by Riley Hart
“And ruin my view?” I grin at him. I’m not flirting because I plan to fuck him. He just seems like he might need to hear it.
“Are you being serious right now?”
“As a heart attack. Or as serious as your head exploding, which mine feels like it might do right now. Jesus, I drank too much last night. Please, sit down, Garrett. I’ll apologize again, then we’ll make small talk on even footing because we’ll both be naked. Eventually, I’ll slink out of your room, and when we see each other at the mailboxes, we’ll laugh about the time I hijacked your bed.”
“Gary,” he says, his voice suddenly tight.
“Huh? My name is Travis.”
“No. Me. I’m Gary, not Garrett.”
Fuck. But can the man really blame me? We’ve never been properly introduced, and it’s not like he’s the guy who tries real hard to make an impression. Plus, I didn’t go home with him last night. If that was the case, I could see him being taken aback. “I’m sorry. I’m really fucking this up. I’m just…I’m going to go.” Before I make this anymore awkward than it already is—which honestly, I could have easily laughed off what happened, but I’m not sure Gary can. His unease is what’s causing me to continue to make an ass out of myself.
I force myself to my feet, close my eyes as my brain pulses against my skull, and my legs are wobbly, like I might still be a little drunk. “It was a pleasure waking up naked with you. You don’t have to be so shy. You have nothing to be concerned about.”
Gary opens his mouth. I wait, but then he closes it again, without saying a word. Taking that as my cue to leave, I manage to stay on my feet well enough to stumble out of his room. As soon as I hit the living room, I recognize the man sleeping on the couch, and suddenly a whole lot of shit makes sense. Derek is always up in everyone’s business.
“Have fun?” he asks without opening his eyes, making me realize he’s awake.
“You’re a dickhead.”
“What? Me? Why? What did I do?” he feigns innocence, but I ignore him. I’m too fucked up to deal with Derek right now.
I make my way back to Jacob’s room and fall into bed with him. The mattress feels lumpier than Gary’s did—or than it felt last night. I had my mind on taking his ass when I was in his bed before and not where I did it.
“I thought you left,” he mumbles into the pillow.
“No. I got up to take a piss and then ended up in the wrong room. I woke up naked with Gary. I don’t think he liked being naked with me as much as you did.”
“Oh, shit.” Jacob’s blue eyes pop open, full of mischief. “I bet he freaked out.”
“What’s his deal?” I ask, because it’s going to be weighing heavily on me. It was an accident, and though it wasn’t a big deal to me, I think it was to him. The last thing I want is to make someone feel uncomfortable, especially considering it’s my job to do just the opposite and make them comfortable.
“He was dating some guy named Peter for a few years.” As soon as he says it, things start fitting into place. Peter and Gary. I’ve heard people talking about them at the Midtown Flex—the best place to nab a few tricks and catch up on the latest local scandals. Still, I let Jacob confirm what I’ve been told. “Gary found out Peter had been cheating on him with some guy in North Tower. They were fucking behind his back for years. He kicked Peter out and Peter moved in with the guy. I didn’t know him before, but he doesn’t seem like he’s ever been a real confident guy. That obviously didn’t help.”
Oh fuck. I didn’t realize it had been years. That has to be shitty, especially when everyone in the damn building probably knows his business, and he has to worry about seeing Peter around. You can’t trust anyone. That’s exactly one of the reasons my ass will never give someone power over me like he did.
Still, I tell myself I’ll make a point to find Gary to apologize again. Then my hangover wins, and I pass out.
***
When I wake up later, Jacob is knocked out in bed beside me, so I try to be quiet as I rummage around for my clothes. I find them, pull them on, and make it to the door of his bedroom before he says, “Thanks, man. I had a good time. It’s a shame Gary didn’t at least get a blowjob out of the morning. You have a magic fucking mouth.”
“So I’ve heard,” I tell him. I’m good at sucking dick, and I take pride in it.
Jacob laughs and then I make my way out of his room. It was a fun hookup. We both got what we were looking for, so it’ll end there.
Derek isn’t on the couch when I get to the living room. Something tells me Gary is gone too, but still, I go to his room and knock. When he doesn’t answer, I leave their condo and take the elevator to the seventh floor, where I can cut across the pool level to get to North Tower. There, I jump on the elevator again and head for my floor.
I really want to walk my ass to the gym and exercise, but I have some work I need to do before my meeting tomorrow with an investor I hope will decide I’m worth dishing money out on.
I love what I do—fucking love it—but traveling around to people’s homes to give them massages is getting old. There’s nothing I want more than to have my own space—a place where people can come to me.
I’d tried like hell to do it on my own, but money doesn’t come easy. Cash is one of the things my parents held over my head when I got caught just before I took a really nice cock at twenty-one—in my own apartment, I might add. As Mom had told me, they paid for it, which made it theirs. And when they realized I was gay and tired of hiding it, of trying to do everything to make them proud, they reminded me they had a lot of money to give me. That if I didn’t do what was right, then they would have nothing to do with me and I’d never be able to do it on my own.
Fuck what they think is right.
Fuck living your life for someone else.
