Accidentally in Love (2 page)
Read Accidentally in Love Online
Authors: Jane Davitt,Alexa Snow
Tags: #Romance, #M/M Contemporary, #Contemporary, #Gay, #Source: Amazon
“I think I’m allowed to touch the bottle.” Marianne reached out.
“No, no.” Lifting the wine above his head, Cal stepped into the house and curled his other arm around Marianne’s shoulders, leaning in to kiss her temple. “And how is the adorable mother-to-be?”
“Other than as big as a house, you mean?” Marianne sounded rueful, though her hand caressed her stomach as she spoke. Cal knew she was thrilled to be pregnant. Even though neither of them had come right out and said it, they’d been trying for some time before Derek had succeeded in knocking Marianne up, which was the way they’d finally come out and made the announcement. “I’m good. And I promise not to subject you to ultrasound pictures.”
“
She
might promise that,” Derek said, coming around the corner from the kitchen to join them.
“You, on the other hand, make no such promises.” Cal handed the wine to Derek. “Here, take this. Just don’t let her have any.”
“Right, because she’s such a lush.” Derek rolled his eyes and grinned. “Hey, guy, it’s been too long. Thanks for coming.”
Cal lifted an eyebrow. “I didn’t think you’d offered me a choice.”
“Have I shown you the latest ultrasound pictures?” Derek asked, feigning innocence, and Cal laughed and let himself be drawn farther into the house, where half a dozen people, only some of whom he recognized, already mingled.
By the time Derek had organized him a drink, a perfectly chilled pinot
grigio
, Cal had eaten two bite-size circles of flaky pastry topped with something that smelled heavenly and tasted better. Cal didn’t cook and didn’t even try to identify the topping beyond the obvious, that it was some sort of mushroom and some kind of cheese. Between bites, he’d smiled at those he knew and introduced himself to those he didn’t, wondering just who exactly he was meant to hook up with. So far, everyone seemed to be paired off as neatly as if Noah had helped with the guest list.
Derek left to answer the door again, and Cal wandered over to study Marianne’s latest painting, hung in the formal dining room off the main hallway. She was self-taught and accepted compliments on her work with a skeptical twinkle in her eyes. Only one of her paintings was ever hung at a time. Cal wasn’t sure what she did with the rest of them. Mercifully, she never gave them out as gifts.
“I know children in kindergarten who paint better than I do. I don’t care. Painting keeps my fingers busy and clears my mind,” she’d told him once. “Everyone needs a hobby, and this is mine.”
Cal wondered what Derek would do when Marianne left to begin her maternity leave and he lost his business partner. Marianne didn’t handle the day-to-day running of the bakery, focusing instead on developing new recipes for a planned expansion of the business into supplying local supermarkets with luxury cakes and desserts. As with the savories he’d been eating, Cal was hazy on the details, appreciative of the end result.
“Is that supposed to be an owl?”
Cal turned to see a man he didn’t know staring at the painting on the wall. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a shock of untidy brown hair and gray eyes, the man looked around Cal’s age. That was about all they had in common. He was wearing a truly appalling shirt and tie in two shades of mustard, clearly bought as a set, and a pair of faded jeans with a hole starting in one knee. Cal wanted to strip him naked, but not for the usual reasons.
“You’d have to ask Marianne,” he said cautiously. He’d once praised a kitten she’d painted and found out later that it was the next door neighbor’s rabbit.
“The wing feathers are all wrong. I like the way it’s looking at the mouse in the corner, though. Very predatory.”
“I think that’s a—” Cal broke off to peer at the brown
splodge
. “It might be a mouse, now that you mention it.”
“Or the end results after the mouse was consumed,” the frighteningly dressed man suggested.
“Which would explain why it doesn’t seem to have a face,” Cal said. Inside, he was hoping this wasn’t the guy Marianne had wanted him to meet. It was possible the man’s clothing style—if it could be called that—was contagious. Like the plague.
The other man grinned. He did have a nice smile, Cal noted. “Or any other recognizable features. Hi, I’m Tom.”
Cal shook the proffered hand. “Calvin Reece. Cal. Um, are you…?”
“The latest in Marianne’s attempts at your blind date? No.” Tom tilted his head as he considered the painting some more, squinting dubiously. “Which I only know because she already introduced me to mine. That blond guy over there. I don’t think he’s too impressed with me.” Until then Tom had sounded reasonably self-confident, but his forced-casual tone as he admitted that last bit revealed the truth.
