Heated Beat 01 - My Mate Jack (MM) (5 page)

Hadn’t stopped him scrawling Jack a soppy note and leaving the crumpled pages with Jack’s dad, though. Will winced when he thought about it, but Jack hadn’t mentioned it, and perhaps he never would.

Will could only hope.

They hadn’t set eyes on each other since. These days they kept in contact when their conflicting schedules allowed, mainly e-mail and the occasional phone call. Will often thought of Jack late at night when he was going to bed, tapping out an e-mail last thing before he fell asleep. Jack’s replies were usually posted first thing in the morning, but Will was under no illusions that Jack was just getting up. No. By the sounds of things, Jack was hardly sleeping at all.

Suki punched his arm. “You always do that when we talk about him.”

“Ow!” Will rubbed his arm. “Do what who now?”

Suki laughed. “Jack… your straight friend. Talking about him always sends you to another planet. What’s up with that?”

Will scowled. “Nothing. I wasn’t thinking about Jack, if you must know. I was
thinking
about the hot accountant guy your mate set me up with.”

The lie came easily. Will was used to hiding his feelings for Jack. He’d done it his whole life.

Suki’s face brightened. “Are you going to see him again?”

Will forced his mind into the present and pictured the slim, fiercely intelligent redhead he’d shared a KFC with the night before. Evan Lewis was great—sharp, funny and gorgeous. They’d had a lot of fun, and the sweet kiss they’d shared after was almost the hottest kiss Will had ever had.

Almost.

“Sure,” Will said. “He’s going to the Wendy House on Saturday. I said I’d meet him there. You’ll come with me, won’t you?”

“To the Wendy House?” Suki jumped down from the counter and swiped Will’s packet of custard creams. “Try and stop me. And who knows? If things go well, you can invite Evan to Ibiza with us. I’m sure
Jack
can find room for one more.”

Suki danced off with Will’s biscuits before he could think of a suitable answer. He watched her go, pondering, still clutching his tea. He hardly knew Evan, but the thought of taking him to Ibiza… to visit Jack… felt all wrong. It was a stupid idea, wasn’t it?

A
MONTH
or so later, Will found himself slowly changing his mind. If the pictures in the music magazines were to be believed, Jack probably wouldn’t notice if Will turned up with his long-dead mother hanging off his arm. Clubs, models, groupies. Jack was fast becoming a superstar on the DJ circuit, and so much had changed Will had to wonder if they’d even recognize each other.

Besides, things with Evan had moved on too….

Will rolled over. There wasn’t much room in the single bed, but Will followed the natural curve of Evan’s body and drove inside him again, searching out that sweet, textured knot that made Evan curse and chew a hole in the pillow.

Beneath him, Evan rose up on all fours. He pushed back onto Will and urged him on. “Harder. Do it. I won’t bloody break.”

Will gave in and slammed Evan into the mattress, though he caught himself inwardly rolling his eyes. Evan liked it a little rough, and though Will enjoyed it well enough, something about it sometimes felt a little forced, like they were performing for a crowd who didn’t much care.

Didn’t stop him getting off, mind. Even now, when his thoughts were elsewhere. He pulled out of Evan and collapsed in a heap beside him. He lay still a moment, panting, before he set about a halfhearted cleanup.

Evan rolled over when he was done and put his chin on his chest. “You seem miles away today. Everything okay?”

“Miles away?” Will quirked an eyebrow. “We seem pretty close to me.”

“Very funny. You want me to bottom worship you? Tell you what a monster top you are?”

“Piss off. I’m right here. Maybe it’s you who’s distracted.” Will gave Evan a playful shove. Topping was a relatively new experience for him, but one he’d found he was good at if the few blokes he’d tried it with were to be believed.

Evan hummed softly. “Maybe. I’ve been thinking about the summer break. A few of my mates are going to Barcelona for a few weeks. Do you want to come?”

Ah
. Will had known that was coming. Evan had been dropping hints for weeks and Will had been doing the same, hoping to let him know it wasn’t going to happen without having a fuck-awkward conversation. Seemed he should’ve tried harder. “Sorry. I’m already going to Ibiza. I can’t afford two trips.”

“Ibiza? You never said.”

