“Yeah, you just saved my life so I feel like I owe you a beer, at least.” My tone suggests I’m making a joke of what happened, but I actually think that’s the last thing I want to do.
Marcello looks stunned and I’m convinced he’s going to say no. I’m convinced I’m going to have to spend the next hour pushing my body to new limits just to try and swallow down the feeling of rejection it will bring me.
“Sure,” he says, his shoulders relaxing. “We should go for a drink. I’ll wait for you outside.”
And he turns and walks away before I can say anything else.
Chapter Thirteen
Marcello
It’s just a drink. It’s just a drink. It’s just a drink.
That’s what I tell myself as I wait outside the gym, my face lifted up to the late afternoon sunshine. I’m back in my well-worn work clothes – a greying white T-shirt that’s been washed too many times and my jeans that always smell of coffee – wishing I was wearing something different. Something clean. Something a little smarter.
But it’s just a drink
It’s just a drink. It’s just a drink.
I’m surprised we haven’t done this sooner, if I’m honest. Sure, we grab coffees after our runs on Saturday mornings, and Giles has popped into the café a few times for his and Radia’s coffee order, lingering long enough for us to chat, but we haven’t actually gone for a drink together, like this. Like a date.
Jesus, no. It’s not a date. It’s just a drink.
A smile breaks out on my face as I imagine Giles’ reaction to me standing here waiting on him and thinking that us grabbing a couple of beers together is a fucking date. He would laugh at me, his broad grin making his moustache bounce, and he would tell me to shut up. He would gently but firmly tell me I’m not his type. He would call me what I am – stupid for thinking that he’s interested in me just because he’s queer.
But hewastrying to impress me in the gym. He said so himself. And then there was that moment that followed. The one where I looked at him, taking him in from head to toe and I felt the air around us change, an electricity making the hair on my arms stand up and my back straighten.
Or was I just still full of adrenaline after dropping a weight on his neck?
I cringe at myself as it replays in my mind. At least I can use it as motivation to get stronger. Because I want to be somebody Giles can rely on. I want to keep spotting for him. I want to keep hanging out with him.
I’m still too confused to say whether this is because I also want to stick my tongue in his mouth and find out what that thick cock of his feels like in my hand, but I am going to do my best to not focus on these feelings. I refuse to make it my next hyperfixation. I refuse to let it overwhelm me. I refuse to let it confuse me more than it already has.
“You ready?” Giles’ deep voice surprises me from behind. I immediately straighten up off the wall I was leaning against.
“Yep. Sure. Ready. Let’s go,” I rush out.
“You okay?” he asks, frowning. He’s dressed in his work clothes too, although rather than a bowtie he’s got the top two buttons of his shirt undone. I meant what I said when I told him that his suits impress me. They always have with how well-fitted they are, how unapologetically bold and colourful their tartan prints are, and how each and every one hints at the solid, muscular physique that is underneath them.
Okay, maybe I haven’t always thought that last bit.
But I’m thinking it now. Wondering how these suits can affect me more than the shorts and cut-off T-shirts he wears to train where his skin and muscles are actually on show. But this suit he’s wearing with its purple, blue and green chequered design, the jacket slung over his shoulder and the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up slightly because of the heat, has me wanting to know what it would be like to undo the buttons of his waistcoat. Wondering what it would be like to slide it off his shoulders and then take my sweet time unbuttoning more of his shirt, one mother of pearl button at a time. Wondering if his nipples would be hard as the shirt’s removed. Wondering if my fingertips on his skin, as I pull the shirt from his body, would make his dick swell.
Oh fuck. This is not just a drink for me, is it?
*****
I don’t know if Giles is aware of the busying, bumping thoughts in my head, but he is helping me avoid them by keeping the conversation flowing and in a direction that has nothing to do with his physical… attributes.
“I tried my hardest to put them off the lime green, I really did. I even gave them a quote that was totally inaccurate, a huge rip-off, in fact but even that didn’t deter them. I don’t even know why we had a lime green sample. It was so offensively lurid, I should have thrown it out, but it’s what they wanted.” Giles leans one elbow on the table between us as he tells the story, his eyes animated.
“A whole wedding party dressed in lime green? Jesus. What was the bride wearing?”
“Groom,” Giles corrects me and takes a quick sip of his pint. “It was a queer wedding. Two men.”
“So they were both wearing lime green?”
“Yep.”
