I HADN’T BEEN able to lose the smile on my face all day. How could I when I’d woken up in Archer Carrington’s bed? When we’d spent all night giving each other mind-blowing orgasms and exploring every inch of each other?
I’d fantasized about what that would be like more times than I could count, but even in my most erotic dreams, nothing compared to the reality. I could still feel him everywhere, could still smell him on my skin, and it had my heart lurching and my stomach tumbling all over again. I was already counting down to the next time I could be with him. I knew I’d see him tomorrow at the Elysium, but that would just be hours of looking with no touching. Something I would’ve been okay with before last night. Before knowing what his touch felt like.
TRAVIS:
Get your ass up here
Travis’s text snapped me out of my wayward thoughts, and when I checked the time, I realized it’d gotten away from me. I shoved my phone in my pocket and made my way out of my condo and up to the Cue Club, the billiards hall that was exclusive to residents of the Towers.
If I’d had my way, I’d still be at Archer’s in that big, comfy bed of his, but he was busy tonight, and I hadn’t hung out with the guys since the night I’d gotten way too drunk. If I skipped out on them again, I’d never hear the end of it. When West and Donovan coupled up with their new guys, they’d assumed they’d get a pass from showing up for all the group nights, but they got so much shit from the rest of us that they ended up bringing their boyfriends along.
So, no, I wouldn’t be missing tonight’s pool showdown.
“Look who decided to finally show up so we can get this shit started.” Daire threw back a shot from the private bar and then picked up his cue stick.
I raised a brow. “Waiting for me?”
“We can’t play teams if your ass is missing,” West said. A quick glance around told me he was missing his better half tonight, and before I could ask where JT was, West rolled his eyes. “He got roped into going to some Christmassy shit with his family.”
“Good,” East said, rubbing chalk over the end of his stick. “He’s still new at sinking balls, anyway.”
West shot him a choice finger. “Don’t worry, he’s been practicing on the regular. But I don’t see why you’re complaining. He only puts more money in your pocket.”
East narrowed his eyes. “I don’t need Golden Boy’s money. I need a worthy opponent.”
“Hello? Your competition, right fuckin’ here,” Travis said, spreading his arms wide.
“You’ve already chosen teams?” I asked.
“Yep.” A wicked grin spread across Donovan’s face. “And you’ve got Mr. Sunshine.”
My eyes shot to Daire—Mr. Sunshine—and even though he wasn’t the most…personable of us, he was aggressive enough that we’d actually have a chance to win this thing. As long as East wasn’t hooked up with—
“Gavin, you break,” East said, a smug tilt to his lips that had me groaning. The two of them were by far the best at this game, and their teaming up meant none of us had a shot in hell.
“That’s bullshit. You two can’t be on the same team,” I said.
“No? We drew names fair and square.”
“You just said you wanted a worthy opponent. Gavin’s that guy.”
“You’re forgetting something,” Gavin said as he pulled balls out of the side pocket of the table, his naturally platinum hair gleaming under the overhead light. “Once we knock out your teams, we face each other. So, really, we’re doing you all a favor. The sooner we kick your ass, the sooner we go out.”
He had a point, but I knew something they didn’t. I’d gotten in a few rounds of private training over the last couple of months with an instructor that had made a world of difference. I wasn’t sure if it was enough to give Gavin and East a run for their money, but more surprising things had happened.
Like…spending the night with Archer.
The moment he popped back into my mind, my whole body warmed. It was supreme satisfaction that flowed through me, the knowledge that he wanted me just as much as I craved him.
As I reached for a cue stick off the wall, West moved in beside me, his arms crossed.
“All right, what the shit is going on with your face?”
I blinked, the smile I hadn’t realized was back falling. “Excuse me?”
“You’ve had this goofy look on your ugly mug all day, and you’re doing it again.” The words were accusatory, like I’d personally offended him.
“You’re saying I look funny? And ugly?”
