Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 120189 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120189 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Tonight: boom.
“TREVOR.”
The name cuts through the room impossibly, like the word was spoken by all of the walls of the club, startling me. The volume of the music even seems to cut in half, and the chatter and hollering of the room dampens to nearly nothing.
I search for the voice.
When his figure emerges through the crowd, the people part amidst gasps of shock to make room for him.
It’s Benjamin. He’s standing there in the middle of the dance floor in a pool of light. He wears the same fitted bicep-hugging blue blazer he wore that first night I saw him—in this very room. His dress shirt accentuates his pecs beautifully. With his face framed by the light from above, he practically glows with beauty.
And here I am: sweaty, shirtless, and drunk, standing on a go-go boy block.
Slowly, he lifts a dildo to his mouth.
Oh wait, no, that’s a microphone.
“Trevor,” he speaks into it, his voice dancing all around me and bouncing off the walls. “I called your name a minute ago. You couldn’t hear me. So I had to get, uh … dramatic,” he explains with a little wiggle of the microphone.
I’m stunned. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Whispers scatter through the room, and I know what they’re saying: Benjamin Gage is actually here, and he’s speaking to Trevor Woodard—the intern who had his face buried in his boss’s ass on the evening news from here to the other end of the world. It’s like the next news story has just come to life right before their eyes, and they all have a front row seat.
I hope that’s not pee trickling down my leg right now.
“What are you doing?” I ask despite the room spinning.
“What I should’ve done the first night I met you,” he replies, echoes of his words scurrying into the corners of the nightclub like shadows—met you, met you, met you. “In this very room. When we were just two men whose eyes caught one another’s. Before you were an intern. Before I was your boss.”
Your boss, your boss, your boss.
I swallow. It’s not lost on me how many phones in the past ten seconds have just whipped out of pockets to capture—yet again—another moment of our lives. Except this time, it’s public whether I want it to be or not. The world watches us right now, listening to our every word.
Well, all of Ben’s words, more like, seeing as I’m struck dumb at the moment.
“When we’re not at the office, when we’re not in front of cameras, when you’re just Trevor and I’m just Ben, I feel happier than I have in years.” Years, years, years. “All I know is, you can’t control where you fall in love. Or who it is you fall in love with. But when it happens, you gotta own it.”
Own it, own it, own it.
He didn’t just say “love”, did he? That wasn’t my ass that just fell through the floor at hearing those words, was it?
“I mean, I don’t know yet if what we have is love,” Ben adds. “Is it too soon to know? Maybe. Maybe not. But I don’t want some scandal caught on tape to take the chance away from us to figure out what we have. We owe it to ourselves to pursue this. You. Me.”
You. Me. You. Me. You. Me.
“So let’s do this the right way,” Ben finishes. “Trevor. Will you go on a date with me?”
My vision may be slightly questionable at the moment, but I see a majority of the interns at the front of the crowd, all of them eyeing us with curiosity, with excitement, with astonishment. I see Ashlee with her eyes full of that “aww” sort of hopefulness, her hands clasped together. I see Elijah right by her with a “go get ‘em” sort of smirk on his face.
I bring my gaze back to Benjamin, inspired, then take a step proudly toward him. “Ben, I’d be—”
And then I forget I’m standing on a go-go dancer block.
There’s nothing there beneath my foot.
As I twist, struggle, teeter, and finally tip over with a shriek, I feel a pair of arms rush forth to catch me. I throw my hands around my savior, clutching tightly, then bring my eyes up to meet those of Benjamin Gage, who looks down on me in his arms.
Of course there’d be a glint of dark amusement in his eyes.
“What I was going to say,” I murmur with dignity, “is that I’d be an idiot to not take you up on that offer of a first real date.”
He grins, his eyes smoldering me as his million-dollar smile shines down on my face. There’s no doubt in my mind that Ben is, whether out here on the dance floor amidst a crowd of curious onlookers or in the privacy of a peaceful cabana in Cancún, the most beautiful soul I’ve ever let into my life.