“Will you accept help with showering?”Ben amended.
“Ugh, fine, I guess.”
“All right, what can I do?”
Phil shouldered the bedroom door open.The air there was stale as well, so Ben propped open a window.The blankets were piled in a heap, but otherwise, the room appeared clean and neat.Phil sat down slowly on the corner of the bed, letting his leg rest, stretched out in front of him.
“I have a bench in the shower,” he said.“I can handle the actual showering part.It’s the crutches on the bathroom floor when it’s wet and getting dressed and undressed that’re difficult.”
“Okay, so I’ll help you with that.”
Phil looked him over slowly and then released a long breath.“All right.I guess it’s just like being in the locker room, eh?”
For the first time, Ben felt a flicker of honest sympathy.No one enjoyed vulnerability, and the life Phil led didn’t invite it at all.Accepting Ben in his house, in his space, performing very personal tasks, couldn’t be easy.It was to Phil’s credit that he hadn’t protested or tried to establish physical distance.
“It’s not the same, no,” Ben said.“It’s okay to feel weird about it, but if it helps, I have seen a naked man before.”
When he laughed, the skin around Phil’s eyes and mouth creased up.It gave his face a happier, lived-in look, and Ben caught himself wanting to see it again and again.He hadn’t realized how serious the locker room tended to be, how seldom he’d seen Phil smile before now.
“All right, then.”Phil pulled off his shirt.“Let’s do this.”
Ben’s mouth went dry.You are forty-two years old.You’ve seen many attractive men undressed.
Phil got to his feet slowly, and Ben rushed over to help him.
“Okay,” Ben said, “so I’ll hold you up, and you just…”
Thankfully, he didn’t have to say it.Phil dealt with the drawstring on his sweatpants.They clung to the swell of his ass, and he had to push them off properly, which had the unfortunate side effect of drawing Ben’s eyes to that part of Phil’s anatomy.
Forty-two.Years of experience seeing naked men.Men who were objectively hotter than Phil, no matter how much Ben liked his smile and his ass and whatever he put in his hair.
“I need to sit to get at the brace,” Phil said.
Unfortunately, Ben only heard the words “get at the brace,” and his body acted on autopilot.He was on his knees with his hands on the brace before he could think twice.“You can, uh…” He cleared his throat.“You can hang on to my shoulders.”
He kept his motions as quick and clinical as he could, but he couldn’t avoid his fingers sliding over Phil’s thigh.The goosebumps they left in their wake must have been because of the cold.
Finally, the brace slid off, and Ben set it on the bed.He got to his feet again, ready for the torture to continue.Phil’s boxers went next.He leaned heavily on Ben as he stepped out of his clothes and made to bend over and grab them, but Ben stopped him with an arm across the chest.
“Where’s your laundry room?”Ben asked.
“Oh, it’s in the basement, but I’ll just dump that in the hamper.I have a laundry service.They’ll be here the day after tomorrow.”
Laundry service.Of course Phil had one of those, along with his grocery service and his housekeeping service.Well, if anything could stamp out Ben’s budding attraction, it would be the reminder they led very different lives.
“Right.”Ben gathered up the clothes and tossed them at the hamper Phil had indicated.“Let’s go.”
Heat from Phil’s bare skin bled through Ben’s dress shirt everywhere Phil brushed up against him as they made their way to the bathroom.Ben kept his eyes to the front; it seemed only polite, even when the weight of Phil’s body against his made him want to look and touch.
The bathroom, tiled entirely in marble, took up twice the size of any bathroom in any apartment Ben had inhabited in his entire life.The massive shower held an installed seat, broad enough for three people, made of the same material as the walls—the bench Phil had mentioned.
He got Phil settled on the bench.“Do you need anything for your hair?”
“Huh?”
Ben gestured to his head.“You know, like a cap or something.”He didn’t know much about Black hairstyles, but he remembered his college roommate had used a shower cap most days.Phil’s hair looked nice, shaved on the sides and curling tightly on the top.It would be a shame for anything to happen to it.
“Oh, uh, no, it’s a wash day.”
