ConvenientStrangers (2 page)

“That’s always a mess. Sorry.”

A shrug. “Life’s a mess. This is just par for the course.”

Adam nodded, glad he was over that stage with his ex—the
fallout, the freshly flayed skin. And given this was his first night out since
the breakup, it was only fitting therapy that he run into
this
guy, have
this
conversation. That he felt like,
yes, this happens to all of us
.
Dust yourself off and climb back onto the saddle, or whatever metaphor got you
over yourself.

“You fancy that game you offered earlier?” Stephen asked
after a few minutes’ silence.

“Sure. I suck at pool though.”

“That’s perfect. I suck at losing.”

They rose and grabbed their beers. “Not a Lady Gaga fan?”
Adam asked as they selected cues. The tease earned him exactly what he’d been
hoping for from Stephen—a mean, playful glare.

“You break,” Adam said as he crouched to fill the slots with
quarters. Balls tumbled and clacked and he racked them, relieved to do a
smart-looking job of it in front of this manly stranger. He rolled the cue ball
across the felt and stepped back to sip his beer while Stephen broke.
Crack-click
,
and balls went everywhere, a stripe disappearing down a side pocket, solid in a
corner.

Stephen eyed the lay of the table a moment. “Solids.”

He sank a couple balls in a row before Adam got a chance to
humiliate himself. But as he sized up his situation, he noted that several
stripes were within blowing distance of pockets. “You handicapping yourself?”
he asked Stephen.

A noncommittal shrug answered him.

“Not that I’m complaining,” Adam added, and dropped a
stripe, then another.

“You don’t suck
so
badly,” Stephen said, as Adam
lined up a harder shot. He nearly got it but scratched. “Take that back—maybe
you do.”

Adam grinned, suddenly far more interested in being taunted
than impressing this guy with his nonexistent pool shark skills. It was
probably just the alcohol’s doing, but he felt as if they were engaged in a
mating dance, circling the table, passing one another, each shot some attempt
to impress. So much bending over and chalking of one’s stick, so many balls and
holes and other juvenile, low-hanging double entendres.

Self-handicapped or not, Stephen sank the eight with four of
Adam’s stripes still languishing on the felt. They shook hands, and Adam toyed
with asking for a rematch. It’d keep Stephen’s body within ten feet of his for
a little while longer, a strong enticement.

“I’d try to redeem myself,” he offered, “but I’m out of
quarters.”

“Lost cause,” Stephen said with a smile, taking Adam’s cue
and putting it away, along with his.

“True.” Adam picked up his glass and, to his great pleasure,
Stephen did the same, resting an elbow on the high ledge that ran along the
wall, clearly content to loiter and chat.
Well, well.

Adam tore his gaze off Stephen’s arm and directed it at his
stern face. Strong nose, bedroom eyes. David had been such a studious shaver,
and Adam wondered how Stephen’s two days’ worth of stubble would feel against
his own chin.

“So, where in England are you from?”

“I grew up in the North, but escaped to London when I was
twenty-two. And you’re from around here?”

Adam nodded. “Small town, twenty miles outside the city.
Nice place. You know, if you’re into football and Jesus and pussy.”

Stephen laughed, the sexiest noise Adam had ever heard.

“Which I’m not,” Adam went on. “No offense to Jesus. Well,
actually, plenty of offense to Him. He never answered my prayers in junior high
and made me straight, so fuck Him, too.”

“I’m sure He fancies you just fine gay,” Stephen offered.

“That’s not what my parents seemed to think, at first.”

“Maybe He just fancied torturing you, then.”

“Sounds about right. But whatever. My dad’s driving around
with an equals-sign sticker on his tailgate now.
And
I survived high
school without a single actual lynching from the football team.”

“I’m sure there’s plenty of porn to that effect, if you’re
feeling left out of the experience.”

Adam laughed. “Think I’ll pass. Nothing about my upbringing
strikes me as particularly erotic. Certainly not football players. Rugby
though,” he said, faking deep pensiveness. “
That
I could probably get
behind.”

Stephen tapped his glass to Adam’s in agreement.

“What about you?” Adam asked between sips of beer. “Who are
you into?”

“Men. Gay men.”

“Well, that’s a broad range. Like, more femme guys, or—”

“Just gay blokes. I’m not choosy.”

Adam felt a couple of things—excited, because he happened to
be such a thing, but also a bit let down, since it apparently took so very
little to qualify as doable in Stephen’s rather hefty and inclusive book.

