to have done just then? Giving Heston an ultimatum? What if Heston refused to change? Where did that leave him? Up shit creek without a fecking paddle. But he had to maintain some self-respect. He’d caved too often. He couldn’t keep living in someone else’s shadow. He couldn’t go through feeling like he wasn’t worthy. Not again.
Rain soaked his shirt and he screwed his eyes shut, facing up to the droplets that splattered onto his skin, and was content to stay there until his heart exploded. It had all been for nothing. Everything he’d done to keep Heston happy had been for nothing. He couldn’t satisfy him alone. He wasn’t enough.
He choked.
It was the fire exit doors slamming open against solid wall half way up the alleyway that jolted him to the present, loud pumping music spilling out to the street. He squinted through the darkness, making out a figure being jostled out of the club’s back exit. Two hefty bouncers didn’t stop at just the throw either, they continued to beat, pound and kick a man to the curb.
Fletcher froze. Until conditioned instinct took over and he hollered a cautioning, “Oi!”
The bouncers glared up at him. Then with one last kick to the man’s stomach, they scurried back into the club, the doors ricocheting closed to render the alleyway into an obscene silence. Adrenaline-fuelled, Fletcher ran and crouched to help him up.
“Fecking Jeezus!” He startled back on his heels as the man’s face came into view. Bruised and battered, but still a face renowned.
Jackson Young.
Chapter Seventeen