Rome had blown into my life like a tornado, tearing up every preconceived notion of what a partner could or should be. Much like Miles, he was far too young for me, but not nearly as arrogant. Rome, for as long as I’d known him, always had a nearly tangible current of sadness simmering just below the surface. We’d been together nearly a year before he opened up to me about the man he considered to be the one who got away. I’d long thought Max to be a ghost in the wind. And he was…until he wasn’t.
The things I learned from Rome were far too vast to count, but he’d done the thing I’d least expected. He’d shown me a new side to my own kink. It didn’t need to be an all-the-time thing for me, how it had been in my twenties. As I’d gotten older and more comfortable in my own skin, I’d felt the need for balance right there…just out of reach. Rome, if partly from his personality and partly from the physical distance between us, helped me find that.
When I was his age, I’d been happy to submit all of the time. I’d even dated a man once who’d wanted to make a proper service submissive out of me. Much like Rome, that was fun until it wasn’t. I was in my forties when I learned the place I best liked my kink was in the bedroom. Rome told me once the word for the kind of man I wanted was a soft-dom, which felt weird to me because there was nothing soft about him. I didn’t want someone to treat me tenderly or with caution. I wanted the same things I’d always wanted. I just wanted them sexually, not socially. And beyond that, I didn’t even want themallthe time.
I was too old for that kind of structure.
I wanted things to be fun. I wanted my life to be thrilling again. Exciting. Unpredictable.
“Hendrix.”
From the corner of my eye, I caught my coworker, Freddy, slapping his hand a couple of times on the door frame to my office.
“Hmn?” I spun my chair back toward my computer.
“You look like you’re somewhere else,” he said.
“I am a bit,” I admitted, shifting my weight. The bruise on my thigh was absolutely massive in the daylight and sitting on it was agony, and not in the way I liked. “But I’m back now. What’s up?”
“I wanted to see if you’d like to grab a drink after work or something.” He gave me a hopeful smile that was barely on the right side of looking desperate.
I swallowed, biting softly at the inside of my lip. “A drink or…?”
Freddy’s cheeks flushed and he shrugged.
“I’m not sure about the or part.” I didn’t want him to get his hopes up.
Freddy was closer to my age than Rome had been, closer than Miles was for sure. He was a new hire and a local, if the golden glow of his tan offered any indicator. By all intents and purposes, Freddy was exactly the kind of man I should have been interested in. Maybe on another day I would have been. But Miles was in my head, with that chipper tone and that casual arrogance.
Buddy.
I didn’t even know him, and what I did know, I didn’t like.
So why couldn’t I stop thinking about him?
“No expectations,” Freddy offered. “Just a drink, some appetizers or something. If something happens, I wouldn’t hate it, Hendrix. But I won’t be mad if it doesn’t.”
“Disappointed?” I chuckled.
He gave me another shrug, paired with a bright white smile.
“Yeah.” My shoulders deflated with an exhale. “Drinks are good.”
“There’s a place down the street from here that’s pretty good. Walkable.” He gestured over his shoulder. “I’ll swing back by around five?”
“Sounds good.” I returned his smile with as much sincerity as I could muster. “Can you close the door when you go? I have to make a call.”
“Sure thing.”
Freddy closed the door, and I spun my chair back toward the window. No work was going to get done for the rest of the day, but leaving early would have looked irresponsible, and if I left, there was no way I was going to come back before five. I debated calling Rome, but that was because I was lonely and bored. I didn’t have anything to talk to him about specifically. It was just me adjusting to the differences from having a partner to being single.
The last two hours of the day dragged, and when Freddy showed back up at my door, I had never felt more relieved. He waited for me to pack up my laptop, loosening his tie while his eyes followed me around the office. The weight of his stare was more welcome than I’d expected, and with every tug he made against the satin of his tie, the tension in my shoulders loosened with it.
We walked together to the restaurant down the street. It was packed. Busy and loud, filled from wall to wall with what looked like every business professional in the greater downtown area. I scanned the crowd, following Freddy to a cocktail table in the corner.
“What’s your poison?” he asked, learning in and raising his voice over the hum of the other patrons.
“Rum and Coke is fine.”
