What if... I Want Commitment?

Prologue

Raife

Look, mate, he shrugged carelessly, it’s been fun and all – but really, it’s time you weren’t here, you know? Micah even looked at his watch and then cast a desperate glance back at the guy lounging on the sofa watching some crap on the TV, I’ve got to go to work later.

I tried my best to concentrate on my work and to block out the voices of my flatmate, Micah and his latest hook-up – I think his name was Paolo, but that could have been the one he’d brought back the other night. They all looked the same... Hell, they all sounded the same, if I’m honest – all of them with their eyeliner and lip-gloss and overly tight skinny jeans and flimsy vest tops and girlish giggles. That wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of it was definitely the shrieking that he was the best lay they’d ever had while he was servicing them in the bedroom. My room was right across the hall and it was impossible not to hear everything...

Micah seemed to be attracted to exactly the same type of guy every time. None of them were what you’d call keepers and I thanked heaven for that. I’d have to move out if any one of those guys moved in with him. A couple of nights a week of loud sex was quite enough, thanks. If that was gonna happen all hours of the night and day, I’d have to find somewhere else to live or I’d never get any sleep – not to mention the fact that I would feel eternally inadequate...

I felt very conspicuous sitting at the dining table with all my paperwork spread out around me. Micah just didn’t have the sensitivity to bin the guys off privately and I was dying inside for the little guy. I’d glanced up when Micah had started to do his usual speech and I had to admit that the guy was really quite beautiful. I looked back down at my work and tried my best to not listen – it had to be mortifying for Paolo or whatever his name was to know I could hear every word...

I could still see them in my peripheral vision and I just wanted to disappear – I hated these awkward moments when it was so obvious to me that he’d had enough and just wanted the guy to go. It was so harsh... and so damned rude.

I did wonder sometimes if he really was this indifferent to them all. I had a theory – not that I’d discussed it with him. Micah wasn’t big on discussing his feelings at length and apart from when I first moved in, we hadn’t discussed them at all. I didn’t blame him because hell, I didn’t really like talking about my feelings either – but I wasn’t blind and I wasn’t stupid. I was sure that he was still hurting on the inside for something that had happened a while ago – and he seemed to think the answer lay in bedding as many twinks as he possibly could.

I was sure he was lying about not wanting to see Paolo again too. I’d heard them come in last night and they’d been laughing and chatting and having fun – and then of course things got horny – as they always did and they went at it for hours. I was sure he was into him – and he probably wanted to see him again but he was such a commitment-phobe…

Paolo would have no idea why he was being dumped but like I said, I thought I did. My theory was that he was still trying to put his past demons to bed so to speak – to forget the guy that had broken his heart and sleeping with every other guy he could. Thank God he’d never wanted to sleep with me. I liked being the one constant in his life...

I know it sounds as if he was a total arsehole but he wasn’t – not really. He was hard-working, fun to be around and generous to a fault. I met him when I was just finishing my first year of studying for my master’s degree and money was tight at the best of times. I worked at the same club he worked at – he was a dancer there and I was one of the bar staff. The bar had been extended all the way along the back wall of the club – it was obvious that it would have to happen one day. The club’s reputation has grown so much since it opened a couple of years before and Rob, the manager, had made some really brilliant changes. So, I was one of a team of bar staff now – all managed by a great guy called Seth Matthews.

I’d been really lazy at looking for somewhere to live in my second year and I just couldn’t face living in halls again. My best mate at uni, Miles, had said I could move into the house he was renting with a few of his other mates but they were a rowdy bunch with a revolving door of one-night stands and I really wasn’t feeling it... But I needed somewhere to live and so when Micah offered me a room in his house I jumped at the chance and the rest, as they say, was history.

He was kind of my best bud – we’d lived together almost for as long as we’d known each other. One night when we were working together at the bar, he offered me his spare room and voila – almost three years on, I was still there and we were as happy as pigs in shit together.

We’d never gone down the romantic route with each other – not that I would rule it out altogether but not while I’d only be his for the night and discarded the next morning. I’m not a ‘casual fuck’ kind of guy so it just wasn’t likely to ever happen – I knew him too well for that – and even though he denied it totally – I could see that he was still in love with the man who broke his heart all those years ago. I just didn’t know why...

I could totally appreciate how absolutely drop-dead gorgeous he was – but we really were just mates and I wouldn’t sleep with him if you paid me to. He was a player and he didn’t love any of the guys he hooked up with. I guessed that one day, he might meet the one to mend his broken heart and settle down – but I was hoping to have found my very own prince charming and not be totally heartbroken when he was finally tamed by The One.

