Page 19 of Lance
Those should convince people, Jamie figured. Hell, they were halfway to convincing him, and he knew the truth. It was just hard to believe that anyone was a good enough actor to pull off what Ken and Lance were doing, apparently without much effort at all.
Whatever. It wasn’t like he would go for it, anyway. Jamie took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, determinedly slipping his phone into his pocket. Or that was the plan, but the tight leather pants that he’d been dressed in didn’t even have pockets.
“You get used to it.”
Jamie hadn’t even heard Lance walk up to him. He’d been far too busy with his own incredibly unhelpful thoughts, and he turned around, startled, as he fixed his eyes on the other man.
“What?” he asked, hating the way it came out. He sounded like an idiot, grunting out that one word.
“You get used to it. The clothes.” Lance smiled encouragingly at him, and Jamie had a brief, but incredibly intense, little flashback to when he’d been on his knees between this man’s legs, Lance’s face contorted with pleasure.
“I mean it’s just cool to have something new,” Jamie blurted out, though the moment he said the words he regretted them. How pathetic did he sound? And there was no way that Lance, who seemed to notice most things, who seemed to be a pretty intuitive person, wasn’t going to notice that.
“What do you mean?” Lance asked, confirming Jamie’s fears. Jamie looked around, seeking escape, but he didn’t find any. Not without being incredibly rude, anyway. Ken was off to the side, watching them with eyes that seemed to burn, but he was hardly going to walk over to someone who really did seem to hate him.
“I mean …” Jamie steeled himself, forcing his face into a small smirk. It came easily, through long practice. “I just haven’t had new clothes in a while, that’s all. Before I got this job, I was working at a fast food joint.” Which was true, and not something he was keeping secret. The best lies, he’d found, were the ones that were at least partially true.
“Well, you don’t anymore.” Some people would have judged Jamie for what he’d said. Even Phoebe, the reporter, had seemed to be filled with a sort of superior pity when he’d told her his story. Lance just took it in stride, as he seemed to take most things.
“I guess not.” Jamie bit his lower lip and felt the oddest surge of guilt before he spoke again. Which was ridiculous. He wasn’t betraying Dom. He wasn’t even with Dom anymore. “Hey, do you want to, you know, maybe come clothes shopping with me sometime?”
It was a desperate cry for help, though Jamie very much hoped Lance didn’t know it. Dom had bought all of Jamie’s clothing for the three years that they’d been together. He had a certain way that he liked Jamie to look, and Jamie, well, he’d just wanted to please his incredibly handsome, forceful boyfriend.
He didn’t remember how to shop for himself, not really. Not anymore.
“Yeah, that could be cool,” Lance said easily, and Jamie felt the tension melt from his muscles, letting out a breath that he hadn’t even been aware that he was holding. He returned Lance’s smile with a tentative one of his own.
“Cool,” Jamie echoed, too happy to feel like as much of an idiot as he was sure he sounded like. “You always look good.” He looked Lance over, from head to toe, and then smirked at him. “So you can help me.”
“Sounds good. We don’t take off until tomorrow evening,” Lance pointed out. “Maybe we can go tomorrow during the day?”
Well, that was a good sign. Jamie could have been afraid that Lance was just saying yes to get Jamie to shut up, but that didn’t seem likely when he was actually proposing a time. However much of a miracle it might seem to Jamie, Lance really did want to do this.
Or was too nice to say no. Whatever. Jamie knew he could do it alone, but for this first time since he was back to being himself, back out from under Dom’s thumb, he wanted someone with him. He could fly solo later.
“It’s a date,” Jamie said, pushing it just a little. He was expecting Lance’s smile to get strained, or for him to deny it, but neither of those things happened.
Instead, Lance gave him a little smile back, like they had a secret together. Which, Jamie supposed, they did.
