Clarity of Lines

by N. R. Walker

  Cooper was quiet on the way back to my apartment. I asked him if he wanted to go home, but he held my hand tighter and said no. When we finally got inside, he was frowning. “Did I say something wrong?”

  I walked around to where he was leaning his ass on the dining table. I put my hands on his face and made him look at me. “Cooper Jones, you were perfect tonight,” I told him. “Their jibes at me were nothing to do with you. It’s how we are when we all get together. They’re old country-club style, men’s-club boys. They’re always like that. Actually,” I said, “I think they took us pretty well, all things considered.”

  Cooper nodded, but didn’t seem convinced. “I just felt stupid.”

  “You’re not stupid. You’re far from stupid,” I said seriously. “They said to me when you’d gone to the bathroom how switched on you were.”

  He looked at me with imploring eyes. “Really?”

  “Ready to take on the world.”

  “I called you ‘just Tom’.”

  I nodded and pecked his lips. “So? I like being just Tom.”

  He gave me a half-smile. “You’re my just Tom.”

  “Yes, I am,” I whispered, before I kissed him again.

  Chapter Eleven

  Cooper worked most of the weekend. He spent most of the day with his head in books, looking at the laptop screen or scribbling down notes.

  I didn’t mind.

  I lounged on the sofa for a while, read the papers, made him coffee, nuzzled his neck, made him lunch, made him laugh, then annoyed him some more.

  Eventually, realising I wasn’t going to deter him, I pulled out my own work, cleared some room on the dining table and joined him. We had a lazy dinner, I gave him some stress relief in bed by lavishing his entire body with my mouth, and we fell asleep wrapped around each other.

  Sunday was much the same. It was a perfect way to spend the weekend. Well, it was for me, but Cooper was looking a little stressed. He was sitting at the dining table and had just run his hand through his hair for about the twentieth time.

  “I just want this to be perfect,” he said when I asked him what was wrong. “It’s my first big project, and Louisa trusts me with it. I know it’s not my project alone, but I need to make sure what I contribute is perfect.”

  I kissed the top of his head. “Don’t underestimate yourself,” I told him. “Everything you do is perfect.”

  He looked up at me and grinned. “Everything?”

  “Mm-mm,” I hummed. “Some things a little more perfect than others, but yes.”

  “Excuse me, Mr Elkin, do I hear a sexual innuendo in your tone?”

  “There’s quite the possibility you do, Mr Jones,” I said with a smirk.

  Cooper stood up from the dining chair, and kissed me. “No innuendos for you, Mr Elkin. I need to get going home.”

  I raised my eyebrows. It was the first time he’d ever not been interested in sex. “You know, I think that’s a first.”

  He smiled. “I have laundry to do, and I need to get organised for tomorrow…”

  “You’re passing me over to do laundry?”

  He laughed, but then he groaned. “Aw, that’s not fair.”

  I smiled and kissed him. “Seriously, Cooper, I don’t mind. I’m just joking.”

  “I’ll make it up to you during the week,” he said.

  I sighed dramatically. “You know, if you lived here…”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “You want sex that bad?”

  I barked out a laugh. “No!”

  “Then what?”

  “Well, I have a laundry service—” I stopped mid-sentence from the look on his face.

  “So, I should move in for sex and free laundry?”

  “No!”

  “That is the worst move-in-with-me speech ever,” he said. “In the history of the world.”

  I was gaping, but smiling and shaking my head. “No, that’s not what I was saying at all.”

  Cooper shook his head then clicked his tongue. “Tsk, tsk.” Then he sighed dramatically. He was trying not to smile. “That was your worst one yet.”

  My head fell back and I groaned. “Cooper Jones, you’re infuriating and unreasonable, and you made it all about sex and laundry.”

  He laughed. “Infuriating and unreasonable? Jeez, this just gets better. Remember when I used to be cute?”

  I grabbed his chin between my thumb and forefinger and kissed him. “Have fun doing your laundry.”

