Stop the fecking lights. Somehow I’ve set up a hypothetical orgy with the sexiest,nerviestbloke I think I’ve ever met, and that’s what I get for messaging before I face-plant on my bed.
I get…lucky, right?
I think so. But that I don’tknoweats away at me as I study his message in the murky light of my kitchen.
It’s Monday morning in the second week of November. Clan McCarthy, too fecking early as usual, are starting to heckle the family group chat with begrudging arrangements for festivities I’m not attending, a standard state of affairs for a time of year that brings back shite memories for all of us when we let the pasttake up too much room. But as I drink in what Sab’s saying—or at least what Ithinkhe’s saying—every buzz and chime goes unheeded.
I think I’d like that xx
Likewhat?Exactly? Hooking up with lads while I’m there? Couples? Women? In private or…?
Fecking-A, past me could’ve been a little clearer.
Why? You like all those things.
I do. I’ve done most of them with other people. But Sab doesn’t feel like other people, and I’m too frayed from the worst fire incident I’ve faced in two Christmases to figure out why.
I’m so tired.
Too tired to calibrate words. So I don’t. I leave Sab onreadand drag myself to work. Lug myself round the shitty station gym before we get called to a gas leak at a local school, and then a car that’s spun onto its roof. No serious casualties. Which should make my day, and it does. But hauling the car door open strains the shoulder I hurtthreeChristmases ago instead of two, and I’m in a rare grump by the time I drive home through rush hour traffic.
I get caught in town and find myself idling at the temporary lights outside the homeware shop. My phone haunts me. I need to reply to Sab’s message. I need toacton it. But despite spending most of my adult life as a fun-loving fuckboy, opening that app and finding a willing soul to take on a Sab-themed adventure feels like?—
Actually, I don’t know what it feels like. Just that I can’t seem to do it. Feck’s sake. What the hell is wrong with me today? Logan would probably know, but he’s on nights. InDevon, the cheek of it. If he’s awake right now, he’ll be with his kids. Or with his fella, who he’d never dream of sharing?—
Sab’s not your fella.
Obviously. We’re chatting on a hookup app. Aswingershookup app. And since the day I first realised how my dick worked, no one’s ever been my fella, or my missus, or anything in between. So why the roadblock in my head over this fecking dude?
I find no answers in the bumper stickers on the car in front. Or the radio as I prod at it every time a Christmas song comes on, which by now, is every other minute. It’s weird that I’d forgotten how much these tracks get under my skin. Weird that Sab saw it in me when Logan’s never noticed. That I can’t stop thinking about kissing him?—
The door to the homeware shop opens and a masculine figure steps out.
Tall.
Dark.
Handsome.
Feck me, it’s him. I know it by the skip in my pulse even before one of the high street’s newly hung decorations flickers on above his head, limning his gorgeous face in soft, warm light.
Sab’s wearing tradesman clothes. Grey utility trousers and a worn hoodie in faded blue, sleeves shoved up his corded forearms. His phone is in his hand and he’s not looking where he’s going. He’s not looking atme, slouching in my car six feet from where he’s paused to frown at something on the screen.
Makes me wonder if he’s online. If he’s talking to someone else instead of me. Ifhe’salready lining someone up for the madness I tangled us both up in yesterday.
Makes me want to punch his phone out of his hand, which is an odd enough feeling that I can’t sit with it.
I slide my window down and let out a low whistle, sitting up a little straighter, ignoring the throb in my shoulder and East-17 invading the airwaves. “All right there, boy. Leave some skirt for the rest of us.”
Sab’s head jerks up, gaze darting around before it lands on me. Then he slow blinks in the festive light, as if he’s woken from a dream, and the split second it takes him to smile does a number on me almost as much as the happy lurch in my chest as he steps up to my open window. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself. What’s got you so serious?”
“Taxes.”
“Oh. Thought you might be looking at bad dick pics.”
I speak softly enough that he doesn’t have to worry about anyone overhearing. A kindness I’m repaid by him leaning closer to catch every word. By his rueful half grin as he pockets his phone.