“Why do you think that? You seem like a nice guy.” Most of the people Cal hung around with were pretty together, so he didn’t find himself in the position of needing to bolster anyone’s ego very often. He didn’t mind doing it now. Tom
did
seem like a nice guy.
“Oh, I am.” Tom squinted at the painting and frowned. “Look at him. I mean, he probably spends forty hours a week at the gym.”
Cal couldn’t help checking out the blond, who was talking to an extremely good-looking dark-haired man. “He’s pretty toned,” he admitted.
Tom laughed. “I think that’s the understatement of the century. My roommate, well, previous roommate, teaches spinning classes full-time, and he makes her look like a couch potato. Oh, and get this—his name is
Deuce
.”
“Seriously?” Cal dismissed the blond in favor of the other introduced topic of conversation. “Previous roommate?”
“I live in this house that’s too big for one, including the bills, so I rent out part of it to help with expenses. Bedroom, attached bathroom, small do-whatever-you-want-in-it room. It works out pretty well,” Tom said with a vague wave of his hand. Cal could think of plenty of ways that it
wouldn’t
work out. He decided not to share them. “Sally was great; I loved sharing with her. She’s been offered a job at this fitness place in Charlton, though, and the commute would be a killer, so she’s decided to move over there. I’m going to miss her. She kept trying to get me to one of her classes and turn vegetarian, but apart from that, she was perfect.”
“
Mmm
,” Cal said, not really listening anymore. The dark-haired man had noticed him and was giving him an amused appraising look that made Cal feel warm all over. Marianne would kill him if he left early with tall, dark, and sexy, which was something to consider. If the man lived up to his looks, it might be worth it. He grinned back at the man, who smoothly detached himself from the conversation he was having and moved away, giving Cal one final “come and get me” glance as he headed for the kitchen.
“You know, I’m starving,” Cal said, interrupting whatever Tim, no, Tom, was saying about the best steak he’d ever eaten. “I’m just going to go and grab some of whatever Marianne’s putting out in the kitchen. It’s making my mouth water. Catch you later?”
“Uh, sure,” Tom said. “Nice to meet—”
“Likewise,” Cal said absently and walked away.
As it turned out, the sexy dark-haired man
was
who Marianne had wanted Cal to meet, and not only was Alexander as sexy as hell, he had a smooth, rich voice that Cal knew would have his toes curling in the bedroom.
“What do you say we get out of here?” Alexander murmured, one hand resting at Cal’s waist.
“It’s pretty early.” It was only a halfhearted objection, though, and it fled when Alexander’s lips found the pulse point beneath his ear and sucked at it gently. “Yeah, okay.”
They went back to Alexander’s house, which was museum-like in its perfection, a far cry from Cal’s messy, cluttered rooms. Before they’d gotten as far as the bedroom, Cal’s shirt was on the floor, and Alexander was on his knees.
“You don’t waste any time.” Cal gasped appreciatively as Alexander nuzzled at his jeans and actually undid the button with his teeth.
“Wouldn’t want to waste any.” Alexander licked Cal’s stomach as he tugged Cal’s pants down around his ankles. “Mm, you’re delicious.”
Cal was so hard he was leaking a damp spot on his boxers, and he groaned when Alexander sucked on the head of his dick through the thin cotton. “Yeah, like that. Suck me.”
There was nothing hotter than looking down at a gorgeous man who was about to suck him off. Cal could feel his balls tighten in anticipation of the orgasm he’d hopefully be having in the next few minutes, and he reached down to caress Alexander’s hair and the edge of his ear.
“Shit, you taste good.” Alexander had tugged down Cal’s boxers now and was licking the tip of his dick wetly. “Beautiful cock. You gonna fuck me with it later?”
“Yeah, sure. Come on, stop stalling.” If a man didn’t take Cal’s erection in deep within the first half a minute, Cal tended to figure he didn’t know how to suck cock, and he didn’t want to waste a bunch of time on a substandard blowjob. “First I want to fuck your throat.”
“Handsome, you can fuck any part of me you want,” Alexander said, and thankfully set to work.
By the time Cal was shooting, his hands tight on Alexander’s shoulders, the luscious wet sounds of Alexander’s mouth as arousing as the flick of his tongue against Cal’s dick, he’d forgotten every one of the mundane worries that had been weighing him down. A hectic schedule and finding a new place… They weren’t insurmountable problems, after all. Hell, being busy was more of a positive. Cal liked being wanted.
