Forbidden: King (The Four 4)

We made it halfway across the Bay Bridge before Eden asked, “So, are we going to talk about last night, and the double life you were living for the last six months?”

“Not right now.”

“Then when are we going to discuss it?”

“Sometime when I’m not trapped in a moving vehicle with you. I need to be able to run screaming if you start to get totally judgmental, and if I did that now I’d end up in the bay.”

He sighed, but he let the subject drop for the time being.

We made it about six hundred miles before Eden decided to stop for the night. He’d insisted on doing all the driving, of course, since my license had expired and god forbid we did anything that was against the law. I, in turn, ended up sleeping a lot, since I’d barely gotten any rest the night before.

That meant I was wide awake when we checked into a lackluster hotel in northern Nevada. The one good thing about it was that it had a gym, and I hadn’t had a chance to work out that morning. I spent two hours switching between weights and doing cardio on the treadmill, so by the time I returned to our room I was pretty thoroughly worn out.

Eden was reading on one of the two beds when I came in. I’d hoped he’d be asleep, because I was still in no mood for the conversation he fully intended to have with me.

I picked up my overnight bag on the way to the bathroom, and then I took a very long time showering, shaving, clipping my nails, moisturizing, and generally wasting time. After a while, Eden called through the door, “You can quit stalling. If you aren’t ready to talk, I’m not going to force you.”

A few moments later, I opened the bathroom door and said, “All I’m doing is practicing good hygiene.” I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of telling him he’d totally been right.

I was dressed in nothing but a pair of baggy gym shorts, and Eden’s gaze strayed to my body and lingered there. I didn’t read into it. He and I were both fitness junkies, and I’d been working out hard lately. He was probably just noticing the results of my efforts.

He grabbed his toiletry kit, went into the bathroom, and shut the door behind him. By the time he returned three or four minutes later, smelling of toothpaste, I’d set up camp on the other bed. My phone was plugged in on the nightstand, I’d put on my headphones, and a movie was playing on my laptop. He circled around his bed and came to stand beside mine as he asked, “What are you watching?”

“Avengers, for like the hundredth time.” I hesitated before asking, “Want to join me?”

I really didn’t expect him to take me up on it, since things were so awkward between us right now. But he said, “Sure. Scoot over.”

My heart started to race as I moved to one side of the bed, even though I knew this didn’t mean anything. It never did.

We both got comfortable on top of the covers, and I set aside the headphones and restarted the movie from the beginning. The bed was on the small side and we were both big guys, so the entire left side of my body was pressed to the right side of his. He was wearing gym shorts like I was, along with a soft, gray T-shirt that was so faded, the Rams logo was almost invisible on the front of it. I remembered when he’d bought that shirt.

Needless to say, with Eden in the same bed, I couldn’t even sort of concentrate on the movie. I could tell he wasn’t concentrating, either. Even though his eyes were on the laptop, which was resting on my stomach and turned toward him, I knew him well enough to know his mind was somewhere else.

After a while, he said quietly, “I feel like I’m losing you, Seth.”

When I turned my head to look at him, he was so close. God, I wanted to kiss him. My heartbeat sped up again, and so did my breathing. But I made myself keep it together, and I told him, “You’re not. We’ll always be friends, Eden.”

“It’s not that I wanted to lecture you or shame you for your choices. It wasn’t even that you were breaking the law, although when I realized how close you’d come to getting arrested in that sting, it definitely rattled me.” He paused for a moment before admitting, “When I found out what you’d been doing, it scared me. That’s just not a safe way to make a living. What if someone had hurt you, or what if you’d ended up in a dangerous situation?”

“I can obviously handle myself,” I said, as I paused the movie, “but that’s not really what was bothering you. When you thought I was going out and meeting different guys from a dating app a few nights a week, you were fine with it. That’s every bit as risky as meeting clients through my website, but I didn’t hear you complaining about it.”