Love Him Breathless

by E M Lindsey

  “Fuck. Fuck,” Fitz gasped. He thrust into the circle of Antoine’s fingers a little harder, but Antoine didn’t change his grip, didn’t change his rhythm. It wasn’t long before Fitz let out a muffled shout, buried his face against Antoine’s shoulder, and came.

  The hot seed spurted across his knuckles, dripping onto his chest. He felt sticky and gross, and maybe the most sated he’d ever been. Fitz collapsed gently against him, then shifted to the side and nuzzled the side of Antoine’s shoulder with his nose.

  “You need a shower. You smell like shit.”

  Antoine made an affronted noise, and when Fitz’s head popped up to look at him, he scowled. “You smell like come.”

  At that, Fitz just grinned and shook his head as he dragged the tips of his fingers through the mess on Antoine’s belly. “I know. I think I can live with it.”

  Antoine didn’t expect to sleep again, but he did, and he woke up alone. His heart sank into the pit of his stomach when he realized the other half of the bed was cold, but when he pushed himself up to sit, he found a tray of breakfast sitting on the edge of the bed, and a folded paper heart that looked like the notes kids used to pass in middle school.

  With trembling fingers, he pulled the tray closer, then tugged at the little tab in the back. The heart unfolded itself in his palm and he saw the hasty scribbles in barely legible chicken-scratch in the center.

  Hollywood,

  Got called in, text me later.

  Smokey

  To anyone else it probably looked like nothing, but to Antoine it looked like everything. He knew his guard was down before he’d gone drinking the night before, but he’d done it anyway. There was no point in time he thought it was a good idea to get Fitz into his hotel room and into his bed, but he’d done it anyway.

  Maybe there was no curse. Maybe he was just a raging dumbass who lived to hurt himself.

  With a sigh, Antoine pulled the lid off the food and found a caesar salad waiting for him. It wasn’t even the salad that had him twisted up inside, but the fact that Fitz had made sure something was waiting for him when he woke up, and that Antoine didn’t think he’d just snuck out.

  He wasn’t sure he deserved any of it—and he wasn’t sure what the hell he was going to do about it later—but he couldn’t deny it meant something.

  After eating, he trudged into the shower and stood under the hot water for way too long. He washed enough time to hopefully get rid of any lingering smoke in his hair, and any of the alcohol sweats he had slept off after his orgasm. He regretted scrubbing at the dried, almost painful streaks of come in his hair, and on his neck, and his jawline where Fitz had smeared it, but he knew if he wanted him to, Fitz would just replace them.

  And maybe that was what terrified him the most—the power he realized he held. Fitz was stronger, and taller, and absolutely braver, but that courage put him at a disadvantage. He was willing to take steps where Antoine was rooted to the ground.

  After all, what could really come of this?

  He took his time getting dressed, then gathered up his dirty clothes and called for the laundry service, leaving a couple of twenties on top of the bag since most of them were saturated with the smoke from the Tavern. He definitely needed to go check on Sonia and Rose, and he was only hoping a little that he might run into Fitz somewhere in town.

  The ache in his body had him regretting his lack of car—again—but he wasn’t in the mood to deal with the rental company anymore. It was nice out, at least, and partly cloudy from a summer storm that must have rained down while he was sleeping. The air was rich with humidity, but not enough to be oppressive, and he breathed it in as he made his way down the lane and toward the center of town.

  As he approached the Tavern, he saw a sign in the window and caution tape stuck to the back door, and he knew there wouldn’t be anyone inside. He had Rose’s number in his phone, but it almost felt wrong to bother her. Maybe if they were friends—truly and properly friends—he would allow himself to intrude, but he wasn’t sure where he stood with these people.

  He dragged his hand through his hair, then stepped into the little bookstore with a lot of touristy coffee table books in the display window. It was empty, which wasn’t a surprise, though he felt bad that it was a mark of how the town had been lately. And maybe it wouldn’t always be like that, but it was so hard to tell.