“When was the last time you kissed a guy?” Stephen asked. “A
guy aside from your ex, I mean. A first kiss with someone.”

“Ooh. Probably nine months, or close to it. You?”

Stephen lowered his head, seeming to study Adam’s shoes or
the floor. “Two and a half years, almost.”

“Wow. You were together a long time, you and your ex.”

“Sort of. Together a year in London, then long distance for
six months, then together here for ten.”

“But you didn’t mess around with other people the whole six
months you were apart? Or even kiss anyone?”

He shook his head. “Not my idea, but I thought I loved him.
Or I
did
love him at the time, so I went along with it. Plus it was that
idiot kind of love, where you really don’t fancy kissing anyone else.” He shook
his head, as though he couldn’t believe he’d ever suffered from such a
frightening condition.

“It must have been special, if you moved here for him.”

Stephen shrugged. “I thought it was.”

Sipping his beer, Adam wished he didn’t feel let down by the
conversation. He wasn’t in the market for anything serious, so what did he care
if this guy was clearly still hung up on his ex?

“I don’t really feel like chatting about all that,” Stephen
said.

“Sure, understood.” Adam’s collar felt tight when Stephen
took a step closer.

“Actually,” the man said, “I came here looking to put all
that out of my head.”

“Oh. Good for you.”

Another step and they were practically toe-to-toe, Adam’s
back pinned to the ledge.
Mercy.

“And to remember what it’s like to kiss other men, after all
that time,” Stephen murmured, so close Adam could catch each word and the
intention behind it.

“I see.”

“Is that completely insulting?” Stephen asked, near enough
for Adam to feel his warm breath and to know exactly what he’d taste of.
Dire
Wolf.

“Insulting?”

“That I’m basically looking to cleanse my palate with
somebody.” As Stephen said “somebody”, his gaze dropped demonstrably from
Adam’s face to his middle and back up again. Adam felt very,
very
pleasantly targeted. He angled his arm awkwardly to set his beer farther along
the ledge. He stared at Stephen’s mouth, an inch or so above his own, just
enough to make him feel smaller—a welcome sensation that he’d missed after all
those months with David. He felt the toe of Stephen’s boot butt his shoe.

“Should I be insulted?” Adam asked.

“Up to you.”

Adam swallowed. He’d gotten hot and heavy in this bar plenty
of times but never on such a quiet night. Still, he wanted to get ravaged far
more than he wanted to avoid being the most gawk-worthy spectacle in the joint.

“I don’t mind being insulted.” Not by this man. This man
could demand far more demeaning things of Adam and he’d acquiesce, eagerly.

Stephen pressed his face to Adam’s neck and took a deep,
harsh breath. “Fuck, you smell good.”

The change in this stranger was abrupt, as if a cork had
popped to let pent-up urges escape. Adam felt tipsy. He stroked the soft
bristle of Stephen’s hair. “Thanks.”

“What is that?”

“Aftershave, probably.”

Another breath, a drag off Adam’s skin. “You smell like
winter. Like Christmas.”

“I think that’s cedar.” Adam didn’t care, frankly. Whatever
kept this gorgeous man’s face close was fine by him. When Stephen planted both
hands on the wall behind Adam, arms bracketing his shoulders, Adam forgave God
for all those unanswered prayers he’d issued twenty years earlier. This moment
made up for it. Utterly.

Adam cleared his throat and managed to mutter, “Two and a
half years, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a long time.”

“You have no bloody idea.” Stephen pulled his head away an
inch or two, enough that they could stare each other straight in the eyes. Adam
swallowed again. Stephen’s gaze dropped and for perhaps four seconds, he seemed
hesitant. Reality blinked out as their lips brushed, the world reduced to the
heat of skin, the brush of stubble, the weight of the hot hand suddenly cupping
the nape of Adam’s neck. He tilted his jaw, welcoming whatever Stephen wanted.

The kiss was rough, deep and dirty, straight out of the
gate. As if their mouths were fighting, or hate-fucking. Then something odd
happened—it calmed and slowed. Adam felt more than just the hot intrusion of
Stephen’s tongue, but its actual strokes, explicit and exploratory. Even sweet.
He listened to their flaring breaths, blood warming at the feeling of this
stranger’s rough, broad palm on his neck. Before he knew it, there was no
tongue at all, only curious nips of teeth and lips, the brush of noses and
chins.

