Service with a Smirk

by Ariel Tachna

  “I’m sorry about this morning,” Mathias said. “I should have gone back to my apartment last night so I wouldn’t wake you up.”

  “I could have woken you last night,” Pascal replied. “No harm done.”

  Mathias might have believed that if Pascal’s voice hadn’t sounded so stilted. “I know you’ll be at work already when I get home, but what time do you get off tonight? I’d like to see you.”

  “Too late for you,” Pascal replied. “You have to be at the bank early. You should go to sleep as soon as you finish at Le Salon. I’ll see you Saturday like we planned.”

  Mathias was glad Pascal hadn’t canceled their date for Saturday, but that was only mildly reassuring in the face of all his doubts. He couldn’t have that conversation with Pascal over the phone. He needed to see Pascal’s face.

  “Yes, I’ll see you then,” Mathias replied. “But I’ll try to call or text before then too.”

  “If your schedule permits,” Pascal said, and the words that had always seemed so considerate of his crazy life suddenly felt like a dismissal. He wanted to rant and rave, but it wouldn’t do any good when he couldn’t see Pascal’s expression. Maybe it was still the same consideration, or maybe it was a dismissal. Yesterday he would have said it was consideration, but that was before Mathias forgot all consideration of Pascal’s wishes and barged into his apartment, unexpected and uninvited. He still hoped he wasn’t unwelcome, but now he wasn’t even sure about that.

  Chapter 12

  PASCAL STARED down at the phone in his hand as if he could find the answers to all the questions in the universe hidden in its depths, but the screen stayed resolutely black after the call with Mathias. The incredibly awkward, stilted call with Mathias to go along with the incredibly awkward, stilted morning-after. He should have put a stop to it the minute Mathias knocked on his door last night. He should have insisted Mathias go home and get a good night’s sleep in his own bed instead of giving in to the temptation Mathias represented. But it had felt so good to be wanted that way—too good, but that was a problem of an entirely different nature. Mathias was this bright, shining young thing with enough passion to burn them both to cinders, and Pascal had gone down without a fight. That might not have been a problem if he’d had an exit strategy, but then Mathias had fallen asleep, so clearly exhausted that Pascal couldn’t make himself wake him. He shouldn’t have let it go so far. He should have stopped after the hand job, let Mathias return the favor, and called it a night.

  He’d broken every tenet he’d set up for their relationship, and he’d done it at the slightest hint of provocation. Yes, Mathias had looked good enough to eat in his tight T-shirt and tighter jeans, but Pascal had been resisting that kind of temptation ever since he and Robert decided to make a real go of it. He shouldn’t have cracked so easily. It was too much, too soon. He’d thought Mathias understood that. Maybe not agreed with him, but accepted it. Apparently he’d been wrong, and his own willpower had evaporated at the sight of Mathias’s sweet ass framed by the jockstrap. He was only human, and some temptations were too much to resist.

  He closed his eyes and reveled in the memory of Mathias’s hands and mouth on him, the way Mathias had taken him in and urged him on. He had gotten used to thinking of himself as too old to start over—the silver at his temples was more than mirrored by the silver on his chest—but Mathias hadn’t looked at him like he was old. Mathias had reached for him like a starving man at a banquet, and Pascal had given and given and given. What else could he do when he was as starved as Mathias had been?

  That didn’t make it a good idea. None of it had been a good idea. All the way back to letting Mathias convince him to try a different drink, it had been one bad idea after another. He could be excused that weakness. Mathias had been relentless in his pursuit, when he wasn’t being adorably awkward in his youth, and Pascal could admit to feeling flattered by the attention. What man wouldn’t be flattered to be the object of affection of a much younger man who could have anyone he wanted? Mathias deserved so much more than Pascal could offer, though. He wasn’t young and smooth and full of life. He was middle-aged—approaching old if René was to be believed—and battered and frozen inside.