“You look like you’re happy and all off in fucking la-la land.”
“And that upsets you?”
West looked over to the others watching our conversation and motioned toward me. “Can I get some backup here?”
“He has been a little off,” Donovan said from where he leaned against the chest of his massive boyfriend, Kelly, and when I shot him a look of surprise, he shrugged. “What? I didn’t say it was a bad thing.”
Daire grunted beside me. “They’re trying to fuck with your head for the game. Don’t let ’em.”
Not wanting them to read more into why I’d apparently been sporting a goofy grin, I decided to follow Daire’s suggestion and focus on the game. “Who are we playing first?”
“That would be me,” West said, strolling over toward the empty table, and then he lifted his chin at Kelly. “And this guy, if he can manage to let Van go for an hour.”
“Eh, maybe half an hour.” Kelly dropped his hands from around Donovan and smacked his boyfriend’s ass.
I couldn’t exactly fault him for that, since if Archer was anywhere near me, I wouldn’t want to keep my hands off him either. I let my thoughts wander back to him only for a minute, just long enough for West to rack the balls for our table.
I nodded for Daire to take the first shot. “You can break.” He had enough power in his shots that he never failed to get at least a couple of balls in.
The thought made me snort out a laugh, though, because…well…apparently I’d reverted to immaturity at playing with a couple balls.
West gave me a strange look, like he’d caught me doing something out of character, and shook his head. But before he could start back up with the smack talking, Daire managed to sink three balls on his break, and West cursed.
Daire wasn’t much of a smiler—that would probably freak most of us out—but he looked satisfied as he met my eyes across the grey felt. “Stripes.”
I nodded and scanned the table for where to make my shot. When we played teams, we alternated play within our twosome until we missed a shot, and I didn’t want West to even get a chance at the table. He was being too much of an instigator tonight already.
I easily sank the eleven ball into a corner pocket, allowing Daire to come in behind me for his.
“What the fuck,” West complained when we were down to two stripes on the table.
From the other side, East smirked. “Looks like you won’t be getting a turn tonight. Feel free to come chalk up my stick if you want to make yourself useful.”
“I’m not getting anywhere near your stick,” West mumbled. As I leaned down over the table, he hovered over me in an attempt to distract.
I wished I could say it didn’t work, but I barely skimmed the side of the ball I’d been aiming for, getting it nowhere near a pocket.
“Hah! Success.” West’s pout quickly turned into a massive grin as he shoved me aside to start playing the game. Finally.
“You’re such a damn aggravatus, West,” Daire said. He plucked two shots off the tray the bartender carried, downing them in quick succession before I could grab my first.
I hesitated taking the shot, remembering the last time I’d thought doing shots was a good idea. No. Not tonight.
I waved the bartender by, and as he headed to our opponents, East called out, “What’s wrong, Preston? Have a few too many the other night?”
“What do you think?”
“I think we had a good time.” Mischief gleamed in his eyes. “Scared of round two?”
“I’m not doing that again,” I said, shaking my head. “That was called stupidity.”
“That was called a good time. I’m not surprised you don’t recognize it, but what was the reason for that again? You never did say.”
I could remember all too clearly the irritation I’d been feeling at that moment over Archer’s texts calling me a mistake. No, the mistake had been getting East’s help to make me forget. Then again, if he hadn’t, would I have shown up on Archer’s doorstep? Definitely not. Which meant it never would’ve led to more, to last night and this morning…
I definitely wasn’t a mistake to him anymore.
Shrugging, I said, “I’d just had a bad day.”
“Seemed like more than that to me.” East’s eyes practically bored a hole into the side of my head, but I ignored him.
“Was it a bad day last night too?” West asked. “You didn’t come out after dinner with your parents.”
“Oh.” Right. I’d been so caught up in Archer’s note at the restaurant and meeting him after that I’d completely forgotten we’d all been invited to an exclusive party in Soho.
Oops.