Fuck not doing what you want and not being damn proud of the person you are.
That’s what I took from the moment, and I’ve been living my life that way ever since.
Only they were right about some of it because here I am asking for someone’s help, which means even if it’s mine, it won’t fully be mine—the same way my apartment at twenty-one wasn’t.
It’s just a logical step, I tell myself. You have to do what you have to do, and I’ll be damned if I let them believe they were right about me. It might be taking me a whole lot longer to get my shit together than I planned, but I’m doing it on my terms, and my way, and that’s all that matters.
3
Gary
“Nice work ditching me with the hottie this morning, asshole,” I say to Derek as I step onto the treadmill beside the one he’s running on.
I can’t believe he did that to me. Travis is hot as fuck, and if I’d run into him in a bar, I would have been fortunate to hook up with him. But he wasn’t in my condo to fuck me. He was there to fuck Jacob. And considering how awkward I was, if there was ever a chance of anything happening between us, I’ve killed it. Murdered it violently.
Derek turns to me, beaming. He hasn’t broken a sweat yet, so I don’t figure he’s been here long.
This morning, he left without any word other than a text that read: Gym. 2.
I typically work out at the fitness center in our condo building. Not as crowded and I don’t have to worry about getting cruised. I only started frequenting the popular gym again because Derek thinks it’s a necessary part of my assimilation back into the world of gay singledom. I tried to convince him I’m not ready to work out at the Midtown Flex, where I’m surrounded by muscle-bound Adonises.
“It’ll motivate you,” Derek kept saying when he first dragged me here the other day. Yeah, motivate me to sit on the couch and spend the rest of my life eating pasta and cheesecake, since no amount of exercise will ever make me look like one of these muscle-bound gym rats.
“I heard you talking to him when he left my room,” I add. “So, you must’ve dashed out of there real fast because you knew I was gonna beat the shit out of you when I came out.”
<
br /> “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, shifting his eyes about as he wears a guilty expression.
“And I noticed you didn’t respond to any of my messages,” I say as I hit the button on the machine and program a mild three-mile-per-hour powerwalk.
“I had a date.” When Derek says date, he means he met up with some guy on Scruff, and the guy tossed him around in bed for a few hours. If not a bed, a car, a bathroom stall, a cluster of trees on the side of the road—any place that would offer the flimsiest amount of privacy. “It was good, but I doubt it was as good as the beefcake you hit the sack with.”
“We didn’t do anything.”
“Why not?” He gives me a judgmental look—one that reminds me of how my parents used to look at my sister whenever she’d get into trouble, the sort of look I’ve always dreaded them turning on me if they found out I was gay.
I glance around and lean toward him, whispering, “In what universe do you think if you send a hot guy into my bedroom, we’re magically going to have sex?”
“The universe of mortals,” he replies without even thinking about it. “He walked to the bathroom butt-naked. Or should I say, cock-naked, because damn. Damn.”
I notice a few people looking our way. The guy on the treadmill on the other side of Derek, beefy with his iPod earphones in, eyes us, looking more interested than annoyed.
Derek continues, “How did you see that ginormous corndog and not mouth-worship the meat right out of it?”
“How are we even friends?”
He turns to me and runs the back of his hand down the side of his face. “Because you think I’m pretty. Plus, you’re the only guy who can repair my PC whenever I’ve bogged it down with porn and nude selfies. And I’m the only hair stylist in the city who’s willing to work around your cowlick.”
I pick up the speed on my machine, starting into a light jog.
“Fine. Next time, I won’t send you a beautiful cock of the gods,” Derek says. “If I’d been smart, I would have gotten down on my knees and blown that thing myself. Somebody’s gotta do it.”
“You’re such a trooper.”
“The guy knew your name, for Christ’s sake.”
“He called me Garrett.”
“You should feel blessed a guy that hot, who you’ve never met before, almost knew your name. You’re so ungrateful. Whatever. So, what are you wearing to the Second Chances pool party tomorrow?”
Second Chances, a major nonprofit organization, hosts a variety of fundraisers throughout the year to raise money to house people affected by HIV and AIDS. It’s a great cause, but Peter’s on the board.
“I told you I’m not going,” I reply.
“You have to go! You have to show him that his asshole behavior isn’t going to keep you from being at one of the hottest pool parties of the summer. Plus, you have to show every other guy who’ll be there what you look like in a speedo.”
“I look terrible in a speedo.”
“You know what doesn’t look terrible in a speedo, Gary? Your dick. And that’s all anyone’ll care about. Okay, your ass also, but you’ve got that covered pretty well. Not saying you should skimp on the squats, but you’ll be fine for tomorrow.”
I want to refuse to go, but there’s no point fighting Derek. He’s already made up his mind, and he’s right. I can’t spend my life hiding from Peter and Evan. A successful prosecuting attorney, Peter is an incredibly active member of several boards for a variety of LGBT causes. On top of that, since most of my life as an out, gay man has been spent in Atlanta with him, we also share a lot of the same friends, meaning the only way I could possibly avoid him would be to become a hermit—something I was tempted to do when I discovered what he was doing with Evan.