  The only thing they had in common besides their address was working as waiters, and even that barely counted when he thought of the differences in where they worked and why, and of where Mathias was really going in his life. He’d known what would happen if they had sex. He knew himself well enough to know that casual wasn’t really an option between them when Mathias burned so brightly with everything Pascal no longer had. He’d delayed it, hoping things would reach the inevitable point of petering out before they ended up in bed together. He could handle a few kisses, even making out on the couch, but he had never been a love ’em and leave ’em kind of guy, not even when he was Mathias’s age. Sure, he’d played around a little, fumbling experiments in darkened corners of bars and bathhouses, but his insistence on actually caring about his bed partners before he slept with them had probably saved his life, unlike so many of his friends who had died of AIDS. He could count on one hand the men he’d had full-on sex with, and that included Mathias.

  The sudden buzzing of his phone startled him. For a minute, he hoped—feared—it was Mathias calling him back to demand an explanation or to rail at him for being an idiot, but then the name popped up, and he cursed under his breath. He was supposed to meet René and Benjamin at noon. It was twelve thirty, and he was still at his apartment.

  He could make his excuses and bow out, but they’d want to know why. Of course if he had to have it out with them, doing it as his apartment would be better than doing it out in public.

  Not going to make it today. Sorry, he texted back.

  His phone buzzed again moments later. No excuses. You come to us or we come to you.

  He cursed again, louder this time. He wasn’t up for this today. Fine. Come here when you’re done with lunch.

  That would give him time to shower so he didn’t smell like sex when they walked in. Then again, as well as they knew him, they’d probably take one look at him and know what he and Mathias had done.

  He was so screwed.

  He had managed to shower and get dressed by the time he heard a knock on his door. He opened it to let René and Benjamin inside, ignoring their questioning looks.

  “We brought you lunch,” René said. “We figured you hadn’t eaten and would want something before you went into work tonight.”

  “Thanks.” Pascal took the carryout bag and set it on the table, but he made no move to open it. He wasn’t hungry.

  “What’s going on?” Benjamin asked when Pascal didn’t say anything else.

  Pascal shrugged.

  “You didn’t have a date with Mathias, so you haven’t had a fight unless it was over the phone,” René said. “Is your mother doing worse?”

  “Not that I’ve heard. It was Sylvie’s turn to visit them last weekend, but she would’ve told me if things had deteriorated.”

  “You’ve been so happy recently,” Benjamin said. “You were finally getting out from under the shadow of grief, and now you’re all weighted down again. Whatever it is, you can tell us. We can’t help if we don’t know what’s going on.”

  “I slept with Mathias,” he blurted out.

  Both his friends’ eyebrows jumped nearly to their hairlines. Pascal might have laughed at their comical expressions if he weren’t so miserable.

  “Was the sex that bad?” René joked. Benjamin elbowed him, making Pascal snort.

  “It wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t a good idea.”

  “I’ve seen your boyfriend,” René insisted. “There’s no way sex with him could be a bad idea unless he’s a bad lover.”

  He hadn’t been a bad lover. He’d been everything Pascal could have hoped for in a lover—eager, passionate, giving but just as willing to take. The image of Mathias’s flustered face after he came the first time was etched into Pascal’s mind, and the way he�
�d rolled to his stomach, giving Pascal unrestricted access to play was enough to have him hardening again from memory alone. None of that made it less of a bad idea.

  “He’s not the problem. I am,” Pascal said.

  “How do you figure that?” Benjamin asked seriously, elbowing René again when he started to say something.

  “I don’t even know where to start.”

  René opened his mouth again but shut it at Benjamin’s sharp look.

  Pascal ran a hand over his short hair, trying to put into words all the doubts assailing him. “Right now, he’s twenty-four and I’m forty-eight. It’s an age gap, but I’m still young enough to keep up with him. What happens in a few years when he’s still young and suddenly he’s saddled with this old man?”

  “Harrison Ford is twenty-five years older than you are. I wouldn’t kick him out of bed,” René said. Benjamin glared at him. “Just throwing that out there.”

  “Not helping,” Benjamin said. “Have you asked him about the age difference?”

