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They made their way back to the counter where Wei was filling up the complimentary condom basket. Tristan pocketed a few just like he always did before asking “Hey, Wei, did you ever get paid?”
She nodded and smiled brightly. “Yeah! Apparently, Jimmy had an accountant all along, a guy named Kevin. Turns out Jimmy just did the cash payment thing because he liked an excuse to come down and chat. Kevin sorted it all out, and the pay goes into our bank accounts now.”
“I’m glad to hear it, love,” Tristan said, and meant it. He couldn’t imagine having to live payday to payday. It sounded miserable. He turned to Leo. “I guess you have to talk to Kevin, too?”
Leo’s brow furrowed. “Yeah, it’s on my list, but sorting out the estate is… It’s a lot more complicated than I expected.”
Tristan felt a pang of sympathy. Wills were never fun at the best of times, and it definitely sounded like Leo had inherited more than a few headaches along with Jimmy’s properties and businesses. Yet here he was, doing his best to take care of everything. A wave of fondness washed over Tristan that was new and frankly unsettling. Tristan wasn’t fond of people. He just fucked them—or they him, either was good—then he walked away. Which was why the overwhelming desire to spend more time with Leo— time that didn’t involve getting his dick out—caught him off guard. Before he could think about it too much he found himself asking, “Do you eat?”
Leo gave him a guarded look, like he wasn’t quite sure where Tristan was going with this—which was fair, because Tristan wasn’t quite sure either. “Do I eat?”
“Meals,” Tristan clarified. “And, do you. With me? Want to?”
Leo just stared.
Jesus. Tristan had asked a hundred men to bed in a hundred different ways and he’d managed to be flirty and seductive every single time, but when it came to something as simple as asking Leo to dinner, he couldn’t even form a sentence. Silently appalled at his complete lack of composure, Tristan took a breath and tried again. “Can I take you to dinner, Leo?”
“Um, are you asking me on a…date?” Leo’s eyes widened, and Tristan caught a glimpse of something vulnerable there—hope, maybe.
“Yes,” he said. “I am.”
Leo bit his bottom lip and hesitated for just long enough for Tristan to second-guess himself before he gave a shy smile and nodded. “Yeah. That’d be nice.”
Tristan mentally high-fived himself and ignored the voice in his head reminding him that he was breaking his hard and fast no-dating rule, and chose instead to focus on the warm tendril of anticipation that curled in his belly at the prospect of dinner with Leo. He was shocked to discover that he wasn’t even all that concerned about whether or not they shagged afterwards, which was uncharted territory as far as Tristan was concerned.
He wasn’t sure what had spurred him to ask Leo out or why he was doing this, but he was doing it.
Fuck the rules.
Tristan was going on a date.
Chapter Eight
Every Friday night for as long as he could remember, Leo had made his way to his parents’ house in Vaucluse for dinner. If there had ever been a time when Vaucluse had been a laidback beachside Sydney suburb, those days were long gone. Now it was full of multi-million-dollar trophy homes and mums driving Lexus SUVs. Leo’s parents were property developers, so they were exactly the sort of people who were to blame for changing the face of Vaucluse—and not for the better. But Leo had no right to complain. He’d grown up in a house that was now worth a fortune in equity alone, and he’d gone to a good school—the sort where he’d worn a tie and a boater—and he was exactly the sort of son that his parents were proud to show off to their friends and colleagues. It just rankled a little more every Friday night.
“And how is the property in Newtown?” Mum asked five minutes after he arrived, which was five minutes longer than he’d thought it would take her.
“The house needs a lot of work.”
Mum rolled her eyes. “Goodness. Why not just sell it? Renovations are nothing but headaches, darling.”
“Yeah.” He was discovering that himself. “But the tenants?—”
“Oh, you don’t need to worry about them!”
“This is why the internet is full of instructions about how to build guillotines, Mum.”
She blinked at him from behind lashes too long to be natural. “Don’t be silly, Leo.”
Leo stared out through the wide glass doors to the pool.
There had definitely been a time when they hadn’t had a pool or a Vaucluse mansion. The first house Leo remembered had been a lot more modest than this one and in a very different postcode. His parents had worked hard to build the business into what it was today, and Leo respected that. He just didn’t understand how quickly some people pulled the ladder up behind them once they’d got where they wanted to be.
Mum let out a breath like a horse trying to dislodge a fly. “Honestly, I have no idea why Uncle Jimmy left everything to you.”
“Thanks, Mum,” Leo said wryly.
“I didn’t mean it like that!” Another huff. “Just, what do you know about property development?”
