My life ran a lot easier when the only person who mattered in the world was me
Gideon
Eli springs away from me like I’ve confessed that I’ve got Ebola. Actually, he’d have probably stuck around a bit longer if I did have that and would most definitely have got his nurse bag out. My hands flail in midair, as if grasping for what I’d been holding only moments before, and I shift awkwardly.
“Gideon,” comes the shout again, and Eli looks at me imploringly. For a second I consider doing what I’d have done a few weeks ago which is leave him to it, but this time I hesitate.
“Fuck!” I mutter as I grab my towel and wind it round my waist. “Go in the bathroom and come out in five minutes.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to sneak out of the balcony doors like this is some sort of farce and be on the deck when he looks out.” He hesitates. “What?” I ask impatiently and he shakes his head.
“Nothing.”
Then he’s gone and I sidle out onto the deck where the wind catches my towel and flaps it threateningly about. I roll my eyes.Could I be any more ridiculous?At this point I’ve got to doubt it. And it’s all for him. What the fuck is happening to me? My life ran a lot easier when the only person who mattered in the world was me.
I hear footsteps and fling myself quickly into the chair, tucking the towel around my cock and balls so I don’t expose myself to Frankie. The thought makes me shudder and doesn’t leave me much to expose as they’re currently trying to tuck themselves back into my body at the thought.
A second later he appears in the doorway. “Gideon,” he says heartily. “Didn’t you hear me shout?”
“No,” I say calmly, reclining in my seat as if I’m on the throne of England.
He looks at me and hesitates. “What are you doing out here?”
“Sitting down,” I say serenely. “What does it look like?”
“In a towel?”
“Is there a dress etiquette I wasn’t aware of for sitting on my private deck?” I ask in an astonished voice. “How I wish someone would give me this rule book that seems to follow me around in life, spoiling my fun.”
He looks dubiously at me. “You’re covered in soap suds, Gideon.”
“I’m conditioning my skin.” It’s only years of training that makes that statement a fact rather than floundering. It’s only years of him being in Hollywood that makes him accept it.
“Oh, okay,” he finally says. He looks around and sidles closer. “Maybe don’t sit around like that in front of your nurse, though.”
“Why?” I ask coldly, and he falters slightly before he unfortunately recovers.
“Well, he’ll get ideas.”
“Because he’s gay? Goodness me, I think you’ve put your finger on the problem because all gay men are obviously just waiting to pounce on the nearest display of flesh. It’s not as if they have jobs and mortgages and relationships to bother about.”
He shrugs awkwardly. “That’s been my experience.”
“Really?”
“No need to sound so disbelieving, Gideon,” he says, sounding faintly stung that I don’t believe him. “I have got a mirror, you know.”
“Then you should learn to use it,” I say smoothly. “Because it would have to be a very masochistic gay man that made a pass at a terrible homophobe like you.”
“Gideon.” He sounds incredibly affronted. “I do a lot of work for the LGBT community.”
“Only if you class that as helping them back into the closet and locking the door.”
“Is this about Christian?”
I sigh and rub my eyes, suddenly sick of this conversation. I hate that he treats me like a stupid five-year-old and dismisses everything I say. And I detest the bitchy sniping I sink into because of the dislike that has slowly been simmering inside me for someone who could have been everything to me, but who instead hates what I am. “No, it’s not about Christian,” I say tiredly, looking out to sea. “I’m just sick of this subterfuge, Frankie. Of never being honest. I’m gay, not Jack the Ripper.”
