30. Jeremy

The moment that Ryan had called over Foster and pulled him into a headlock, giving Foster a noogie and asking him who he was texting all night, Jeremy felt that the room had gotten too crowded. For one of the first times in his entire life, Jeremy wanted to be outside, wanted to be out in the mountains, where everyone wasn’t so damn loud and he could just sit on Davis’s back porch and figure this all out.

So he did, turning abruptly on his heel and heading out to Foster’s back patio, and he put the pieces together from the last few minutes. One moment, he had been watching Davis tentatively slot in with his friends, and the next, Dec had blown Jeremy’s mind wide open.

Davis was dressed as an actor who was “definitely not straight.”

Which meant…

Davis wasn’t straight.

That explained the looking.

Davis wasn’t straight.

That explained the tension that had pulled between them recently.

Davis wasn’t straight.

Which meant he wasn’t imagining things and he could potentially—

“Hey, you good?” And there Davis was, sliding the door open and poking his handsome head out.

“I’m fine, just—” Jeremy took a breath in and let it out, a small cloud of cool air emerging from his lips. “Actually. We should talk.”

“Your friends are nice,” Davis answered.

“They’re a goddamned nuisance.”

He smiled. “Yeah, that, too.”

“We should talk.”

“I can drive back up to the mountains, if you’d like.” Davis looked at the ground. “Sorry if I made things weird.”

“No, please don’t drive back up. It’s dark, and that road is very dangerous.” That felt overprotective, not caring. Not sexy. Jeremy sighed.

“I have headlights, Jeremy.” Davis laughed.

“Maybe I want you to stay.” And Jeremy just opened his fucking mouth and said that.

“Okay,” Davis responded. “I have a hotel room, so do you want to meet for tea tomorrow morning? Give you some space?”

“I don’t think space is what I want right now,” Jeremy breathed.

“Oh.”

“I can drive you to my place,” Jeremy said, more to the creek below than to Davis.

“Okay, but, um.” Davis took a deep breath, swallowed, then continued. “Should I grab my bag from my truck?”

Jeremy felt a flame of hope burn bright in his chest, like the first catch of a match before it settled. “I mean, that’s up to you. I can always drive you back to your truck. After we talk.”

“I’ll get it, just in case,” Davis said, leaving the doorway. Makes sense, Jeremy thought to himself, the fact that Davis was always prepared. Remembered that he had been an eagle scout, which Jeremy had then learned took more commitment than he would have had at seventeen. His brain immediately went to wondering if he had gotten a merit badge in knot tying.

There was a commotion inside, and Jeremy heard Foster cry out “You just got here!” Jeremy went back inside to where Davis and Foster were talking by the door, Davis with his keys in his hand.

“Jeremy,” Foster whined, drawing out the last syllable. “He’s leaving.” Shit, Foster was a bit drunk. Which, in Jeremy’s experience, meant that he usually was the one encouraging everyone to stay out for “just one more drink” or, more recently, he had tended to get oddly morose and prone to talking about desires and goals and a lot of other maudlin topics that Jeremy didn’t want Davis to experience. “You finally brought him here, and now you’re leaving? You should stay, and you should want him to stay, because everything is so fucking transitory now, and no one stays.”

“Easy, Foster,” Flo said, pulling his arm away. She made eye contact with Jeremy and gave him a nod that said I got it from here. “Plus, it does seem that he’s not leaving alone.” Her eyes knowingly flicked to Davis, who had attempted to sneak out the front door behind Jeremy.

“He’s new in town,” Jeremy stumbled to explain. “I’m gonna just, uh, make sure he gets somewhere safe.”

“Good,” Foster said. “At least someone will get some tonight.” Jeremy felt his face heat while Flo guided Foster back to the beer pong table. If Jeremy knew anything about Foster, it was that his mood wouldn’t last, and he’d be back to the life of the party in a few minutes.

“My team!” Ryan was yelling, corralling Foster to be his teammate in a game of beer pong. He’d be fine.

“Are you ready?” Davis said, bringing Jeremy back to the present moment.

“Yeah, just—” Jeremy dug his keys out and made an awkward gesture toward where his car was parked, a functional, perfectly fine sedan that Jeremy now was concerned was too small for Davis’s broad body to fit into.

Which was stupid, he reflected as he folded himself into the driver’s seat, because Jeremy had always been the tallest person in a room, and he fit into this car, occasionally, in his younger days, into the back seat with men who were shorter than him.

Davis sat in the passenger seat with his bag on his lap, looking a little like he was a kid whom someone’s mom was driving to school.

“You can toss that in the back,” Jeremy suggested. Davis turned and set it, gently, in the back seat. Because, of course, Davis was a large man who could move with the grace of a small kitten when he wanted to. Jeremy started the engine, an uncomfortable silence blossoming between the men.

