I need to see more, and I force myself to let go and focus on the screen. On the wrist with the faint burn scar I’ve seen before, when it was reaching through the van window to pass my phone back.
Fuck.
It’sdefinitelyhim.
I take a breath and scroll a little more, tapping through the photos, trying not to fixate on the cut of his abs and those thighs. But I can’t help it. Never knew a man’s legs could do it for me, but every day’s a school day. I find myself unable to break away from the dick pic, and I’m not even looking at his dick.
How the hell does that work?
I’m too frazzled to figure it out. To do much more than stare and stare and stare as my pulse throbs in my throat, all the while fighting to remind myself this dude has done nothing more than give me a tip and ask me a question. He might not be into the same things as me.
It’s a swingers app.
What if he’s only looking for women?
Anxiety gnaws at the thrill I’ve let build in my nerves, bullying it back to the low-grade panic I’ve carried since I told my ex I was starting to notice men and she laughed in my face.
Charmaine.
My dick shrivels and dies. I haven’t seen Esme’s mum in months. We haven’t been together for a long time. But somehow her derision still cuts deep. As if she caught me without armour and inflicted a wound that will never heal.
A stupid wound.
What do I care what she thinks of who I fuck?
What do I care whatanyonethinks?
Tam never did and he turned out just fine, and if there’s one person I’ve ever sought to emulate it’s my superhuman older brother.
But it’s not that simple.
It’s just…not. I’ve tied a giant knot around myself I can’t seem to unpick. Not without help. Without something deeper than a faceless hookup, and I’m not going to find that on a fucking swingers app, am I?
A groan wrenches from the pit of my soul. I toss my phone to the foot of the bed and roll myself upright, wishing I could hurl it out of the window. But parental responsibility bears down on me. I need my phone so Tam can reach me. So the nursery can when I’m at work. So I can call 999 if something terrible happens and Bhodi’s not there to fix it. Absolutelynotso I can summon myself a hung firefighter to?—
Stop.
I give my head a wobble, abandon my phone—it’s onloud—and go downstairs to raid the cupboards for breakfast. I don’t like eating alone and there’s a one hundred percent chance I’ll eat whatever Tam’s having when I get to his house.
But breakfast, man. It’s the meal of kings. Can’t function without it, and maybe that’s the problem here. Low blood sugar making me crazy. I mean, the man cravings are years old by now, so I can’t blame the lack of croissants in my belly for that. But maybe once I’ve filled my face I’ll stop obsessing over something that’s never going to happen.
Why won’t it happen? What are you in these apps for if you’re not going to do anything? Lurkers are lame.
Then call me fucking lame. Write it on a sticker and slap it to my forehead. Lame, lame,lame.
Shockingly, heckling myself doesn’t make me feel any better. Even after I’ve mainlined buttery pastry and sunk two mugs of tea in a lonely naked breakfast for one.
I trudge back upstairs. My phone taunts me from the bed and I manage to sling on some underwear and socks before I’m reaching for it again.
FlingIt is still open.
His profile right there.
Thatphoto.
Those thighs.
I give myself another second to drink them in and reassure myself my dick didn’t truly expire at the mere thought of Charmaine. And I get that reassurance in a flash of heat so intense it startles me. Beyond arousal, it leaves me both dizzy and certain I’ll never survive a real encounter with this bloke. Or any bloke, come to think of it. HotCraic97 is fit as fuck in and out of uniform, but he’s not the only hot dude in the world. If they all feel like this, I’m better off with my hand.