Excitement turned to ease, and ease to nothingness as they
broke apart, eyes locking. The bar rematerialized around them.

“You feel like getting out of here?” Stephen asked.

It was forward. Awfully forward. Probably an awfully awful
idea as well, but fuck it. Adam could text a friend that he was leaving with
somebody, and hope that if his body turned up mutilated the next morning, at
least the murder would happen
after
the ill-advised sex. And hopefully
the sex would be wholly worth getting mutilated over.

He nodded. “Sure.”

Chapter Three

“It’ll have to be yours,” Stephen said as he held the door
open for Adam.

“That’s fine. I’m only six blocks away.” Six blocks that
would feel like forever, Adam knew already.

It was that strange time of year when the outside air was
the same temperature as the inside air. With no breeze, the world felt bizarre,
like one big bar itself, neon signs all along the bustling street, something
vibrant humming just under Adam’s skin. Could be the bourbon or beer, the sheer
intoxication of new attraction. The thrill of being chased or the relief of
knowing he was still worth chasing.

Barely a block from the bar, Stephen’s gait stuttered and he
paused to pull a buzzing phone from his pocket. He hit a button then made a
grim face, gaze zigzagging in the phone’s glow as he read a text.

“Your ex?” Adam asked.

“Yeah.”

“Feel free to reply. I’ll use the opportunity to tell a
friend I’m bringing some weirdo home with me.”

It earned him a little smile, but Stephen shook his head. “I
told him I wasn’t coming back, except to get my stuff tomorrow. He knows not to
expect me.” He held down a button long enough that he had to be switching the
device off for good. The screen went dark and he pocketed it. “But you go ahead
and text your friend. I’m Stephen with a P-H, Rowe with an E. Just make me
sound real unsavory, please.”

Adam laughed, and tapped out a quick message. “Sent.”

They continued their walk.

“So I take it you and your ex didn’t live together,” Stephen
said.

“No. We’d talked it about, but thankfully we both still had
leases. Oh God, how pathetic that my longest relationship didn’t outlast my
lease
.”
He shook his head.

“Not as pathetic as some tales I could tell you.”

“So you’re homeless for the night?” Adam asked.

“Yeah. Speaking of which, I better stop someplace and find a
toothbrush and deodorant, before the shops close.” He scanned the storefronts.

“Oh, I’ve got plenty of spare toothbrushes,” Adam offered.
“Wait. Did that make me sound like a slut?”

Stephen nodded. “Very prepared and hospitable slut.”

“I’ll take it. You’re welcome to crash for the night, if
that wasn’t clear. But if you turn out to be a complete asshole, it’ll be on my
incredibly uncomfortable but stylish couch.”

“Cheers. Beats a motel, anyhow. Though given how friendly I
was when you first approached, I won’t be insulted if you change your mind and
kick me out.”

Adam shrugged. If he had his way, they’d fuck around and
hopefully get off, fall asleep and, at worst, suffer through an awkward cup of
coffee in the morning before bidding one another a nice life.

They strolled the rest of the way in easy enough silence,
the noise and activity of downtown fading behind them as they reached Adam’s
little complex.

“Here I am,” he said, fishing out keys as they reached his
unit.

Stephen took in the row of tidy, bland duplexes. “Nice.”

“It does the job.”

Stephen’s gaze settled on the mailbox. “Adam Weir.”

“That’s me.” He swung the door in and they both pushed off
their shoes on the mat. “Sorry. Whole place is carpeted. In cream. What kind of
masochist thinks this crap up?”

“Probably one with an appreciable investment in a local
rug-cleaning business.”

Adam flipped on the lights and led him up the stairs.

“Very nice,” Stephen repeated. “Oh good. No cheesy framed
prints of naked men,” he added, looking around Adam’s den and adjoining dining
room.

“As much as I’d love to traumatize one of the God-fearing
young mothers on the block who might pop in to try and fix me up with their
single friends, no. Not my style.”

“This the uncomfortable couch?” Stephen asked, and crossed
the room to the black leather modular torture device. He sat and grimaced.
“Bloody hell, what’s this stuffed with? Granite?”

“I know. But it looks great, right?”

“Sounds like some blokes I’ve dated.” Stephen stood and cast
the couch a distrustful glance. “The things we’ll put up with if something
looks
great, eh?”

Adam smiled at that. He was nervous, suddenly. Here they
were in this familiar space, everything as it always was, except for the
six-foot-something exception called Stephen with a P-H.