“Didn’t I?” Now that
was
news to Will. At home, the impending trip was all he and his flatmates ever talked about, but then he didn’t often bring Evan home, choosing instead to fuck and kip at Evan’s place in Beeston.

Evan nudged him. “No, you didn’t. Who are you going to Ibiza with?”

“Suki and the girls. I have a friend who DJs out there. We’re staying with him.”

“Oh.”

Evan didn’t say anymore, and it was a while before Will began to feel bad. He looked down at Evan and pictured the image he’d seen of Jack just that morning, plastered all over a tacky white couch with girls all over him. Lately, those images had come to replace the ones Will carried close to his heart. The ones of Jack naked and writhing beneath him….

Stop it
.
He’s straight, remember
?

“Come with us, if you want?”

Evan glanced up. He looked startled enough for Will to wonder how long it had been since either of them had spoken. “To Ibiza with you?”

Will shrugged. “Jack said I can bring who I want and the flights are only fifty quid.”

“Do you want me to come?”

“If you like.” Will forced himself not to shrug again. He and Evan weren’t exactly boyfriends, but they’d moved past the friends-with-benefits stage, and Will liked Evan, most of the time. They got on well enough and the sex was… great. Why not take it to the next level? To another bloody country and see how it went?

“Why not? It’ll be fun.”

July 2003

Ibiza

W
ILL
AND
his five partners in crime—four girls and Evan—piled off the plane into a hazy wall of sunshine. Will stumbled, already half-pissed from the flight and hanging around the airport, and the heat hit him like a shot of cheap Sambuca.

Evan caught him and grinned. “Easy, babe.”

Will righted himself and resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Evan had started calling him
babe
one night after Will had drunk too much blue vodka at a rowdy flat party. Will hated it, but after puking on Evan’s favorite shoes, he hadn’t had the heart to tell him to shut the fuck up.

Suki poked Will’s arm. “Come on. Let’s get our bags so we can find your superhot DJ friend.”

They made their way through the busy airport, hyper and loud, but this was Ibiza and no one seemed to care. Will grabbed his bag from the luggage carousel. He wandered to a bench to wait for the others.

Evan joined him a few moments later. “You didn’t tell me your friend was hot.”

“He’s straight. Why would I?”

“Why not?” Evan shrugged. “Lila told me he’s famous. How come I’ve never heard of him?”

“Erm, because you like cheesy pop music? Jack plays drum-and-bass and techno trance, or he used to. I’m not sure what he plays over here.”

Evan looked mystified, but that wasn’t unusual. Aside from being gay lads from the southeast of England and sharing some half-decent sexual chemistry, he and Will didn’t have much in common.

Suki and her crazy pals, Lila, Jo, and Cara, found their way to the bench. Will looked at them and shook his head. Pink hair, tattoos, and enough piercings to make a grown man shudder. He wondered what Jack would make of them. They weren’t anything like the girls they’d known back home.

Jo tugged Will’s sleeve. “Where are we meeting the superhot DJ?”

Will scowled. Why did everyone keep saying that? “He said he’d wait out front. His place is a ten-minute walk away.”

They shouldered their bags and pushed their way through the airport. Will felt a shot of nerves as they jostled through the tourists and natives. He hadn’t seen Jack for the better part of a year. What if he didn’t recognize him? Or, worse, what if they didn’t like each other anymore? Jack had been his best friend for as long as he could remember, but the distance between them now had begun to feel horribly normal.

They made it outside. Will looked beyond the rows of waiting cars and taxis, searching for a mop of sandy hair. For a moment he came up blank and his stomach did an odd flip. Jack wasn’t there. Then he found his gaze suddenly locked in the dark liquid haze he knew so well and his companions faded away. Will dropped his bag and crossed the street. Jack met him halfway and wrapped him in a bear hug, a warm, tight embrace that, even in the middle of the blazing Mediterranean, felt like home.

Jack slapped Will’s back. “It’s good to see you, man. How was the flight? I forgot until this morning you’d never been on a plane before.”

“It was fine.” Will mumbled the words into the scrap of a vest Jack was almost wearing, unwilling to let go until he remembered they were blocking the road. For a moment, they stared at each other, wide-eyed and giddy. Jack looked amazing—tanned and healthy, his hair streaked with sun-lightened blond. Will drank him in. Wow. Had he always been this hot?

Jack punched his arm. “Look at you. Your hair’s so long.”