“Sorry, dinner went long, and then Serena and I just wanted a chill night after,” I said. The lie came off my tongue easily—I was so used to having Serena as a buffer that I didn’t notice when all the guys stopped to stare at me.
“Really?” East perched on the end of the table, a curious expression in his eyes. “You and Serena?”
“Yes, me and Serena. Remember her? My girlfriend.”
“Oh, I remember Serena. Always a ball of fun, that one.”
“So you’re pissed we skipped a night out. Get over it.”
“You’re right. Who am I to interfere in a couple’s affairs?” East said, placating me. Behind him, Travis was shooting me a look I couldn’t decipher. Like he was trying to warn me about something—but Jesus, so I didn’t go to some party. Big deal.
West cleared his throat and, like he was picking up what East was laying down, said, “The thing is, though…” There was a curious twist to his lips. “Serena? She was with us last night.”
The room descended into silence, but a rush of blood in my ears made them ring.
Shit, had I just fucked up, or were they trying to call my bluff? I ran back through my last conversation with Serena—her telling me that she and the girls were going out last night, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember where. Was it possible she’d been at the same party the guys had been invited to? We had similar social circles together and apart, but…
Fuck.
Every one of the guys was looking at me like I’d just royally screwed up and was hiding a secret.
My gaze shot to Travis, who only closed his eyes and shook his head, and that was enough for me to know they weren’t lying.
It was me. I was the liar.
“Nooo,” Gavin said, his grey eyes unable to hide his surprise and disappointment. “Please tell me you’re not messing around on Serena.”
“Of course I’m not messing around on Serena.” That would require me actually dating Serena to begin with. But if I told this bunch of ingrates that, there’d be no stopping the barrage of nosy, wildly impersonal questions that would follow.
“Of course,” East said. “You’re too polite for a messy fuck. So, whose pearls were you polishing whilst having boring missionary sex behind your girl’s back last night?”
My heart began to hammer as an image of Archer cleaning up his front door after I’d come all over it sprang to mind. Yeah, I had no problem getting messy, and under any other circumstance—like my friends actually knowing that I was gay—I would have no problem telling them that. But suddenly the lies that had once been so easy were like an albatross around my neck.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” East took a martini from the bartender and took a sip. “Perfect Preston really is lighting his wick in someone else.”
“I—”
“Yes…?” East drawled when everyone else merely stood there staring at me with looks of curiosity and shock.
Serena and I had been such a tight unit for so long that the idea that things between us were anything but solid had clearly stunned them all into silence. So before this conversation got completely out of hand, the one thing I needed to do was make sure Serena didn’t look the fool.
Donovan came around the end of the pool table and stopped in front of me, his eyes full of sympathy and understanding.
“If you need to talk, if things are over between you two, you know you can always come to me. You don’t have to keep it to yourself.”
“Wait.” Gavin’s voice was soft as he joined Donovan in front of me. The pity rolling off the two of them was almost worse than East’s smack talk. “Did Serena break up with you?”
Oh God. Now they thought I’d spent the night at home crying into a box of tissues. Did they really think I’d be standing here grinning like a fool if Serena had broken my heart? This was getting ridiculous.
“No. Serena did not break up with me.”
“Oh.” West grimaced. “So you really are sleeping around on her? Fuckin’ hell, man, I’d hate to be you when she finds out. That girl is ruthless when mad.”
She really was. That was one of the reasons she fit in so well with our group. She could hold her own. But that still didn’t help clear things up.
“So, who are you boning?”
I glared in Daire’s direction, and he shrugged.
“What? I don’t give a fuck either way. But the sooner you tell us, the sooner these gossipy bitches will let us get back to the game.”
My heart raced as I contemplated confessing everything: the truth about me, about Serena, about who I’d been with and where last night. Was I really going to do this? What other choice did I have? I’d fumbled the ball big time, and it was time to come clean—and these guys, they knew how to keep a secret. Especially for one of our own.