Offer him a drink, dumbass.

“Would you—” Adam cut himself off when he caught the look on
Stephen’s face. Mean. Focused. Ever so slightly predatory. Adam swallowed.

Stephen stepped closer. “Would I what?”

“Oh, you know. Would you like…anything?”

A curt nod and suddenly they were nose-to-nose. It was too
bright in here, the blinds open and the windows cracked. Adam was thoroughly
out, but he didn’t need to give the churchy neighbors across the street a free
show, or indeed any new reasons to think gays lacked discretion.

Stephen caught Adam’s gaze darting to the windows and left
him to flip the blinds closed. “Better?” he asked, coming back over. He ran a
hand lightly up Adam’s side.

It felt sinful, this contact without explicit permission.
David had been fussy about that kind of stuff, always needing to be asked if he
felt like messing around before Adam made a move. Very protective of his
personal space. Adam, on the other hand, couldn’t understand what mood or
thought a man could be preoccupied with that couldn’t be trumped with an
invitation to fuck around. As long as he wasn’t heading out the door to attend
a funeral, Adam always felt like fucking around.

He gasped—a quiet, laughable little noise as Stephen cupped
his jaw. A rough thumb stroked his cheek as their lips touched. Adam angled his
face as Stephen’s hot palm slid to the back of his head once more, the sexiest
sensation he’d felt in months.

It was messy and rough, hot as hell. Just like at the bar,
they kissed as if there were a prize at stake, as if they were fighting. For
minutes on end, the world was reduced to the slick, firm lap of this man’s
tongue, the smell of his skin, the growl in his throat. Adam stroked Stephen’s
arms. Hard and thick, just how he hoped other parts of his guest would prove.
His pulse took off as Stephen fisted his tee shirt collar, blood flooding
Adam’s cock. They were moving faster than he’d planned, but goddamn, he loved a
mean man. He ran his hands down Stephen’s sides to hold his hips, stroking his
belt, wrapping his fingers around the leather and tugging their bodies close,
crotch grinding crotch.

He slid his hand under Stephen’s shirt, skimmed his palm
over the flattest, hardest set of abs he’d ever felt.

“Jesus, you’re sexy.” Way too eager, he traced the edge of
Stephen’s belt buckle. A strong hand clasped his, gently moving it away.

“Not that I don’t appreciate being invited here,” Stephen
said, then cleared his throat. “But I don’t fuck on the first date.”

Adam adjusted his angry erection, telling it to quit getting
its hopes up. Still, he wasn’t the one who’d started all this by the pool
table, or indeed suggested they leave. Talk about mixed signals.

He smiled dryly, annoyed. “That’s too bad. I usually prefer
to get bent over a barstool and fisted while I’m waiting for the second round
to show up.”

It gave the guy pause and he straightened, nostrils flaring
with a long breath. He shrugged the way a man did when he wasn’t disposed to
actually apologizing. Close enough.

Adam stepped back then crossed to the dining area to pull
out a chair at the table for his moody guest. “Sorry if I was too forward.”

Stephen strolled over, gaze not quite meeting Adam’s. “Yeah,
well. Sorry if I was a presumptuous arsehole just then. I’m not having the best
day ever.”

Adam smirked then offered a kinder, dopier, commiserating
grin. “Your ex really did a number on you, huh?”

Stephen sighed as he took a seat, looking suddenly more
exhausted than angry. “Probably. Fucking closet cases.”

“Ah, I see.” Adam’s body cooled, and he went to a cabinet
and gathered a bottle of good scotch and a pair of rocks glasses. “So all this…
It’s not just that you’ve gone more than two years only kissing the same guy.
More than two years since you’ve been able to be out with a guy, publicly?
Like,
out
with a guy?”

He nodded. “My fault though, really. I let it go on way too
long, telling myself he was going to change. Should’ve ripped the plaster off
ages ago.”

“You must have been serious to have survived all that time,
long-distance,” Adam said, sitting. He’d rather escape into the sex, but maybe
this was good, that they’d met this way, that they were having this
conversation. Free therapy. He poured two modest shots and slid one across the wood.

“Cheers. Funny thing was, we weren’t that serious. Sort of
casual for a year, in London, then he moved back here and we somehow ended up
being official during that time apart. The distance made it feel more…fraught,
maybe. More dramatic.” Stephen took a sip. “Then I moved here to see where we
were going, and now it’s ten months later and he’s no closer to coming out than
when I met him. Wrecked my little star-crossed melodrama, you could say.
Upending my life to hold some coward’s hand wasn’t the deal I signed up for.
And I mean that handholding a bit metaphorically, since he’d never go for that.
Not with witnesses.”

