“You a coffee guy?” he asks me. “Want to grab a coffee?”
No, I’m not. It makes me jumpy. But this man is definitely the takes-his-coffee-black type, and maybe I feel like I should match him somehow, like a competition. Do all dates in the gay world feel like emotional arm wrestling? I would be surprised if he didn’t hack a log in half every morning before he eats breakfast.
I give him one quick, nervous nod, my lips pressed together.
Apparently I can’t talk.
“Sounds good.” His voice is so deep and sexy. Every single word of his literally feels like it’s pulling on my balls, which is not helping the still-semi-hard situation in my pants. “One of my favorite coffee spots is just up the street.”
I return a tight smile, then glance down at my phone. Elijah’s last text is still sitting there. It’s just a thumbs-up emoji with a bunch of drooling faces and then an eggplant.
I might have told him that I left with a guy. He’s so proud of me. He’s like my beaming away-from-home mother. Get ‘em, tiger.
“So … do you go to that club often?” he asks.
I lick my lips. It doesn’t help. “No,” I admit. “Never, actually.” I cross my arms. Then I uncross them. Then I shove them into my pockets like they’ve done something wrong. “Uh … you?”
He nods. “All the time. Never seen you there.”
All the time.
Maybe this is a routine for him, hitting up the bar and picking out the first boy he likes. Maybe I’m just his little toy of the week and nothing more. That seems to marry well with what I’ve always thought of the dating scene—that it’s just a big confusing mess of sweat and sex and nothing nice.
But maybe doing something totally reckless tonight—like running off with the hottest guy at the nightclub—is precisely what I need. Maybe, for the first time in my life, I should take my best friend’s horribly irresponsible advice.
Maybe I should get laid.
Am I crazy?
“Are you alright?” he asks me suddenly. “You seem kind of nervous.”
I stop at the next corner. For some reason, I can’t get my feet to move anymore.
“I think I should go home,” I blurt out.
He opens his mouth, then shuts it again, baffled. Then he nods at the building across the street. “The coffee place is right there. You sure you don’t feel like just—?”
“I hate coffee.”
He lifts his eyebrows in surprise. “Well, shit. Why didn’t you just say so?”
“I don’t know. I’m nervous. I don’t usually do this.”
“Do what? Get coffee on a Friday night with a total stranger?”
“Something like that.”
He glances across the street and squints. “Well, it doesn’t look like the coffee shop is going to be much quieter. Looks packed as hell.”
I don’t respond, finding myself caught in staring at him again. Up close, his chest muscles appear even bigger in that crisp, tight dress shirt, and his biceps are just ridiculous, still hugged in the shimmering blue fabric of his fitted blazer.
I can’t believe this guy is even talking to me.
And his face—handsome, chiseled, and intensely smoldering—causes me to flush all over again. I have never been struck so hard before by simply how a man looks. He was intense enough to watch from across the dim nightclub. Up close, he’s downright stunning.
I can’t explain the next thing I say except that all of the suppressed sexual energy inside me is bursting to the surface in front of this man. I want him to do everything to me and more. I feel a tightness in my chest that doctors say is a sign of cardiac arrest. Yeah, this man is breaking my heart just by standing there looking gorgeous, and every second that goes by where my hands aren’t on him is killing me.
“Do you have somewhere else in mind we could hang that’s more … private?” I ask him, out of breath while standing still.
He returns his handsome gaze back to me. My heart is racing away just from that look he gives me. Sweat gathers in my pits. I can’t seem to blink properly. Or breathe.
“Well, not to be too forward, but … we could go back to my place,” he suggests. “I live fairly close by.”
Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.
I give a quick nod, my chest feeling hollow as my heart beats feverishly to pump all the blood down to my cock. I’m thankful for the tight pants and underwear I have on; they’re concealing my excitement for the most part. “I … g-guess we c-could do that,” I finally get out, despite the embarrassing stutter.
He takes a step toward me. Just that little movement closer is overwhelming, what it does to my body. “It’s down this street.” He nods at the road, then proceeds to lead the way.