Still, it was good to let all those chaotic thoughts slip away, leaving nothing but the pleasure of the moment. Alexander was still dressed, his expensive pants forgotten as he knelt at Cal’s feet, his own arousal ignored as he took Cal higher. When Cal glanced down, he could see the trapped swell of Alexander’s erection, untouched because both Alexander’s hands were on Cal, cupping his ass or rolling his balls gently. He was going to have to be very nice to Alex later to say thank you for the man’s unselfishness. That version of nice never qualified as a problem.
Cal loved sex and the way that providing a release that was rooted in the physical and also smoothed the raw edges emotionally. He wasn’t indiscriminate. If there wasn’t anyone in the room who triggered his interest, he’d go home alone before he’d settle for second best, but when he saw someone special, someone like Alex…
“God, yeah,” he gasped, the words hard to form. He thrust forward blindly, his eyes closing, and luxuriated in the sensations that swept over him. So good. So very fucking good.
As he eased out of Alex’s mouth, murmuring a compliment that Alex acknowledged with a nod, trying to catch his breath, Cal found himself wondering if that Tom guy had gotten as lucky with his blond.
Somehow, he doubted it.
“I really appreciate it,” Tom told Marianne. “The thought, that is. You don’t need to fix me up with anyone. I’m fine.”
“I just thought…” Marianne sighed and ran her hand slowly over the swell of her stomach. The party was almost over, just a few guests left chatting by the fireplace, coffee in hand, and she’d taken over the long couch in the family room, with Tom perched on the footstool beside her. “You’re so nice, Tom, and I’d love to see you with someone, the way I’m with Derek.”
Tom grinned at her. “Pregnant and barefoot?” he teased, tweaking her big toe. “I don’t think it’s me, somehow.”
“So you didn’t hit it off with Deuce,” Marianne said, ignoring him. “That doesn’t mean—”
“Marianne, I’m just not—” Tom stopped, helpless to put the truth into words. “You’re aiming too high. Men like Deuce and that other couple here tonight, Calvin and the guy he went off with, they’re out of my league.”
Marianne sat up straight. “That is just not true.”
“I’m being realistic, not wallowing in self-pity,” Tom said with as much patience as he could muster. It had stung being dismissed by not one but two men in the space of a few minutes. “Men like that… It’s all about the image and the flirting. It’s just not what I do. So next time you invite me over—if you ever do again—scratch
set Tom up
off your to-do list. Please?”
Marianne closed her eyes and moaned. “Oh God, I’ve turned into my mother. Shoot me now.”
“Honey?” Derek squatted beside the couch, a concerned look on his face. “Are you okay?” He glanced at Tom, raising his eyebrows in a silent question.
“I, uh, I should probably be heading off,” Tom began, standing.
Marianne’s hand shot out and grabbed his. She opened her eyes and fixed him with a glare. “Not until you let me apologize.”
“For what?” Derek sounded confused, and Tom couldn’t blame him.
“For setting me up and only telling me about it when I got here,” Tom said. “I don’t want to meet someone like that.” He knew that he was blushing, and he hated that he hadn’t outgrown that tendency. “I’m sorry if I upset you, Marianne.”
She squeezed his hand, then released it. “You didn’t. I’m so glad you told me before I did it again.” Okay, that was a relief. Derek and Marianne employed him to tweak their Web site from time to time, so they were people Tom wanted to get along with from a business point of view. That aside, they were also people he liked. He’d been told before that when his shyness cracked under stress, he could be blunt, even rude trying to get his message across.
“Cal didn’t seem to mind you matchmaking,” Derek said drily.
“Cal isn’t looking for the same kind of thing Tom is.” Marianne smiled apologetically at Tom. “I think if I’m going to look into matchmaking as a serious hobby, I need to have people fill out forms first. You know, like an application.”
Tom considered suggesting that she stick to painting pictures. Before he could say that, it occurred to him that painting probably wasn’t her forte either. “I’ll pass, no offense. I’ll meet someone on my own.” Or not, if his experience was any indication.
“Well, if you want to do that, you have to actually experience the world outside your house,” Derek pointed out.
“Is this my house?” Tom looked around, pretending he was confused and thought it might be.
“One Friday night is an exception, not a rule,” Derek said. “You have to get out more. Meet people!”