  “I will,” he said cheerfully. “And I will see you on Wednesday after work.” He packed up his papers, his laptop and threw it all in his satchel and we walked to the front door.

  I leaned against the door jamb, and stopped him from leaving. “You’re still cute. You’re still infuriating and unreasonable. But you’re addictive and you’re wonderful.”

  He stepped up close and kissed me softly. “I love you too, Tom.”

  I smiled and rested my forehead on his. “One day you’ll agree to move in, and you won’t have to keep leaving,” I said quietly. “And my place wouldn’t feel so empty.”

  A slow smile spread across his face and he sighed. “Mmm, almost. Not quite, but that’s the best by far.”

  “I wasn’t trying to ask you to move in.”

  He kissed me sweetly again. “Maybe that’s why.” With that, he walked out and down the hall, smiling as he looked back at me.

  “Did I mention infuriating?” I asked.

  He pressed the elevator button. “Good night, Tom.”

  “Maddening?”

  The elevator doors opened, and he smiled. “I’ll call you later.”

  “Exasperating?”

  “Love you,” he called out as the doors were closing.

  “Love you, too,” I called back. “You little shit.”

  “Heard that,” he said quickly, but the doors closed, then he was gone.

  I shut the door, and when I looked around my apartment to see his mess strewn all over it, I smiled.

  * * * *

  I’d spoken to Cooper on the phone several times over the next few days, and he’d said he would be over at my place on Wednesday after work. He thought it’d be about seven by the time he finished up for the day, so I was surprised to hear his keys in the front door barely after six.

  I walked around from the kitchen just as he was coming through the door. “Hey you,” I said. “You’re early. Everything okay?”

  Cooper nodded as he dumped his satchel on the floor. He walked directly up to me and smiled. “I missed you,” he said, then he kissed me. Hard. And he pushed me backwards towards the hall, towards my bedroom. He broke the kiss to say, “I shouldn’t have said no to sex on Sunday.”

  I laughed as I pulled his shirt up and loosened his tie. “Tell me what you want.”

  “I want it all,” he murmured, trying to kiss my neck while undoing his pants. “I want you to do everything to me.”

  “Everything?”

  Cooper undid my pants and wrapped his hand around me. “Everything.”

  By the time we were naked on the bed, by the time I had made him come the first time, he was begging me. I kissed him, licked him and sucked him. I rimmed him, fingered him, then I fucked him.

  He wanted everything. So that was what I did to him.

  Afterwards, when he’d come the second time, I discarded the condom and lay back beside him. He looked at me with glazed-over eyes and he chuckled. “Jesus,” he said, still catching his breath.

  “You said everything.”

  He laughed again, just as his cell phone rang. With a groan, he rolled to the end of the bed and almost fell off trying to get his phone from his pants pocket. He was still laughing when he answered. “Yes, Louisa?”

  He was quiet while his boss spoke to him, but he was still naked in my bed so I commando-rolled over to him, licking his spent cock, seeing if there was a third time in him.

  He squirmed and pushed me back, somehow rolling on top of me, still with his phone to his ear. “Louisa,
I don’t think I can,” he said seriously. His eyes flickered between mine. “I have plans…well, they’re important plans.”

  Then he climbed off me, sat cross-legged on my bed, still naked. “Louisa, Tom and I are going to see his parents,” he said. “It’s kind of important…” He ran his hand through his hair. “Well, actually, he’s right here… Okay,” he said slowly. “I’ll put him on.” Cooper frowned and held out his phone. “Louisa needs me to work this weekend.”

  I took the phone. “Hello, Louisa, it’s Tom.”

  “Oh, Tom,” she said into the phone. “How are you? Cooper talks about you all the time.”

  “I’m really well,” I answered. I looked at the man in my bed. “Never better, actually. How are you? It’s been a while.”

  “I’m great,” she said. “I’ve been meaning to call you and thank you for recommending Cooper. He’s really taken strides since he started.”

  “Yes, he has.”

  “Cooper says you have a family commitment this weekend,” she said.

  “We had plans, yes,” I explained. “We were heading up to see my parents.”

