Page 17 of The Fly-Half

“Are you going to get off me?” I asked eventually, the words so quiet I wasn’t sure I’d said them until Devon startled like a rabbit in headlights and launched himself into the air.

“Shit, yeah, sorry.”

“You’re fine,” I said as I hauled myself to my feet. “You okay?”

“Yeah, all good.”

He wouldn’t look at me, though. And from where I was standing, his face was tinted pink.

But I didn’t think it was because he was out of breath.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Devon

I shouldn’t have been thinkingabout sitting on Jonny’s thighs.

Not how broad they were, or how firm, or warm, or how right it had felt to straddle them. How much I loved the way it felt to stretch my thighs over his. Thank fuck the rest of my body had short-circuited because explaining why I was suddenly sporting a hard-on in the middle of training would have been a level of mortification I’d never have survived.

Even now, several hours later when I was at home and trying to get ready for my date with Peaches, all I could think about was sitting in Jonny’s lap.

I stared at the jeans, T-shirt, and jacket laid out across my bed, knowing I should get dressed if I didn’t want to be late but somehow unable to move. Was I really doing the right thing by going out with Peaches or was this only going to hurt more? Maybe I needed to cancel—feign an injury or some shit to give myself more time. Maybe I could even tell him the truth and apologise for wasting his time.

But then what? Was I going to spend the rest of my evening alone and wallowing in self-pity, jerking off to the memory of sitting on my best friend’s thighs? I couldn’t have sounded more pathetic if I’d tried.

“You’re going and you’re gonna have fun,” I muttered to myself as I grabbed my T-shirt and pulled it over my head. My French teammates had taught me how to dress over the years, and I’d tried to take their lessons about classic, effective styling to heart. Judging by some of Peaches’s pictures, I’d probably look a little underdressed, but I figured it was best to stick to what I knew.

And my body made a simple T-shirt, jeans, and jacket combination look really fucking good.

I did my best to try styling my hair before putting my watch on and the simple leather bracelet my sister, Courtney, had bought me a couple of years ago.

I checked my phone as I walked through to the kitchen in search of my wallet and keys, but there were no new messages and I wasn’t sure if I was glad or disappointed. Would it have killed Jonny to wish me well? Or would it have made me feel worse? Peaches hadn’t cancelled either, so I was definitely going. And if it all went to shit, then I’d have one drink, come home, and ring Jonny to tell him he was right. And maybe order a sharing box of chicken nuggets and fries.

Peaches had suggested we meet at a bar in town and it wasn’t too far, so with a deep breath, I opened my front door and headed out.

I stuck my headphones in as I walked, but nothing on any of my playlists was doing it for me and after spending five minutes skipping through songs, I eventually turned my music off and walked in silence. Being alone with my thoughts wasn’t the worst thing as long as I focused on things like rugby, so I lost myselfin kicks, replaying ones I’d missed so I could work out what I’d done wrong.

Sometimes I missed because of things I couldn’t control, like the Great British Weather, but sometimes it was because I’d mistimed my steps by a fraction, angled my foot wrong, or not quite calculated exactly how steep the angle was. And every one of those things could be corrected with practice. Even the weather could be accounted for.

And while a perfect record was impossible, I was damn sure going to give it my best shot.

I got so lost in thought, I walked straight past the bar and had to double back. It was a place near the bottom of Steep Hill with a large front window, suggesting it’d once been a restaurant, and two bouncers in black on either side of the door. They didn’t even give me a second look as I walked past them, which meant the baby face I’d had throughout my early twenties had well and truly gone, and I resigned myself to never getting IDed again.

The bar was already busy with a mix of the last of after-work socials, friends hanging out to get them through the last bit of the week, a few dates, and a group of older women who looked to be in their sixties and seventies and who seemed to be having a wonderful time judging by the number of empty glasses and wine bottles on their table.

“Devon!” A voice called my name and I turned to see Peaches leaning against the bar, a warm smile on his face as he looked me up and down. He was every bit as beautiful as the pictures I’d seen online.

When Ryan had called him “tall, dark, and handsome,” he hadn’t been exaggerating.

His dark hair was perfectly styled and curled around the nape of his neck, and his dark eyes were like deep pools I could get lost in, the smoky make-up he was wearing accentuating their depths. His sharp jaw was dusted with neatly trimmedstubble, and his lips were full and shimmering slightly under the low lights. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

He was wearing a pair of low-waisted, wide-legged black trousers over a sheer skintight bodysuit that had swirling dark patterns across it that covered his nipples and twisted down his arms and across his abdomen. It was so achingly sexy and Peaches wore it so well that it looked like a second skin. His confidence radiated out of him and I had to admit it was attractive.

I’d never met anyone who gave off the impression of being that sure of who they were in less than ten seconds.

“Hey,” I said as I walked over to him, leaning in to kiss each cheek. French habits died hard but seeing the smile on Peaches’s face made me glad I’d found them hard to shake. “You look amazing.”

“Thank you! I try. You scrub up nicely yourself.”

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