“Okay, if it works for you, who am I to argue? But what do we even talk about? I feel like we’ve had all the first date conversation already?”
“Tell me about the dance classes. I have to say the idea of you in those tights, dancing to Beyoncé got me overheated very quickly.” The smile he gave me at that was dirty enough to make me blush. This was the Camilo from the gala. The sexy and confident man who grabbed me by the hand and gave me the best blow job of my life.
He tipped his head to the side and put his finger under his chin as though he was thinking about an answer. “Well let’s see,today we did ‘Formation’ which is kind of fierce but also sexy. There was a lot of hip gyration and hair flipping. We’ve done it a few times before. The clients love it.”
“When you say hip gyrations?—”
That husky laugh was going to be the end of me. Under the table Camilo moved his legs so they were brushing against mine and leaned into me. “Well it’s hard to explain it. It’s more the kind of thing you have to see. I’d have toshowyou.”
I gulped and ran my hands on my thighs, trying to calm myself down. I needed to get out of here before I did something crazy in this restaurant full of people.
“So I was thinking maybe we could do a drink at my place before dinner.” Then closed my mouth and thought about what I’d just said. Why would we leave a restaurant to go and eat somewhere else? I’d been at meetings discussing billion-dollar deals and felt less out of sorts than I was right now. I shook my head as Camilo looked at me from under long thick eyelashes. “That’s sort of stupid isn’t it? We’re already at a restaurant. We could just get dinner here.”
Camilo continued to stare. I laughed a little hysterically and all I could think of was finally getting to touch him after weeks of holding back. But before I opened my mouth again, Camilo took control of the situation. He grabbed my hand and ran his thumb over it, as if trying to put me at ease, then he squared his shoulders and looked at me full of certainty.
“But if by drinks you mean go back to your place for sex, then yes. We can absolutely go to your house for a pre-dinner drink.”
It felt like someone zapped my balls with a charge of electricity and I immediately stood up. I left way more money on the table than necessary to pay for the water we’d gotten, and for the second time since we’d met, I let Camilo pull me by the hand and lead me away.
chapter twelve
camilo
I was doing this.
I was walking to Tom Hughes’s house with the intention of getting my hands, mouth, and everything else I could come up with on him as soon as we walked through the door.
I’d tried my best, I really had, but this man was irresistible. The way he looked at me, like I was a rare and precious thing he’d just discovered…it undid me. And the way his face lit up as I told him about our clients and the dancing, as if I was telling him something incredible, it was the last straw.
We were adults and there was no rule saying I couldn’t date (fuck) a donor. I’d actually looked at the agency policy manual the day Melissa gave me that boundaries lecture, because I knew if he pursued me, it was only a matter of time before I gave in.
As we walked up Lenox Avenue, Tom looked a little dazed but I could feel the tension between us like a tight rope that was very close to snapping. He glanced down at me with a question in his eyes, then extended his hand as if asking to hold mine. We were in Harlem and the streets were busy at six p.m. on a Friday. I usually would not go for any display of affection just as a precaution. But with Tom, in this moment, I felt bold. So I hooked my index finger around his and smiled at him.
“So where are we going? You said your house was close, right?”
He nodded and pointed further up, “Yes, I live in a brownstone on the next block. I’ve only been in it a couple of years. My friends Sanjay and Priya, who you met at the party, bought the one right next door. It’s nice to have them close by. We love the neighborhood.”
I nodded distractedly, feeling a little intimidated. Living in the area myself, I was very aware of the prices that brownstones went for these days.
What was I doing with a guy living in a house that cost millions of dollars? I could barely afford my little studio in Hamilton Heights. As we got to 126th street and turned left, Tom squeezed my hand, beaming. I tried to push aside my nervousness and come back to the moment, to Tom. Then I remembered what my friends told me. I didn’t need to make a judgment based on things I perceived as problematic. I could rely on what Tom hadshownme so far.
Everything Tom had done since I’d met him was more than enough evidence he was the kind of man I wanted to get to know better.
To be with.
“Why did you buy a place here in Harlem? I mean it’s not the typical spot for millionaires to move to.”
He nodded and his face got serious. “Harlem was the first place I lived in when I came to the States. I arrived like three months before I started my first year at Columbia, and I stayed with an old friend of my mom’s on 122ndand Park. She’s Dominican, but she’s been here since the sixties. That whole summer she would take me on walks around Harlem and talk to me about the history. She told me about the Caribbean diaspora who settled here over the last hundred years. I got pretty into the history. I read about queer authors like Langston Hughes and James Baldwin who came up here. I learned about Latinx civil rights movements like the Young Lords which all happenedin these streets. Learning about those who’d come through this same place made me feel connected to New York City, like I wasn’t so far from home.”
Dammit.Of course, he couldn’t just be a douchebag buying up property mindlessly.
“So when I decided to buy a place in the city, I got one here. I’m also invested in trying to keep this community from being erased by gentrification. I try to be mindful of the footprint I’m leaving, of course, but also help families who’ve been here for generations keep their homes. My friend Henock and I have been working with a few advocacy groups that serve families who’re being pushed out of their homes by developers. So far we’ve just helped with funding agencies that do housing advocacy in the community, but we’d like to do more if we can.”
I looked up at him and tugged at the finger I was holding. “You know I’m already planning to have sex with you right? You don’t need to try and convince me with all this ‘good guy’ stuff.”
He barked out a laugh and bumped me with his hip, which was almost up to my shoulder.
“Most people wouldn’t find my views on gentrification sexually arousing. I think that just works on you, Camilo. Not that I’m complaining.” He slowed down then and pointed at the stoop in front of us.
