I do have his number, and I will fucking use it.
* * *
Jesus Christ.
“You have my number. Use it.”Dom shook his head, rolling his eyes for good measure. He’d sounded like a twat. What had possessed him to say something so... so...? Fuck, he couldn’t even find the words.
Henry had telegraphed what he wanted loud and clear. Dom couldn’t even plead ignorance, it’d been written all over his face.
Henry wanted to see him again.
He might not have said the words, Dom hadn’t given him much of a chance.
You ran away.
“Fuck,”he hissed under his breath but still managed to startle a couple walking past him. He muttered an apology and immediately thought of Henry.
And that spike of guilt hit him all over again.
Putting all the onus on Henry had been a cowardly thing to do. He was thirty-two years old, for fuck’s sake. Surely he’d reach the age where he could have a conversation about whether he wanted to carry on seeing the guy he’d been fucking for the past week.
Fucking?
Dom winced. It had been more than sex, who was he kidding? Would it translate to their normal lives once they had to deal with the mundane shit like work, family, and the fact they lived a good hour apart? Dom had no idea.
And you won’t unless you give it a try.
He went back and forth over the idea all the way home. He might have left Henry with a dramatic declaration, but the reality was he had Henry’s number too. There was nothing to stop him from making the first move to initiate contact.
And he wanted to see Henry again. He didn’t even try to deny it. But where would it lead?
Dom sighed, all the good feelings his week away had brought, now tinged with doubt as he struggled to figure out if what he wanted was also what he needed.
One thing he did know, he needed a beer and to chew someone’s ear off.
* * *
“So let me get this straight,”Nathan said, handing Dom a beer and rolling his eyes at Dom’s snort. “You met someone, spent the week together having glorious no-strings sex, you like him, he likes you, yet you don’t know whether to see him again.” He raised his eyebrows. “Is that the gist of it?”
“Pretty much.” Dom took a long pull from his bottle, then pointed it at Nathan. “You make it sound so straightforward when you put it like that.”
“That’s because it is.” Luke, Nathan’s partner of five years, walked into the kitchen wearing low-slung pyjama bottoms and nothing else. He leant against the worktop next to Nathan. “You always make things way too complicated.”
“Fuck off.” Dom smiled to take the sting out of it and took a moment to admire the toned muscles Luke shamelessly showed off. He sighed and ran his fingers through his poor, abused hair. He’d had his hands in it all the way home. “It is complicated.”
“Why?” Nathan asked, crossing his arms. Luke did the same and Dom laughed because the pair of them looked like a couple of bouncers about to ask him to leave. His phone chimed with a text before he could comment, and all thoughts left him as he stared at the name displayed on his screen.
Henry.
Dom swallowed, inexplicably nervous all of a sudden.
It’s just a text.
Only Henry’s name appeared, none of the message. If Dom wanted to read it, he’d have to unlock his phone, and his thumb hovered over it while he weighed up whether to do it now or later.
“Is that him?” Luke asked. When Dom nodded, he darted forward like a cat and snatched up Dom’s phone.
“Hey!” he protested as Luke tapped the screen.