Nah, I’d rather go home anyway, I heard the guy lie right back to his face. You go Paolo! I thought to myself with a suppressed snort of laughter. I was impressed. The boy had balls after all…

I sneaked a look as he jumped up off the sofa like a gazelle, grabbed his jacket and sashayed his way to the door. The look on Micah’s face as he headed out was absolutely priceless. I shot him an amused look as he scrambled to his feet and followed after him. Serves you right, bud…

A short time later he came back into the lounge – alone. He dragged out the chair next to me and flung himself down, a scowl settling over his gorgeous face. The beautiful Paolo had gone home.

I couldn’t help it, I had to say something, So he called your bluff, huh, stud? I smirked.

What? Oh yeah, I guess, He nodded, his scowl deepening, whatever, he growled, drumming his fingers on the table, I’m not bothered.

I grinned inwardly. He was such a twat sometimes but there was something about him that seemed to be irresistible to the twinks... and, if I’m honest, to me but that was my best kept secret and I wasn’t about to tell anyone.

I’d been warned not to get involved with him by almost all of the guys at the club. Alfie, River, Seth and Thai had all told me as soon as I joined that he was a player and to stay right away from him – when I failed to do that – they then, one by one, all warned me not to move in with him. It had irritated me a little bit that they thought I needed warning off him. We were just mates. Did I look like the sort of guy that would be walked all over? Every one of them seemed to think I was going to succumb to his devastating charm or something. Uh. No, thank you... I wasn’t into one-night stands. I wanted a relationship. Something I knew he was incapable of and I didn’t have time to emotionally invest myself in someone only to be dumped a few hours later. When I gave myself to someone, I wanted it to be a lasting love affair. I wanted my prince charming and I wanted him to be a stayer – not a player.

So, I didn’t fall for his charms – well not immediately – and certainly not in the same way as all the twinks had in any case – but I’m getting way ahead of myself. Let’s start at the beginning...

We kind of became best friends instead. If I’m honest, it wasn’t what I’d have chosen. I wasn’t blind to his charm or anything like that... No, it was more of a self-preservation thing I had going on.

He was a sexy pole-dancer and I’d seen his moves a thousand times. I’d seen him walking around the house half-naked loads of times too and I was quite convinced the twinks weren’t exaggerating his amazing moves in bed either – he had a very impressive package...

Thankfully, I was always sat at the dining table doing my work at home, so he never saw the boner I had going on – which I liked to think was pretty impressive too... I hid my feelings exceedingly well around him – and I also hid the fact that I’d never been with a guy all the way before. I seriously didn’t need his incredulous stare before he rolled around the floor laughing at me, which I was damned sure he’d do... And I didn’t need his ‘help’ in getting laid, either.

I shook my head and sighed affectedly at him, You got on well with him, Micah – why didn’t you ask him to stay for brunch? I could have gone to Miles’.

He just shook his head and gave me one of his sexy smiles, just as he always did and he said what he always said, "This is your home. I’m not about to ask you to leave just so I can get down and dirty over the dining table, At my look of horror that he’d have sex on the table I was working on he quickly changed the location, or, you know – the sofa... He shot me a charming grin, If I’d still felt like nailing him, we’d have gone back to bed."

I smiled back at him and tried not to imagine being nailed, Fancy a coffee? I asked, getting up and stretching my arms above my head.

He nodded, "I’ll put us some toast in and then we can snuggle down and binge watch series one of Versailles."

I nodded. You could often find us snuggled together on the sofa binge watching all sorts of series. We’d exhausted Grey’s Anatomy, Game of Thrones and Prison Break (and oh, my God, isn’t Wentworth Miller dreamy?) and he’d recently found the BBC drama Versailles and had found the previous series that we’d managed to completely miss. Clearly, we were going to be up to speed by the time we were heading out for work this evening...

I’m not sure that I’d actually fancied Micah when I first met him but I can’t deny that I had found him very attractive...

Hello.

I jumped and looked up to find the ridiculously attractive dancer guy, Micah, smiling down at me. He’d first said hello to me on the night I started and I’d found him pretty damned attractive then. The more I saw of him, though, the better he got. He was utterly stunning. He had slightly wavy dark blonde hair that was short at the sides and in the neck but longer on the top. It always seemed to fall perfectly in big chunky waves – I didn’t know it at the time, but even when he first got up in the morning he managed to look like a male model. He had bright blue eyes with black eyelashes and perfectly groomed eyebrows. The overall effect was really quite stunning. He had full lips that I could spend hours kissing and a perfectly lovely nose that I longed to rub my own nose against. And let’s not forget the designer stubble he had going on. I could nuzzle against that all fucking day – hell, I could nuzzle every bit of him. Oh, okay. I guess I had fancied him from the very beginning...

I looked up into his gorgeous smiling face and giggled girlishly, which irritated me no end – I wasn’t usually prone to giggling, but then, I wasn’t usually being pursued quite so intently by such a gorgeous specimen, either… Hi, I said, I’m guessing you want another bottle of water?

