Seeing Jesse had made all the difference. Not like he had magically waved away the shitty events of the day, but there was something about his presence, his solidity, that steadied Hunter.
And he wasn’t just talking metaphorically. That embrace, back there at the pond, had literally given him something—someone—to lean on for a few minutes, and it had felt so good. Knowing someone had his back, unconditionally. That was the best part of couplehood.
He assumed. He’d never really had that with Julian, not really. How could you have someone’s back if you were only selectively acknowledging your partnership with that person? Strangely, he had more of it in his friendship with Jesse than he’d had in his whole relationship with Julian.
After Jesse worked his magic, Hunter had actually started to have fun, which was not a sentiment he had ever expected to associate with this evening. Jesse was, as usual, charming and disarming, totally at ease, even in this environment that wasn’t his usual scene.
But then, as things had started getting weird—Faheem and Sandra Worthington the Dog Food Philanthropist both bidding on him—Jesse disappeared? He’d just left?
“Sorry about that.” Andrea stepped up to the podium. “Jesse needed to take a break.” She smiled a little too widely, obviously uncomfortable with this turn of events. “Shall we continue? Let’s see. I believe the bidding on Dr. Wyatt left off at six thousand dollars?” She gestured to Mrs. Worthington.
“Six thousand five hundred,” said Faheem, and who the hell did this guy think he was? Did he think he would somehow win Hunter’s affection with this creepy behavior? When Hunter had texted him that he didn’t think a romantic thing between them was in the cards, Faheem had seemed to take it in stride. But apparently that was only because he’d been retreating to hatch this stalktastic plan. Honestly, he’d rather have Mrs. Worthington.
Which it seemed like he was going to, because she called out seven thousand dollars, and surely that would be the end?
He looked back at Faheem and fuck off—the little shit was opening his mouth.
But the voice that rang out over the space came from someone else.
“Twenty thousand dollars.”
Jesse.
Standing at the back of the room.
Holy shit.
Everyone gasped. Hunter would have too if he’d had any air left in his body. What the hell was Jesse doing?
Well, he knew what Jesse was doing. Jesse understood how not-pleased Hunter was going to be with either of his potential suitors, and he was . . . intervening.
“Twenty-five thousand,” called Mrs. Worthington, her brow furrowing.
Hunter, along with everyone else, looked at Faheem.
He sat down, defeated.
Hunter smiled. He couldn’t help it.
“Thirty thousand.” Jesse walked forward, his eyes on Hunter.
Mrs. Worthington pressed her lips into a thin line. But then she opened her mouth and said, “Forty thousand.”
Okay, this had gone on long enough. Sure, the guy was rich, but there were good deeds and there were good deeds. Hunter could survive another night with the Dog Lady. He shook his head slightly at Jesse, who was still staring intently at him.
“Two hundred thousand dollars,” Jesse said calmly.
There was a brief but large uptick in the noise level in the room, then everyone went quiet.
Or maybe it was the blood rushing in Hunter’s head causing temporary deafness.
Jesse continued to stare at Hunter, so intently it was almost like he was angry. But that made no sense, because Hunter wasn’t making any of this happen. He was just standing there existing.
“How exciting,” said Andrea, finally breaking the stunned silence. “We have two hundred thousand dollars on the table for Dr. Wyatt. Are there any other bids?” She looked at Mrs. Worthington. So did Hunter. So did everyone else. Except Jesse, who kept his laser-like focus on Hunter.
Mrs. Worthington took a step back, and Hunter rejoiced silently.
“No? Two hundred thousand going once. Two hundred thousand going twice . . . And we have a winner.” She grinned. “Well, that was a bit of a thrill.”
The room burst into applause, which seemed to startle Jesse from the trance he’d been in. He smiled and jogged back up to the front to join Andrea at the podium.
