“I…” I realised my hand was still moving. I didn’t want to stop and his hand still covered mine. “I needed that.”
“You’re not the only one.” He laughed. “How’s your head now?”
“Which one?”
“Dirty bastard. Christ.” Still finding it difficult to breathe—I felt his heart rate against my bare chest, nearly as rapid as mine—he looked down at our hot, wet, sticky hands. “I’ve got cum on my fucking shirt. I need to get changed before I go back to work.” He caught my eye before looking down again and lacing his fingers through mine, not giving a damn about the mess we were in.
“Really? You don’t think it would be a good idea to show up at the office with cum stains on your shirt?”
“You’re one classy bastard, Blackman, you know that?”
“Hey, I’m not the one who came back home in the middle of the day to wank off my housemate.”
“You make it sound so sleazy.”
“And it was an entirely mutual thing.”
“Which is what made it so hot. And sleazy.” He grinned, finally disentangling his fingers from mine and falling onto his back.
I pulled my shorts off completely and used them to wipe myself sort of clean. “That sure beats lying in bed feeling sorry for myself.”
“You, sorry for yourself?” He turned his head on the pillow and a tangle of curls fell in front of his eyes. He did nothing to move them out of the way.
“Hey, I’m an invalid. Or was.”
“Better now?”
“All better.” I stared up at the ceiling. As cold as it seemed at the time, I wondered when Steven would get up and go change, return to work. Not that I exactly wanted him to leave, but something about the situation made me uncomfortable. It had been a long time since I wanted someone this much. “Mostly. Still tired, but…” I looked at him again. That tangle of curls still fell across his face. I threw my shorts aside and reached over to brush his hair out of his eyes. They widened as I did so and I wanted to lift my hand away.
Steven must have felt the tension as I thought about breaking contact and he caught my hand in his own. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
He didn’t say anything for the longest time, just looked at me and it was obvious I’d look away first. Maybe our eyes had only met for a few seconds but they were the longest few seconds of my life. I turned away, and the mood broke. It was strange, that combined feeling of relief and something.
“I’d better go and get cleaned up, then.” Steven let my hand go and I didn’t even have time to let it fall back to the pillow before he was sitting, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
Well, yeah, I was relieved. I couldn’t name the other ingredient in the cocktail, though.
Not until Steven picked up his shoes, illustrating his hurry to leave the room again.
Ah. There it was. Disappointment.
Chapter Nine
‘Awkward’ wasn’t the right word to describe the atmosphere between us after that.
‘Shifty’ wasn’t quite right either, although we made an effort to look like we completely hadn’t ever wanked each other off, never in this lifetime, whenever we were in Gary’s presence.
I had the feeling I’d done something wrong, and this itch in my conscience wouldn’t leave me alone. If I’d offended Steven in some way—and surely it was his duty to inform me if I had—I couldn’t imagine how. Two gay guys wanking each other off. Big fat fucking deal.
Yet that persistent feeling of what’s wrong with this picture remained.
So did Steven. He still lived in the same house as me, so we had to deal with each other.
On the surface we did just that. We were polite. Civil. Strained. Ostensibly, we spoke about paying the bills, shopping, what to watch on television, even including Gary the third wheel in these verbal parries. Underneath it all, each “Anyone fancy a coffee?” translated as
“Have I pissed you off?” The undercurrents below every “Got any other DVDs to watch?”
whispered “I’m not going to tell you.”
I shrugged it off after a while. The refractory period of our flirtation had passed and I was back to normal now and ready to fuck the world.
Every so often I’d catch Steven’s eye and the corner of his mouth would twitch, like the nanosecond before speech came, but in those moments he said not a word. It was, I felt certain, simply because in those moments he held all the power. I wanted him to speak. I wanted him to give me something and because of this, he didn’t. Two grown men staring each other out.
I blinked first.
Though there were three of us sharing the house, there were still plenty of opportunities for private conversation wherein the third party melted away to a night down the pub, faded to an evening with friends, hovered in the middle ground while shopping for beer, chocolate biscuits and a curry.
On just such an occasion I gave Gary ten minutes to distance himself from the house and near the local supermarket, and Steven the same length of time to do whatever he was doing upstairs. I’d hoped to grab him in the kitchen—metaphorically—but the nerves which had up until now silenced me kept me mute until he’d vacated the ground floor.
Climbing the stairs, I tried to ignore the symbolism of me seeking him out upstairs, where the bedrooms were. In the end I put it down to chance having a sick sense of humour.
Or me, having a rubbish sense of timing.
Yeah, it was more likely to be my fault.
“Steven?” A sign of life had reached me from across the hallway, the thunk of something being settled on a shelf. No music played in the background to confuse me; the click of a cabinet door being closed came to me sharp, decisive and clear.
“Yeah?” His voice came from the bathroom and as he spoke, a wisp of steam drifted across