“Is this the part where I remind you that people don’t actually like me all that much?” Tom asked.
“Tom! That’s not true! You don’t really think that, do you?” Marianne looked genuinely concerned, so Tom capitulated.
“No, of course not. I was just trying to make a point.” He tried to think of how to reword it. “That it’s hard for me to meet people that, you know,
get
me. And I don’t want to waste my time with people who don’t.” He didn’t. The repeated rejection wasn't good for him. If he managed to avoid it, he was okay in his own skin. When he couldn’t, it was too easy to start into the downward spiral that made his life miserable.
“It’s got to be lonely now that Sally’s gone,” Derek said. “Are you looking for someone else to share with?”
Tom shrugged. “Sure. I can get by for a few months solo, so I’m not going to rush into it. I have to get along with whoever it is, after all.”
“You’ve always rented to women,” Derek said.
“I’m gay,” Tom reminded them unnecessarily. “No threat if they’re seeing someone and—”
“And no pressure on you,” Marianne said with a shrewdness that Tom admired more when it wasn’t directed at him.
She had a point. Tom had entertained a few fantasies about the perfect man moving in and falling in love with him. Since the reality would be far less rosy, he’d kept them as dreams.
“What she’s trying to say is that if he hadn’t left so soon, I’d have told you to chat to Cal about moving in.”
“What?” Cal? For all his movie-star good looks, the man hadn’t been able to focus on Tom for long enough to even say good-bye looking him in the face. Tom was damned if he was going to rent out part of his house to someone who clearly thought that he was a nonentity. “I don’t think so.”
“He needs somewhere fast, and he prefers houses. He’s not around much—”
Too busy bed-hopping, Tom thought sourly, not paying much attention to Derek’s explanation about how Cal was a photographer, very much in demand and often traveling. He’d seen Cal nuzzling up to his blind date as if they were long-lost lovers, not complete strangers. It’d made him feel a twinge of contempt followed by a burst of envy and arousal. The two of them had looked good together, a perfectly matched pair.
“—and it’s not like money’s an issue. Wouldn’t it work out for you to have someone who’d be gone half the time and paying the rent reliably?” Marianne sounded so reasonable that Tom found himself considering it.
“I don’t know.” He really didn't want to rush making a decision. “I guess it
would
be nice not to have to be on someone’s back about the rent, and if I had the house to myself a lot of the time…”
“Give it some thought,” Marianne said. “Here, I’ll write his number down for you before you go, okay?”
“Okay.” It wasn’t like he’d have to do anything with the number. He could throw it away as soon as he got home, if he wanted to.
* * *
It wasn’t really late when Tom drove home, but the roads were fairly empty, and he found himself sitting at a red light with no signs of life around him. He tried to imagine what it would be like to have someone like Cal as a roommate. A heck of a change from Sally, that was for sure. No more long hairs snagging up the vacuum cleaner, no more bras slung over the shower curtain rod.
He chewed at his bottom lip, a bad habit of his, and pictured a night in, with a few beers, a good movie, a pizza to share. Simple, basic fun, and something he’d never really experienced except as the hanger-on at college, the quiet one in the corner, torn between hoping someone would notice him and praying no one would.
Cal wouldn’t be interested in that kind of fun, anyway. He was one of the smoothly confident men Tom saw sauntering into clubs, bypassing the line, certain of a welcome. He’d be bringing men like that back to Tom’s house. Lots of them, from a few snippets of conversation about him that Tom had overheard at the party.
Tom couldn’t make up his mind. Reminding himself that Cal might not even be interested in sharing his house didn’t help. Tom felt he had to decide one way or another, right now, if he was going to make the offer. It didn’t matter what Cal said. That part of the equation was out of Tom’s hands. The offer, though, that was for him to make or not.
The light changed, and Tom pulled away with an uncharacteristic stab at the gas that sent him shooting forward.
He’d call Cal. Probably have to introduce himself all over again because Cal had forgotten him, but he’d do it.
* * *
It wasn’t until almost noon the next day that Tom managed to convince himself to actually pick up the phone. He told himself it was because Cal had surely stayed up late the night before. It would be incredibly awkward to call early and find out the man was still naked in bed with his blind date. He decided to call around eleven. Most people would be up by then, especially people whose jobs expected a lot from them. His decision made, he managed to put off calling for another forty-five minutes or so.
