Page 62 of Your Pace or Mine
He needed to get a run in, though. Keeping a training volume of over a hundred miles a week didn’t leave a lot of opportunities for lie-ins.
Darius quietly snuck out of the room, laced up his trainers and sent a quick text to Jamie so he’d know he hadn’t just left him.This part of London was beautiful in the early morning light, and maybe he was still riding a high from being with Jamie, but he found himself really appreciating every bit of the city as he ran past.
By the time he got back to the townhouse, Jamie was up and freshly showered, a towel slung low on his hips as he examined his clothing from the night before with a frown. Darius set the coffees he’d picked up on a nightstand and wrapped his arms around Jamie from behind, laying soft kisses on his neck.
“Want to borrow something?” he asked.
At Jamie’s hesitant nod, Darius reluctantly pulled away, passing him a pair of joggers and a T-shirt from his drawer. Jamie took them from his hands with a quiet ‘thank you,’ and pulled him closer. Darius kissed him on the neck, breathing him in. A barely audible gasp from Jamie had him tangling his hands in his hair and pulling him in for a heated kiss. They separated, foreheads touching. Jamie whispered in Darius’s ear, “You reek. Please go get a shower.”
“Yes, dear.” Darius laughed. Jamie wasn’t wrong.
After the quickest shower he’d probably ever managed, during which he obsessively worried Jamie would be gone when he came out, Darius walked back into his room to find Jamie sitting on the edge of the bed, sipping his coffee. Darius thought he looked impossibly soft in the borrowed clothes, and it ignited something inside of him, like satisfaction purring deep within him. Jamie had his phone in his hand, scrolling through what looked like some sort of job site as he absentmindedly drank from the paper cup. He glanced up at Darius with a smile, leaning back against the pillows to watch as Darius puttered around the room, quickly dressing before settling beside him and pressing a kiss to his temple.
“What are you looking for?” Darius asked.
Jamie turned his mobile to show Darius. “Just scrolling casting sites,” he sighed. “I haven’t heard from my agent in weeks, and if I don’t find something soon, my chances of making rent next month are looking slim, never mind that bloody fundraiser I’ll probably have to top up.”
Darius hummed. “I could help,” he offered tentatively.
Jamie shut him down with a glare. “I don’t want your money, Darius.”
“Are you sure, because… if I were really your boyfriend, I’d probably have covered it by now.”
Another glare.
“Is your knee feeling good enough to manage an audition?” Darius pivoted.
A grin took over his face. “Yes, I’m definitely ready. Maybe not full-on acrobatics, but I can handle a standard dance call.”
As they enjoyed their breakfast, Jamie showed Darius some of the ridiculous casting calls he’d found online. They ranged from absurd (send a self-tape, chewing bubble gum, and dropping your phone on your face) to horrifying (provide a six-minute video jumping up and down in the nude for further consideration to the director’s private email address).
“Is that legal?” Darius questioned.
Jamie grimaced. “Probably not, but that’s the business.” He tucked his phone into the pocket of his borrowed shorts. “There isn’t much to protect people from that sort of thing, you’ve just got to be smart about it.”
There was a strange shift in Jamie’s body language that Darius couldn’t quite place. He took their dishes, placing them in the sink to deal with later and pulled him into his arms, taking whatever he could get for now.
Chapter 15
Jamie
3 weeks to the London Marathon
The more Jamie dreaded the approaching marathon, the faster time seemed to pass. It was April, and with only a week until the Oliviers and three weeks until the marathon, he was exhausted all the time. It almost made him happy he didn’t have any auditions lined up because he wasn’t sure he’d have the energy to drag himself to one if it came through.
His fast-diminishing current account and still incomplete fundraising target disagreed with that assessment of the situation, though.
He’d seen more of Darius since they’d spent the night together. There was hardly ever a moment Jamie wasn’t over at the townhouse. Paying an obscene amount of rent for a flat he had barely even entered in the past couple of weeks was starting to feel like a massive con. Exhaustion and overpaying for unused accommodation aside, Jamie felt pretty good.
He and Darius had grown even closer in the past few weeks. He knew it was a side-effect of spending so much time together, their conversations had grown more intimate, touches more frequent, and the guise of press coverage was never needed asan excuse to kiss or cuddle up together, or more— not since the night he’d stayed over.
Jamie was long past lying to himself about how he felt. He still couldn’t bring himself to talk to Darius about it. He couldn’t face the inevitable rejection, especially not when things finally seemed to be working out for both of them. Despite no longer chasing it, they had both started to receive more positive press. There was even mention of Jamie’s charity dance classes in a recent article, which had helped out his fundraising target a bit, though he still hadn’t seen much career movement from it. Now wasn’t the time to rock the boat and risk Darius running scared. Soon, he’d get another audition, then he would tell him how he felt, and see where the chips fell. He’d just pray to anyone that would listen that they would fall in his favour.
For now, though, he’d enjoy whatever he could.
And enjoy it he did.
Jamie had never even imagined he could find someone so completely attuned to his needs. It was the little things, like how Darius would always bring a coffee back for Jamie after his early morning runs, or how he’d helped him tape his knee before they walked over the Chelsea Bridge to meet up with the rest of the group in Battersea Park.
