With a smile, Sam took his hand. Bo contained a shiver at the contact; Sam’s hand was warm and dry against his. “Hold on to me.” Sam hooked Bo’s fingers through one of his belt loops. “I don’t want to lose you.”
Oh, if only Sam meant less I don’t want to lose you in the crowd and more I don’t want to lose you ever. A guy could dream.
Bo didn’t let go of Sam until they reached the street. He’d been given permission to touch; no way in hell was he giving that up earlier than he needed to. Granted he was only touching Sam’s jeans, but still. It was something.
At the corner of Blue Jays Way and Front Street, they waited with a huge crowd—other Jays fans—for the light to change. Bo stood to the left of and slightly behind Sam, and he grinned like a dummy when Sam reached for his arm, slid Bo in front of him, and rested his hands at Bo’s waist.
“So you don’t get lost,” Sam muttered near his ear, breath tickling his skin.
Bo grinned so wide his jaw hurt. Sam was touching him! Sam was totally into him!
Sam was totally into him, right? Straight guys didn’t go around hanging onto their friends by the waist, did they?
Sam moved a step closer to him, his front rubbing against Bo’s back.
Definitely gay. Definitely into Bo. But just to make one hundred percent certain, Bo ran the fingers of one hand over Sam’s wrist. Capturing Bo’s fingers in his own, Sam threaded them together. Bo’s heart fluttered, and he did an internal victory dance.
The light went green and, much to Bo’s dismay, they separated to cross the street, though Sam did hang on to one of Bo’s belt loops. The animated crowd pressed in on them from all sides, high from their home team’s win. The temperature hovered somewhere around fifteen degrees Celsius, cool for almost-summer, but in a couple of weeks humidity would hit and turn the air hot and muggy and gross.
“Hey.” Bo pulled Sam aside once they’d crossed to the north side of Front Street, out of the way of the crowd. It was barely ten o’clock, Bo was wired, and he didn’t want this night to end. “Do you want to get a bite to eat? Or something?”
In the glare of a streetlamp, Sam’s gaze landed on him, drifted down to his lips and lingered.
Hoo, boy! Suddenly, Bo was sweating.
Sam smiled and jerked his head to the side. “There’s a pub down the street. Wings and beer?”
Bo nodded. The pub was only a thirty-second walk away, which was really too bad. Bo was very much enjoying the feel of Sam’s hand at his lower back.
The pub was packed but they managed to snag an empty high table on the front patio. The crowd looked like a combination of Jays fans and university students out for Thursday night drinks. A waitress appeared at their table almost as soon as they sat down. Once they’d ordered, Bo sat back in his chair and eyed the pedestrians. Shy all of a sudden, Bo didn’t know what to say now that he knew Sam wanted him back.
“Did you enjoy the game?” Sam asked.
“It was great. Is it always that exciting?”
“No,” Sam said, laughing. “Sometimes it’s boring as hell. We got lucky tonight.”
We got lucky… Sam must’ve realized what he’d said because he sent an enticingly sexy grin Bo’s way. Bo’s face heated at the look. He was starting to sort-of regret not going straight home. Sort-of because even though he really wanted to get naked with Sam, he wanted to talk to him too, get to know him. Besides, was it smart to start something between them when he’d be going back to Ottawa at the end of the summer?
Who says you have to go back? Wasn’t like he was tied to Ottawa forever. There wasn’t anything there calling him back. He wasn’t emotionally tied to the city. Bo seriously had no idea what he was doing with his life beyond the next few months. How did he know Sam wasn’t his future? Just because everything else in his life had been temporary—schools, homes, jobs, boyfriends—didn’t mean Sam had to be.
Okay, he needed to stop thinking about this, pronto. Nothing had happened between him and Sam yet and he was already planning their future? Maybe he should take a step back. Get out of his own head.
Sex helped get him out of his own head.
Why hadn’t they gone straight home again?
Oh right, because he wanted to be friends with Sam, as well as his lover. He hadn’t spent the past month wallowing in self-pity over the fact that Sam didn’t want to be his friend not to take advantage of it now.
He was torn out of his thoughts when the waitress set a couple of beers on their table. “The wings will be right out,” she said, and disappeared inside.
“Thanks for my hat,” Bo said to Sam, running his fingers along the rim of the brand-new Blue Jays-branded baseball hat on his head.
“You’re welcome. I would’ve gotten you the jersey too.”
“Not for two hundred bucks!”
Sam shrugged, all, Yeah well, that’s how much official sports jerseys cost.
Way above Bo’s pay grade.
Sam’s three-quarter-sleeve jersey was Blue Jays blue, with the Jays logo displayed on the left pocket. Bo couldn’t take his eyes off Sam’s defined biceps, on glorious display thanks to the snug-fitting T.
“Did you get all your stuff to your lawyer today?” Bo immediately regretted the question when the smile slipped off Sam’s face. “Sorry, it’s none of my business.”
“No, it’s not that, it’s just I’m not actually supposed to talk about it.” Sam’s smile turned sheepish. “I only told you last night so that you’d know I didn’t flake out and forget our dinner date on purpose.”
Dinner date. Dinner date! It had been a date, after all!
“Well, I appreciate it,” Bo said, trying to contain a gleeful grin. “We won’t talk about it anymore, though. So, change of subject. How ‘bout them Jays?”
It made Sam laugh. “Did you actually enjoy the game or are you just humouring me?”
“Are you kidding? It was awesome. I can’t believe it was my first one.”
“We’ll go again,” Sam said. “You’re here all summer, so why not? We can check game days when we get back home and see what works with your schedule.”
“‘See what works with your schedule?’” Bo repeated. “Dude, seriously, the only people I know here are you and…well, you, and my life revolves around taking care of a half dozen chickens who think they’re the cast of Chicken Run and a tiny pig named PomPom. Pick a night and I guarantee you I’ll be free.”
Sam chuckled before taking a sip of his beer. “Fair enough. What did you do in Ottawa before coming here? Were you working?”
“I worked in a bookstore. Assistant manager.”
“Sounds nice.” Sam looked like he meant that. “It was nice of them to give you four months off to come here.”
Bo shrugged and didn’t admit that the leave of absence was more of a resignation.
“Do you like it there?”
“Yeah,” Bo said. “I like it for the most part, but it’s not what I want to do for the rest of my life.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I have no idea.” Admitting that made Bo feel less like the mature (ha ha) twenty-four-year-old he was and more like an eighteen-year-old kid again, fresh out of high school and required to make a decision on a university major.