  “You know we have the Philadelphia exhibition coming up,” she said.

  “Louisa, I can’t tell him what to do, or make decisions on his behalf,” I said. “I did that once and he tore shreds off me. But I can suggest to him, in my professional opinion, that it’d be in his professional interest to work. We can see my parents another time.”

  Cooper shook his head. “We said we’d go,” he whispered.

  Louisa said, “Tore shreds off you, did he?” I could hear the smile in her voice.

  “Yes, it wasn’t pretty.”

  She laughed. “He’s a strong-minded one, isn’t he?”

  “You have no idea,” I said with a smile.

  Cooper snatched the phone off me and rolled his eyes.

  “Louisa, can I call you back?” he asked into the phone. “Five minutes.”

  He threw his phone beside us on the bed and took my hand. “Tom, we agreed we’d go and see your parents.”

  “And your Philly exhibition is extremely important.”

  “So are you,” he said quickly. “So is telling your parents.”

  I squeezed his hand and smiled. “Coop, sweetheart, we can go another weekend to see my parents, the date of your first exhibition can’t change.”

  He sighed. “I don’t want you to think—”

  “I understand. I truly do.” I lifted his hand to my lips and kissed his knuckles. “You’ve worked so hard on this job, you need to go.”

  He frowned and sighed again. “What will you do?”

  I smiled at his concern that I couldn’t possibly survive a weekend without him. “There’s no reason why I can’t go see my parents anyway,” I told him. “I haven’t spent much time with them lately, aside from the occasional phone call. It’ll be nice.”

  He was quiet for a long few seconds. “Will you tell them?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I’ll test the waters first. I want to tell them. I need to tell them. I’d kind of psyched myself up for it to be this weekend, but I know I said we’d do it together.”

  “I want to be there for you,” he said quietly. “In case…well, in case it doesn’t go well.”

  “I’m a big boy,” I said with a smile. “I love that you want to be there. But if I get there and the timing is right, I’ll tell them. I want to tell them about you, that I finally met someone who understands me. It’s not the oh-by-the-way-I’m-gay speech I want to tell them, it’s that I met you. That’s what I want to tell them.”

  He smiled shyly for me. “Maybe giving them some warning might be a good idea,” he said. “Before we go up together.”

  “And you need to kick ass in Philly.”

  “I don’t exactly have that much to do there,” he said with a shrug.

  “Louisa wants you to see the whole process,” I presumed. “It’ll be good experience for you.”

  He turned my hand over in his and pouted. “Will you miss me?”

  I lay back on the bed and laughed. “Every minute.”

  “Just every minute?”

  I reached over, picked up his phone and tossed it to him. “Call Louisa, I’ll organise dinner.”

  I pulled on a pair of jeans and left him to make the call. After I’d ordered some takeout, I grabbed two beers from the fridge just as Cooper walked out. He was wearing a pair of my sleep pants.

  I looked him up and down. “Not wearing those home, I hope.”

  “Not going home tonight.”

  I handed him a beer and kissed him lightly on the lips. “When do you leave for Philly?”

  “First thing Saturday morning,” he said. “So I might have to stay here Friday night as well.”

  I grinned. “I think you might.”

  * * * *

  I offered to drive Cooper to the airport to save him the cab fare, so as a tradeoff, he went for two takeaway coffees while I finished getting ready.

  I told him I’d bring our overnight bags down to the car and when I got to the lobby, Cooper was walking back in with three coffees in a cardboard tray. He handed one to Lionel, who at first refused the offer, but then took it at Cooper’s insistence.

  I put the overnight bag and Cooper’s satchel down, and Lionel jumped with a start. “Oh, let me get those for you, Mr Elkin,” he said quickly. He looked at the coffee he was holding, not sure where to put it.

  “It’s fine, Lionel,” I said with a smile. “We’re heading down to the parking lot.”

  “Are you heading out of town?” Lionel asked. “How long can I expect you gone?”

  “Just overnight,” Cooper answered. “I’m leaving first, then Tom will go before lunch, in different directions this time. Not sure how Tom will cope without me.”