He winked at the audience. “Dr. Wyatt’s an old friend, and I’ve been meaning to make a donation to the hospital, so I thought I’d drive his price up a little.” He looked down at the podium. “Okay, where are we?” He clapped his hands once. “Yes, our tenth and final bachelor is Mr. Ted Jackson, a surgical nurse.”
Well, shit.
When Jesse went back to the podium to finish his damned job—there was still one more bachelor to be auctioned off—he was a bit off-kilter.
He’d lost his mind a little, there. The world had shrunk to him and his mission. His imperative.
He felt like he’d come off a bender, except it hadn’t been booze fueling his obsessive singlemindedness just then.
It had been Hunter.
The idea of that woman getting her hands on him again, abusing his good will . . . or, worse, Faheem. Who might literally get his hands on Hunter.
No.
He couldn’t regret it. Would do it all again. He had been planning to make a big donation to the hospital anyway. Maybe not to the tune of two hundred grand, but whatever.
So, onward.
He bantered with Ted—and felt bad when Ted only fetched three grand. In addition to making a fool of himself bidding on Hunter, Jesse had totally upstaged Ted.
But there. Ted was dispatched and the auction was finally over. What was supposed to happen now? He glanced down at the stack of cue cards he’d abandoned for the auction. Right. There were a couple red ones with his closing remarks on them. Time to go back on script.
The first one had a list of people they wanted him to thank. He ran through them, added his own, and flipped to the last card.
“‘This concludes the formal portion of our evening,’” he read. “‘We’ll start the dancing with our traditional dance of the bachelors and bachelorettes with their successful bidders.’”
Wait. What?
Andrea had the bachelors and bachelorettes filing back onto the stage.
He had to force the last sentence out. “‘So, winning bidders, please come forward to collect your prizes. Dance, make plans for your date, and have fun.’”
Right. He’d forgotten about that part. He’d been so focused on getting Hunter out of the clutches of Faheem the Creeper and Weird Dog Lady that he hadn’t thought through the logical consequences of actually winning.
The DJ started playing. Jesse took several moments longer than required to tidy his cue cards on the podium, trying to think how to handle this.
When he looked up, Hunter was ambling over, his eyes twinkling. Gone was his discomfort from the auction, as well as his pain from earlier in the evening.
There. That alone was worth two hundred grand.
“You. Are. Insane.”
Jesse couldn’t really argue with that assessment, so he smirked. “I didn’t like your prospects.”
Hunter shook his head in disbelief. “Let’s hit the bar. I, for one, could use a drink.”
“What about the dance?” All around them, the winning bidders were collecting their “prizes” and leading them out onto the dance floor.
Hunter’s smile dimmed. “Oh, you don’t have to dance with me.”
You don’t have to dance with me.
When Jesse didn’t reply right away, Hunter said, “Come on. You did me a solid—a very expensive solid—but you didn’t sign up for the dancing-and-dating part.”
He started to walk away. Jesse thought about that time he couldn’t take Hunter to the Junos.
No, that time he wouldn’t take Hunter to the Junos.
He thought about that fucker Julian, and all the quiet, unseen damage he’d done to Hunter.
Fuck al
l that shit.
He jogged to catch up with Hunter, grabbed his arm, and started towing him toward the dance floor.
He would have paid another two hundred grand for the look on Hunter’s face—it was surprise, yes, but also pure, unadulterated happiness.
But just for a moment. He shuttered it quickly—it was replaced by a smile tinged with sadness—and reverted to protesting. “Jesse, quit it. You’re off the hook.”
“What if I don’t want to be off the hook?”
Hunter planted his feet and halted their progress, but he didn’t pull his arm from Jesse’s grip.
“Hey,” Jesse tried. “I paid two hundred grand for this package. It was supposed to include a dance, and I’m damn well getting a dance.”
“But you can’t,” Hunter said, lowering his voice and stepping closer. “People are going to think . . .”
“People are going to think what? That some deluded rock star did something crazy and now he’s dancing with his friend? Big deal.”
