Page 86 of Take My Breath Away
He keeps his steady gaze on me before he nods, leans forward, and rests a hand on my thigh.
“Okay. But just be aware that after the honeymoon period there might be a mismatch. He’s rescued you, and I don’t think that’s an overly dramatic way of putting it. He rescued you from living in a fucking basement for God’s sake, and he rescued you from trying to talk Grant around so he’d let you crawl back under his boot again. Because it’s what you would’ve done. You got somewhere nice to live with somebody you like and the breathing space you need. And you’ve added sex into the equation. You’re both getting a lot out of the current situation but what you ultimately want might not be the same thing he does. Look, enjoy what you’ve got. For now. If it goes on to be more, then that’s great but don’t invest everything in this guy—”
“His name’s James.”
“James,” he says gently. “Be careful, that’s all, although I guess that’s like telling the sun not to shine or the tide not to ebb and flow.”
Don’t invest everything…But Alfie’s words have come too late, because invested is exactly what I am.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
JAMES
Another bottle of champagne arrives. I’m not sure how many that makes because I stopped counting long ago.
A smart, expensive Soho bar, with drinks including the never ending flow of champagne, courtesy of the host. I’ve had more to drink than I normally would. I’m not drunk, exactly, but it’s fair to say the edges have been blunted.
The evening started out sober and restrained, in one of the council chambers at work. Worthy speeches and polite chitchat all served up with warm cheap wine and under-seasoned canapés. A long-standing colleague’s overseas posting has been officially marked and as soon as it was over, a small group of us made a discrete departure to here, to the chic, sleek bar for a private party that’s a lot less sober, in all senses. I hadn’t really wanted to go, but it would have been churlish to say no. I’d intended on staying for a couple of drinks, before heading home to Perry. But that was hours ago, and the champagne keeps on coming.
“Anything take your fancy?” Sam, my soon to be departing colleague, slumps into the seat next to me.
I follow his gaze beyond the roped-off area that’s for our party alone. There’s plenty to take my fancy, or there would have been not so very long ago. Now, I’m only looking. That’s all. The way I was in the pub not so long ago, when Perry dashed off to talk to Alfie. No harm in looking. Just as I thought then, it’s all about whether you let looking turn into more. And that’s not going to happen.
“No, not tonight.”
“Really?” Sam tops up my glass. “That’s not the James I know and love. What’s happened to the man who can fuck his way through half the population of London without putting a hair out of place?” He half snorts and half burps and I shrug. There’s a lot of truth in what he says, but I can’t say I’m thrilled with the description. “Not seen you around the clubs and bars much in recent weeks. It’s been noted, you know.”
I don’t for a moment believe my absence has been deemed noteworthy.
“I’ve been busy with other things.” I don’t say anything more but Sam’s drunken, beady eye is on me.
“Don’t say you’ve met somebody? You? James Campion, who pounces on anything with a pulse?” His eyes widen in almost comic incredulity, but I don’t rise to it.
What and who Perry and I are to each other is for us alone. Other than Elliot, nobody knows about him. I’ve not introduced him to any of my other friends yet, but I will do soon. For now I want Perry all to myself, and if that makes me selfish then so be it. Perry’s not a topic up for discussion and certainly not with Sam, not when he’s pissed and not when he has a loose mouth.
“So, you’re off to the fleshpots of…”
Sam’s plum posting overseas is enough to knock him off the scent, and we spend the next few minutes talking all about that before one of his friends, somebody I don’t know, comes to drag him away.
I’m left alone for barely a minute or two, before I’m joined by a couple of guys, one of whom I know slightly. The other’s a stranger.
The one I don’t know wants to get to know me a lot more, if the press of his thigh against mine and the overt and frankly laughable come-on in the way he licks his lips and runs his gaze up and down my body is anything to go by. Sam’s little barb is wrong. I don’t go after anything with a pulse. I have my standards, and can more than afford to be fussy. And this guy doesn’t meet them, even if I were on the lookout. Which I’m not.
I get up to get away from his clumsy and drunken attempts at seduction. I could tell him straight out I’m not interested, but I don’t want to embarrass him by telling him he doesn’t have a hope in hell’s chance, and decide instead to be kind.
“I’m just heading outside.”
His eyes light up.
Oh, Christ…Of all the things to say. He thinks it’s an invite.
“I’ll join you.” In his haste to get up and follow me out for something he definitely won’t be getting, he stumbles and knocks over his chair.
“No, that’s okay. I’ve got a phone call to make. To my boyfriend,” I add.
A least that got through….The guy’s face drops just as he slumps back into the chair he’s just uprighted.
I shove my way through the crowd. It might be new and sleek, but it’s a typical Soho gay bar and it’s full. Hips, arses and cocks nudge, and arms snake round waists. Men in twos or threes or even more, slip off to the toilets, sometimes surreptitiously but mostly brazen. It’s hot and sweaty, and excitement and anticipation pulse in the steamy air.