  I rolled my eyes and took my coffee from him. “You can carry your own bags.”

  Cooper feigned offence. “Hey, I thought the elderly revered chivalry.”

  I looked at Lionel. “See what I have to put up with?”

  Cooper nudged poor Lionel with his elbow. “And he absolutely wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Lionel hid his smile behind his coffee cup. “Well, I hope you both have an enjoyable weekend, even if it’s in different directions.”

  Cooper walked over towards his bags and said, “Lionel, tell Mrs Lionel I said hello. If she needs any more of that struffoli any time soon, you just let me know.”

  “Will do, Mr Jones,” Lionel said with a nod. “Thank you very much.”

  I shook my head at him and his ability to charm anyone. “You ready?”

  He nodded and smiled handsomely. Then he picked up his overnight bag and held it out for me to carry. He batted his eyelids and with a sigh and dramatic eye roll, I took it with my free hand. He picked up his satchel, looked back at Lionel and grinned.

  “You’re such a little shit,” I mumbled.

  “It’s a Gen Y thing,” he said cheerfully.

  “It’s a Cooper Jones thing.” Then I added, “It’s a pain in the ass thing.”

  “You love the pain in your ass thing.”

  Knowing I would never win, I chose to give up on that line of conversation and pressed the elevator button to go to the parking lot instead. And as we got into the car and headed out into New York traffic, Cooper said, “You know, Mr and Mrs Lionel don’t have kids.”

  “Mr and Mrs Lionel?” I asked. “You do know that’s his first name?”

  Cooper nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t know his last name, or his wife’s first name so I call them Mr and Mrs Lionel.”

  “Yet you know she likes struffoli?”

  He grinned proudly. “Of course. It’s all in the questions.”

  “Apparently you ask the wrong ones.”

  “Or the right ones,” he said with a grin. “Anyway, as I was saying, they don’t have kids.” Then he added thoughtfully, “I think they might want to adopt me.”

  I laughed at him.
“You’re incorrigible.”

  He smiled as though I’d complimented him. “It’s a talent.”

  “It’s one of your finest.”

  Cooper grinned at me. “So, are you going to see me off at the airport? Stand in the terminal lounge, staring out the window, waiting for my plane to take off?”

  I snorted. “Um, no. I was going to drop you off at the departure terminal so I didn’t have to get a parking spot.”

  He gaped and narrowed his eyes. “When you get home, do me a favour and Google the word chivalry,” he said flatly. “It’s spelled c-h-i-v—”

  “Shut up,” I said with a laugh.

  “Or even look up the definition of ‘nice boyfriend’. I’m pretty sure it says ‘does not drop off loved one at terminal gate’ or ‘does not tell boyfriend to shut up’.”

  I laughed at him, but he smiled smugly when I turned into the ludicrously expensive parking lot instead of pulling up at the terminal doors. I even carried his bag and his satchel to the check-in counter.

  “See, I know what chivalry means,” I told him.

  Cooper hooked his arm through mine. “And you do it well.”

  “Do I really have to wait until your plane leaves?”

  “Maybe just until I board.”

  “Even that long?”

  “Your chivalry is starting to wane.”

  “It comes and goes.”

  He rolled his eyes dramatically. “Oh, just like you. You came this morning, and now you want to go.”

  I barked out a laugh. “Okay, you win. I’ll buy you another coffee.”

  “And a croissant.”

  I led him to a coffee shop in the terminal and it wasn’t until he was about to board his plane that he was serious. “If you want to tell your parents today, then tell them. Do what feels right,” he said. “If you think it won’t go well, you can wait and we’ll tell them together.”

  I pulled him in for a hug and kissed the side of his neck. “Thank you, Cooper. You have a good time down in Philly, show them what you can do.”

  He sighed against me. “Call me if you need to talk,” he said. “About anything.”

  “You’ll be so busy,” I told him, pulling back so I could see his face. “How about you call me when you get to your hotel tonight? It doesn’t matter what time.”