'Til There Was You

by Jerry Cole

  “Sounds good!”

  “Perfect.” Finn made to leave, then turned back and smirked. “Oh and Austin... nice cock,” he winked once, and then he was gone.

  Austin remained seated for some time after that. His mind was racing, his blood was pumping, and he was so darn confused as to what had just happened that he knew it would take at least the rest of the day to get over it. Seriously, where to begin?

  Even putting aside the fact that Finn had turned up out of the blue to drop his wallet off, the fact he’d signed up to his class was beyond anything that Austin would have imagined himself doing. Self-help? That just wasn’t him.

  But maybe it needed to be? Everything in Austin’s life was falling apart right, so why not at least try it? At the very least he could read the email, look at the prices, and then decide what he wanted to do. He’d have a clearer head then too, and would be able to make a sound decision... one that wasn’t based on how much Austin wanted to see Finn naked.

  But, in order to get there, first Austin would need to take care of a very hard problem in his pants. With a smile on his face, Austin quickly closed his door and then dropped his pants. His cock was no less hard than it had been and from the way it pulsated without even being touched, those thick veins snaking their way toward his head as they did, he knew it wouldn’t take long to set off.

  In his mind, Austin and Finn were about to have the best sex of all time. By the time it was done, he probably wouldn’t even remember Freddy’s name. A shame it would never happen in real life, however. No amount of personal growth and self-help classes would change that.

  Chapter Eight

  “You can’t see him.” Angela stood in the doorway, arms crossed, legs spread outward, body rigged as if readying herself incase Finn decided to throw himself at her.

  “Let me through, Angela. We had a deal.” Finn tried to stay calm. His breathing was slow and steady. His tone was soft. Even his body language was reserved; he stood back from the doorway, careful not to look like he was trying to stand over or up to her.

  “We had a deal for seven. It’s now seven-twenty.”

  “Twenty minutes!” Finn snapped and wrung his hands in the air. He then quickly yanked them down and back to his side, and forced a smile. “It’s only twenty minutes – I got stuck in traffic!” he lied.

  “Then you should have left twenty minutes earlier.”

  “What does that even mean?” Finn begged.

  “It means that if you really cared about seeing Zac – if you actually wanted to spend time with him, you would have done everything you could have to get here on time. And yes, that includes predicting that traffic might be a little heavier during rush hour so you may have to leave slightly earlier. Crazy, I know.” Angela didn’t sound angry with Finn, or mad. Rather, she sounded disappointed. There was maybe even a chance that she had hoped Finn wouldn’t fall through like he always did... so much for that.

  It was Finn’s night to be with his son. He’d called to organize it, Angela had agreed, and all Finn had needed to do was be there on time. It was the simplest of requests, until it wasn’t.

  The frustrating thing was that Finn had meant to be on time. He really had! He’d been looking forward to this night all day, having planned his seminar to finish so that he would have more than enough time to drive over and pick up his son. Fuck, he was pretty sure he was going to be early!

  But then Austin Janssen-Dirk had happened. God, where had that come from. He’d left his wallet at the seminar, so Finn figured he’d do the right thing and drop it off. He also figured it would only be a one-minute stop over, the kind of thing where he’d hand the wallet across, maybe try and sign the guy to a class if he sensed it was going that way, and then be on his way before any real time was lost. Obviously, that didn’t happen.

  Truth be told, Austin was a complete surprise. Oh sure, he was as down and out as Finn had known him to be. But he wasn’t the same level of “loser” that he had expected to go with the usual territory. Rather, he was an interesting, nice, maybe even funny guy that was just a little down on his luck. Finn was going to change that for him.

  What really struck Finn about Austin though was all the things they had in common. From their music tastes, to their film and television preferences, to their personalities in general. Heck, when this was all said and done the two might even end up being friends. But that was all Finn could see them being. Sure, Austin was a nice guy that shared a lot of commonalties with Finn... but he also wasn’t Finn’s type. Wispy, skinny, girlish. These things just weren’t for Finn.

