Just nothing.
———
The showers at the Ballard gym are an abomination, a biohazard, a violation of every code that’s ever existed about hygiene or privacy.
Half the ceiling lights are out, so the room is dappled with shadows like a horror movie set.
The grout between the tiles is the color of licorice left in a gutter, and the steam is so thick it beads on your eyebrows and clings to your lungs.
There’s no such thing as a “private” stall, the walls stop at shoulder height, and the ancient showerheads blast water in every direction but down.
I take the farthest stall, my usual, crank the water so hot it raises goosebumps, and plant my hands against the tile, willing my brain to go blank.
Focus on the mechanics, shampoo, scrub, rinse, repeat. Don’t think about the workout. Don’t think about the next day.
Don’t think about the way your chest still buzzes from the way Darius spotted you, the shape of his hand, the weight of his body close behind.
For two minutes, it works.
Then a movement in my periphery, just a flicker, nothing, the kind of half-glance you do on instinct in an open shower, cuts through my focus.
Darius is two stalls over, shoulders hunched under the spray, face angled down like he’s studying the grout.
His left hand palms the soap, slow and methodical, while his right is braced against the wall at eye level, biceps flexed, knuckles white.
He looks up.
Meets my gaze, not a brush but a direct hit. For a split second, he doesn’t look away.
He looks at me.
Not at my face.
At me.
And there’s no ambiguity, no “maybe it’s the temperature” or “maybe he’s just built different.” The evidence is right there, half-hard and impossible to ignore, and my heart detonates behind my ribs so hard I nearly slip.
He sees me see it, and his whole body stiffens. He turns away fast, head ducked, one hand slamming so hard into the tile I hear the wet echo of it through the room.
The sound is primal, louder than the hiss of water, louder than my own pulse thrumming in my ears.
I look away. Stare at the blank tile in front of me and try to pretend it didn’t happen.
My hands are shaking.
My skin is so hot I worry I’ll blister.
I finish scrubbing fast, too fast, and when I go to turn off the water my own body betrays me, half-mast and urgent and every bit as obvious as what I just saw.
For a moment, I just stand there, water streaming down, watching it pool at my feet.
My thoughts tumble over each other in a tangle of embarrassment, adrenaline, and a savage, desperate kind of wanting that I haven’t let myself feel since sophomore year, when I convinced myself I’d grown out of this, that it was a phase, that no real guy wanted another guy.
I towel off, wrap it around my waist, and get the fuck out of there.
My legs are gelatin, my head is full of static.
In the locker room, I dress with shaking hands, and every time I blink I see the shape of him, the impossible line of his back, the hunger in his face before he walled it off.
