Ex-Daredevil by Zoe Lee
Chapter 24
Eliott
Just like with the first Daring Date, Gavin refused to tell me what he had planned or give me any hints, other than to tell me to dress casually and warmly.
Not preppie lawyer happy hour casual, like regular people casual.
After a silly amount of deliberation, I settled on black jeans and a blue sweater over a black thermal, conceding to his regular people casual by leaving my hair unstyled.
It had been almost a month since we’d admitted this was a serious thing for both of us. The amazing success of my fishing Daring Date shortly after that had only solidified how grateful I was for that conversation. It had been the perfect mix of contentment, challenge and banter, and hot sex with sweet feelings. We’d been spending two or three nights a week at my place, eating and starting a show, then tumbling into bed. After sex, we always talked until he fell asleep or I told him I had to sleep so I could function the next day.
I loved the routine of it, even if the word made it sound like it was predictable or we were going through the motions. I was starting to crave it on nights when I was home alone, forced to notice that my condo was a little bland and faded without Gavin to light it up.
So I was nervous about this second Daring Date. I didn’t want to screw it up by refusing to participate in whatever he was going to try to get me to do. I didn’t want to disappoint him, or give him a reason to boast that he was the champ and I was lame.
My shoulders went back with pride at the very idea as my doorbell rang. I tucked my wallet, phone and keys into my pockets, locked up, and jogged down the stairs to meet him.
“Hey,” he said. “Sorry I’m late, I took the bus over and it was late.”
“No problem,” I said, then caught his face to pull him in for a kiss as soon as he was close enough.
“Mm,” he hummed into my mouth, nipping my bottom lip as he drew back. He put his hands on my shoulders and gave me a slow, hot once-over, proclaiming, “You look sexy.”
My smile tipped up one side of my mouth and I held back my answering compliment until he pouted and pinched my stomach lightly. Dancing back before he could find out that I was ticklish there, I chuckled and said, “You always look sexy. Now, what are we doing?”
“Two parts,” he announced, taking my wrist to lead me away from the condo.
I twisted my wrist until I could take his hand.
There was an almost imperceptible hitch in his breathing, like there was every time I’d taken his hand since that first time during a walk on my lunch break. It never failed to send my heart tripping, because under that carefree, daredevil exterior, I knew he loved it too.
He readjusted his grip so our fingers were interlaced, and said, light and teasing, “We’re taking the El so we can people-watch… Just kidding, it’s because it takes longer and I want to torture you, and it’ll make it harder for you to guess where we’re going.”
Huffing out a half-laugh, I stroked his thumb with mine. “I can withstand it.”
“Oh I know,” he said suggestively, his gorgeous purple eyes twinkling.
The Blue Line was packed since it was a Friday night, so I had the added torture of needing to stand up, Gavin pressed against my back, our left arms over our heads to hold on and our right hands still tangled together. I had never been much for public displays, and I had always assumed he wasn’t either because it was sappy or something. But it was almost embarrassing how much of a thrill I got out of the simple act, paired with the relaxed way he swayed with me, lazily rubbing my ass as the train started and stopped at every stop.
Since the Blue Line went from O’Hare airport all the way downtown, it didn’t give me any hints about where we were going, although it probably ruled out paint balling or rock climbing or something like that. But it was so good to be nestled like we were, Gavin’s breaths billowing gently and steadily against the side of my neck, keeping me on edge.
When he put his hands on my hips and guided me off the train at State Street, it didn’t narrow things down much either, because this was the heart of the touristy area. Instead of starting to walk, he hailed a cab, then went around to the driver’s window to tell him our destination where I couldn’t overhear. We got in the back and zig-zagged through traffic.
But as soon as I saw Navy Pier in front of us, I groaned, “Please tell me you’re taking me to the Chicago Shakespeare Theater and not this tourist trap, Gavin!”
“There’s nothing dangerous about watching a production of Twelfth Night, Eliott.”
“But that’s my favorite Shakespeare play,” I practically whined.
He laughed in obvious delight and I sighed, but when he paid the driver and took my hand again before we slid out of the cab, my stomach clenched with pure happiness.
“First dangerous thing: junk food,” he declared.
I made a face of revulsion.
“You’re so prissy,” he snickered.
I shot him an irritated glare, but it only made him grin even wider.
“It’s fucking adorable, don’t get me wrong. And you can eat something unhealthy once in a while and enjoy it,” he whispered as if it were a shameful secret.
“Your ass is the only unhealthy thing I enjoy eating,” I grumbled.
“My ass is pristine and you know it,” he retorted through more snickers. “Now come on, I’m thinking pretzels and a Polish sausage with some beer. We can eat while we walk like total barbarians and make fun of the people who are on those lake cruises.”
So we did, and I complained a lot more about the greasy food than I needed to because it made him so overjoyed to tease me about my prissiness. “Where does it come from?” he wondered, after he’d wound down from hysterics at how angry I was when a drop of mustard landed on my sweater. “I just mean, you said you grew up with artistic types. I’m stereotyping, but I don’t think of free-spirited artistic types as… worrying as much as you.”
When we first met, when we were sure we had nothing in common but chemistry that didn’t mean anything, he’d made some acidic comments based on snap judgments. Looking back, I could see it was a defense against his confusion over what was brewing between us.
But those had stopped as soon as we’d started to get to know each other, so I didn’t feel like the question was a criticism, just teasing curiosity. Still, I didn’t want to get into all of it now, not while we were out on a beautiful night like this. So I explained only some of it.
“The first gay friends I had were around my mom’s age and back then they would’ve been described as flamboyant,” I said, making a flourish with one hand like a drag queen might use onstage, surprising him into a delighted shout. “I suppose a lot of my identity I formed when I was with them, so even though some things evolved, like my fashion sense, a lot of it started there. I would’ve probably shed more of it if my personality had evolved into something else, but it goes well with my uptight, boring personality.”
