Always Eli by Charlie Novak

Chapter Twelve

Eli

I’d never dreamtabout kissing Tristan Rose until that moment.

Fucking him? Yes. But kissing him? That had felt different. More intimate. Something I couldn’t bring myself to think about because then the want would be real.

I hadn’t meant to kiss him, but I was drained, both physically and mentally, and just seeing him there… hearing him talk about how much he’d loved my performance… something inside me had snapped, and I’d needed to give him tangible proof of what that meant to me. A kiss had seemed like the natural choice.

It was either that or a blow job, and Phil would kill me if I tried the second in the middle of the bar.

Tristan’s lips were soft against mine, moving slowly as I drew out the kiss. I didn’t want to let him go. I didn’t want the moment to be over. But all good things had to come to an end. And it didn’t mean it couldn’t happen again. Not unless Tristan really hated it, and from the way his mouth pressed hungrily against mine, I didn’t think that was going to be an issue.

I released him slowly and straightened up. A few people were staring, and some of them clapped. Tristan had my lipstick smeared across his mouth. It was a good look on him.

“Darling,” said Violet before Tristan or I could say anything to each other, “as charming as it is to see you kissing a handsome young man, perhaps you and your beau would like to go elsewhere.” She raised an eyebrow at me, a smile playing across her lips. I knew she wasn’t upset. In fact, she’d probably put two and two together since I might have mentioned Tristan in a roundabout way once or twice over the past few weeks. “Your set starts at eleven, so make sure you’re back by then.”

“Okay.” I couldn’t think of anything sassy to say. Instead, I took Tristan’s hand and towed him backstage where we could talk in private. He had a dreamy expression on his face like he’d had some sort of out of body experience. If it only took one kiss to do that, I was very interested to know what anything else would do to him.

I dragged Tristan into the little dressing room I shared with Bubblegum and Violet and locked the door behind me.

“So,” I said, loosely caging him in against the door. “You liked my show?”

“I did.” He grinned at me, fingers moving up to brush his lips, examining the traces of black lipstick that now stained his skin. “I’ve never kissed anyone wearing lipstick before.”

“Never?”

“No. I’ve never kissed a drag queen either.”

I smiled. Nobody in the world had the right to be as cute as Tristan was with his plush mouth, dreamy eyes, and swept-back hair. He was wearing dark jeans, a white shirt, a navy blazer, and sensible shoes and looked like a walking advertisement for those designer country brands. The handsome, sweet country boy that everyone was madly in love with. If this was a period drama, he’d be the kind, wealthy man everyone wanted their daughter to marry. Honestly, he was Mr. Fucking Bingley.

Did that make me Jane Bennet? I’d always considered myself more of a Lizzie. Or even a Lydia.

“Would you like to do it again?” I asked, stepping a tiny bit closer to him. In my shoes, I was several inches taller than Tristan. I liked looking down at him for once. Tristan’s face tinted pink.

“Yes.”

I reached my hand out to cup his jaw and bring him closer. Tristan came willingly, his hands wrapping around my waist as his lips found mine. It was another sweet, soft kiss. His lips moved gently, his tongue sliding between them, asking rather than taking. I’d rarely been kissed so softly. It was like he was trying to memorise the contours of my mouth. I wanted to live in this candyfloss-soaked moment forever.

My hands reached up to tangle in his hair, deepening the kiss. Tristan let out a tiny moan, and a flare of desire sparked across my chest. I tugged gently on his hair just to see what would happen and was rewarded with another sweet moan. I deepened the kisses, letting my hunger flow into my touch. We didn’t have much time, not today, but I fucking needed Tristan to know how much I wanted him. God, the rest of the night was going to be fucking impossible. How the fuck was I supposed to concentrate on work when all I could think about was the feel of Tristan’s mouth against mine? I’d be replaying his little moans in my head until the end of time.

Tristan broke the kiss this time, gently releasing me even though it seemed painful for him to do it.

“Where are you going?” I asked quietly.

“Just here.” He chuckled. “Are you working for the rest of the night?”

“Ugh, yes.” I sighed. “They’re just going to be getting fucking cheese and playlists at this point. Maybe I’ll do all requests to save me from having to concentrate on anything.”

“What about tomorrow?”

“It’s Sunday, and my plans usually involve sleeping until noon.”

“Come over to mine,” he said, giving me an enchanting smile. Fucking hell, this man was literally a Disney prince. “I want to see you again.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll make dinner, and you can meet Indy and Solo, and we can…” He trailed off like he couldn’t think of a suitable word. I grinned, all sorts of delicious ideas popping into my head. But I decided to be kind to him. No need to make Tristan explode before I wanted him to.

“Hang out?” I suggested.

