Weight of Silence(7)

“No.”

The face Casper pulled made Jace laugh, which earned him his attention. “Pardon my rude friend who brought you here.”

“Are you sure he deserves a pardon?” Jace asked.

Casper snorted. “I think I like you, kid. Folks call me Casper.”

“Jace Ramsey.” He ignored the kid comment and shook Casper’s hand.

“You legal?” Casper held up his beer. “Not that I care, but I figure as host it’s my duty to ask.”

“Legal enough to do almost everything.”

“Good enough. Come in. Drink. Be Merry. No sex on the first floor.”

It was Gavin’s turn to laugh at what must have been a stunned look on Jace’s face. He followed Gavin into the living room and found himself swallowed up by a sea of people he didn’t know, but who seemed to immediately accept him simply because he knew Gavin. Coke in actual glass bottles made their way into their hands, and Jace wasn’t shy about snacking from the various bowls of chips and pretzels scattered around the downstairs of the house.

More people showed up, filling the first floor with men and women, some of whom Jace recognized, most of whom he didn’t.

“Casper’s parties tend to grow based on word of mouth,” Gavin said when Jace commented on the crowd. “I doubt he knows a quarter of these people.”

They found a corner of the dining room to stand in and chat. Spending time with Gavin was the whole idea of coming to the party, and Jace didn’t take Gavin’s constantly shifting attention personally. He seemed to have a problem focusing on one thing with so much happening around him. The quirk was actually kind of endearing, and Jace found himself watching Gavin watch others more than trying to engage him in conversation. The array of musical choices was too loud for anything more than casual chatting anyway.

Their corner also gave him a good view into the living room, where furniture had been pushed against the walls to create a dance floor. Guys and girls danced in what looked like a single cluster, no different than any other party he’d been to—until he spotted two guys in the midst of it. They weren’t simply dancing together, they were grinding and they were into it.

Jace stared, mesmerized by the sight of the couple so perfectly at ease with each other and the crowd of straight dancers all around them. He scanned the other participants and onlookers and saw no obvious disgust, no pointed glares, as though it happened all the time. Jace couldn’t imagine ever dancing with another guy at one of his own friends’ parties.

“You wanna dance?”

His head whipped around, and he blinked at Gavin, unsure if he’d heard the question properly. “Dance?”

Gavin’s eyes widened. “I mean, it doesn’t have to be with me, unless you want to. You looked like you wanted to, so I asked if you did. Do you?”

The babbling was more adorable than the hamster-like attention span—and when had Jace starting thinking of another guy in terms of levels of adorableness? Jace was all about new experiences and exploring his sexuality, and he’d never been in such a neutral environment, conducive to those experiments.

“Never mind, it was stu—”

Jace put his hand over Gavin’s mouth, cutting off the comment mid-stream. He felt Gavin’s lips curl into a smile against his palm, and the amusement in his brown eyes changed into something more intense. “Yes, I’d like to dance,” Jace said. “With you.”

Gavin wasted no time taking his hand and pulling him out into the cluster of people in the living room. They merged into the rolling sea, and Jace’s nervousness at being out there with Gavin disappeared as soon as Gavin’s arms slid loosely around his waist. The hold was as gentle as it was possessive. Pressing close to Gavin’s body felt good. Moving with him felt even better.

Jace ignored the other writhing bodies and focused solely on Gavin. On the way his long body moved with the music, muscles rippling beneath the too-tight button-down he’d worn. On the way he looked and smelled and sounded as they danced in the crush, abs-to-abs, groin-to-groin. And particularly, he focused on the way Gavin’s attention honed in on him and no one else for a very long time.

His pulse raced and his heart pounded, as much with adrenaline and exertion as with arousal. Jace couldn’t hide his hard-on if he’d wanted to, and he only got harder when he noticed Gavin’s erection poking into his hip. Several times he thought Gavin was about to lean down and kiss him, but he never did. His senses were nearing a state of overload, and he needed to do something before he exploded.

Or before he came in his jeans in the middle of a crowd of people, which was not an acceptable outcome.