Page 35 of Snow Globe Secrets

“I mean, there were a few times in college and a couple of guys when I first got to London, but I’d never even given a blow job before I met David. I’d never done more than hand jobs with another guy. Hell, I’d hardly ever even kissed anyone. He was my first everything. And we were together for so long.”

That did get a bit of a reaction out of me. I sat up, and he followed, though he stuck to my side. Concern in my voice, I asked, “Does that mean you’ve not been with anyone else since?”

“Well, no. You were right about the city. I was in a new town, a stranger, newly single. I went to bars occasionally and managed to have one guy up to my hotel room when I first got there. But that’s just not me, Austin. I’m not the type. I thought I could be when I left David. Wanted to be, even. New city, hell, new country, new me!”

He wasn’t the type of guy who’d be into hookups. I felt that was something I should have gleaned. Actually, deep down I think I had understood it.

“Oh God. I’m so sorry, Randall.”

“What on earth for?”

“We shouldn’t have—I shouldn’t have talked you into this!”

“It’s not your fault.” He sat up straight, resolve in his tone. “And you didn’t talk me into anything! It’s not your fault that it means more to me than it does to you. I thought I could try again. And I wanted to, really wanted to, with you.”

“But it’s complicated because of who I am,” I said matter-of-factly. Shit. All I wanted to do was wrap him in my arms and make it all better, but the one thing that wasn’t going to make it better was having his best friend’s naked son in his bed. “I get it. You were trying to experiment with a little hookup fun, but I’m too complicated for a hookup. Because …” I began. It was time to deal with the two elephants in the room—my parents.

“Because of the way you make me feel,” he said, and had I not paused before finishing my sentence about my parents, I’m sure I never would have heard it. He swung out of the bed and stomped down the stairs.

Chapter Fourteen

Randall

I don't know where I thought I was fleeing to, but I jumped out of bed and went back downstairs. It was a foolish, immature move made by someone who should have known better. I was a grown man, not some teenager experiencing his first time. I’d known what I was getting myself into with Austin. A few mind-blowing orgasms when stuck in a snowstorm with the literal only other person for miles shouldn’t have me confessing big feelings. Yet here we were.

Austin was kind and smart and funny. He was also intuitive. We’d barely been together for twenty-four hours, and it was like he understood everything about me. Even those things I tried to hide so as not to be a burden on the people around me. Maybe especially those things. Like understanding me, the real me, was important to him.

I’d come out to him without thinking. Told him about David and my time in London, like I’d nothing to hide or to be embarrassed about. And he’d been wonderful, perfect even, in his reaction when I had to work. Hell, it had even felt like we’d been together forever when we’d prepared dinner the night before. When he was near me, my body hummed. And when he touched me? It exploded in ways I’d never known were possible.

Crazy as it may have sounded, twenty-four hours in, if it were it not for his age and his last name, I would have absolutely wanted to pursue something with Austin. I knew it much more emphatically than I had about David after a year together. And I knew, without a doubt, that what I felt for him was much more real than any silly puppy love I had felt for his father a lifetime ago.

But how could we possibly find a way, and why on earth would he want to?

I could hear him upstairs, though I made a point of not looking up there as I sat on the couch and propped my legs on the coffee table, my arms crossed. I assumed he was throwing his clothes back on. When he came down, he was wearing his sweatpants and nothing else.

I watched him descend the stairs, half naked and comfortable in a space I was still learning to call home.

He walked right up to me and looked at me once again like he knew what I was feeling. My body was wound tight, a scowl, pointed at the fireplace and not at him, firmly on my face. He sat on the coffee table and put a gentle hand on my leg.

“Randall?”

“It was a hookup, Austin. A bit of fun.”

“You don’t look like you’re having that much fun.”

“How do you do it? Different guy every night? No feelings? No emotions?”

He took his hand away and wrapped his arms around himself, mirroring me. There was a pause before he said, “I don’t.”

“But you said …”

“I said guys do it all the time, Randall, and I thought …” He stood in frustration, rounded the table, and stared at the fireplace, wrapping his arms around himself again. His back to me, he continued.

“I don’t know what I thought. I knew what I wanted. I wanted you. Hell, I took one look at you in that sad little bus depot, and I knew that. And we’re stuck here. And guys do it all the time.” He threw his hands up in frustration and stormed toward me.

I assumed his frustration would lead to anger. I was used to David’s frustration ending up with him yelling at me. Instead, he started laughing as he sat back down on the coffee table, nudging me until I dropped my legs, and he slid in, putting us face-to-face, our legs interlocked. He knocked his two against one of mine playfully.

“How did I manage to get stuck with the only other gay man in Upstate New York who can’t navigate a hookup? For Christ’s sake, Randall, look at us.” He took my hands, holding them lightly, playing with my fingers and watching them as he continued. “We could be having all the no-pressure fun in the world.” He gave my hands a little squeeze. “We could be fucking. We could be using each other. We could be getting off.” He shook his head “no” and finally looked up at me. “But that’s not what I’m doing,” he whispered.