Right.
His face burning, Jordan looked at the ointment Lorenzo had bought and wondered if it was possible to expire from sheer mortification.
***
It turned out that Damiano did know a thing or two about wine. Almost too much, in fact. He was as much of a wine snob as Jordan’s father was, sneering at the expensive wine Jordan personally considered quite good—but apparently he was very wrong.
Rolling his eyes, Jordan was left trailing after Damiano and the wine store owner as the elderly man showed off his rare wine collection to Damiano.
There were no other customers—Jordan suspected that the store catered to high-profile clients and was opened on a holiday at Damiano’s request. There were certainly no price tags in an establishment like that, and Jordan didn’t bother asking how much the wine Damiano ended up picking cost. He saw no point in making a fuss about something that was a drop in the ocean for Damiano.
There was also a horrible, shameful part of him that liked it: liked that Damiano was wasting his valuable time on choosing wine for Jordan’s family.
The direction of his own thoughts annoyed and embarrassed him, but there was nothing Jordan could do about it. Nor could he do anything about the ridiculously inappropriate, possessive feeling that stirred in his stomach every time he looked at Damiano. This is my man, it whispered with vicious satisfaction. Look how knowledgeable, powerful, and attractive he is.
It was deeply mortifying. Damiano wasn’t his anything, much less his man, what the fuck. He was his own man, and he didn’t need another powerful man to feel good about himself.
At least the ointment Lorenzo had bought seemed to be working. Jordan had applied it in the wine store’s bathroom while Damiano talked to the owner. It worked like a charm. He still felt a little sore and sensitive, but he could walk normally now, which was a relief, because Jordan hadn’t been looking forward to trying to explain to his family why he was walking funny.
He wasn’t looking forward to dinner at all, to be honest. Normally he loved Christmas dinners at his parents’ house with his extended family in attendance, but right now… His stomach knotted up at the mere thought of saying goodbye to Damiano and not seeing him for who knew how long. They hadn’t really talked about what they had been doing—what the sex meant, if it even meant anything. Would Damiano disappear from his life again? Or would he stick to the phone sex they had been having? Or maybe the sex had cured Damiano of this weird thing, and this was it. Jordan didn’t feel cured in the least—if anything, he felt like he’d gotten reinfected with the disease, feeling clingy as hell—but that was him. Maybe Damiano felt differently.
“What’s up with that face?” Damiano said as they got into the car.
Jordan sighed, grimacing and glaring at his own hands. He could see Damiano’s hand in his peripheral vision and it was taking everything in him not to grab it. Fuck, he really was turning into a teenage girl. He’d never been one to hold hands, only tolerating it when his girlfriends and wife had initiated it.
“I hate how clingy I feel,” he said, pulling a face. “This isn’t me.”
Damiano hummed and looked out the window. Jordan could no longer see his face, only the tight line of his sharp jawline.
Then, his fingers moved, inching closer to Jordan’s, until they touched the back of his hand.
His heart somewhere in his throat, Jordan stared at them before turning his hand and entangling their fingers.
Christ, how could something so simple feel so intense?
“Come with me to the party,” he blurted out before he could stop himself.
Silence.
“As a friend,” Jordan added, clearing his throat.
After a long moment, Damiano gave a clipped nod.
Chapter 25
There was a surreal quality to the whole evening.
Jordan had never imagined Damiano being in the same room as his family. They represented different parts of his life, and seeing Damiano converse with his parents was bizarre.
It didn’t feel wrong, though. There was something satisfying about having Damiano in his childhood home, surrounded by his family, and it kept feeding the possessiveness Jordan was trying to quash.
“Jesus, take a picture,” Eloise said, nearly making Jordan jump. “If you keep staring at him that way, you’ll catch fire. There are kids around, Jord.”
“Don’t know what you mean,” Jordan said.
His sister rolled her eyes and wrapped her arm around his waist. “He’s very handsome,” she said. “But I had no idea you swung this way.”
“I don’t,” Jordan said, honestly enough. He still didn’t consider himself bi. Damiano was the only man he’d ever found attractive on a personal level.
She smirked, giving Damiano a once-over. “Right. But this man can certainly make even the straightest guy slightly bent. Yummy. Just looking at him makes me a little wet.”