“That sucks. We’ve all dated one of those.”

“We don’t all bloody emigrate for one though.”

Adam smiled, spinning his glass around on the tabletop. “No,
we don’t.”

Stephen cracked his neck, too manly to be allowed. “You ever
been the first guy to bring a closeted guy out? Not all the way out. But you
know—been a guy’s first? The first one to get him to even admit to himself that
he’s gay?”

“Yeah, I have. When I was in college. Kind of scary, like
you’re all they’ve got.”

Stephen smiled, a tight little guilty gesture. “Not to me,
it wasn’t.”

“No?”

“That had me so fucking hot, knowing I was the only man this
bloke was willing to do shit with.” He shook his head, as if the mere thought
of it overwhelmed him.

“Ah. I could see how that might have an appeal.” Especially
to a dominant, controlling type, Adam’s own kryptonite, for better or worse.
Maybe the guy could use a whipping boy, to hate-fuck all his anger out on. What
a terrible, ingenious notion.

“It let me put up with him being closeted for ages, because
at first there was something about that, knowing I had him wanting things he
was scared of, you know?”

Adam nodded.

“Felt good, to me anyhow, knowing he felt filthy about the
whole thing. Taboo and all that. Dirty. Then you start caring about somebody,
properly caring…”

“Yeah, I know. Then
you
start feeling filthy. Like
what’s wrong with you, that this person’s so ashamed to admit who you really
are to them, to the people whose opinions they seem to care more about than
yours. Coworkers and neighbors.”

Stephen thumped a fist softly on the table. “Nail on the
head. I don’t need the guy I’m seeing to be out marching in every parade that
passes by. If he doesn’t want his coworkers knowing, I can accept that. Some
divisions are valid, like some people don’t need to know who you fuck when you
clock out at the end of the day. But
something
. Some sign you’re okay
with who you are. I mean, if you resent yourself because you’re fucking me, I
can’t help but think you must resent
me
.”

“I hear you.”

“Like, I fuck the shit out of you, wake up with you every
morning, move my bloody life across the ocean for you. But you care more about
what your elderly aunties think, and when do you see them? Once a year, tops?
Fucking coward.”

“We all get to deal with it in our own ways. In our own
time.”

“Well, his time wasn’t fast enough for me. ‘Never’ wasn’t
soon enough to stick around waiting for.”

“No, of course not. And who knows—maybe your leaving will be
his wake-up call. He lost a good thing, staying in the closet. Maybe that’s
what it’ll take for him.”

Stephen sipped his whiskey. “Not holding my breath.”

Fine by Adam. He’d be lying if he told himself he was above
being somebody’s rebound. Just what he needed, in fact, to launch himself back
into the wonderful world of casual sex, post-romantic implosion. Though Stephen
was right to hit the brakes—they didn’t need to screw tonight. In fact, they
really shouldn’t. But get Adam’s sheets nice and messed up, give him some good
memories to jerk off to, to make bedtime feel less lonely. Cleanse
his
palate.

“It’s odd,” Stephen said slowly, “how you can be with a
bloke for months, for
years
, then the second you break up with them,
properly break up with them… It’s like, what pills did somebody slip me, that I
ever thought that was what I wanted?”

Adam nodded. “The rose-tinted glasses are off.”

“Must be the fucking sex that does it—tints them in the
first place.”

“True.”

“The glasses have been off for a while, but I turned my life
so inside out, I couldn’t just give up on trying to make things work. Which is
mad, because I was never one of those people who think a relationship should be
work
, you know? Like, if it feels like work, you probably picked the
wrong bloke.”

Adam nodded. “I think there’s something to be said for both
schools of thought. But right now, I’m firmly in your camp.”

Stephen downed the last of his shot and sighed, rolling his
head back. He dropped his chin and looked Adam square in the face. His eyes
were blue—dark blue, not clear and bright. A storm, not a summer’s day. “Sorry.
You were nice enough to invite me back here to screw around, and I’m dumping
all this on you like you’re my bloody analyst.”

“It’s my therapy, too. I’m still on the rebound from my ex,
for better or worse. Probably worse, since it’s been most of a month, not…” He
checked his watch. “Seven hours, like some people.”