Page 30 of A Match Made In Evan
James
“What are you doing here?” I ask as Ev sneaks into my bedroom, closing the door behind him with a quietsnick.
My cheeks flame in the semi-darkness of my room, lit only by the lamp on my bedside table, because if he had been even five minutes later, he would have caught me with my hand down my pants. As it is, I quickly snap the lid of my laptop shut, not wanting him to see the porn I was loading up.
Thegayporn.
That’sa revelation I’ve been trying to avoid: the fact that I seriously do get off thinking about other men. But ever since Ev and I started helping each other out, it’s all I’ve been able to think about.
“I…” Ev steps towards the bed, then hesitates, biting his lip.
It’s not often that I see him anything but confident, so it has me sitting up straighter against the headboard. “Ev?”
“I wanted to talk to you…” he says, and something in his tone makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up straighter. “It…it couldn’t wait. I…” Scrubbing his palm over his face, he mutters, “Fuck. I’m making a mess of this already.”
“Evan,” I say his name in the same tone I usually use when Mia’s pushing boundaries. It seems to startle my best friend out of his head and his attention snaps to my face, his gorgeous dark eyes wide with surprise. I pat the space beside me. God knows he should feel comfortable in my bed by now. “Sit. Tell me what’s wrong.”
He eyes the space beside me warily and my heart squeezes.
Has he worked it out? That I have feelings for him, I mean. That I’ve broken the rules of our friends-with-benefits arrangement? That I’ve gone and made things between us weird?
When he steels himself and sits, I shove my discarded laptop off the bed entirely. It crashes to the carpet with a dullthud, but all of my attention is on Evan.
“What’s wrong?” I repeat, this time more softly. Cautiously. Because I’m terrified of his answer.
“We’re…um,” he starts, then stops and takes a long, calming breath. In…and out. He clears his throat, then looks me in the eye. His expression is surprisingly serious and unreadable.
My heart plummets to my stomach.
He knows.
I open my mouth to speak, but I havenoidea what to say.
He takes the decision for me.
“We’re not fake dating,” he says firmly. “Or fake engaged.”
“W-what?”
“We’re not…” he licks his lips. “Jay. We’reactuallydating.”
That…is not at all what I thought he was going to say.
I blink. “Uh…?”
“We go out to dinner. Or have dinner here. We share our thoughts about our days, our jobs, the shows and movies we wanna watch…”
“Yeah, but we’ve always—”
He holds up his index finger and places it over my lips. “I’m not done, baby.”
Baby.
My brain short-circuits.
Oblivious, Ev keeps talking, “My point is, we go on dates. We kiss. We have sex. Jay, we’re dating. For real. And,” he swallows roughly, Adam’s apple bobbing as he reaches for my hand. My left hand. He thumbs over the tacky fake engagement ring I haven’t yet taken off for the night. “I…don’t feel like this is fake, either. I mean, the ring is, and maybe we can fix that one day, but…what it stands for. The promise of forever. I…I feel like that’s real, too.”
Holy shit, I think to myself, the reality of his words hitting me in the chest.
