Page 64 of Your Pace or Mine
He did. Of course he did. Darius was everything he never knew he wanted, but it felt too risky. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
Reg whistled lowly. “You gonna tell him, like?”
“I think so. I mean, I was planning to wait until after the marathon, or when my career’s more on track, but I just need to know. So I was thinking, maybe the night of the Oliviers.”
“This Friday?”
That made it feel so real, but a plan was forming in Jamie’s head. They’d be all dressed up, and he could take Darius out, somewhere private and romantic and tell him how he felt, how this hadn’t been pretend to him for a long time. So much of Jamie’s life had been about pretending, and he knew this wasn’t; that it never really had been.
Jamie would love to have been able to say that the deep conversation had made the miles disappear unnoticed, but the pain in his legs and his laboured breathing in the last ten kilometres said otherwise.
Back in his flat, Jamie whipped up a post-run smoothie while he casually scrolled through his email. He’d planned to spend the day with Reggie, but he’d darted off after an emergency text from Kate that Jamie had worked very hard not to comment on. He was going to be mature about this. It was fine if his best mate wanted to marry a woman who hated him. He’d deal.
An email from Jonathan caught his eye. A new audition, his first in ages, and it was huge—a lead in a brand-new, touring production, though there wasn’t much information about the team behind it. Jamie smirked. It looked like all that publicity had pushed the needle in his favour, after all.
Jamie knew he should have been excited about it, this could be what got his career back on track. He needed the money. His heart wasn’t really in it, though, and his mind kept drifting to the conversations he’d had with Sebastien during his physio sessions. He’d learned more about movement in those sessions than in his entire career so far, and it was fascinating looking at the body from that perspective. Thinking about it again now, Jamie found himself wondering if he really could do something else with his life.
It was probably a stupid thought. Jamie had a lot of those. Everyone had always made it pretty clear what he had to offer the world, and that was not his great brain. Setting thoughts of long-shot new career paths aside, Jamie reviewed the sparse details he had about the audition and got back to his plans for the Oliviers. He was going to impress the hell out of everyone at the awards on Friday, get his career back on track, then sweep Darius off his callused feet.
Chapter 16
Darius
2.5 weeks to the London Marathon
With Jamie’s big awards show just days away, Darius found himself once again on his way to his family home. There was little call for formal wear in his day-to-day life, but he had enough of it in his old room that he couldn’t justify purchasing yet another suit. He knew what Jamie would say if he did. So back home to dear old Dad it was.
On the way, Darius tried to keep up a calm façade for Jamie. That was all it was, though, a façade. He’d never taken a partner home to meet his family before—fake or not, this felt massive.
For his part, Jamie was drumming his fingers on his knee in time to the playlist of show tunes he’d commandeered the aux cord for. He looked like he didn’t have a care in the world, but Darius couldn’t help but notice his finger drumming was just slightly off beat, and he wasn’t speaking.
A silent Jamie was unusual enough to spark concern. Darius hoped he wasn’t causing him too much anxiety by bringing him along. He’d done his best to prepare him for the expected formality, but was worried that had just made things worse.
Darius watched Jamie closely as they exited the car, parking on the gravel drive right in front of the grand entrance to the main house. Jamie’s eyes were almost comically wide as he took in the surroundings. Before Darius could say anything to reassure him, Selena bounded out of the massive stone arched doorway, jumping onto Darius so quickly he had to lunge to catch her.
“I can’t believe you brought a boy home!” she squealed.
Darius lowered her to the ground and extricated himself from her arms. “Selena, meet Jamie,” he said with a deep sigh.
Selena laughed at him before turning her attention to Jamie. “I am so excited to meet you,” she said. “You know Darius has never brought anyone home before, and I know it’s meant to…” Selena’s embarrassing tirade ended abruptly when Darius shoved his hand over her mouth, which she promptly licked. Sometimes, Darius was convinced Selena was the more mature sibling, but this was not one of those moments.
“I get it, I get it, I won’t embarrass you in front of yourboyfriend,“ she groused. Selena positioned herself next to Jamie. “So what do you think of our humble abode?”
Jamie grimaced. “I don’t know that humble is the word I’d go for.”
Selena laughed out loud for a moment, stopping short when a figure appeared in the doorway. There was an inscrutable expression on his father’s face. His tie sat high on his neck, a perfectly knotted Oxford, and he didn’t leave the doorway as he addressed them. “You’re late, Son, again. And you’ve brought aguest.”
“Apologies, I’d like to introduce Jamie Carter, my partner,” Darius replied. He could sense Jamie’s anxious gaze on him.
“Pleased to meet you, Your Grace,” Jamie said, his voice shaking slightly, not a hint of the warm, gravelly edge it usually held.
Darius held his breath until his father nodded. “Indeed. Right this way, dinner has already been laid. Youarelate, Darius.”
“Traffic,” Darius responded absentmindedly as he took Jamie’s hand.
“At least you drove this time,” his father sighed as he ushered them into the formal dining room. Selena chatted happily to Jamie as Darius picked at his potatoes, already on the back foot. Clearly in a mood, the Duke bypassed any niceties and went straight into questioning Darius about his ongoing failure to make the Olympic team.
“It’s completely absurd for that Jennings boy to have taken your rightful space,” his father stated. “You have far more training and consistently better results behind you. Wanting to sell a Cinderella story in the media should not be how we are fielding our Olympic team. Shameful.”
