The Desire Variable - Vol. I

【58】Bacon With a Side of Embarrassment

My heart dropped and blood left my face as a dreadful feeling invaded me. I tried my best to hide it, hoping my hunch was wrong.

"It kept going for the longest time, to the point where we actually felt bad for the poor woman," Steven explained while Brian confirmed with a grave nod. "Anyhow, we wouldn't have given it another thought, but when we came out ten minutes ago to get down here, we had the most unexpected revelation. Guess who do we see, coming back from the hotel's gym, entering the very room where all the crazy sex had been going on?" he asked, waiting for me to answer.

I didn't want to answer. I refused to be right. I had the absolute worst feeling about this. Please God, let it not be him. Let it be Johnny Depp, Justin Trudeau, Gordon Ramsay, fucking Santa Claus... Anyone but Lex.

"Our fucking boss," Brian nearly shouted, stealing the big reveal from Steven, who glared at him, visibly annoyed.

I stayed absolutely quiet, the meaning of this all slowly sinking in. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

This was so fucking bad.

Mistaking my silence for astonishment instead of worry and utter shock, Steven continued. "So now, we are trying to guess which one of these ladies Lex was nailing last night. We've established she has to have some sort of limp going on after what he did to her, so it's our main clue so far. Also, she's got to be a total babe."

I was feeling both hot and cold, my hand slightly trembling while I pushed the food around my plate with my fork. Seriously, it was so unfair... What were the odds for those two to end up in the room right next to Lex's? It could always have been even worse, and it could have been Oli's group instead.

"Maybe a limp is a bit much," Oliver noted. He still didn't seem on board with this.

"Dude, you weren't there, you didn't hear it. It was kind of muffled, but I swear, the man has got to be a sex god or something. It was insane, like, bed banging on the wall and nonstop 'Aaah... Yes! Oh, Yes! Ooooh... Aaah'," Brian imitated with a high pitch. That attracted the attention of some people around us, and a few faces turned to our table, intrigued.

If all the blood hadn't drained from my face, I would probably have been poppy red right now. Sure, I was quite vocal with Lex. It was a novelty since I had never had a lover as great as he was. But was that really the way I sounded? The idea was mortifying. How wasn't Lex shoving my face into a pillow if that was really it?

In my life, I'd known my fair share of embarrassing moments, but this one took the lead by a lot. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to just poof, vanish into nothingness. It was incredibly humiliating, but leaving the table abruptly and showing I was upset was not an option.

"Well, I'll drink to Lex being a sex god, and I'm not ashamed to admit I'm jealous of that lucky hoe," Mason said, taking a sip of his tea.

Forever the gentleman, Oliver unknowingly came to my rescue. "Okay, how about we change the subject? I mean, Lex got laid, good for him. Let's not shame a woman because of it," he intervened. I could have kissed him. Oli always did the right thing. Joseph nodded, while Brian pouted in disagreement.

Clearly, the guys weren't ready to change the conversation.

"It's weird," Joseph signed. "That's like realizing your teacher has a life outside of school. It makes sense that he has sex, but facing it is... odd."

"Yeah, you're right," Steven agreed. "I mean, we shouldn't be surprised. Looking like he does, it has to be easy to find a willing stranger to have sex with. Even at a professional convention."

Mace nodded, and I kept my head low. Well, he wasn't entirely right, because Lex hadn't been with a stranger, but I had to agree with the general idea.

The subject was eventually dropped, and the guys talked about today's program. The hotel being so close to the convention center, over half of its guests were here for Hello World. With so many nerds gathered under the same roof, the inevitable had happened, and there was a trivia night scheduled tonight at the hotel's bar. From what the guys knew, it would have various geeky themes from science fiction classics to superheroes, with coding technicalities, the history of the internet and computers...