Page 5 of The Way Home

“Yes!” Jamie said enthusiastically before schooling his features. “Yeah, uh, of course.”

“Where are you from?” Caleb asked when Jamie reappeared with a beer and sat across from him. He hung his bike helmet off the side of his chair. “I mean, I can tell you’re English, but I’m learning that there are, like, fifty different types of English accents.”

“I’m from Marlow, out in Bucks.”

Caleb must’ve looked as lost as he felt, because Jamie added, “Buckinghamshire. About forty minutes west of here.”

Caleb took another sip of his drink. “Sorry, I clearly don’t really know much about England yet. Haven’t made it out of the city, but everyone keeps saying the countryside’s beautiful.”

Jamie licked some foam from his top lip. As he drank, his curls kept falling into his face and, every few minutes, he’d swipe one away with two fingers. Caleb noticed his hands were big for how slim he was, and the veins in his forearms shifted as he lifted his beer and set it back down.

Hot,muscularnerd.

“I know the area quite well,” Jamie said. “If you have, erm, questions or anything.”

Time to figure out if this was platonic flirting or if Caleb was about to have a hot date for the night.

“I’ll have to take you up on that, Jamie,” Caleb replied, letting his voice go a bit deeper.

The blush that spread along Jamie’s smooth, freckled cheeks told him everything he needed to know.

They made normal, if not a little awkward, small talk; Jamie asked about working for Chelsea, and Caleb learned that Jamie worked at the British Library. Helookedlike someone who worked at the British Library.

The tips of Jamie’s finger traced the edge of his beer glass, giving away his nerves.

Deciding he was determined to make Jamie loosen up a bit,Caleb leaned into asking about his job at the library. As predicted, Jamie started chatting away in his crisp accent, talking about how he’d gotten into working there, the over one hundred seventymillionitems on their shelves, and some of the exhibits they had coming up.

It was adorable.

“Sorry,” he said after a while, cheeks turning pink. “I think I’m talking a lot.”

“I like listening to you talk. It’s cute.”

A little smile formed on Jamie’s face, but he ducked his face to try and hide it. “Do you, erm, read?”

“A bit here and there.” Caleb shrugged.

Alright, it’s high time to make a move.

“I prefer to listen to hot men talk about books rather than actually read.”

Jamie choked on his drink and then wiped his mouth, eyes wide. Boy, he was fun to play with. Now Caleb’s mission was to get him somewhere they could maybe play a bit more.

“Right. Erm, good. Great.”

Caleb glanced over to the ladies, noticing that the crowd had started to thin out around the athletes, and most of them were packing up to head out. Probably to a club or another bar.

When he turned back, Jamie’s eyes were locked on Caleb’s chest, jaw slack. The air between them had been sizzling for about thirty minutes now, and it was pretty obvious where this was going.

“What are you doing tonight?” Caleb asked.

“Me?” Jamie looked up, surprised. He glanced around the bar. “Well, this.”

“I meant after…this.” Caleb leaned closer and slid his foot forward under the table. He tapped it against Jamie’s shoe a few times. “Because I’d like to see you. Outside of this bar, Jamie.”

The other man inhaled, and the flush on his cheeks crept down his throat. Suddenly, Caleb was very fixated on seeing how far down that flush went on Jamie’s chest.

“Pub,” Jamie blurted out.