It was kind of a big deal, but Jesse wasn’t about to back down now. It was all in how he approached it. How he carried himself. Anyway, it wasn’t like they were in public-public. He’d charmed the hell out of this crowd. They weren’t going to rush to misinterpret an innocent dance between friends. He’d told the crowd that Hunter was an old pal and that he’d been looking for an opportunity to donate to the hospital.
So he kept Hunter’s hand and started backing him toward the dance floor. Hunter came reluctantly. “Unless you don’t want to dance with me,” he teased. “Afraid I’m going to mar your upstanding reputation, Dr. W.?”
Hunter shook his head and laughed, and more importantly, he kept coming.
“Come on,” Jesse exhorted. They were almost there. “The song’s half over.”
They were playing Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World,” which was the perfect song for a bunch of people dancing semiawkwardly with strangers. It wasn’t too mushy or too slow, so you could kind of do a shuffle that wasn’t a fast dance but wasn’t a slow dance either. You could be in each other’s arms but not have to be pasted together. It was a song that invited joyous silliness.
So as Jesse led them onto the parquet floor, he traded Hunter’s elbow for Hunter’s hand, extended his arm, and then reeled Hunter in with an overexaggerated flourish. The joking theatricality kept things light.
They both grinned.
Then Jesse pulled Hunter close to him, reflexively lifting his left hand, which was holding Hunter’s right, into the air.
Wait. Was that wrong? That was how he would dance with a woman.
He’d never danced with a man before.
But Hunter didn’t seem to mind. In fact, Jesse could feel his body relaxing, like it had outside earlier, by the pond. Hunter laid his other hand on Jesse’s shoulder.
“There now,” said Jesse, who had no idea where to put his other hand—it was hanging awkwardly by his side. “That wasn’t so bad was it?”
If Jesse were dancing with a woman, that other hand would have come to rest somewhere on her back. Maybe on her mid-back, under her shoulder blades, if it was a formal thing, if they didn’t know each other well. Probably lower if they did.
He wanted to put his hand on Hunter’s back.
No, it was stronger than that. It was like Jesse’s hand had its own consciousness. It was simultaneously more intelligent and more primal, and it wanted to be on Hunter’s back. Needed to be on Hunter’s back.
The hand floated up, but Jesse forced it to stop short, to land on Hunter’s elbow. It was a more casual placement. It went with the whole “We’re swaying goofily to this silly song but we’re not really dancing” vibe.
It was a cop-out.
His hand didn’t want to be there, resting on a pointy elbow. It wanted the wide surface area of Hunter’s lower back. It wanted room to splay its fingers.
It wanted territory to mark.
Jesse shifted his weight a little, suddenly too hot and hit with an intense infusion of the tie-as-noose sensation.
But Hunter didn’t seem to notice anything amiss. “You are . . .”
“What?”
“You are amazing,” Hunter whispered.
Every part of Jesse felt those three words. They were sharp and stinging and . . . perfect. He had to look away.
The song was ending. Too soon. They’d only just got themselves situated.
Jesse’s hand still wasn’t where it was supposed to be.
They stood there, swaying until the last strains of the song faded.
And was instantly replaced by the opening notes of “When You’re Mine.”
Hunter’s song.
Holy shit.
But they couldn’t know. It was clearly a nod to Jesse’s presence as emcee, and the song happened to be the third single from their record, the one that was currently climbing the charts.
Before he could overthink it, Jesse pulled Hunter in. All the way in—into a proper slow dance stance, lining them up from thigh to shoulder and letting that hand slide around and press against Hunter’s back. How could he hear Hunter’s song and have Hunter in his arms and not?
He realized too late that he was popping a semi.
Had he been too busy anthropomorphizing his hand to pay attention to his dick?
Hunter’s eyes went wide.
This was Jesse’s cue to back off, his opening to apologize. To step away.
Instead, he leaned over and said, “Do you have shit you still have to do for this shindig? Or can we get out of here?”
