More Than the Ball (5 page)

“
D
id
you do any laundry at all while I was gone?” Jemma called from the kitchen. I would never get used to having the laundry in the kitchen, no matter how much sense it made for the plumbing.

“I washed socks and underwear once,” I said, giving her my best ‘don’t hate me’ grin, peering at her around the corner. She threw a pair of boxers at my head, and I laughed, moving into the kitchen and wrapping my arms around her waist from behind. “Have I mentioned I really, really, really missed you?”

It was true. I had missed her. Having her back made it so much easier not to dwell on Dev and the phone call and that night in college, and I’d been struggling with that. It was easy to push aside the memory of his flat stomach fluttering under my touch when I was sliding my hands up under Jemma’s shirt to find her breasts.

“Elliot!” she squealed, laughing. “Laundry.”

“Right, sorry,” I said, pressing a kiss to her shoulder before stepping back. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too, love,” she said, giving me a quick cheek kiss and turning back to the pile of laundry in front of her. “Oh hey! That shoot’s coming up soon, isn’t it? Are you excited to see your friend? What was his name? Dev?”

“Oh! Um, yeah? I guess? It’s not that big of a deal. I mean. We haven’t really kept in touch. I’m glad to do it for Coach though. You know what he means to me.” The lie came out in a jumble. Bringing up Dev just then flustered me. I was clearly off my game. My attempt to deflect to Coach failed.

“But it will be so good for you to see him. There’s something about the friends you knew in uni. I mean, they’re who we all grow up with, really. I bet seeing Dev will really unlock something for you. Every time I get together with the girls from school, it’s like part of me wakes up again. The carefree, brave girl who sometimes gets so lost in the everyday logistics of pretending to be an adult.”

That right there? That was why I loved Jemma. She was always thinking about the underbelly of life. She was always reaching for another level of authenticity. She was so very real. I loved that, but I worried that she was more right then she guessed. I couldn’t stop thinking about Dev. And those thoughts had turned into some very wet dreams.

I waved my thoughts away, “No, really, I don’t even know Dev anymore. I wouldn’t even consider him my friend. I’m only making time for him because this is for Coach. I don’t want to waste time catching up. I need to be training for the next match.” I really hoped I wasn’t making myself sound like as much of a douchebag as I thought I might be. I just didn’t want her thinking I wanted to spend so much time with Dev.

“What are you on about, Elliot?” Jemma asked, eyes squinting. “You need to at least have dinner with him after he’s come all this way to film you. Besides he was your best mate. Best mates are best mates forever.” She smiled and walked over to put her arms around me. “I’ve a feeling it’ll really cheer you up to see him.”

I twisted out of her arms. “What is it that you think I need cheering up from, Jemma?” I accused, turning and marching out of the room and down the hall, slamming the door on my workout room to shut her out. I didn’t know why she had to keep insisting something was wrong with me. Or why she wouldn’t stop trying to make this shoot a big deal to me.

Or why she had to be so fucking right.

J
ordan had been physically attached
to my side since we boarded the plane. I was under my travel budget for the project so far, so I sprung for the first-class upgrade. I thought Jordan was going to drain their entire stock of champagne before we landed, and that led to me having to physically restrain him from trying to give me a blowjob in our seats.

If I’d known making Jordan happy was this easy, I’d have planned a trip much sooner.

He clung to me as we navigated customs, largely because he was so intoxicated. In the cab, I had to pull him off my lap yet again. The same in the hotel lobby and the elevator. By the time we got to our room, and I’d tipped the bellboy, I was on edge and ready to throw him onto the bed.

Except then I looked up to see he’d already thrown himself. He was flopped, spread-eagle across the bed, snoring into the duvet. I sighed and shook my head. It would be good for him to sleep, force him onto the time zone. Still, it was a little disappointing.

I took a moment to get our luggage in order and then took a quick shower. When I was finally shifting Jordan over to make room for myself on the bed, I was a little less tense.

I set a quick alarm on my phone, and then, on impulse, flipped to my texts. Before I had the chance to think about it, I’d sent a text to Elliot.

I didn’t expect an answer, so I moved to lay the phone on the nightstand. It vibrated in my hand before I could get that far.

With a quick glance at Jordan’s snoring form, I slipped back out of bed, grabbing an extra blanket and padding into the other room to flop onto the couch.

I definitely didn’t expect another response. I was all set to watch a late night showing of
Speed
when I got another alert.

Grinning, I settled under the blanket. It was going to be a long night.

I
woke
up to Jordan dropping on top of me.

“I didn’t know what you’d want for breakfast, and the breakfast menu is ridonkulous, so I just ordered the full English. Sound good?”

“Yeah, awesome,” I mumbled, pulling myself up in shock. Two reasons for the shock, really. One, Jordan was apparently not completely hungover. Two, he wasn’t angry with me for sleeping on the couch.

“It’s... apparently a lot of food,” he said, and I looked around to see several plates of food on the small dining table in our suite.

