The Christmas Veto (Festive Fakes) by Keira Andrews

Author:Keira Andrews [Andrews, Keira]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, romance, contemporary
ISBN: 9781988260952
Publisher: KA Books
Published: 2023-11-15T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Connor

“Wow, either you crushed that exam or you got laid.”

I froze in the middle of unzipping my leather jacket. Asher was grinning up at me from the booth in the back of the pub, dressed in a gray suit for work. I stupidly glanced around to see if anyone had heard and had the ridiculous urge to find a mirror. Did I look different?

Asher’s eyebrows shot up. “Holy shit, you did!”

“Shh!” I glanced around again, but the long table of office people laughing over their lunch and doing a noisy gift exchange weren’t paying attention. I managed to toss my jacket into the corner of the stained red fabric booth and slide in across from him. “Yeah, exam went great.”

He poured me a pint from the pitcher. “And?”

“What?” I gulped the cool lager gratefully and realized I hadn’t taken off my gloves. Asher was watching me with a shit-eating grin as I stuffed the gloves in my jacket pocket.

We’d never discussed that I was still a virgin. At Rencliffe, I’d gone along with him and the guys in talking about tits and hot chicks, but at a certain point, Asher had stopped asking me about girls when it was just the two of us.

He’d told me all about losing his virginity in way too much detail, but my sex life—or the lack thereof—had become an unspoken topic.

He sipped his beer. “When you walked in, I could tell you’d loosened a few screws.”

He’d always teased me about being uptight. “Yeah, like I said. Exam went great.” I ran my fingers through the condensation on the glass. Fuck I hoped it had gone great. What if—

“A-ha! There it is. You’re worrying about that exam. Something else loosened you up.”

“How much beer have you had? You have to go back to work. You’re cut off.” My cheeks burned, and I took another gulp.

Asher’s grin faltered. “You know you can tell me about stuff, right? Like, if you hooked up with someone. Or if you didn’t, or whatever.”

That old panic flapped its wings, and I was about to scoff and change the subject but stopped. In the now-awkward silence, we stared at each other.

Asher knew. I knew he knew—hell, he’d apparently told Reid in the past that I was queer. Why was this still so hard? It wasn’t only because the guy I’d hooked up with was Asher’s brother.

Okay. One step at a time. “Um, yeah. I guess I did. Get laid.”

Asher lit up like the Christmas tree near our table. “I knew it!” He raised his hand for a high five, which I automatically gave. “Tell me about…them.”

“It’s um…” Another gulp of beer, my pint already drained. “A guy.”

Asher nodded eagerly. “Cool, man. That’s awesome.”

Affection swelled in me. He was trying so hard to be supportive. He didn’t narrow his eyes and look skeptical, or ask why I was queer and whether Logan and Seth had made me that way. Of course he didn’t. And I hadn’t really suspected he would. Not Asher.

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