It was possible that his dick had taken over for his hand in the driver’s seat.
But that didn’t seem quite right either, because although he was attracted to Hunter—he had always been attracted to Hunter, if he was being honest with himself—that wasn’t his driving force right now. No, he just wanted more time together. He wanted . . .
“My date. I want my date now.”
“Now?” Hunter echoed, looking dazed.
“Yes.” Jesse had to fly out to who-the-fuck-knew-where tomorrow to resume the tour, and then it would be another month before it was over. “So are you done here? Do you have official duties to perform still?”
Hunter shook his head.
Jesse enjoyed having struck Dr. Hunter Wyatt dumb.
“C’mon, then.” He stepped farther away from Hunter, and all his parts—in symphony—protested. He hitched his head toward the entrance, and once he’d made sure Hunter was following, he used one hand to loosen his tie and the other to order an Uber.
“Where are we going?”
“I have no idea.” Where did you go on a date that cost you two hundred grand? But then, he knew. “Ramen?” He’d barely touched his dinner—he’d needed to stay on his toes with the hosting duties and had been chatting with the kids and their families during the brief break in the program—and he was suddenly starving.
“Yeah,” said Hunter, and goddamn it, he was gazing at Jesse with something that looked a lot like admiration, or no, something . . . deeper than that? Something more serious. “Ramen is . . . perfect.”
Twenty minutes later, they were ensconced in a little hole-in-the-wall ramen shop near Jesse’s house, sitting side by side at the end of the counter, slurping spicy, salty broth in their tuxedos.
Hunter had always admired Jesse’s competence, but tonight was almost too much to bear. The way he’d worked that crowd with his unique brand of humor mixed with authenticity. Jesse saw something he wanted, and he went after it, whether that something was an album he envisioned being recorded a certain way or a fundraising goal on behalf of the hospital.
Or Hunter.
To be the object of that intense focus during the auction, where Jesse had thrown out bids like he was using Monopoly money, was something Hunter would never forget.
This was the part where Hunter should remind himself of the rule: no crushes on straight guys.
Especially not straight guys who also happened to be his best fri
end.
But damn.
Could he, for one night, just . . . let it go?
Pretend the gorgeous, tuxedoed, brilliant man next to him was his? Even if it was only for one date?
One two-hundred-thousand-dollar date.
The money made it so surreal he kind of thought maybe he could let himself have that fantasy for one night.
And, honestly, he was pretty sure whatever suspension of reality was happening, it wasn’t just him. He hadn’t imagined that boner during the dance.
Not that anything would happen beyond the little fantasy he was going to allow to play out in his head. Because whatever was going on with Jesse, whatever had caused that boner when they’d been dancing—whatever had caused that kiss all those months ago—it clearly wasn’t something he was willing to acknowledge, even to himself.
Still, it was nice to think, for one fleeting second, that whatever the weird unnameable connection Hunter sensed between them was, Jesse felt it too.
And, if he was being totally honest with himself, even if Jesse was in fact as straight as he claimed, it was super flattering to be the one man in the world who’d tested the boundaries of that straightness.
He glanced at Jesse, who was already looking at him, but Jesse averted his gaze, trying and failing to stifle a smile.
Hunter looked away too, suddenly extremely interested in his almost-empty bowl.
God. It felt like they were on a first date. But not a Faheem-style first date. A promising first date. The air was charged, liquid, like an invisible river was flowing between them, its currents swirling around them, softening the edges of everything so the lines between categories, between black and white, between friends and . . . something else were blurring a little bit.
“You done?” Jesse’s voice was husky.
“Yeah.”
Jesse reached for his wallet. Hunter did likewise—they usually split the bill when they ate out—but Jesse shook his head.
“You just spent two hundred grand!” Hunter protested, taking out his card. Jesse batted his hand away, caught the waiter’s eye, and laid a wad of cash on the table.
Infamous Page 14