  “Can I help you find anything?” came a voice from the back.

  “Just browsing.” He smelled coffee, so he made his way around the stacks until he saw the room open up to a little café where a tired looking barista with blue hair was messing with one of the carafes. In the corner, a man sat at a table with his back to the shop, headphones on plugged into his laptop, and he looked vaguely familiar, but Antoine didn’t remember meeting with the guy.

  “What can I get you?” the woman asked, and Antoine startled.

  “Oh um. Tea? Do you have any Yorkshire or PG Tips?”

  Her nose wrinkled. “I don’t even know what that is.”

  “How about a coffee,” he decided. He could use the caffeine hit that morning, anyway. “Room for cream.”

  She nodded and he pulled out a five, passing it over and then waving the change toward the tip jar. He took a few minutes at the sugar and milk counter, then took the table near the stranger who had closed his laptop and was wrapping his cord over his fist.

  “One of those days?” the guy asked.

  Antoine startled and looked over, his brows shooting high on his forehead when he recognized the guy when he got a good look at his face. Tristian, the blind chef YouTuber who had been out of town. “Am I that obvious?”

  “You sound either sick or hung over, but I like to think most people are kind enough not to go into bookstores for coffee when they have a cold,” Tristian said.

  Antoine laughed. “That’s fair. I tried to drink the weight of my sorrows in vodka last night. It was… a mistake.”

  “Shit, I’ve been there,” Tristian said with a laugh and shook his head as he turned in his chair to face Antoine. “Tourist?”

  “Nope. I’m the guy fixing the town’s website. We talked a little over email. Antoine Tremblay,” he clarified.

  Tristian looked mildly surprised, then he gestured to the seat across from him. “I’m waiting for my husband to take a lunch, which should be sometime next year if I’m lucky. You can join me if you’re not working.”

  “I’m not. I’m just trying not to die,” Antoine said. He was feeling a little better, but not much. All the same, it was easy to get up and slide across from the other man. “I don’t know if I’m going to be good for work talk though.”

  Tristian grinned at him, looking a lot like he did on his channel. Antoine had watched a few videos and understood why he was viral. Some of it was probably for the same reasons people went to Marcel’s yoga class—the curiosity and wonder of watching a blind man do ordinary things, like cooking ramen without sight was performing a circus trick. The other part was that Tristian was good looking, charismatic, and he was funny. If Antoine hadn’t been as busy as he was, he could have easily gotten sucked into all of Tristian’s back-log, and he wouldn’t have noticed time passing.

  The videos Antoine had watched featured mostly celebrity chefs, and that included Tristian’s husband, the reluctant, dark-haired, grumpy chef who clearly didn’t want to be there, but clearly would do anything for the love of his life. It made Antoine green and aching with envy. Enzo was the only chef with a Michelin star within a hundred miles of Cherry Creek, and people did come from long distances to eat at Mangia E Zitto. There was a two-year waiting list for a Saturday night table.

  He was pretty sure Tristian was the gap between the success of the restaurant and the little town, but right now he couldn’t think clear enough to bridge it.

  “You okay?” Tristian asked, and Antoine realized he’d been quiet for a long time.

  “Yeah, sorry. It’s just been a weird couple of weeks,” he admitted.

  Tr
istian snorted a laugh, then grabbed his laptop and shoved it into his bag. “Yeah. Enzo kept me up to date while I was gone. Sorry about your car. And getting run over. And throwing up in public.”

  “Thanks,” Antoine grumbled. “I’m super glad the entire town knows about that.” He sipped his coffee and sighed at the fact that it was so good, and he hadn’t been expecting it. All around him were these small, hidden gems, and he knew he didn’t have enough time to find them all and put them on display. “Sorry, I’m kind of the world’s worst company right now.”

  Tristian shook his head. “I don’t mind. We can get out of here if you want, though. I only came down here to do a little comment moderation on my channel. Enzo has some guys fixing our bathroom and I couldn’t hear myself think with their fucking drills.”