“Come on, Preston.” West strolled over and slung an arm around my shoulders. “Tell us.”
I swallowed around the lump in my throat, lifting my eyes to where Travis stood behind the group chewing on one of the little black straws. When his gaze dropped to my neck, the straw fell from his lips.
What was he looking at?
“The fuck is that on your neck?” Daire said.
My neck? Oh fuck…my neck. A flash of Archer sucking on it had me pulling away from West and straightening my shirt.
“You been frolicking with vampires?” East commented, helpful as ever.
“What?” West reached for the collar of my shirt and pulled it aside. “Jesus, man, who the hell made a mark like that?”
I shoved West off me. “None of your damn business.”
“Come on, it can’t be that bad. It’s not like you’re fucking one of our parents.”
I tensed. West’s words were so close to the truth that I could hardly believe my ears, and before I could tell myself to calm down, his eyes widened.
“Holy shit. Are you fucking one of our parents?”
Shit. This was not going well.
East’s deviant chuckle filled the room as he drained his martini dry. “This just gets better and better.”
“How do you figure?” West demanded.
“My mother is out of town. He couldn’t have been banging her last night.”
“East.” Gavin shook his head. “Do you have no common decency? That’s your mother you’re talking about.”
“Who was tucked safely into her own bed, in her own suite, in Milan. She doesn’t even let my father spend the night in the same room unless he has an appointment. She’s hardly going to make time for the likes of Preston.” East arched a brow in my direction. “No offense.”
“Uh, none taken?”
West whirled on me, pointing a finger in my face. “You better not be putting your dick anywhere near my mo—”
“It’s Mr. Carrington.”
The room plunged into complete and utter silence. So much so, I could’ve sworn I’d be able to pick out the different heartbeats pumping in the room.
Fuck. Did I really just say that?
West’s mouth was still hanging open mid-sentence. He blinked at me and said, “Mr. Carrington…”
“A man?” That was Donovan.
I turned to him and Gavin and nodded.
“Serena’s…dad,” Gavin said, and again, I nodded.
“Oh. My God.” East’s gleeful tone as he slipped off the edge of the pool table and headed over to me had me sweating. “You’re fucking your girlfriend’s dad.”
“I—”
“Deny it.”
I licked my lips and looked around the group. While most of them were in my face, Kelly had moved to stand with Travis, while Daire was behind the bar pouring shots that he clearly figured I was about to need.
He wasn’t wrong.
“I can’t. That’s where I was—”
“With Mr. fucking Carrington?” West had finally regained his voice, and now his eyes looked like they might pop out of his head.
If I hadn’t been trying to work out how to tell the rest of this story, I would’ve found it funny that he was so shocked.
“Or fucking Mr. Carrington, apparently. Bravo. Prime real estate right there.” East gave me a proud grin, and I realized that should’ve been the biggest red flag of all.
“Holy shit.” Donovan looked me over as though he’d missed something huge—and yeah, they all had. “You’re gay.”
“Or bi,” Gavin said, but I quickly shook my head, not wanting any more misconceptions to be inferred from my silence. “Oh, so you and Serena…?”
“Are just friends. Best friends.”
“Incestual friends.” East waggled his brows, then looked to his best friend, West. “Could you please rewire your brain so you can pay me what you owe me?”
It was my turn to looked shocked as West pulled his wallet from his back pocket, shaking his head in disbelief.
“How the fuck did you know?” he said to East as he handed over a couple of Benjamins.
“Oh, please, what straight guy would sit through not one, but two, videos of Kelly pounding Van with his gigantic—”
“Okay, East,” Donovan said, glancing back to where Kelly winked at him. “We get the point.”
“Well, you certainly got the point in all of those scenes. Something that apparently young Preston here enjoyed. So I made a little bet with West.”
“That I was sleeping with Mr. Carrington?” I said.
“No.” A wicked glint entered East’s eyes. “That part was a delicious little morsel you added to the mix all on your own. I just bet him that you liked getting pounded by gigantic…points.”