  But none of that really mattered now. Sure, he’d gotten himself a new client, but it had cost him a night with his son. Once upon a time this wouldn’t have concerned Finn at all. But that was then and this was now.

  “Can I just say hi?” Finn begged to Angela. “Just so he knows I did come – I won’t stay. Just pop my head in and—”

  “He isn’t here,” Angela cut in.

  “What? Where is he?”

  “At a friend’s house. When you were late, I told him that he could go – and don’t pull that face.” Finn hadn’t pulled one yet, but Angela knew him well enough to know he was about to. “If you were here, this wouldn’t have been an issue.”

  Oh how much Finn would have loved to have argued with Angela. It was something he’d been doing for years now and had gotten quite adept at. But in this single instance, he just didn’t see the point, and that was because he was in the wrong. Once again, he had put his own life ahead of someone else’s and once again it had come back to bite him.

  “Fine...” Finn eventually conceded. Angela was still in the doorway, arms crossed, looking like it would take an army tank to take her down. “Just do me a favor... if Zac does ask, tell him I came by. Please?”

  “If he brings it up,” Angela said plainly.

  “Thanks.” Finn offered a half smile and made to walk away. He was halfway down the drive when Angela called out.

  “Finn!” she called from the doorway. “You’ll thank me for this one day. I promise.”

  Finn didn’t respond. Was she trying to rub salt into his wound? Or was she being genuinely helpful? He doubted the latter very much, but wasn’t in the mood to follow up. What he really needed now was a stiff drink and some cock. Both if he could get it, or just the drink if not. The day had started out so damn promising and now he was reduced to this.

  ***

  Finn never had liked this bar. First of all, the smell was horrendous; a pungent, stale odor that suggested the carpet flooring had never once been cleaned. Second, the television screens only played sports, usually football, and never ever did they accept his request to change to something else. And finally, the clientele were all middle-aged men who looked like they had been drinking non-stop since they turned eighteen and would keep doing so until the day they died. Finn would have loved a random to flirt with, but that was as likely as finding a virgin in a brothel.

  There was only one reason that Finn came to this bar, and that reason was a six-foot-tall redhead with porcelain white skin, suicide-girl tattoos covering most of her arms and legs, and piercings stuck into anywhere that could be pieced, and some places that couldn’t. Her name was Clarice and she was not only the head bartender, but also Finn’s best friend.

  “... you’ll do better next time,” she assured Finn as she casually dried a stack of schooner glasses behind the bar with a dirty rag. “And barring that... the time after that.” She shrugged her apathy and adjusted one of her nose piercings.

  “As always, you are a shining beacon of hope,” Finn mumbled into his vodka lime and soda. The main advantage to knowing the head bartender, and the real reason Finn came here, was the free drinks. He hadn’t paid for a drink from here in years.

  “Fuck you,” Clarice snapped. “You’re the one that chose a dick appointment over seeing your own son.”

  “It wasn’t a dick appointment.” Finn straightened up on the bar stool. “I was dropping th
e dude’s wallet off.”

  “Because you’re such a nice guy,” Clarice cut in sarcastically. “No hidden motive there.”

  “Fuck you,” Finn said. “I told you why I went there. I felt bad after embarrassing him. It was the least I could do.”

  There was also that “question” that Finn had been desperate to ask Austin, about how he could fall so hopelessly in love after only a few weeks. The concept had been fascinating to Finn, and helped fuel his desire to go see Austin right away. Of course, Finn soon found out that Austin wasn’t so much in love with his ex as he was stuck in a crappy life with no way out. This in turn led to his securing him as a client. It was the result if his visit, but not the reason.

  “That an a blowy, right?” Clarice then winked and chided. “Really make up for hurting his feelings.”

  Finn glared at Clarice. “I was just doing the right thing. Besides, you didn’t see the guy. He isn’t my type.”

  “Type?” Clarice blinked back her confusion, as if she actually were confused by what Finn had said. “I thought your type was breathing with a penis.”

