Scott vomited up pool water onto the tiles on his hands and knees. A warm towel was thrown over his back, and he shot Thomas what he hoped was a grateful smile, but his eyes and his nose were both burning.
“Were you trying to drown yourself?” Thomas asked.
Scott banged his fist into his chest, clearing the last of the water he’d swallowed.
“What gave it away?”
Thomas steadied him as he got to his feet.
“Idiot,” Thomas hissed, leading him over to the loungers. “Good job I was spying on you.”
“Spying?”
Thomas pointed at the camera in the corner of the room. “I’d hate to think what might have happened if I didn’t know you were in here.”
Scott decided not to mention to Thomas that the reason he almost drowned was, in fact, because he was there, providing a distorted shadow at the edge of the pool that Scott’s messed-up brain changed into someone else for a split second.
Scott kept the towel loosely around himself as he sat down, and Thomas huffed as he collapsed onto the lounger beside him.
“You didn’t come up for dinner,” Thomas said eventually.
“Would you have eaten it with me?”
Thomas shuffled. “Probably not.”
Scott closed his eyes. “Look, I’m sorry about yesterday. I really was trying to help.”
“How is almost getting a tattoo trying to help?”
“Jealousy is sometimes a great motivator.”
Thomas tilted his head and looked at Scott like he’d slipped into another language.
“Russell,” Scott explained. “I thought he might get jealous if he saw us together, all loved up. I’ve… I’ve had it before with clients.”
“I’m not your damn client.”
“I know, I know,” Scott said, holding his hands up in surrender. “But it works. I thought if Russell saw you were interested in me, he might…you know, make his interest inyouknown, make a move, or at least text you. I don’t know what your deal is, but there’s clearly something there.”
Thomas looked away. “We were…involved before I got sentenced.”
Scott flung himself upright. “He’s your ex?”
“Not an ex exactly, we were never official, but we…had fun together, and it looked as if things might go in that direction eventually, you know, exclusivity.”
Thomas’s idea of ‘fun together’ differed from Scott’s. Most of Scott’s clients were after vanilla sex, but Thomas preferred to keep a distance with his lovers. He liked to use toys to bring pleasure without getting his private parts acquainted with someone else.
“What happened?” Scott asked.
“I disappeared for three years.”
Scott frowned. “By disappeared, you mean went to prison?”
Thomas nodded.
“And you…didn’t tell him? You ghosted him.”
“I told him I was moving to Spain.”
