“Tits up, tits out, wherever there are tits, you’ll be in trouble.”
I nodded and considered myself warned.
We openedthe French doors to the balcony and set up the dining table so that it straddled the doorway, since there wasn’t enough space on the fire escape for us to be fully outside. It would have been better if the construction crew didn’t have front-row seats to our display and vice versa, but the weather was beautiful and so was my lover.
“Don’t they ever get a day off?” I mused to a steady percussion of banging in the background.
“They’re behind schedule,” Arden said.
“How do you know that?”
“I asked them. You should talk to your neighbors more often, Michael. If you did, you’d know that they’re due to finish up work at the end of this summer, that the hat shop has got in a new line of adorable fedoras, and our flower lady has just become a grandmother.”
I didn’t have a flower lady until Arden insisted on buying them fresh. I wished I had his gift of knowing just what to say to put people at ease. Even then, I probably wouldn’t go seeking conversation with strangers. Maybe it was a New Yorker thing.
“You are a man of the people,” I said.
“I am the people.”
Arden had brought over some of his own clothes in the past week. Today, he wore a white linen shirt with delicate, mother-of-pearl buttons. The fabric was so thin that when the light was at his back, you could glimpse the shape of him. His fitted pants were a Victorian blue that showed off his bare ankles, though he admitted it was due to his trouble in finding trousers that fit both his long legs and slim waist, more so than any fashion statement.
He’d found a forgotten shower curtain in my linen closet to use as a tablecloth, which he said was necessary for a proper setting, and he was, at present, arranging a bouquet of flowers in a glass vase. Watching him delicately place each stem to highlight the flower’s form and beauty, with the morning light streaming in around him, how could I not fall in love?
“What?” he asked, glancing up at me. His cheeks were full of color, his hazel eyes teasing.
“I adore you.”
His smile widened, turning bashful, and his gaze dropped before slowly rising again. “I adore you too,” he said, only quieter and with less confidence.
He made his way over to me, planted his feet wide so that we were roughly the same height, and gave me one of those slow, sensual kisses that never failed to dissolve clothing in a matter of minutes.
“We’d better get this out of the way now,” Arden said, licking the seam of my lips. “We don’t want to make Franco even more sad about his breakup.”
I nodded, feeling a little guilty for the mistruth. “You started it this time.”
His smile turned into a scowl. “How can I not kiss you when you say such stupid things?”
I grinned and slid my hand along the curve of his ass, cupping him gently. “I love you,” I said, making it official.
He dropped his forehead so that it met with mine. “I love you too. And don’t start something you can’t finish.”
Arden went back to fussing over the flowers, and I took a store-bought quiche out of the oven to cool. I also had an egg white and spinach version without crust for Arden and some other carb-light dishes. I’d mentioned that he might be better off gaining a few pounds, but he insisted that the camera added too much weight already, and that it was far easier to maintain his physique than to indulge and have to work it off later. It was yet another area of his life where I overreached.
Franco arrived soon after with two bottles of Moet (expensive for him), and I set to making mimosas. Arden listened patiently while Franco talked about his trials at work that week. Marquis’s name didn’t come up at all, and I worried Arden might see right through my ruse, but when we sat down together at the table, conversation shifted again, and Franco admitted that he was missing his ex.
“I couldn’t afford him,” Franco said, and I cringed internally at the phrasing. “He made me feel like a human cash machine.”
Arden nodded in sympathy and Franco eyed him thoughtfully. “I bet you have a lot of hot friends. Maybe you could introduce me?”
Arden laughed and then proceeded to pull up his Instagram feed where he and Franco mulled over said friends’ various attributes. Arden invariably highlighted their personality and character while Franco focused more on their appearance. Arden took it a step farther and snapped a picture of Franco sitting on my balcony with the stem of a peony between his teeth. He then posted it to his Instagram with the caption,This handsome Spaniard is up for grabs. DM me if you’re interested. That set off a flurry of responses, which they had a good time in fielding. By this time, I’d drunk three mimosas and felt our mission slipping away. I kicked Franco under the table, and he jolted so hard that the table shook and rattled the dishes.
“Right,” he said and then straightened up a bit. “You know, Michael, I was looking at your investment portfolio the other day, and I think we should move some of your stocks away from discretionary goods and into the technology sector.”
“I trust you, Franco. If it weren’t for your planning, I’d be worried, not having another book in the hopper.”
“That’s why I’m here,” he said magnanimously. Our attempts at being conversational came off as rehearsed, and Franco, half-drunk and senseless, turned to Arden without any segue whatsoever. “Being self-employed, I could set you up with something similar. A rainy-day fund for when your modeling may be slow.”
Arden’s eyes cut from Franco to me and he said, very sweetly, “Lucky for me, I have a pretty regular gig of sucking cock.”