I said the last part using a very tart tone, arching an eyebrow at Gavin.
Instead of making light of it or teasing me more, his head tipped and he stepped sideways next to a bench so that we weren’t disrupting the flow of people walking by. He looked at me, his eyes clear and his brows a little knit, and then he lifted his hands up to cup my face. I actually looked around, suddenly feeling so exposed in this very public place.
“My cousins and I—well, all my relatives except for my mom—we give each other a hard time instead of complimenting each other,” he said, his voice low but aimed right at me, so that I couldn’t miss a word or his intentness. “It’s probably something about not wanting to talk about our feelings sincerely and shit like that. But underneath ‘you’re a spaz’ is like ‘you’re an awesome individual and I love how unselfconscious you are.’”
I nodded slightly, my stubble rasping the palms of his hands.
“So I… it’s not an insult when I called you boring or uptight or prissy. I’m sorry if you feel like it was. Honestly.” He licked his lips and shuffled in a little closer, our eye contact almost too close and intense given how I wanted to duck away from it. “The opposite, really. Maybe at first, I thought that’s who you are. But just because you go to the ballet instead of scuba diving, it doesn’t make you boring. And just because you like to be all collected and impenetrable in public, it doesn’t mean you’re like that with me, not anymore. Okay?”
“I…”
My throat was clogged with emotions that it was definitely too early to have. Helpless against them all the same, though, I surged against him, unable to keep in the whimper I made when his tongue took my mouth and one of his hands slid to cup the back of my head.
We ended the kiss abruptly when someone whistled and I felt my cheeks go hot.
Gavin blinked at me a few times, as if he didn’t know what the hell had just happened.
Then he flashed me a big grin, took my hand, and strung me along behind him, announcing, “And now, it’s time to ride the ferris wheel! Part one of our Daring Date.”
After a few seconds, I was able to retort back, “I thought the greasy food was part one.”
“Don’t you insult our delicious dinner, or I’ll rock the gondola when we’re at the top,” he threatened, his grin still lighting up his face and making him look so damn special.
Riding a ferris wheel seemed like it belonged in a cheesy movie that took place in the Fifties, except for the part that Gavin knew I wasn’t very fond of heights. They didn’t give me panic attacks or make me nauseated, but I found them very disconcerting, especially in situations like a ferris wheel where I couldn’t just step away anytime I needed to.
But as we got into one of the gondolas, I had to wonder if he had chosen a not-so-daring date to gently stretch my comfort zones. The idea made me melt a little bit, and I pressed our shoulders and thighs tight as our ride started, the gondola swaying gently.
I closed my eyes, trying to center myself, shivering even though it was heated.
“Look at the horizon,” Gavin ordered, then darted his tongue along the hinge of my jaw.
“What?”
“It will help you regain your center, so you won’t get dizzy.” I did it, my stomach unclenching slowly as I kept my eyes fixed on the horizon out over Lake Michigan, just barely visible in the fading evening light. Gavin hummed in approval and whispered, “I get seasick, but I’ll never blow you again if you tell anyone. I learned a bunch of tricks because I don’t want to give up scuba diving and snorkeling in the ocean or going sailing on the lake.”
I leaned against him more heavily as the gondola reached almost the exact top of the wheel and stopped, allowing the riders up here the chance to take in the view.
Navy Pier was basically in the middle of the city’s shoreline and while the view from the ground was impressive, it looked kind of magical from up here. Most of the time, I didn’t give very much thought to Chicago. I complained about the first world problems every financially secure person had in every city in the world, and I had my favorite spots I’d never give up. But it wasn’t very often that I was a step outside of it, what I guessed was over fifteen stories up. It was my home, good and bad and mediocre and a part of me, but for this minute, I felt like a little kid seeing something huge and cool for the first time.
“Thank you,” I said softly, turning my head to find Gavin watching me, something dark and serious in his eyes. “I haven’t been up here since college, with friends who didn’t grow up in the area. I don’t usually bother to appreciate the city like this. I’m usually too… in it.”
“That’s one of the reasons I love going to other places—I get to come home, and remember that while I didn’t have a choice about growing up nearby, I do choose to stay.”
He dipped his head and kissed me, curling one hand around my thigh, pinning me to the cool metal bench seat as if I might get up and wander away from him.
Whatever dark and serious thing I’d glimpsed in his eyes, was in his kiss.
I felt grounded by his touch, melted by the heat of the kiss. My heart shuddered and stretched inside the tiny relationship comfort zone I had kept it in for over a decade.
Everything I’d been absolutely unwilling to feel again since college, sticking doggedly to low-heat companionship and sex with similar, safe men, I was feeling now. It was stronger because I hadn’t allowed myself the slightest taste in so, so long. This was so, so much more than telling him that I wanted him and wanted to date him seriously.
But I didn’t know how to tell Gavin that I felt overwhelmed, happy, and right where I wanted to be, without having to go into painful detail about why I had stayed away from real emotional connections. It had taken us a long time to trust ourselves and each other enough to admit that we were committed to this relationship, I was afraid to rush into even deeper waters so soon by telling him what I was starting to feel for him.
I settled for kissing him precisely how I wanted to, without a care that it was too much. The kiss went wild and animalistic, our tongues grappling and our teeth scraping. I tasted the faintest hint of blood from one of our lips, but it only made me growl low.
When the gondola stopped—I didn’t even know when it had started again—we were back where we’d gotten on the ride and it was time to get off the ferris wheel.
Shivering, I followed him off and tried to catch my breath and keep my body calm.