Page 15 of Embracing James

“Pauly.”

“No.” Not yet. He paused.Shit.He wanted to. He hadn’t thought about it until now, but he did want to sleep with Paul.

“You should. I sexed up Roy and it was fantastic,” Duke said. “Stop being chivalrous and stake your claim on your man.”

“I will. I guess I sorta did.”

“How do you sort of stake a claim?Younever do anything half-assed,” Duke said. “Did you sabotage yourself again?”

“No.” He dried his hands. “Actually, we’re sort of together.”

“You are?”

“Yeah. It’s odd because we aren’t really together, but we are.” That made almost no sense.

Duke groaned. “What? You either are or aren’t. What happened? Tell the wise one all about it and we’ll figure this out.”

“Aren’t you the sage one all the sudden?” He sighed. “Craig happened.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.” He shuddered just thinking about Craig.

“So you and Pauly hit it off?”

“We’re having dinner tonight.” He couldn’t wait.

“So how are you sort of but not quite a couple then?”

“As far as anyone, save for you, knows, we’re together. It’s a farce, but no one needs to know that. It’s mostly to get Craig to back off.” The plan sounded good so far. “No strings.”

“James.”

He knew that tone. He didn’t believe he’d done anything wrong, but Duke sure did. “What?”

“You’re playing with fire,” Duke said. “You’ll both get burned bad.”

“But it’s not permanent. After a month, we’ll reassess.” Now that sounded dumb. If they weren’t really together, then why did they have to think this through or change the terms? Duke was right—he’d messed up…again.

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I do.”Sort of.

“Be smart. Every time someone says it’s easy or that there aren’t strings, there are,” Duke said. “But you know best. Let me know how dinner shakes out. I hope it’s better than I have the feeling it will be.”

“Thanks.”Some people have no faith in me.

“Talk later.” Duke hung up without giving him a chance to reply.

James nudged the phone aside.Well, shit.He’d screwed up, but all wasn’t a total disaster. He and Paul might realize they were better as friends, and this wouldn’t be a mess.

It was possible.

Paul might not want the chaos that came with James’ past with Craig. He might decide to run the other way and not look back. He’d thought this would be so easy and clean.So much for thinking.

He met Doob’s gaze. “I messed up, didn’t I?”

Doob flopped onto his side and sighed as he fell back asleep.

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