“So,” Jeremy said, awkwardly drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as he eased onto Broadway. “Your costume.”

“What about it?” He could feel Davis getting defensive.

“I, uh, well. Um.” God, where had his suave nature gone? Where had the guy gone who could dance up to anyone and find a good time? “I didn’t, uh, well, realize—”

“You didn’t realize I was queer?” Davis said, a dry laugh in his voice.

“Well, no,” Jeremy said, feeling stupid.

“Good,” Davis replied smugly.

“Why good?”

“Because I didn’t want— don’t want— anyone at work to know.”

“But I’m gay! And we work together!” Jeremy flapped a hand between them as he pulled up to a red light.

“Jeremy, have you seen yourself? Your friends? Vanberg? You walk through and work in a world that is very different from mine,” Davis said simply.

“But, well,” Jeremy sputtered again, “I just feel like you could have told me. Like, I’m gay. I’m not going to be upset that I get to work with another queer man. I would think you would want the community.” Jeremy parked in front of his house, unsure of where the evening was going. There was something bubbling deep in his stomach, and he wasn’t sure if, when it rose to a boil, it would turn into anger or excitement or an emotion wholly unfamiliar to him.

“Are you mad at me?” Davis asked, turning toward him, a tinge of red high on his cheeks.

“No!” Jeremy almost shouted.

“Then why are you yelling?”

“Because I like you, you pain in the ass. I like you and didn’t think I could like you, so I tried not to. But you’re so damn endearing talking about trees and the elk rut that I couldn’t help it!”

“Well, try being me!” Davis spat back. “You show up with your pretty hair and your design ideas and your long fingers, and then you listen to me? Shit, a guy gets ideas.”

“Wait,” Jeremy said, Davis’s comment slotting together with his thoughts in his mind like Tetris pieces. “You like me?”

“Yes!”

“Like, well, like like?” Jeremy felt like this was high school again.

Davis let out a frustrated noise and turned toward Jeremy, grabbed his face between his rough palms, and kissed him.

Jeremy would be lying if he said he hadn’t imagined what it would be like to kiss Davis, but there was nothing like the reality of a situation, the heat and desperation. It wasn’t a gentle kiss, nothing like the way that Jeremy sketched or Davis pointed out a specific type of fern. It was bruising and needy, progressing from closed lips to panting mouths in the space of a second. Davis’s tongue was hot as it slid against Jeremy’s own, and Jeremy was delighted to find that Davis moaned when Jeremy wrapped his hands around Davis’s wrists. He captured Davis’s lower lip between his teeth and was rewarded with a goddammit that was breathed into his own mouth.

“Wait,” Jeremy said, pulling back, pleased to find both men were winded. “This costume. Rock Hudson. This was your way of coming out to me?”

Davis’s lips were kiss bitten and red and delicious, peeking out from his scruff, as he smiled at Jeremy. “After mountain biking, I was sure you knew, but you didn’t, so I decided to be a little more, well, obvious.”

“You know what’s obvious?” Jeremy said, moving closer. “Telling me.”

“Jeremy,” Davis whispered against his lips, his breath hot and warm, hinting at what could come. “I’m bi. I like you. Now kiss me.”

And Jeremy did. The car grew steamy, and Jeremy felt, foolishly, for the first time in his life, like he was in a teen movie, being able to neck with a boy outside in a car. Two men making out in a subway car was something that most New Yorkers didn’t bat an eye at, and Philadelphia was too damn cold in the winter to do anything that wasn’t inside with the heat turned on, and it was too damn hot in the summer.

Jeremy licked up his neck, cursing the fact that Davis’s stupid, brilliant costume had buttons and that Jeremy’s fingers were too long and too awkward right now to even think about undoing them in this car. This car, which was getting too hot and humid and was not large enough for all the things that Jeremy wanted to do to Davis tonight. All the things that he had not allowed himself to even think were possible spun through his mind, but one thought had bubbled to the surface.

He needed to get Davis in a bed.

Now.

Pulling Davis’s earlobe between his teeth, Jeremy was rewarded with a pleased groan from Davis. “Cancel your hotel room,” Jeremy whispered. “Come to my place.”

“We’re at your place,” Davis smiled back. “Well, outside it.”

“Stay here.”

It had been a while, Jeremy realized, and he had forgotten how this other side of him came out during sex. A bit more demanding, more dominant than he was in his daily life. He hoped it wouldn’t scare Davis off. “Please,” Jeremy added, hoping it would take the edge off his request.

Davis, who was bulky and thick and delicious underneath his fingers.

Davis, who was nodding his agreement and fumbling for his cell phone.

Davis, who whispered “fuck it” and kissed Jeremy again, telling him, against his lips, that he’d just eat the cancelation fee if it would get him to Jeremy’s bed faster.