  “Not in so many words, although he’s said more than once that he likes older men,” Pascal admitted, although the comparison reassured him somewhat, because René was certainly right. “He’s so damn young. Sometimes I feel ancient just looking at him.”

  “Turn it around,” Benjamin said. “He’ll keep you young.”

  Pascal chuckled. He certainly hadn’t felt his age when he’d been balls-deep in Mathias the night before. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt that good. Then they’d fallen asleep, and this morning had happened. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt that bad. “Or drive me into an early grave.”

  “But what a way to go!”

  Pascal snorted. He could certainly think of worse ways to go than from trying to keep up with a lover half his age, but that assumed Mathias would want to stay with him that long. He had so much going for him. He didn’t need Pascal tying him down.

  “I know we met him at Le Salon, but he’s so much more than just a waiter,” Pascal said. “I look at him and see this bright kid with an amazing future. He’s going somewhere. Maybe it won’t be where he thinks he’s going right now, but no way he’s going to be satisfied with waiting tables all his life. And when he’s middle or upper management at a big bank or other firm, he’s not going to want to be with me.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” René demanded loyally. “You help run that restaurant. You’re middle management at least.”

  “Thanks, but no one else will see it that way,” Pascal said with a sad smile. “Even Robert didn’t see it that way half the time, and he helped me get the job in the first place.”

  “Has Mathias said anything to make you think he feels that way?” Benjamin asked.

  Pascal tried to remember a specific instance, but he couldn’t put his finger on anything. “No.”

  “Then don’t put words in his mouth.”

  “Put something else there instead,” René suggested.

  Pascal flushed with the memory of Mathias closing his lips around his cock. God, he was pathetic. He was too old to be popping a boner at every sexual innuendo out of Rene’s mouth.

  “I think he’s already done that,” Benjamin observed mildly. “That hasn’t stopped him from sitting here fretting.”

  “You make me sound like a teenage girl,” Pascal grumbled.

  “If the shoe fits….”

  “I haven’t told him about Robert.”

  Benjamin sighed. “You’re forty-eight. He can’t possibly imagine you haven’t had relationships before him. Are you obsessing over his past lovers? Because that was no virgin ass you tapped last night.”

  “How would you know?” Pascal retorted automatically. Mathias hadn’t been a virgin. He’d been too sure of himself for that, not that it was any of Benjamin’s business.

  “You don’t live on rue Sainte-Catherine and work in a gay bar at his age if you aren’t comfortable with who you are, and you don’t get comfortable with who you are without experimenting,” Benjamin said with a shrug. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “No, he’s with me now, not them. That’s all I care about,” Pascal said.

  “Then why do you think hearing about Robert will matter to him?” Benjamin asked.

  “Maybe it won’t, but I have to tell him,” Pascal insisted. “He has to understand what he’s getting into.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, you make it sound like you have some communicable disease because Robert died of cancer,” René snapped. “And don’t give me that look. He was my friend too, and I miss him terribly. Not the way you do, but I do miss him. But you’ve mourned long enough. You’ve got this really cute, apparently quite smart and interesting man interested in you, and I’ll be damned if I sit here and watch you screw it up because you’ve got some bug up your ass.”

  “And how are you going to stop me from doing that?” Pascal asked, smiling for what felt like the first time since Mathias’s alarm woke them up that morning.

  “No idea, but I’ll come up with something,” René muttered.

  It wouldn’t be that easy, no matter what René thought. He needed to talk to Mathias, a real conversation, not the stilted nonsense of that morning or their lunch-break phone call. His stomach curled with dread at the thought. He didn’t honestly see how anything good could come of it, of them. They were too different, but he owed it to Mathias to resolve it in person rather than just let it slide away into nothing.

  “I know that look,” Benjamin said before Pascal’s thoughts could spiral downward again. “You’ve already written him off in your head. You’re so convinced this can’t work that you aren’t even willing to fight for it. I thought better of you.”