I take a breath and pick up speed on the treadmill so I’m jogging a little faster. Derek and I build into an intense run. When the treadmill really gets moving, I find negative affirmations are the best way to keep me going, reminding myself: You’re a failure. You’re disgusting. Keep going if you ever want anyone to like you.
It’s how I’ve always approached working out. I’ve never strived to look like one of the guys at this gym. I don’t need to look like a model. In fact, I’d rather not. It’s a thin line I’ve always treaded. Never wanted to look out of shape enough that people would think I was lazy, but never so fit they’d call attention to my body.
When I was little, I didn’t ask for attention. I think a part of it had to do with my troublemaker older sister, who was always getting primarily negative attention. While my parents scolded her for everything from bad grades to destruction of property, I lay low. I didn’t swing the other way like some people might have done. No, I didn’t need them to praise me. In fact, I think I was afraid if they ever did praise me, it might set me up to disappoint them. But if their expectations were always average, I never had to worry about upsetting them. I could keep them happy, and they’d never have a reason to fuss at me.
That’s why I never came out to them. That would have disrupted the normal image I’d worked so hard to create.
Normal’s still all I want to be. A normal guy who blends in and never has any attention called to him for any reason, which has only amplified all the shit that went down with Peter and Evan because it’s called so much attention to me. Made people notice me and point to me as they tell the story of what went down…or their version of the story, at least. Of how long he was seeing Evan. How stupid I was for not knowing anything was going on.
I had to be stupid to believe he was being honest with me every time he said he was heading to the gym, or to the office, or to meet with a client…when really, he was sneaking over to a unit directly across from me. A unit where he and Evan could have fucked while watching me work on my computer in the bedroom.
When Derek and I finish breaking our sweats, we hit the showers. As I’m about to get out, I realize I didn’t grab my towel from the locker room.
Shit.
Most of the guys I know aren’t shy about their bodies. Peter and Derek have never given any shits about being naked at the gym, but it’s something I’m still self-conscious about. I can put on the act like I don’t care, but I’d rather not walk around, displaying my junk like I did with Travis this morning.
Plenty of guys walk around showing their dicks at the gym.
I walk out and act casual as I pass a few guys on the way into the locker room.
My face has to be bright red right now because my cheeks are on fire, but I keep playing it cool.
When I reach my locker, I open it and retrieve my towel.
I notice someone within my periphery looking at me.
I instinctually turn and see Evan a few lockers down. Fully clothed, his duffle bag at his side, he nods to me politely.
I play it cool as I wrap my towel around my waist. While he throws his duffle bag in the locker, I pretend to keep busy with my bag until he leaves.
My cheeks tremble. My eyes water.
I’m glad I was able to keep my shit together while he was here.
I’ve run into him a few times since it’s happened. At the grocery store. At the gym. At the bar. It has to happen because we live so close to each other and run in the same circles, but considering how little time has passed, it’s still a lot for me to handle.
I wish I could crawl into this locker and cry. But I have to keep it together. There’s nowhere to run.
“Hey, Gary,” I hear someone say behind me.
I turn and see a guy I run into occasionally at the bars. I smile and wave. He’s always nice whenever we chat, but for some reason, right now, I can’t for the life of me remember his name. And it’s killing me having to smile and act like everything’s fine when I want to curl up on the floor and burst into tears.
“Hey, man. Good seeing you,” I say.
Just keep it together. Keep your shit together, Gary.
After Derek finishes showering up, we walk back to Metropolis together. When I get back
to my unit, I hurry into my room and close the door, my chin quivering and my eyebrows twitching violently before I totally lose it and burst into a fit of tears. I fold my arms as I collapse onto the bed.
I can’t. I can’t do this.
It’s a thought I’ve had a lot since I discovered the truth. It’s so hard to face the world when it seems like everyone, especially Evan and Peter, is laughing at me.
But Derek’s right. I have to get back out there. I can’t hide from the world, tempting as that may be.
4
Travis
I’m nervous as hell. I don’t usually let shit get to me, but right now, it is. Every time I sit down, my leg starts bouncing like I’m a dog and getting a really good scratch. When I stand up, I can’t stop pacing the fucking room. It’s incredibly frustrating.
This is my life, though. Sure, I’m not going to lose my business if Steven decides not to front me for my retail space, but it’ll be a giant kick to the balls I’m really not interested in feeling. I like a little pain now and then, but that’s going overboard.
It doesn’t help that the meeting was set for today of all days. You’d think after all these years I wouldn’t give a shit, and in a lot of ways I don’t, but it’s still a crappy situation to be in.
I push off my dark-gray couch for the tenth time in about that many minutes before making my way to the large living room window, my treadmill next to it. South Tower is across the way—a courtyard below, separating it from North. I let my eyes travel up two floors, and I wonder what Gary is doing over there. For some reason, he’s popped into my head a few times since yesterday—probably because I feel like I owe him a sober apology. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I enjoy waking up in beds that aren’t my own after a fun night, but it’s also pretty fucking vital that the man I’m in bed with knows and wants me there.