My face heated, and Travis’s loud laughter filled the room.
“Well, it’s about fucking time.”
“Wait, you knew?” East said.
Everyone in the room whirled around on him, and I took that moment to make sure I wasn’t going to stroke out.
I’d done it. I’d finally told them the truth, and my world hadn’t imploded. I was no doubt going to get shit for the rest of my life, but the relief I felt from finally having my friends know was worth whatever hell they decided to put me through.
“Yeah. I caught him kissing Mr. Carrington at the charity event. It was…weird.”
“I can’t believe this.” Donovan’s mind seemed so blown that I wondered if he’d need one of us to fill in and give him a quick Van Talk.
“You can’t believe it?” Travis smirked at me. “I was fuckin’ floored. The most perfect one in the group out-scandaled all of us, and has been for years.”
“You’ve been sleeping with Mr. Carrington for years?” Gavin sounded mortified.
“No.” I licked my lips, hardly believing the words I was about to say. “Last night was the first time. I’ve wanted to forever, but he didn’t know. He thought I was—”
“Going to marry his daughter?” West snorted and looked over at East. “You’re right—now that the shock has worn off, this is going to be fun.”
I rolled my eyes at the two of them, but their shit-talking was making this much easier than having to tell a group of stuffed shirts that I was sleeping with my fake girlfriend’s dad.
“Yes. He had no idea that I was gay and that Serena and I were, well, just friends. He was shocked, to say the least.”
“Something he clearly got over,” Kelly said under his breath, as he came around the bar and handed Donovan a drink.
“Not at first.” I looked to East, who clued in real fast.
“Ah, the shots.”
“Right.”
Travis snorted. “So what’d you do that night? ’Cause you sure as shit didn’t come home.”
No, I hadn’t. But I wasn’t quite sure how to say that I—
“Did you get drunk and go and seduce Zaddy Archer?”
Zaddy Archer? That was a new one.
“Is that what we’re calling him?” East asked.
“No,” I said.
“What about Daddy?”
I glared at West, but before I could say anything, Travis jumped in.
“He nixed that one too.”
“How about by his name?” Gavin suggested, and everyone in the room groaned as he shot them all the finger.
“You gonna tell them or should I?” Travis grinned, and I knew one way or another the nickname we’d given him would come out.
“Filth Carrington.”
West’s eyes narrowed. “Filth? As in, he’s filthy in bed? Because that… Actually, that’s fucking hot.”
That hadn’t been the initial reason Travis and I thought of it, but after last night, it definitely fit.
“No, moron.” Travis laughed. “F-I-L-T-H as in Father I’d Like to Hit. Archer ‘Filth’ Carrington.”
“Oooh, I like it. Good way to keep it on the down-low, too.”
“Yeah, uh, about that.” I bit down into my lip, thinking about how complicated this all was and how it could really mess with Archer’s life—not to mention my own. “No one can know. Like, not a soul.”
“Does Serena know?” Donovan’s question was so quiet that I almost missed it, as everyone in the room fell silent waiting for my response.
“Yes, and we’re good. I told her as soon as things—”
“Got messy?”
I looked over to see East’s arched brow. “I thought I was too polite to be messy.”
“Hmm, yes, but the more time I’ve had to think about it, I’ve realized—”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear this.
“—that anyone who visits his sex-on-a-stick massage therapist, Raul, on the regular is used to getting quite messy. Especially when they have him booked as often as you do.”
Busted.
“So to summarize: you’re gay, you seduced your fake girlfriend’s dad—then fucked him—and plan to keep sneaking around until Filth Carrington tells you otherwise. Do I have that all clear?”
“Uh, yes?”
“Very good.” East looked to the bar, where Daire held a bottle of absinthe. “Pour us all a shot of that, would you? I feel the sudden need to forget the fact that I’ve just been out-scandaled by Preston ‘Poindexter’ Abernathy.”