  The disappointment in Benjamin’s voice stung. “What else can I do? None of this is stuff I can change.”

  “None of it needs to change,” Benjamin said. “What needs to change is your attitude about it. The age difference is real. You’re not going to get younger. He’s not going to suddenly be older. That’s fact. What isn’t fact is whether the age difference is a problem. He’s going into banking. You help manage a four-star restaurant in the business district. That’s fact. That doesn’t mean he’s ashamed of you or that you’re going to somehow hold him back. You were in a long-term, serious relationship that only ended when Robert died. That’s fact. Nothing about that keeps you from loving again. Nor is it a reason for someone else not to love you. If anything, it’s a point in your favor that you still care so deeply for him.”

  It sounded so simple when Benjamin said it, but Pascal knew better than to think the reality would be anything close to easy.

  “What do you have to lose?” Benjamin asked more gently.

  Everything, he wanted to say, but that was too pat an answer because he hadn’t known Mathias long enough for him to be that deeply woven into the fabric of Pascal’s life. Mathias’s interest, however fleeting it might end up being, was undeniably real. He’d jumped Pascal last night, not the other way around. He’d clearly wanted to be exactly where they ended up. He’d come twice, so his enjoyment wasn’t in question. The problem lay in letting himself become more invested than he already was in a relationship that had no guarantee of lasting. He’d already had his heart shattered once when Robert died. Even if Mathias wanted the pieced-together shards that were left for the moment, when he moved on, it would destroy what little peace Pascal had been able to salvage.

  “I know that look,” René groused. “You’re brooding again. Stop it.”

  “I see too many ways for everything to go wrong and not enough ways for it to work out,” Pascal admitted.

  “I’ve never known a relationship to start any other way,” Benjamin said. “Nobody said it would be easy, and maybe it won’t work out, but what if it does? What if instead of coming home to an empty apartment every night, you got to come home to Mathias? What if instead of living vicariously through your romance novels—yes, we know about your secret stash—you actually had a roman
ce of your own to enjoy? Just think about it, okay? And talk to Mathias about it. Maybe you’re right and you can’t work out all the hurdles, but maybe I’m right and you can be happy again.”

  “We had a date planned for Saturday.”

  “Good. Call him right now and tell him it’s still on,” Benjamin said.

  “He’s at work. I can’t call now.”

  “Then text him,” René said. “You’re not an idiot, despite the way you’re acting. Because you’re right about one thing: he is young, which means he’s going to blow this even more out of proportion than you have, and if he thinks you don’t want him anymore, he’s going to work himself up so much that Saturday will be a fiasco.”

  Pascal wasn’t sure what he could say that would help.

  “Tell him you’re looking forward to seeing him. Make a suggestion about what you can do on the date. Something that isn’t the conversation you need to have.”

  “We’d been talking about biking up to Mont Royal,” Pascal said.

  “Good. Tell him that.”

  Pascal picked up his phone and stared at the screen for a moment before pulling up the last text from Mathias. He took a deep breath and sent a new note: Want to go biking this weekend? The leaves should be starting to turn.

  They could talk when they got back, if Mathias accepted his suggestion.

  “Happy now?” Pascal asked Benjamin.

  “As happy as I’m likely to be until you get this worked out,” Benjamin said. “Now, don’t work it up into an insurmountable obstacle in your head between now and then. Don’t doom yourself to failure over nothing.”

  It wouldn’t be nothing, but Benjamin wouldn’t be swayed, and Pascal was tired of talking about it. “I’ll do my best.”

  MATHIAS GLANCED down when his phone buzzed. He wasn’t really supposed to send or read personal texts during work hours, but he couldn’t stop himself from reaching for the phone. Pascal’s name flashed at him, so he opened the message app and read the note. It wasn’t long or romantic or even anything new, not really. They’d already agreed to keep the date they had planned on Saturday, but it felt momentous nonetheless. Pascal still wanted to make plans with him, not just tell him to get the hell out, and that settled Mathias enough that he could smile and type out a response.