  “A walk sounds amazing, actually,” Antoine said, because he liked the shop, but fresh air sounded better. “Let me get a refill on this coffee first, though. You want anything while I’m up?”

  Tristian shook his head. “I’m good. I’ll meet you out front.”

  Antoine headed back up to the register for a refill, adding in a little less cream but more sugar, then meandered back through the shop, making a note to come back when he was feeling better to see if there was a way to showcase the café on the website. Right now, though, he didn’t want to think about work. Or about how each passing second ticked down to when he’d have to leave. Normally, he was glad to see a place disappear in his rearview mirror. Normally, he was happy to forget.

  This time, he felt it like he was losing family.

  Tristian was outside, leaning against the railing with his bag hanging low on his back, twirling his cane between both hands. When Antoine approached, he straightened and grinned. “Anywhere you want to check out?”

  “You know the place better than I do,” Antoine told him, and Tristian laughed.

  “Yeah, but just warning you, I’m not known for my taste in views.” He still took the lead, though, and headed in the opposite direction from where Antoine had come. “You been to the pond yet?”

  Antoine hummed in thought. “I don’t think so. I checked out the lake after taking that trail from the Lodge. The small lake,” he clarified, though he figured Tristian knew. “And I did the whole Farmer’s Market thing twice. I got a glimpse of the goat farm when we hit the bigger lake, but we didn’t get a chance to stop.”

  Tristian nodded and carefully navigated his way down the sidewalk, stopping when his cane hit a metal pole which bracketed a small dirt path. “This way,” he said, then stepped onto the dirt. “I moved here when I was twenty, so I’m still kind of getting to know the place. This was the first walk I had memorized.”

  Antoine glanced up at the canopy of trees, and the way the sunlight played through the leaves making them look like misaligned puzzle pieces. The path was well worn, and he could smell water, though he wasn’t sure how far up it was. “I like this place way more than I thought I would.”

  “City boy?” Tristian asked.

  He laughed. “I guess? I mean, we were basically nomads growing up, and my dad mostly did guest lecturing at different universities. My parents always stayed away from campus housing and we were never in a city longer than four months at a time.”

  Tristian wrinkled his nose, coming to a stop when his cane met river rock. It led to a small embankment with a pond small enough they could probably walk it in five minutes. But the water was clear, and it was being fed by a tiny brook to the west. “I definitely did not have that problem. I was born and raised in the same house. If my parents could have put me in bubble wrap and left me in a padded room for the rest of my life, they would have.”

  Antoine let out a small hah. “It’s either or, isn’t it? They either want you to conquer the known universe, or they’re terrified of you getting a single papercut.”

  “You too?” Tristian’s brows were high up on his forehead, and he lifted his cane tip, tapping it from side to side so it didn’t catch on the rocks as they headed to the water line.

  “My brother,” Antoine said. “He was born with glaucoma. My parents were not like yours. They’re still pissed off that he didn’t go to actual war over his college rejection letters.”

  Tristian sighed. “Did he want to go?”

  “I think so,” Antoine said. “He had a lot of goals as a kid, he just didn’t want to fight for them. He opened a yoga studio and they think he compromised.”

  “Is that what you think?” They came to a stop, and Tristian knelt down, feeling ahead with his fingers until they dipped into the cool water. Sinking to his backside, he patted the ground, and Antoine joined him after a minute.

  “Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t think it matters though. I mean, he’s happy. He’s getting married probably, and he has a job he likes, and friends. It’s not like I’m following my passion or anything, but they don’t think it matters the same way.”

  “You didn’t have grand dreams about consultant work when you were eight?” Tristian asked with a smirk.

  Antoine laughed. “Actually, I used to play pretend salesman all the time. I was obsessed with door to door vacuum guys. But I think it was more the concept of, like, the small town, you know? Of getting to see inside these peoples’ homes who lived in the same place for longer than twelve weeks. I was a weird kid.”

