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“Gav.”
Gavin Reed is currently trying his hardest to not appear interested, not appear desperate, and most certainly not appear weird.
“You’re acting really weird.”
Well. Gavin wasn’t good at a lot of things, he forgot “not being weird” was definitely on the list.
“If you like that guy, I can help you out. But you need to not…” She gestures to his entire body, “That.”
Gavin isn’t quite sure what “that” means. First of all, this is where Tina and him hang after work to unwind so he’s never looked for or seen a potential prospect here. So, what does he normally do?
He puts both elbows back on the bar, slightly slouching. Okay, that feels normal.
He hasn’t taken a drink of his beer since he arrived, tilting the bottle up and quick into his mouth. Alright, that’s it.
He tries to relax his shoulders a bit but it must look awful as Tina goes, “Christ Gav.”
“imsorry” He says pointedly through gritted teeth.
“Pathetic.”
Gavin curls a lip but he’s not really angry at Tina. She knows this by now.
“Look let’s just get up,” she leads Gavin to stand by the elbow, “and talk to him.”
“What? I’m gonna just walk up to a guy who looks like that and, what, talk to him?”
“I’m not sure what else you’re suggesting and honestly I don’t wanna hear it. Come on, asshole.”
She leads him to the other end of the room where the most gorgeous man that Gavin’s ever seen in real life is just… sitting. In a booth. By himself. As if he’s an actual man and not a portrait painting set in a fancy art gallery. Or an underwear model enjoying his off time. Could really go either way. The man is leaning back in his seat, neck exposed as he takes long swigs of his drink. Damn, this guy manages to make drinking out of a glass look hot as fuck.
Oh shit, Tina was talking and now -
Gavin’s here.
Standing in front of this man.
Oh.
Oh Gavin wished he’d paid attention to whatever Tina was saying.
“uh hey”
There’s a groan not far behind Gavin now. He wants to react, tell Tina to shut up, but he decides against it.
Eventually, the man looks his way. His eyes are dazzling. His jaw is defined and his hair is neat. “Hello.” And his voice is deep enough for Gavin to feel it resonate throughout his body.
Gavin blinks. He legitimately wasn’t sure the man would look at him. Well, now that that’s out of the way, Gavin has no clue what to do.
Luckily, the man speaks, “I’m Richard.”
“oh yeah, nice name”
A smile, slow and creeping and minute but definitely there, grows on Richard’s face. Gavin can’t fathom why this man would ever smile at him until Richard asks, “And yours?”
“My…? Oh! I’m, um, I’m Gavin.”
Those eyes sparkled, grey glinting against ice blue, as he took all of Gavin in. Time felt like it was moving too slow now. Gavin wasn’t sure what to do. What do you say to someone when speaking to them might make you swallow your own tongue?
“Would you like to sit with me, Gavin? No one else here is as entertaining as you.”
Gavin babbles, for some stupid reason looking around the room to try and find someone else to prove Richard wrong.
“Not to mention,” Richard leans forward on his elbows, his fingers tracing and dragging along the lip of the glass, “you’re the most attractive man here.”
Gavin’s eyebrows might have entered the stratosphere and his jaw might be dancing a jig with the devil.
But, you know, who was Gavin to tell this guy he was probably wrong? Especially when it benefited him.