Will fingered the ends of his light blond chin-length hair. In recent months, he’d lacked the inclination and funds to get it cut. The girls said he looked like a green-eyed Kurt Cobain with it long, but Will figured they were looking for a kind way to tell him he was skinny and pale. “I had a beard a few weeks ago, but it turned ginger so I shaved it off.”

Jack laughed and his grin matched the sun. “Take a picture next time. I need evidence.”

“Arsehole.”

“Yep. So… where are your friends?”

“My friends? Shit.” Will had all but forgotten Evan, Suki, and the girls waiting for him on the other side of the road. “They’re over there.”

Jack followed Will’s gaze and his eyebrows shot up in surprise. He waved. The girls looked excited, and Evan… fuck,
Evan
. Jack had been hard to pin down recently, and Will had never got round to telling him Evan was coming.

Will opened his mouth to explain, but Jack was already crossing the road.

The girls swarmed around him. Jack hugged them all before he extended his hand to Evan. “All right, mate? I’m Jack.”

“So I see.” Evan shook Jack’s hand. “I’m Evan, Will’s boyfriend.”

Evan said it with a smile, but for some reason Will wanted the ground to swallow him up. They’d been sleeping together and socializing for a few months, but boyfriends? Really? The term made Will cringe.

If Jack was surprised, he didn’t let it show. Instead he took Cara’s bag from her—the biggest, by miles—and pointed to an apartment block on the beachfront. “My place is this way. Come on. I’ll show you.”

The walk to Jack’s apartment felt odd. The girls talked a mile a minute, mainly at Jack, but Evan didn’t say a word, Will either, and though he was the glue tying them all together, he felt strangely detached, like he was storing it all to watch later.

Perhaps it was Jack’s back. The whole walk, Will couldn’t stop staring at it. Jack had always been fit and athletic, not too huge, but he seemed leaner now… in a good way, like he’d lost the soft, innocent curves leftover from childhood. His profile was sharper now, angled, and his back was a bloody wet dream.

Evan nudged Will. “That’s the last time I buy you a double vodka. You look like you need a nap.”

Jack glanced over his shoulder. “Will can’t drink in daylight. Makes him sleepy.”

Will rolled his eyes. Daytime drinking had always been his undoing. How many times had he fallen asleep on Jack in the park? “It’s not the vodka. It’s the three pints of Stella I drank for breakfast. And anyway, it’s the first time you’ve bought me anything but pissy Foster’s from the union.”

That shut Evan up, though it was Jack who frowned. Despite being an accountant, Evan was shit with money, and by the end of each month it was always Will who ended up buying the drinks. Not that he minded much. Evan was a lightweight. It didn’t take much to put him on his arse, and Evan was at his most fun when three sheets to the wind.

Will’s dirty thoughts cut off as Jack’s apartment block appeared in front of him. From the outside it looked pretty plain, but Will realized his mistake as soon as they got inside. With its sleek, modern interior and prime beach views, the place was a palace. “Wow. This looks like
MTV Cribs
.”

Jack chuckled. “Nice, eh? It’s a lot better than the first place I had when I came out here. Back then I just had a mattress at the back of the club. This place comes with the job at Pacha. I share it with some guys, but they’re in Ayia Napa this week.”

He rattled off some names. Will shook his head.
Some guys
? Bollocks. Jack was sharing a house with a bunch of living legends, in the DJ world at least. Even Evan had heard of them. Will pondered what that meant for Jack. He knew Jack was rising fast and, by the look of him, having the time of his life. Did that mean Will’s fears that Jack would never come home were going to come true? Was this it now? Annual visits in the sunshine with a crowd of onlookers along for the ride? Will had spent a year convincing himself it was as it should be, but faced with it now, it didn’t feel right. Nothing did.

Will sidestepped Evan’s reaching hand and picked up his bag. “Where are we sleeping?”

Jack blinked, and Will realized he’d been staring while Will had been lost in thought. “This way.”

Jack’s apartment had three bedrooms. The girls took two between them, leaving one room—Jack’s room—left. Jack opened the door. Will poked his head in. For Jack, it was surprisingly tidy and minimalist, just a bed, a sound system, and a chest of drawers.

“You two can, uh, sleep in here,” Jack said. “I’ll take the couch.”