“Yeah. That. Just, er, come over whenever you’re free. I’ll message you my address.”

“I can’t wait.” I trailed my fingers up the front of his shirt, casually imagining popping the buttons open to see what was underneath. I tried to remember if I’d ever seen Tristan shirtless at any of our family parties, but if I had any memories like that, they weren’t recent. “It’ll be fun.”

There was a knock at the door, and I sighed. “Yeah?”

“You in there, hun?” It was Bubblegum. “Can I come in? I really need to get changed. These shoes are fucking killing me.”

“Two minutes.” Usually I’d give her some shit about suffering for her art, but my mind was otherwise preoccupied.

Tristan grimaced. “I better let you get back to work.”

“You might want to wipe your face first,” I said teasingly.

“That bad?” He peered over my shoulder, trying to look in the mirror behind me.

“I mean, I’ve seen worse.” I grinned, then tottered over to the tiny station where I kept emergency make-up, some wipes, and my bag. I pulled out a make-up wipe and handed it to Tristan, then peered at my reflection to see what needed topping up. Someone really needed to make a good, long-lasting black lipstick that didn’t rub off as soon as I kissed someone. I was sick of having to buy more of the stuff. Although I did like seeing people wearing my lipstick…

And now I was thinking about all the places I could leave marks all over Tristan.

That would be fun.

Tristan cleaned up his face and dropped the wipe in the bin. I saw him watching me out of the corner of my eye. Bubblegum knocked on the door again, but I ignored her. It wouldn’t kill the bitch to wait a minute.

“Stop staring,” I said. “I’ll fuck up and make my lips uneven.”

“Does that usually happen?” Tristan asked.

“No, but I’m not usually being stared at by someone like you.”

“Like me?”

I turned and gave him a smile. He really was adorably clueless. On some people it would have been really fucking irritating, but on him it was just cute. “Someone so fucking sexy that if I didn’t have Miss Sparkle Butt outside hammering on the door or a fucking set to do, I’d strip his ass naked and jump him right here, right now.”

“Oh.” Tristan’s face flushed making him look like he’d gotten sunburn. “Maybe we can do that tomorrow instead?”

I stared at him for a moment, not sure whether he was being serious. Then I remembered it was Tristan, and he wasn’t the sort to suggest something like that unless he meant it. I strode over to him, my fingers finding his jaw and tilting his face up to mine. “Of course we can.” I leant down so I could press my lips to his ear. “You’re going to be all mine.”

He shivered under my touch, letting out a shuddering exhale. Something tightened in my chest. In my underwear, my cock strained painfully against the tape holding it tucked in place. Jesus fucking Christ, getting a hard-on while tucked was painful as fuck. I wanted to stick my hand up my dress and adjust myself, but that would have to wait until I’d finished with Tristan.

On a hunch, I whispered one more thing into his ear. “And you’re not allowed to come between now and then either.”

Tristan moaned softly, then nodded. “Okay.”

“Good boy.” I brushed my lips against his cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I woke up late the next morning to a hammering on the front door.

I sat up blearily, wiping sleep and leftover mascara from my eyes, wondering who the fuck was trying to batter down the entrance to my sacred sanctum. Whoever it was could fuck off. My phone buzzed from somewhere under my pillow. I usually left it on vibrate in case Orlando needed me, but it wasn’t him calling. It was Lewis.

“What do you want?” I asked, sounding like I’d been smoking forty a day for the past twenty years. I coughed and reached for the bottle of water beside my bed.

“Open the door,” Lewis said.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Fuck off and let me go back to sleep.”

“If you don’t, I’ll call Orlando and make him let me in. I’ll tell him you won’t answer your phone and I’m worried.”

“That’s blackmail,” I said, begrudgingly throwing back the duvet and looking for a t-shirt and some underwear. I always slept naked after shows. “Dirty, rotten blackmail.”

“Just answer the fucking door.” Lewis sighed. “You can’t make out with Richard’s best friend in public and not expect me to say something.”

Bollocks. I hadn’t been expecting that. I thought he’d left by then. I stumbled towards the front door, phone still in hand, and undid the chain and bolts. “How the fuck did you know about that?” I asked as I threw the door open. Lewis was alone at least, which was something. I’d been half expecting the whole bloody cavalry to turn up.

“You weren’t exactly private about it,” he said, raising an eyebrow and giving me his patented Lewis look of disapproval. It was the one that made all his clients quiver with fear and made him a rather effective personal assistant. “Can I come in, or do you want to have this conversation where half of Lincoln can hear you?”

“I’d rather not have it at all, but since I know you won’t leave, you might as well come and be annoying in here instead.”

