Page 29 of The Moon Also Rises
Chapter Nine
Jake
I’m standing in front of the mirror at the desk, adjusting my bowtie and edging closer and closer to losing the will to live. Again. If it wasn’t Dolce & Gabbana and matching both my socks and the bright pink with red polka dots silk handkerchief I plan on having folded in my jacket, I would throw it away because it’s taken almost fifteen minutes to tie up and it’s damn well nearly undone all the de-stressing I just did in the bath while listening to Rami’s undeniably very calming playlist.
When I hear the key turn in the door, I absent-mindedly smooth out my eyebrows, wondering if they also need a little gel to be tamed.
“Got you that drink,” Rami says as he approaches me and I turn to take it. My mouth is open ready to thank him for the drink, for the bath, for the playlist, but when my eyes land on him, my words evaporate. So does my next breath.
I already knew Rami was an attractive man. He has been blessed with high cheekbones and a poker-straight, dominant nose, and those silver eyes are not ones anybody would forget in a hurry, especially when you recall how perfectly framed they are by those thick, black eyebrows. And although I don’t think he’s a vain person who spends hours man-scaping, there’s something about that grey-black stubble which is always at the perfect five o’clock shadow length that makes me wonder if he does care more about his appearance than I originally suspected. All this I can comment on objectively, but what feels very subjective and very real is how I am reacting to him wearing a tux. He looks more than striking; he looks arresting. My breaths are being arrested. My thoughts are being detained. And my cock is beginning to think it’s being cuffed as it fills out my underwear.
“Jake.” I hear him say. “Your drink.”
My hand, thankfully, moves to take the glass because there’s possibly not enough blood in my brain to send any more complicated messages than that.
“Thank you,” I manage to utter as I can’t stop my eyes diving down to take in the full length of him.
“Looks like I’m going to be wearing a tux a lot more often in our office,” he says as he fiddles with the cufflinks at his wrists.
“Pardon?” I barely hear what he says because I’m so busy looking at how his trousers taper to the length and breadth of his legs perfectly. It has me assuming it must be bespoke, possibly even couture, and I had no idea he had such a narrow waist or broad shoulders. It’s almost impossible to pull my eyes away from his patent dress shoes that are so perfectly polished they reflect the gleam of the ceiling light.
“I’ve never seen you so quiet,” Rami says in a gentle voice.
“You look—” I say because I feel it’s only fair to compliment him, even just a little bit. “You look good.”
It’s so inadequate it’s almost a lie, but when Rami looks down at the floor and chews on his smile, I know I’m right to hold back. He wants to laugh at me and how flabbergasted I am over him in a tuxedo. I’m such an idiot. An idiot who hasn’t had a shag in far too long.
“You don’t look so bad yourself,” he says when his eyes look up again.
“Your shoes are so shiny,” I say, determined not to read too much into his compliment.
“Tooshiny?” he asks and I see the worry in his frown.
“No such thing,” I say and take a much-needed sip of my drink. It helps melt some of the tension in my throat and hopefully will also go some way to redistributing the blood flow in my body.
“So, funny story,” Rami says. “Luigi and Lionel’s DJ has cancelled on them…”
The witch in me wants to rejoice, but I manage to rein in my cackle.
“So, I’m going to step in for them.”
“What!?” I turn to face him. “But you’re not a DJ?”
Rami clears his throat. “Well, not exactly, but I have done some DJing in the past. You know, doing events, festivals and the like. And my father was a DJ.”
“Was he?” I ask looking at Rami’s pensive smile.
“Yeah, DJ Moonlight.”
“That’s an… interesting name.”
Rami chuckles to himself. “Someone told him once that he was moonlighting as a DJ, because he was doing it on the side of his normal job. And he just liked the sound of it. His English was always excellent, but sometimes he didn’t get some of the idioms or subtleties of the language. So yeah, DJ Moonlight.”
“It has a nice ring to it. Was he very successful?”
“God, no. I mean not in any global or monetary sense. But he did pubs and clubs all over the West Midlands for nearly twenty years and he was truly loved, so in that respect, you could call him very successful yes.”
“Sounds like a great guy,” I say. When I look at Rami again his eyes – and clearly thoughts – have drifted somewhere else.
