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S
EAN
FOUGHT
the urge to stand up and pace the narrow aisle of the train car. The ride was only an hour. He’d been stuck on longer subway rides during rush hour that made him curse Travis and his insistence that they live in Brooklyn, but he wasn’t usually anticipating a hookup. He hadn’t planned a specific place to meet Jaime, but the station at White Plains didn’t have many places for him to get lost, anyway. He had only been to Purchase a few times to work with students in the conservatory, and all those times he’d had Travis to lead him around. He was about ten minutes out when his phone buzzed.

This place is boring to kill time in.

Before Sean could think of a reply, it buzzed again.

Not that I was really early. Lexi told me being early would make me look pathetic. There just wasn’t any traffic.

Sean fought a grin that would likely make the old lady across the aisle try to start a conversation for the third time.

I’ll remember to not mention it to her when I meet her. Am I meeting her?

He wanted to ignore the doubt Travis had planted in his brain about Jaime’s roommate. He’d meant what he’d said when he told Travis he had no right stalking Jaime online. Just because Travis found an online profile that said Jaime was “in a relationship with Aleksandra Lukin” did not mean he was actually in a relationship. Alana was constantly hacking his accounts online and posting about his undying love for Travis, and that would look suspicious if Jaime found it.

Maybe not. She said something about not being around to hear something she felt the need to say in Russian. I have no idea, and I probably don’t want to.

Sean shook his head and let his phone fall into his messenger bag as the train stopped. On a Sunday afternoon, most of the passengers took their time, like they were still hungover from the previous night spent in New York before heading back to school. He caught sight of Jaime standing against the wall as he entered the station, and got in a few moments of admiring the way his black tank top showed off the bulk of his arms before Jaime found him in the crowd. His wide smile erased whatever doubts Sean had lingering about Aleksandra. If that hadn’t worked, the way Jaime pulled him in by the waistband of his jeans and preceded to kiss him until he couldn’t think would have done the trick.

“Hungry?” Jaime asked, moving down to leave a small kiss on his neck.

“Ate lunch on the train.”

“My place?”

“Yeah.”

Jaime smirked and released him so they could walk to the car. They didn’t talk on the ten-minute drive to the apartment, but the way Jaime reached over and moved up his hand up Sean’s thigh said more than enough. The way he kept one hand on the wheel and his eyes straight ahead while the fingers of his right hand stroked the inside seam of Sean’s jeans had Sean struggling not to slouch in his seat in an attempt to get more contact. When Jaime removed his hand to pull into the parking lot, Sean let himself glare.

“And you’ve been calling me a tease.”

“It’s not teasing if I intend to follow through.”

Jaime had him pushed up against the door as soon as it closed behind them. He slipped his hands under Sean’s T-shirt and pushed it up and off over his head before he dipped back down to mouth at his neck. Jaime was murmuring soft words into his neck, but he gave up concentrating when he realized it was Spanish.

“That is unfairly hot if you’re really just reciting your grocery list or something.” Sean knew his words came out breathless, but he couldn’t be blamed as Jaime fumbled with the button on his jeans, and he chuckled against Sean’s neck.

“Maybe I’ll translate.” Jaime’s lips found his again, his teeth nipping at Sean’s lower lip before pulling him away from the door and further into the apartment. “Eventually. If I feel like it.”

Sean let himself be pushed down on the bed, his flip-flops falling to the floor as Jaime climbed on top of him. Jaime only paused to pull off his own shirt and toss it away before refocusing on Sean’s jeans until he had them undone enough to reach inside. Sean bucked against his hand. He scrambled to unbutton Jaime’s jeans and push them down. Everything devolved into the slide of skin against skin until he gave in, tightening his own grip as his come left a splatter on Jaime’s chest. Jaime pushed into his fist a few more times before collapsing on top of him, his breath hot and fast on Sean’s neck. Sean pulled his hand from between them and draped his arm over Jaime’s back, enjoying the weight on top of him as his heart rate and breathing settled.

“Worth the train ride?” Jaime raised his head to give him a smirk before pushing off him to move to the edge of the bed. He shucked off his jeans as he stood, leaving them on the floor and walking, naked, to pull a towel off his desk chair to clean himself off before tossing the towel at Sean’s chest.

“I’m expecting a round two later where you actually get my jeans off.” Sean made a show of tucking himself back into his boxer briefs and started to button his jeans, only to be stopped by Jaime gripping his hand.

“You are not going to lie around in my bed after that with jeans on. That would really ruin all my plans for the day.”

Sean laughed, but he lifted his hips to let Jaime pull his jeans off and toss them on the floor.

“You might have to put on clothes to get us food at some point.”

“I can warm up last night’s dinner. I cooked, and Lexi didn’t manage to eat it all. You’ll be gone before she realizes it’s gone and starts bitching about it.”

“Do you not want me to meet her?” Sean asked, although the parts of his brain that were starting to work told him not to.

“What? No.” Jaime stretched out next to him on his stomach and propped his head up on Sean’s chest. “Well, yes. But only because she will try to intimidate you and insist that you call her Aleksandra, because only my stupidity allows me to get away with saying Lexi. And then she’ll try to trick you into some kind of vodka contest that I’m telling you right now you will not win. None of these things fall into my plan today, and if you’re too hungover tomorrow,
your
best friend will hate me even more.”

“He doesn’t hate you.” Sean let his fingers drift over Jaime’s closed-cropped hair. “He’s just overprotective—for mostly no reason. He threatens all Alana’s boyfriends when she’s obviously ten times scarier than he is, so they all end up thinking he wants to fuck her.”

“He doesn’t?”