  “Dude, all kids are weird. I didn’t grow up wanting to challenge celebrity chefs to cook blind in their kitchens, but I most definitely used to play drive-thru McDonalds with my sisters when we were little.”

  Antoine snorted as he stared out over the lake. “Well, I don’t need to love my job, and I don’t think my brother needs to love his.”

  “Sounds like he’s lucky to have you,” Tristian offered.

  Antoine winced. “Yeah, no. I was totally a shitty brother. I never really let myself believe in his own ability to figure out what made him happy. I don’t think like that now, but you know…damage and all that.”

  “I’m sure he’ll forgive you.”

  Antoine didn’t want to argue with a stranger, so he just hummed quietly. “Do you like it here? I mean, you’re gone a lot, right? But you like coming back?”

  “I do.” Tristian accepted the change of subject with grace and picked up a couple pebbles, tossing them one by one to make a soft plink in the water. “I wish I didn’t travel so much, but this job makes money, and I want Enzo to feel like we can both retire comfortably someday.”

  Antoine bowed his head. “I get that. Just…”

  “What exactly are you asking me here?” Tristian pressed.

  “I don’t know.” It was at least an honest answer. Antoine turned to look at him, to study him. He had laugh lines around his mouth and his shoulders were relaxed. He seemed tired, but not unhappy—and Antoine could live with that. “I’ve done the small town thing before—once or twice. This place is better than the ones we stayed at when I was younger but…”

  “There’s still a dynamic, and everyone here has a history with everyone else,” Tristian finished for him. “I get it. You can’t change that. But they’re good people, and they welcomed me without a problem. Most of them are worth it.”

  That’s what he was afraid of. In theory, he could just go home, pack up, and run his business out of Cherry Creek. He rarely went into the office when he was home, and most of his job was sitting in airports waiting to fly. But why move his entire life here when he wasn’t going to stick around and enjoy it?

  “What would you do? Like…if YouTube shut down tomorrow?” Antoine asked.

  “I don’t know,” Tristian answered with a laugh. “I ask myself that at least once a week though. It’s logical to have contingency plans, but nothing makes sense beyond this. And I got into this shit by accident.”

  “Antagonizing celebrity chefs?” Antoine asked.

  Tristian chuckled and shrugged, grabbing more rocks to throw. “A crappy ex suggested I do it, and now he’s god knows where and I get to sleep at night on my expensiv
e mattress with the love of my life. It wasn’t a bad trade. If I said some dumb shit tomorrow and got cancelled by all of internet land,” Tristian sighed and shrugged, “I’d be alright. Because I still have all this.”

  And that. That was what Antoine wanted to hear. He wanted to hear that this life was worth more than his job. He wanted to know he could be more than someone’s small piece of their daily routine. He just wasn’t sure he could have it with Fitz. “If you knew that you and Enzo wouldn’t make it, in the end. Like, if life was going to stand in your way…”

  “Would I have pursued him anyway?”

  Antoine nodded. “Yeah. Even if you knew there was an expiration date?”

  “I don’t know,” Tristian answered honestly. “I want to say yes, because I pursued him knowing there was no guarantee he wanted more than a quick fuck on his kitchen counter, and I was willing to risk it even though I wanted so much more. But if I knew for certain?”

  “I guess there aren’t really certainties,” Antoine said.

  “So that’s your answer. Even if we crashed and burned tonight, if I got home and he was packed up and ready to leave me, I wouldn’t regret what we had.”

  He wasn’t sure that helped at all, but when his phone buzzed, he felt his heart leap in his chest.

  Fitz: How do you feel about cabins and kayaks?

  Antoine: That is a loaded question.

  Fitz: That’s a very Hollywood answer. Plans this weekend? Big meetings?

  Antoine: No.

  Fitz: Good. Pack a bag, and I’ll pick you up from the Lodge at four.

  It was already two-thirty, and holy hell but he couldn’t stop smiling. “I should get going.”

  Tristian laughed. “That sounds like good news.”

  “It might be,” he answered. There were no guarantees in any of this, but for some reason, this felt like one.