“I’m more of a Red Bull guy,” he says, placing the coffee down on the table.
Between all the sex and sleeping, there’s still so much I don’t know about him. There’s so much I want to know.
“Can I ask you some questions?” I ask, taking a sip of my coffee.
“About?” He turns on his side to face me. His hazel eyes lock onto mine.
“About you… There’s so much I still don’t know about you. Like, what you do for work?”
“I work for a creative marketing agency.”
“When did you come out of the closet?” I ask, taking another sip.
“I didn’t.” Christopher pauses as I stop mid-sip. “I came out of the cupboard because I,” he pauses for emphasis, “am a snack.” A smirk appears on his face and I snort.
“What’s your body count?” I blurt out the intrusive thought before I can filter myself. Chris answers before I can apologize.
“As in the number of guys I’ve slept with, or the number I’ve put in therapy?” He lifts an eyebrow.
“Oh wow, am I gonna need to find me a therapist?”
“Let’s just say, I’m single-handedly keeping gay therapists in business.” He stretches his hands above his head as he lets out a yawn. “And you?”
My heart skips a beat.
What to do. What to do.
I half the number, then half it again, and it still feels too high, so I half it once more.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” He rests his hand on my arm.
I take the opportunity to pivot the conversation.
“What do you have going on today?” I’m hoping he says nothing so he can spend the day with me.
“I need to do some work later, but apart from a Zoom meeting around seven I’m pretty flexible. You?”
“I’m recording a live album at Abbey Road today.” I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face.
“That sounds pretty cool.”
“It is. I’ve always wanted to record there. It’s the holy grail of recording studios. We even get to record in Studio Two, where the Beatles recorded a load of their albums.”
I’m so busy working, moving from one thing to the next, that I rarely get to stop and appreciate the amazing things I’ve achieved or get to do. If you’d told my fourteen-year-old selfhe’d be recording at Abbey Road Studios someday, midway through a seven-night sold-out run at the O2 Arena, he’d never have believed you.
But as I’ve gotten older, I realized that while these moments are great, none of them matter unless you can share them with someone.
“Do you want to come with me?” I ask.
The silence goes on a beat too long, and I can feel the ground opening up beneath me. These days it takes a lot for me to be vulnerable, to put myself out there. My cheeks redden.
“I wouldn’t want to get in your way…”
“You wouldn’t be,” I say, almost a little too quickly, cutting him off.
It’s not often that I get rejected, but the feeling is one you never forget. The shame that burns inside the pit of your stomach. The tightening of the heart, like someone squeezing the life from it.
“You sure I won’t be too much of a distraction?” That mischievous look reappears on his face as his hand slides under the covers, between my legs and onto my cock.
