Well-Tailored (Thorne and Dash 4)
“I’m looking for my…friend. He left his phone in the room, and I was hoping to get it to him, but I’m not sure where he went. I’m hoping he stopped by here to ask directions.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I won’t be able to give you information on the whereabouts of a guest.”
He couldn’t really argue with that. It was their job to protect people’s privacy. “Could you at least tell me if you’ve seen him come by? We are staying here together. He’s six feet tall, blond, and wearing a fuzzy pink sweater.”
She brightened. “You’re in luck, sir. He’s in the bar.”
“Thank you.”
When Darius stepped into the room and saw Marc sitting in the corner of the hotel bar, he knew exactly what to do to convince him to listen.
He shook off the anger and the sick feeling in his stomach and walked toward Marc with all the arrogant confidence he put on in his shop.
He held out his hand to Marc, who watched him skeptically.
“No one puts Baby in a corner. Not even me.”
Marc’s face lit up. He started to laugh, and then Darius laughed too. Marc took his hand and let Darius pull him up and away from the table.
“I love you, Marc Holman. I should have told you that last night.”
“You should have.” Marc sank his teeth into his lower lip and studied Darius. “You really mean that, right?”
“I do. Now will you listen to me?”
“Yes. I panicked. I—”
“You had every right to panic if you really thought I expected you to drop everything and move with me.”
“You didn’t?”
“I want us to move into a larger space in Thorne’s building.”
Color suffused Marc’s cheeks. “Wow. I really fucked this up.”
“You were scared, and then I got angry and…” He opened the sketchbook and found the right page. “Here, this is what I’ve been thinking about.”
He’d conned Riley into showing him the building just hours before Riley left for New York. Then he’d done some drawings of what the shop could look like. Marc’s costumes hung to one side, suits to the other, and the door said Tailoring by Darius, Costumery by Marc.
Marc looked up, wide-eyed. “You want to put my name on the door?”
“I do. I want to make this a full partnership, not just a consignment.”
“Really?”
“Yes. You deserve to be a full part of this. Thorne has offered us the two spaces above the bakery. We don’t want to rush into this, but ultimately I want one of them to be your costume shop.”
Marc’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. “I can’t believe this is what you wanted to tell me. I almost left the hotel, but I didn’t know where to go. What if you hadn’t found me, hadn’t convinced me to listen?”
“But I did find you, and I knew one of your cheesy movie lines would make you see that I wasn’t trying to fuck this up.”
“I’m going to have to make you give a public confession of your love for the great films of the ’90s.”
Darius glanced around at the other bar patrons. “I think I just did.”
Marc grinned. “Maybe I’ll let this count.”
“So what do you think?”
Marc frowned, and Darius’s heart skipped a beat. “Can you—I mean we—afford the rent?”
“Thorne refuses to charge us anything but free tailoring.”
“We can’t accept that.”
Darius knew Marc would protest. “He says it’s an investment. You can argue with him if you want to, but…”
“Arguing with Thorne is pointless.”
They both laughed.
“I thought we’d move into the new space in a few months. I’ve got three months on my current lease, so that will give us time to transition. We can use the extra space for storage at first, then expand, maybe faster than we’d planned since we’ll have less overhead and—”
“An awesome landlord.”
Darius wrinkled his brow. “Awesome might be pushing it.”
“I happen to know someone who has a lot of leverage with him.”
“So this is what you want?” Darius asked, tapping his sketch.
“Yes, but what about us?”
“Us as in personal, not business?”
Marc nodded.
“We love each other.” Darius knew it wasn’t that simple, but he wished it could be.
“Are we dating?”
“Dating is too mild a word for what we do.”
Marc laughed. “I guess that’s true. So we’re exclusive?”
Horror rushed through Darius. “Are you telling me you’ve been fucking other people?”
“No.”
“Good. I haven’t even thought about another man since the day I hired you.”
Marc took his hand. “I love you, Darius Connelly.”
“I know.”
“Well, I thought I should repeat it when I wasn’t under the influence of your ass around my cock.”
Darius squeezed Marc’s hand. “I liked that. A lot.”
“You want to do it again?”
“Um…”
“Too sore?” Marc asked with a smirk.
“Bastard.”
“How about you fuck me, then? Since we’re being all mushy, maybe we can finally give slow and sweet a good try.”
Darius raised his brows.
“Then again…”
They both laughed.
“Having a boyfriend is going to take some getting used to after all this pretense,” Marc said. “And a business partner and someone to love who—”