Lewis grinned sweetly and slid past me, toeing off his pink hightops and heading towards the living room. I sighed and silently wondered what I was being punished for. Last night had been so much fun, and tonight promised to be even better. If I made it that far.

“I’m going to make coffee,” I said.

“Can I have some too please?” Lewis asked from his new position on the sofa, curled up like a cat.

“Fine.” At least making coffee would give me five minutes to work out what the bloody hell I was going to say to Lewis. It wasn’t like I could deny what had happened. I’d just have to swear him to silence and threaten to NERF him if he breathed a word of it to anyone except Jason. I flicked our ancient kettle on and threw some instant coffee into a couple of mugs, then I dug the milk out of the fridge and reached for the sugar so I could dump Lewis’s requisite five sugars into his mug. How the fuck he drank anything so sweet was beyond me. Then again, he was a walking ball of pastel sweetness with the cutest aesthetic with his pink hair, ripped jeans, and lavender tank top under a denim jacket covered in patches. Maybe he needed all the sugar to keep his sweetness levels so high.

I drank my coffee black because I was still an emo teen at heart.

I finished making the drinks and trudged back to the living room. Lewis was scrolling through his phone, but he looked up when he heard me approach, holding his hands out expectantly.

“So,” he said before my butt had even touched the cushion. “You and Tristan?”

“It’s nothing.”

“It didn’t look like nothing.”

“Do all kisses look like something? Can’t I just kiss someone because they’re hot and I want to fuck them?” I knew I was being overly touchy and defensive already, throwing my walls up before Lewis even had a chance to hatch a plan.

“You can, but if you just wanted to fuck him, you wouldn’t have kissed him like that.” Lewis raised his eyebrows again and looked at me scathingly over the rim of his mug.

“Like what?”

“Softly. That was a relationship kiss, Eli.”

“It was not! Don’t talk shit.”

Lewis rolled his eyes. “Yes, it was. Don’t lie to me, bitch. I’ve been out with you before. I’ve seen you pull. And you were completely different with him. So spill. What the hell is going on between you two? Does Richard know?”

“No! And don’t you fucking tell him,” I snapped. Just the mention of Richard was enough to have panic and anger flaring in my chest. Stupid Dick.

“I won’t.” Lewis held up a hand defensively. “Chill.”

“Sorry.” I took a sip of my coffee and exhaled. “I’m being a twat.”

“Yeah, you are, but it’s fine.” He smiled gently. “Just talk to me. I won’t tell anyone, not even Jason if you don’t want me to. C’mon, Eli. We’ve always talked.” That wasn’t strictly true—we didn’t tell each other every single messy detail of our lives, romantic or otherwise—but we’d always told each other the big things. And I guessed this counted as one of them.

“Fine. You know how I got an office job back in September?”

Lewis watched me closely as I spoke but refrained from reading me to filth any further. I decided it was easier just to tell him everything, so I included the lunches, the cocktails, the lolly sucking, Mamma Mia!, the office flirting and biscuits, and finally the fact I hadn’t been expecting him to come to my show. “He just surprised me,” I said. “And he was so sweet and looked so cute I couldn’t resist.”

Lewis’s grin widened, a glint in his eyes. “And then you took him backstage.”

“Yes, but nothing happened. Well, nothing interesting.” That was going to happen later if I had my way. I wondered how soon I could kick Lewis out and what time would be considered too early to turn up at Tristan’s.

Lewis’s expression said he didn’t believe me. “Are you dating then, or just hooking up?”

“I… I don’t know.” I didn’t have an answer to that. Was I supposed to?

“What do you want it to be?”

The first. Definitely the first.

But I didn’t say that. I just shrugged. “Not sure. I don’t really know yet. We might just have some fun.”

“Are you sure?” Lewis frowned. “You don’t seem it.”

“Of course I’m sure.” Biggest lie ever.

“Really? Edward said you looked like you’d been dating forever,” Lewis said. Edward was Lewis’s boss, one of his best friends, and the most dramatic man I’d ever met. And that was coming from me.

“Yes, well, Edward has a tendency to over exaggerate. He’s worse than I am.”

“How do you know that?” Lewis asked, his expression changing. I shrugged, then realised this was the perfect way to change the subject. I grinned.

“We fucked a few times a couple of years ago before he met his boyfriend. We met at a club.” I took a long sip of my coffee and watched the chips fall.

“What the fuck? You fucked my boss? And you didn’t think sharing that was relevant? How the hell could you not tell me? Why the fuck didn’t he tell me he’d fucked my brother?” Lewis was already reaching for his phone, neatly distracted away from my personal life. “I can’t believe neither of you told me!”

“I mean, if it helps,” I said, lifting my mug to my mouth again, “he fucked me a few times too. It was fairly even in that regard.”

“Oh my God. I hate both of you!”