“Oh, wow,” I said, sliding my arms around Jordan’s waist as he settled in my lap. “You’re not wrong.”

“I don’t want to be bloated on my first day in London.”

“Darling, you will still be the hottest guy in the whole damn city,” I promised, kissing the back of his neck.

“Hate to break it to you, babe, but Jamie Dornan lives here.”

“And yet, my point stands.”

Jordan wriggled in my lap. “Not yet, it doesn’t, but give me a minute.”

Laughing, I let my hands rest on his hips, holding him in place as I pushed up to him. “I suppose we should work up an appetite before tackling that breakfast, hmm?”

“Absolutely,” Jordan agreed. He twisted in my lap with a grin, his ass grinding against my already half-hard cock, quickly bringing it to a full erection. As he slid from my lap to settle onto his knees in front of me, he asked, “Have I thanked you yet for bringing me to London with you?”

“Oh, once or twice,” I said. He’d been thanking me every half hour or so since I offered.

“Well, third time’s the charm,” he said, leaning in.

His hot, wet mouth around my cock was almost enough for me to forget that I’d spent the whole night texting Elliot.

J
ordan
and I had very different ideas about what we wanted from a day in London, so we agreed to do one thing together, then one apart, then meet for lunch. Our one together was the Tate Modern. Jordan loved Warhol, and I loved seeing the evolution of art since the advent of film as a visual medium.

It was one of those arty romantic dates that only happen in trendy films. Two gay boys spend a morning flirting over Jackson Pollack, then part, only to have a personal revelation while alone and meet again to crash into each other with artistically meaningful epiphanies.

When we did part, Jordan made his way to Harrod’s, and I headed for the London Film Museum.

It was much smaller than I’d expected, and it didn’t take me too long to work my way through what I was interested in seeing. When I came out, though, I pulled out my phone and texted:

Half a block later, I got a response.

I grinned. The weather was nice, so I wandered around the neighborhood a little, taking winding streets and back alleys, and eventually finding myself in a quiet, green churchyard with benches lining a path up to the front door.

I didn’t even know what I was saying. It was exactly like the ridiculous conversations we’d had in college when we’d gradually descended into complete nonsense over the course of a conversation and a bowl of weed.

Just seeing his name on my screen eased an ache in my chest I hadn’t realized I had.

J
ordan’s epiphany
came during a shopping spree at Harrod’s, and it was that he wanted us to move to London.

“I was looking it up in the cab,” he said over lunch at Jamie Oliver’s new bistro. “London is one of the top cities in the world for new filmmakers to make a splash. You could be huge here.”

I sat back with a shrewd look, though my lips kept twitching toward a smirk. “I can’t tell if that’s you talking or the lure of Ferragamo boots in the same location as a Krispy Kreme.”

“Don’t mock Harrod’s, baby. It’s the fucking best thing I’ve ever seen.”

“And we haven’t even made it to
Beautiful
yet,” I said, grinning in anticipation of the squeal of pleasure that came a moment later, causing the table to our left to stare in disgust.

“You didn’t?” he asked reaching across the table for the tickets I was pulling from my wallet.

“I did,” I affirmed, laughing as he clutched the tickets in his hands like a toddler with a chocolate bar.

“Oh my god, these are phenomenal seats,” he said, his eyes wide. He lifted himself out of his chair to give me a sloppy kiss. Before sitting, he gave the indignant table to our left a bright, bubbly wiggle of his fingers.

“I wasn’t about to take you to
Beautiful
and make you squint at the stage, babe.”

“I would have been happy to go at all. You know that.” It was true. He would have been insanely happy. Until we got to the theatre. Then he would have been miserable.

“I know,” I said, not wanting to have that argument.

He handed the tickets back to me with a grin and was perfectly cheerful for the rest of the meal.

M
y epiphany was a little delayed
. It came when Jordan excused himself to find the bathroom. Almost as soon as he left, I was pulling out my phone to check it. Sure enough, there was another text from Elliot.

Attached was a picture of a group of grown men all dressed in white with red suspenders crossed over their chests. They appeared to be doing some sort of ritualistic dance that involved waving white handkerchiefs around.

I didn’t have the chance to look for his response. Jordan was coming back to the table and sliding across from me. “What are you so happy about?” he asked.

“Hmm?” I slipped my phone back into my pocket.

“You’re beaming, babe.”

“Am I?”

Jordan looked at me a moment and I looked at him as well. “Never mind,” he said after a moment. “It’s gone now.”

W
e parted again
in the afternoon. I hit up the British Museum; Jordan went for Camden Market. It wasn’t his usual upscale choice, but Jordan loved finding quirky things he could turn into art for the townhouse.

I eventually ended up in Covent garden at the same little churchyard where I’d sat texting Elliot that morning. From there, I wandered until I ended up in a narrow little street littered with Indian restaurants. I’d heard somewhere that London had the best Indian food in the world, and I wanted to see how it stacked up against my
dadi
’s.