He was aware of his palms sweating as he listened to the phone ringing on the other side of the line, trying not to picture the possibility that Calvin would be answering it in another man’s bed. Not that he was interested in Cal, who was as far from his type as anyone he could imagine.
It rang three times before Cal picked it up. “Hello?” He sounded wary, like he was anticipating a call from a telemarketer or someone equally irritating. He didn’t sound sleepy, thank God.
“Hi, Cal? Calvin Reece, right? Um, this is Tom Holden. We met at Marianne and Derek’s party last night?” Jeez, make him the slightest bit uncomfortable and every part of his conversation turned into questions.
“Um. Right.” Cal probably didn’t remember him at all and was maybe thinking that Tom was calling to ask him out, the thought of which made Tom cringe. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Tom abandoned small talk and blurted out the reason for his call. “So anyway, Marianne gave me your number. She said you were looking for a place to live, and I’ve been looking for a roommate, so I guess she thought…”
“Oh! Okay.” Now Cal sounded relieved, which was just one more kick in the teeth for Tom’s ego. “Tell me about your place.”
Tom licked his lips, which were unaccountably dry and chewed rough and chapped. He really had to break himself of that habit. Cal probably smoothed on lip balm twice a day and used moisturizer. Maybe got his nails done regularly and had haircuts that cost as much as a meal out somewhere fancy.
Before he could babble out any of what he was thinking, Tom rushed into speech. “Well, I told you about it last night. I guess you just weren’t—”
“Listening?” Cal sounded amused, where Tom would have been tripping over his tongue apologizing. “Yeah, sorry. Alexander, well, you have to agree, he’s distracting.”
“Uh, I guess.” Tom could remember Cal clearly. Alexander was labeled “dark-haired guy” in his memory, and he didn’t see any reason to change that. “Well, you’d have your own bedroom, of course.”
“Good to know,” Cal said, still with that suggestion of a chuckle. “Not that you don’t look cuddly.”
Tom rolled his eyes. God, did the man flirt with
everyone
? “Bathroom off it and I knocked a door in the connecting wall and turned another bedroom into a space you could use as an office, living room, whatever. You’d also be welcome to use the rest of the house, kitchen, library, TV room, and the yard, with the exception of my bedroom and office, which are off-limits, of course.”
“Of course.” Cal sounded too earnest to be entirely sincere.
“If you’re interested, maybe you’d like to come and take a look.” Tom was uneasily aware of how stiff and disapproving he sounded. “I work from home a lot of the time, so I’m usually around.”
“Cool. Would it be okay with you that I might not be home a fair amount of the time? I mean, if you’re looking for someone to, you know, hang out with…”
“No, that’s fine,” Tom hastened to reassure him, because he really couldn’t imagine hanging around with Cal. He liked it when the people he talked to were actually paying attention to him, after all.
Cal was quiet for a few seconds that felt longer than they probably were. “Okay. What about this afternoon?”
“Yeah, I can do that. Around three?” After giving Cal the address and letting him know that the driveway kind of sneaked up on a visitor—the mailbox on the street had the house number on it, but the house itself was set deep in from the road and a little hidden by trees that had probably been growing for at least a hundred years—Tom hung up the phone.
He really hoped this wasn’t a terrible idea.
* * *
When he opened the front door to admit Cal, it was considerably after the agreed upon time of three o’clock. Closer to four, actually.
“Hey,” Cal said and didn’t apologize for the fact that he was almost an hour late. “How’s it going?”
“Fine.” Tom stepped back and made a “come in” gesture. He decided not to mention the time thing either, because the truth was he really could use someone else to help pay the bills, and chances were Cal wouldn’t be sobbing on his shoulder late at night because the latest boyfriend had broken his heart. “Should I give you the tour?”
Cal grinned. “Let me guess. This is the mudroom?”
“I believe it’s referred to as a foyer,” Tom said, slipping on a bad British accent and relaxing. It was weird the way that in person Cal seemed to have the ability to put him at ease. Continuing with the accent, he went on, “Would you care to see the kitchens, sir?”
“More than one?” Cal asked, his grin even wider.
“No, not really. Here, let me show you the rooms that would be yours first. That way if you think they suck, you won’t have wasted too much time.”
“I’m sure they don’t suck.” Cal followed him down the hallway past Tom’s own bedroom and the office that was across from it, then up the back staircase and into the empty bedroom. The room smelled of paint. Tom had gotten around to painting it only the week before, and even though he’d left the windows open to air it out, the scent lingered.