Page 46 of Worth the Wait
What was expected?
Wasn’t it?
He wasn’t sure he’d even said yes. But he hadn’t said no.
And now he was here. Jeans half-fastened, skin still flushed, heart already iced over. His dick had wilted long before he’d figured out how to fumble the condom on right, and whatever heat had flashed in the moment was gone. Snuffed out by the cold, creeping certainty that none of it had felt right. And he’d had to picture someone else just to get hard enough to seal the deal. He pushed that image away now, though. Shoved it down where it couldn’t touch him.
Surely, he should be punching the air?
Instead, he felt like he’d failed a test no one had explained the rules to.
Raking a hand through his hair, he crouched towards Katie’s vanity mirror and winced. Yeah. He looked exactly like what he’d just done. Guilty. Rumpled, red-faced, hollow-eyed.
He glanced back. Katie was still on the bed, dress wrinkled around her hips, smoke curling from her lips as if this were another Saturday night.
“You coming down?” he asked, reaching for his phone on her nightstand.
“In a minute.”
He flipped it open. Two new messages from Freddie.
Where’d you go?
I’m here. Mum made me pack up another box of her bloody soy candle stock for that street fair tomorrow.
Nathan smiled. Freddie’s mum and her latest harebrained scheme. Candle-making this month. Last month it was resin jewellery. Before that, personalised mugs with cat puns. He gave a fond chuckle, then glanced up to Katie. She arched an eyebrow.
“You, er…” He waved his phone in afterthought. “Want my number?”
Katie laughed. “I’ll get it off Mandy.”
He paused. Eyes narrowing, stomach dropping a little further.
Of course. Mandy. And the girls’ loo whispers about whose turn it was to get him. Nathan didn’t reply. Didn’t say another word. He shoved the phone into his back pocket and walked out. Down the stairs, past the thudding bass and the jeers that somehow sounded louder now. He felt like a name ticked off a list. A story for Monday. A conquest that meant nothing.
Fuck.
The moment Nathan spotted Freddie, everything else dulled to a blur. Leaning against the peeling kitchen worktop, he clutched a bottle of WKD as if it might offer him a personality transplant, shoulders hunched, eyes blinking between the floor and the loudest lads in the room, baseball cap shielding those deep, brown eyes. The sight punched Nathan’s chest.
He moved towards him, drawn as if a tide pulled him in. But before he could reach him, the lads pounced.
“Natey boy!”
A chorus of slaps on his back, hands dragging him into the centre of their raucous, drunken orbit.
“What took you so long?”
“Did she scream?”
“Need a fag and a pint after that, mate.”
Nathan didn’t speak.Couldn’t. Not when Freddie’s expression over their shoulders told him everything. Stiff. Guarded. As if he was preparing to duck a punch. So Nathan shoved free of the pack, their laughter echoing behind him, and caught Freddie by the wrist.
“Where we going?” Freddie asked as Nathan dragged him through the house, then hauled open the front door and stepped into the night air. Salt air hit his lungs, and he could finally breathe.
“Away.”
“Shouldn’t you say goodbye to your girlfriend?”
