“How is your weekend going?” Jaime’s voice was all warm and friendly, but it never reached his eyes.
Tyler wasn’t sure how to respond at first, but he figured small talk was at least talking.
“Good. How about you?”
“Can’t complain.”
The awkward silence was even worse than the forced casual conversation.
“I should get going.” Jaime looked around as if trying to pick the quickest route out of the grocery store.
Tyler sighed. Nothing he wanted to say to Jaime made it further than the tip of his tongue.
“Can I talk to you?” The middle of the local grocery store was not where Tyler wanted to have this conversation, but he knew getting Jaime alone wasn’t going to be easy. Jaime seemed intent on keeping as much distance between them as he could. “In private?”
Jaime frowned, his eyes finally finding Tyler’s. They bore an unspoken challenge that dared Tyler to say what was on his mind right there in public.
“I’m kind of busy today,” Jaime said.
“This won’t take long.” Tyler swallowed his nervousness. This might be his only chance to clear the air. “I just wanted to make sure you were coming to class on Monday.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Jaime’s reply was sharp and brittle. “I really should be going.”
As Jaime started to step around Tyler, Tyler moved quickly to block Jaime’s escape.
“Jaime, please.” Tyler was starting to feel like he’d made a mistake he couldn’t fix.
“What?” Jaime folded his arms over his chest as if he needed to protect himself from Tyler.
Tyler took a deep breath. As hard as it was for Tyler to talk to Jaime, he had a responsibility to make things right.
“I just want to tell you that you are a valued student,” Tyler spoke quickly before his nerve vanished or Jaime called the security guard. “I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable in class, just because we were, ah, friendly outside of class.”
“Friendly?” Jaime repeated the word with a different emphasis from what Tyler had intended.
He felt as if the entire store was listening to their conversation. When a young woman with a cart filled with three small children shouting out their demands for a sugary cereal moved past, Tyler pretended to find the nearest box of whole grain granola infinitely interesting.
“Is that it?” Jaime asked. “Is there anything else you want to talk about?”
What could he say? Anything that involved actually talking about what went on between them would be like shining a spotlight on Tyler’s secret desires. He had just gotten used to having them. He wasn’t ready to share them with the world now, if ever. It was a phase, an experiment, not something Tyler would let define him. Sure he’d enjoyed the feel of Jaime’s soft lips enveloping him. The thought had inspired a new fantasy every night that made his body ache with fresh desire and demands for a release only Jaime could give him.
“No, nothing.” Tyler sighed. “I just hope to see you in class Monday. We could work on some sparring if you wanted to pick up where we left off.”
He felt like an idiot and knew he sounded just as inane.
“I’m sure you’d rather spar with Sempai Randy,” Jaime sniped.
Tyler stared at Jaime with an open mouth. The hostility in Jaime’s voice surprised him enough that he could only watch Jaime walk away without a single word of protest.
* * * *
Since karate class last Wednesday, Jaime had been doing a spectacular job of putting Tyler out of his mind. He’d cleaned his apartment. He’d gone for a jog. He’d gone out on the coveted second date with Tomas. Yet the memory of one blowjob in a parking lot lingered at the back of his brain like a stupid bug that kept smashing into a light bulb.
Worse still was that, after a grueling, yet enjoyable hike with Tomas and a picnic with a spectacular ocean view, Jaime had hesitated when Tomas had gone in for a kiss.
Instead of ending their second date getting to know each other on a physical level, Jaime had pulled the let’s take this slow card. He couldn’t believe the words even as they came out of his mouth. Tomas had nodded in agreement, but he had looked disappointed. Jaime tried to rationalize that taking it slow was, of course, the sanest thing to do, given his track record. But he knew the real reason he’d put the brakes on and it had nothing to do with thinking about the long term. Maybe he just wasn’t capable of anything more than a physical relationship.
So Jaime was back to square one of not thinking about the one thing he couldn’t stop thinking about. Of course he would run into Tyler at the grocery store and Tyler wanted to talk.
“Is that it? Is there anything else you want to talk about?” Jaime asked when Tyler had finished his bumbling attempt at what? An apology? A pep talk to make sure he didn’t quit the dojo?
Jaime was angry enough to actually consider taking a swing at the guy. If they weren’t in the middle of a grocery store and Jaime wasn’t afraid it would end in a sparring match he’d enjoy, he might just have taken a shot. Tyler looked confused enough to let the first punch slip by.
Instead, Jaime’s parting shot was a snarky comment about Tyler preferring to spar with Randy, which left Tyler stunned enough that he didn’t even move as Jaime walked past him.
* * * *
After encountering Jaime, the rest of Tyler’s shopping was accomplished in record time. He was determined to get the hell out of the store as soon as he could. Considering how determined Jaime seemed to be to get as far away from Tyler as possible, the likelihood of them running into each other again was slim. Yet Tyler still felt like nothing between them was