  “Ha!” Finn tried his best to keep his steely glare fixed on Clarice, but he couldn’t help but break. As useless as she was with advice, especially for a bartender, she could always get a rise out of him. “Ordinarily you’re right. But on this one... I’ll pass.”

  “Wow.” Clarice furrowed her brow at Finn like she was seeing him for the first time. “Maybe you really are changing.”

  “Do me a favor will you and tell Angela that. Or just drive her out to the woods and drop her off. Either one.”

  Clarice was only half-right about Finn too. Where to the casual observer, it might have appeared that he had zero standards to speak of, this just simply wasn’t true. Finn had a ‘type,’ just like anyone else. It just so happened that this type was rather common and easy to come by. And when it wasn’t, a few drinks often changed that.

  For proof of this, all one had to do was listen when he said he wasn’t into Austin. The guy was nice enough, and clearly the two had some things in common, but Finn just wasn’t in to it. Austin was way too desperate and sad and lonely. His total lack of ambition and confidence was also huge turn-off. And that wasn’t to even mention that the whole twink thing wasn’t really for Finn.

  “You keep saying that, but I’m yet to see the evidence.”

  “How do you mean?” Finn asked.

  “Well, you tell me time and time again how all you want is a boyfriend. You’re desperate for a boyfriend. A boyfriend will solve all your issues blah blah blah.”

  “I never said it would solve all my—”

  “Yet the first thing you talk about is this Austin guy and his big old dick. How about his eyes for God’s sake!” she exclaimed dramatically. “Or his smile! Something!”

  Finn smirked and shook his head. “I was just telling you why I was late to see Zac – and as to the big old dick... if you had seen it, you’d be saying the same thing.”

  “You saw it?”

  “Well... no. But the tent he was pitching with it. Honestly, for every other gay man’s sake, I hope he’s a bottom. That thing would come out my damn mouth if he tried to top me.”

  Clarice burst into laughter, and soon Finn joined in. As usual, seeing his best friend had made him feel slightly better... if only slightly. There was still the issue with his son, and his personal life in general. Both were a mess and try as he might, Finn just couldn’t see a way out.

  Maybe Clarice was right? Finn wasn’t even into Austin, yet the first thing he spoke about the moment he sat down was how he’d gone to the guy’s house, and how the dude had a boner the size of Center Point Tower. It was a story told in jest, but the fact that it was at the front of his mind was surely telling. Finn claimed he wanted to grow up, but did everything he could to stop it from happening.

  “Maybe I should just move overseas already...” Finn mumbled into his now empty glass. Ever since college, Finn had talked about moving overseas to work. He didn’t know where, or to do what. He just knew that doing so would be symbolic of change, in a good way. If everything in his life ever fell apart to such a point that he couldn’t fix it, moving overseas would be his tonic.

  Clarice snatched the glass from his hand and started to make him another drink. “This again, hey. It usually takes you a few more before you start up on—”

  “Seriously!” Finn protested. “Why not? What do I really have keeping me here?”

  “Your son?” She pushed the drink back in front of him. “How about that?”

  “Yeah well... maybe he’s better off without me.”

  To this most dire statement, Clarice said nothing. Rather, she went back to cleaning the glasses, even acting as if Finn hadn’t spoken. What made this even worse was that Finn interpreted it as a silent agreement, that his son would be better off without him. Finn wanted to be a part of his life, but dropped the ball whenever the chance came. Honestly, he was just about ready to give up altogether. What was the point?

  “So, what’s on for the rest of the night?” Clarice eventually spoke up. “More wallowing in self-pity?”

  Finn was just about to answer when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. It was a familiar vibration too; one he was so very much familiar with by now. It was Datematch, of course, and where he knew that opening that app, meeting up with some random and having casual sex was not the answer to his problems, he also knew he couldn’t stop himself. He really did have a problem.

  “Something like that,” Finn mumbled as he fished out his phone, opened the app and saw that he’d matched with a total fuckboy hottie with a cock like a stallion.

