He shrugged, palms visible, the picture of innocent curiosity. “Yeah. You.”
“There’s not much to tell.” I hoped this wasn’t going to be the way of it every time Gary and Gemma had a night out. Steven probing me, but not in the way I’d like him to. He may have wanked me off on his first night here a week or two back, but getting into my pants didn’t mean he had to attempt to get into my head. “You know what Gary says about me. I’m a computer geek. I have no social life. Hell, I’m anti- social, and…” I shrugged as best I could in my near-recumbent position. “That’s about it.”
“Kit.”
“My name’s Christopher Blackman. I’m twenty-seven years old—” I began, echoing his reluctant confession in the bedroom on his first night here.
“You’re gay and you don’t have your hand on my cock?” Steven concluded, proving he remembered at least some of what had occurred in detail.
Me? I remembered all of it. Every last second. Every word. Every stroke.
I shifted on the settee, wishing the now-empty bowl was a pillow. A folded coat.
Anything that stood a chance of hiding how well I remembered the other evening. “Well, no.” I cleared my throat, straightened and sat the bowl on the table, hoping my posture prevented Steven seeing the effect such a reminder of the other night—as if I needed one—had on me. Not that he’d be looking there of course.
“I was only joking.” His close-lipped smile, almost a smirk, made it clear he’d got the better of me and knew it. Casually insert the memory of that hand-job into Kit’s head again and carry on like I never said a word. He paced slowly from the window to the other side of the room. Turned, set a course for the window again. “Not asking for your life story. Just small talk. You kept remarking on the fact we don’t really know each other, after all. You know, before I—”
“Yes, “ I put in. “I know that. Thank you. I wasn’t…” It hadn’t been my way of trying to get to know him. I’d been trying to tell him how crazy it was, how we shouldn’t have…he shouldn’t have… But he did. He’d touched me but that didn’t mean we had to be all intimate about it. “And I don’t have that much to say about myself.” Parents still alive. I was out to them and everyone else. A younger brother. One or two exes I did my best to avoid and that was it. Not much to show for twenty-seven years.
“There must be something interesting about you.”
“Nope. I’m entirely boring.”
Steven stopped in his pacing back and forth, looked down at me and huffed out a breath. Half acknowledgement of my words, half amusement, I suspected. And he continued pacing. “You an only child?”
“Nope.”
“Well?”
“Well what?” I met his gaze and sighed heavily. “A brother. James. He lives with his girlfriend, Sarah, and their little boy, Sam.”
“Oh my God—you’re an uncle? “
Even from this distance, which was admittedly only a few feet, I noticed how brightly his eyes sparkled. “Yes. I’m an uncle.”
“That is—”
“Don’t you dare say cute.”
“I wasn’t gonna. Tiff calls everything ‘totes adorbz’; maybe that—”
“If you ever call me ‘totes adorbz’, I will rip your face off, Kenton.”
“I wouldn’t dare.” Steven held up his hands in a parody of surrender as he wandered over to the living room bookcase, but the grin spoilt the effect of subdued contrition he’d no doubt been aiming for. We used the bookcase for DVDs and CDs as well as books. Anything that migrated to another room without having the decency to be labelled or have its ownership clearly marked ended up there. It was the lost property office of Casa Blackman, Lacey and Kenton. He was probably pretending to be absorbed in the paperbacks’ spines.
After a few seconds of acting, he looked over his shoulder.
“What? What? Oh, is this where I’m expected to ask about your family?”
“One would assume it was the polite thing to do.”
“Fine. “ I drew out the monosyllabic word for as long as possible, making it an agonised breath. “Tell me about your family.” I focused on the television, or tried to. Just so I didn’t have to look at him.
“…just Tiff. Our dad’s not around anymore but we still see Mum regular—Kit, are you—”
“Mmm, I’m listening.”
“What did I just say then?”
“Tiffany’s your only sibling and you still see your mother.”
“Right, and when we were kids, we were kidnapped by aliens. They sucked our brains out through a straw, and now I’m gay and she’s dating two guys who know about each other.”
“What?”
“Actually, that part’s true.”
“You had your brains sucked out-”
“No, you dipshit. The fact Tiff’s seeing two guys. Isaac and Jason. They know about each other. Very modern and avant garde. Our mother’s so proud. I’m gay and she’s a slut.”
“Your mother’s a—”
“No, my mother is not a slut. Jesus, Blackman, do you ever listen to a word I say?”
“Sorry. So.” I shifted in my seat, trying to pay attention. “You were saying. Tiffany’s a slut?”
“Yes.” Steven nodded, apparently grateful for my attention. Tiffany is the whore in the Kenton family. Our mother is an angel.”
“I’m sure she is,” I muttered, wondering what the point was of all this small talk.
When Steven started pacing again, I settled, relieved, but he made sure he got in my way, slowing when in front of the television.
“Steven.” But it wasn’t a call for his attention, though he sure had mine. I tried to inject as much admonition into my tone as possible, but that wasn’t very much and I sounded whinier than I would have cared to admit.
“What?” He stopped, hands in pockets, drawing my attention to the bulge in his jeans.
Most of which was probably his hands displacing the fabric.
Not that I was looking.
“Oh,” he continued, stepping out of the way of the television. “I’m blocking your view?”
“View’s fine,” I muttered, not meeting his eyes. I didn’t