He grinned, You know me so well. He said, batting his ridiculously pretty eyelashes at me and leaning on the bar, raking his eyes up and down my body and making me feel very exposed even though I was fully dressed in a tight-fitting black shirt and black jeans.

I raising an eyebrow, "Well, I wouldn’t say that."

He burst out laughing, You are so fucking adorable, he said, showing fabulously straight white teeth. Someone was meticulous with his dental hygiene... When are you gonna let me take you out for dinner?

I shook my head. I hated being teased and there was no way he could be serious right now. I wasn’t anywhere near in his league. I couldn’t have grown designer stubble if my life depended on it, I was less than useless at putting contacts in too, so I had to wear my glasses all of the time – and no, they weren’t designer either...

"I’m not being funny, but guys as beautiful as you don’t usually show any interest in plain, uninteresting guys like me." I blurted out before I could really think how it might have sounded – it had sounded just fine in my head but out loud…

Guys as beautiful as me? he spluttered, doing his best not to burst out laughing again, Give me a break! he started laughing in spite of his best efforts and that made me smile too, My head’s too big and I only have a four pack – I’ll never look like River. He turned to look at River who was writhing around his pole and looking absolutely awesome. The bastard. He added affectionately.

I grinned too, blushing to the roots of my hair. He was adorable, "Well, I have no pack going on, I countered, and you have to know that you’re incredibly good-looking. Let’s face it, you get propositioned – and no doubt laid – every other night."

He chuckled, Okay – whatever you want to think, he’d gone a little pink but he looked rather pleased with himself, are you gonna hold my stunningly awesome looks against me or can we at least be mates?

I looked up at him. He was smiling at me confidently enough, but there was a certain vulnerability in his expression that kind of spoke to me – unless I was being overly romantic in my head, it was something I was a little prone to do, Being mates is good, I agreed, my self-preservation gene kicking in, I can definitely do that.

He grinned, pulling up a bar stool and sitting down. He took a sip of his water, So, what do you think of the job so far? he asked.

I’d only started a couple of weeks back and yet I’d run the section I’d been put on impeccably. But that was me all over. I was a bit of a perfectionist on the quiet. I nodded, It’s the coolest thing I’ve ever done. I admitted, feeling my face heating up. I was so far away from cool it was ridiculous. I was amazed I’d been offered the job.

So, tell me about yourself, He asked, looking up at me through his eyelashes.

I was mesmerised. He was so unbelievably handsome and I really couldn’t understand what he was doing, talking to me – out of all the guys in the place, what was so special about me?

Um, well, I live in halls, sharing with my friend Miles – he’s my best friend and I love him to bits, I bit my lip as a wave of panic swept over me. What the hell was I gonna do about the second year that was fast approaching? I sighed, but I need to find somewhere for next year... Why was I telling him all this? He wouldn’t be interested, still he seemed to be, so I told him all about not wanting to move in with Miles and the rest of the guys that shagged anything with a pulse. We get on really well, but we’re very different. I’m just not like that but I don’t really like to cramp his style… I finished lamely.

He looked at me thoughtfully and then shrugged, You could move in with me, he said, I’ve got a whole house to fill so you’ve got your pick of a bedroom and I could really use the rent money since I got made redundant from the day job.

I bit my lip again. God, that was tempting – to see his beautiful face every day would be like a dream come true… Well, I should really see the rest of the term out... It was paid for after all but it was a matter of weeks and I was so anal about saving money I could probably pay a deposit and the rent money each week and still have plenty left. Maybe I could eat more but I was so used to starving, it was kind of second nature...

He grinned, Sure, he said, And I guess you should know me better before allowing me to lock you up in my home... I’ll tell you all about me, too – warts and all – but I need to get back to work right now.

I blinked and looked around. There was a bit of queue further up the bar. I’d been so wrapped up in him I’d forgotten all about the rest of the punters. I gasped, Oh, my God! You’re right!

He chuckled and nodded, I know – time seems to stand still when we get chatting, doesn’t it?

I looked at him. I hardly knew him but what he’d just said was true. There was just something about him that I loved being around – I’d only seen him a few times in the last couple of weeks since I’d been working at the bar, but since we’d started talking to each other, I’d found that I looked forward to seeing him every time I had a shift.

The next night when I was filling the refrigerator with bottled beers and soft drinks, I sensed rather than saw him. I turned to find myself almost nose-to-nose with him. This is getting silly, He grinned, "are you sure you’re not following me?"

I laughed out loud as it was pretty obvious that he’d come looking for me, Yeah, right! I snorted, Because I can really chase you around the club – you’re the one in the queue, mate.

He chuckled, Have you thought any more about moving in with me? He looked at me hopefully. I tried to stop my heart from fluttering – he was only after the rent money, he’d as good as told me that yesterday…

I nodded, I have actually, I said, trying my