  Clarice leaned across the bar to get a better look at the match. “He’ll do.”

  “No,” Finn muttered as he sent off a quick message. “He won’t.”

  Chapter Nine

  “I swear, I’m not usually this... ah... what’s the word?” Austin grimaced as he tried to come up with a way to describe how he currently looked, without drawing direct comparisons to the homeless.

  “Dirty? Overgrown? Shabby? Sixties folk-singer-ish?” Finn rattled off from over Austin’s shoulder. “Yeah, I really hope not.”

  Austin pressed his lips together so as to contain his smile. “I like the sixties folk-singer comparison though. Makes me sound like I had a purpose behind the look.”

  “As opposed to your clear protest against showers and haircuts?” Finn joked. “And fashion in general.”

  “Yes, that.” Austin’s body shook from withheld laughter. He had known that Finn was funny, but he had no idea how hilarious the guy actually was. “Although to be fair to me—”

  “Will you please sit still!” the flamboyant hairdresser, Steffan, shrieked as he ran a pair of clippers over Austin’s thin, half-grown beard. “I am trying to work here. If you come out looking like a poodle, I cannot be held responsible!”

  “Sorry,” Finn apologized.

  “Yeah... sorry,” Austin grimaced. His eyes then flicked back to Finn, who met them and winked. The two shared in a moment of silent laughter as Steffan the hairdresser fumed but kept at it.

  “In all my years...” he muttered to himself. “I don’t get paid enough for...”

  Austin was getting his hair cut. He was also getting his beard shaved. He was also having his face scrubbed, his nails done, his lashes plucked, and everything else done to him under the sun that would fix his “sixties folk singer look,” as Finn had amusingly described it. It was the first step toward a better Austin, and already Austin could feel his self-esteem improving.

  The day had started at Austin’s apartment, with Finn coming over first thing to pick him up. When Austin had signed Finn up to be his life coach, he had expected classrooms, and assigned readings, and all other manner of things that would make him a more complete, presentable human-being. But that wasn’t what this was at all.

  “A classroom?” Finn had balked with amusement when Austin had told him what he’d expected.
The two had been in Finn’s car, headed toward the hairdresser. “No, not even – why would you think that?”

  “I don’t know,” Austin had responded sheepishly. “Isn’t this like a self-improvement thing? I thought I’d be learning about... whatever. I don’t know.”

  “You have no idea what a life coach does, do you?” Finn laughed.

  “I can’t wait to find out,” Austin had admitted.

  It hadn’t taken much convincing for Austin to call up Finn and book himself in for some sessions. Again, he’d had no idea what a life coach did or how it would help. All he had known was that his life had derailed itself long ago and was in desperate need of a realignment. According to Finn, he could provide this. And even if only half of what he had said was true, it would still be something.

  “Not like you can’t afford it,” Cassidy had exclaimed when Austin had told him about Finn’s visit. “Or rather, not like your parents can’t afford it.”

  “I know... but still...” Austin had hesitated. He didn’t know why, but he was also embarrassed, as if admitting what he had done was a final admittance that he truly was as hopeless as everyone else seemed to think he was.

  Cassidy had then snatched the card from Austin’s fingers. “Look, either you call him, or I will. From what you told me, the price is a steal when considering you get to spend all day long with the stud. Yummmmm!” Cassidy had then licked his lips seductively. “Actually, come to think of it, I might call and—”

  “Fine!” Austin had grabbed at the card. “I’ll do it. Not like I have anything to lose.”

  “And who knows. You might even get a good cocking out of it,” Cassidy finished rightly, without even a hint that he was joking.

  And so, Austin had called up Finn the day after his surprise visit, and ended in booking what amounted to one month’s worth of life coach lessons. This first month was what Finn referred to as the ‘base package,’ with the option of adding more lessons once they got started. According to Finn, most of his clients hired him for three to six months, depending on their needs. And when pressed, Finn predicted Austin would be needing at least six.