“He knows he’s not tough enough for that. He’s also eight years older than her, so he thinks she’s a kid. He’s only four years older than me, and sometimes he forgets I’m not eighteen anymore.”

Jaime laughed before turning his head to rest his cheek on Sean’s chest as Sean surveyed the room he’d been too preoccupied to notice before. There was an older MacBook sitting on a desk against the wall, and various photographs pinned up around the desk in no apparent order. They weren’t the kind he and Travis had up. No random smiling people grouped together casually with their arms draped over each other. These were close-ups of things he couldn’t make out. The few with people showed them in private moments he almost felt he shouldn’t be watching. He recognized Lupe in one. She was sitting on floor of a studio, bent over in exhaustion with one pointe shoe off and tossed aside.

“She hates that one,” Jaime mumbled beside him.

“It’s beautiful.” He couldn’t even pinpoint why.

“Yeah. She just always wants to look perfect all the time.”

Sean let his gaze drift from Lupe to a black-and-white of a pretty woman, her hair in loose dark curls as she hung sideways from a pole in short, tight shorts and a bra.

“Should I be worried?” he asked, lifting his hand just enough to point out the picture.

“No. Well, not unless Aleksandra’s papa finds it. She dances in clubs sometimes when a friend gets her a gig, but she doesn’t strip. Pole’s just like a sport to her. I’d argue, but you should see the bruises she comes home from classes with. I took those for a competition she did last month.”

“You took all those? I thought you did computer stuff. Like graphics for websites.” He was pretty sure he hadn’t zoned out of their lunch conversation that much.

“I do. That’s where the money is. That’s where I can get work that pays enough for rent. But my focus in school is photography. I like it, but after school, that kind of thing will just be a hobby. Lexi thinks I should drop graphic design, but I’d rather do that than end up taking portraits in a department store.”

“Maybe you should listen to her.”

“I need something more stable—which I realize might not be the thing to say to a dancer, but we can’t all be artists.” Jaime shrugged and glanced back at the picture before turning back to Sean and climbing farther on top of him. “Not that I’m not flattered you think I’m talented, but I have other talents, and the half-naked girl is not really what’s got my attention right now.”

S
EAN
WITHHELD
a groan when he opened the door to his apartment and spotted Alana stretched out on the floor, painting her toenails.

“How’d it go? Was it amazing? Are you already naming your hypothetical children I’m not having for you?” Alana asked without looking up or pausing from her work.

“Why are you here?” Sean looked toward the kitchen, but Travis wasn’t there, and a glance though the open door to his room didn’t give him any hope Travis would appear and declare a ban on discussing Sean’s sex life.

“My sister is pissed I accidentally threw out a bag of her clothes. It’s not my fault. She put her dirty clothes in a trash bag. Who does that?”

“And Travis left you here?” Sean threw his jacket in his room and went into the kitchen. There was an empty box from a frozen pizza on the counter he was sure Travis hadn’t left there. Of course, if Travis stopped stocking the refrigerator with frozen pizzas for her, maybe Alana would stop acting like she lived in their apartment.

“Haven’t seen him. One of you left the deadbolt off again. You’re going to get robbed. Or stabbed. Or robbed and stabbed.” Alana sat back and closed the bottle of nail polish before wandering into Travis’s room and coming back with a hoodie. Travis could pretend to kick her out all he wanted. If he wanted Sean to believe he didn’t encourage her, he would have to stop letting her take up a quarter of his closet. Sean should find him a girl to date just so he’d have to explain that he’d adopted a really annoying twenty-year-old.

“If anyone breaks in, it’s going to be you that stabs and robs them.” Sean debated hiding in his room, but she’d just pop his lock with a fork, so he poured a glass of juice and joined her on the couch instead. It was a good thing he’d showered before he’d left Jaime’s apartment.

“Because someone has to protect you idiots,” Alana said as she lay down on her back with her head in his lap. “So how was it? I can’t grill you at class because someone will figure it out, and it will travel back to Lupe eventually.”

“It was good.” Sean tried to shrug and hold back the smile he knew she’d read too easy, but it was useless when the memory of Jaime’s smile and the way it seemed to light up his whole face was so fresh in his mind.

The door opened before Alana could answer, and Travis didn’t even react to seeing her on the couch as he picked up her dirty plate from the coffee table and moved it to the sink.

“Sean’s all starry-eyed already,” Alana called after Travis. He’d object, but it would have been pointless.

Chapter 4

S
EAN
ONLY
caught a glimpse of Jaime through the window during class on Tuesday, but he did get a text after that said,
Lupe yelled at me for watching her class. Had to pretend I was watching her at some point.

Sean figured that was enough encouragement that his text asking if they were hanging out during Lupe’s class on Thursday was not a crazy assumption.

Promised Lexi I’d help with a shoot she scheduled at the same time that’s also in Chelsea. But you can come with. Might be boring.

Sean didn’t hesitate in confirming. It might be boring, but he could meet Aleksandra and make Travis stop giving him pointed looks every time her name came up. Of course, he should have known telling Travis about his plans meant telling Alana, who couldn’t just go home after their Thursday ballet class and leave him alone.

“How did I know you were spending half an hour in the dressing room after class so you could look all sexy? Seriously. Everyone is going to know you’re dating someone. The girls are already talking about how you smile at all your texts. I tried to tell them Travis finally gave in and decided to be gay for you,” Alana said as she walked around the men’s dressing room. At least she’d waited until the rest of the guys were gone before coming in this time.

“Why are you here?” Sean threw the rest of his things in his bag. Jaime would be around soon. He’d need to wait until Lupe and Michael were occupied to meet him at his car, but he also didn’t want to take too long when Aleksandra would be waiting on him also.