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I already felt close to Richie in a way I couldn’t explain. Here on the bridge, in the middle of a park that’s in the middle of a big city, hidden away, I’m alarmed by the deep intimacy existing between us.
It’s frightening.
I’ve never felt this close to someone. He knows more about me than anyone else in my life, I might argue. Even more than my sisters, who don’t get all the gory details of my dancing and cam-boy life.
For as much insight as he’s given me to my own psyche—even in the very question he’s posing to me right now—I could argue he even knows more about me … than I do.
“It felt good to kiss you,” I tell him, striving to be as honest as he wants me to be. “And I know I wanted to kiss you. I want to kiss you again.”
He opens his eyes on my face.
I bring a hand to his cheek impulsively. Despite his short, trimmed beard, his face is incredibly soft. I can imagine a whole intricate regime of bedtime face-care and an army of high-dollar products he likely employs on a daily basis.
Either he cares a lot about his appearance, or he is as terrified of aging as I am.
I wonder if he knows that. About me. The fact that I’m terrified to become one of those guys who still strips when he’s forty. I don’t want to notice the crowd preferring my younger coworkers over me. I don’t want to learn how to lie to myself when I look in the mirror, ignoring the spots on my face that are aging. I don’t want to—before my eyes—turn into a guy who is trained in the art of denial.
I want to own who I am.
I want to always be self-aware.
I want to practice honesty, now and always.
“What I know for a fact is,” I continue, “I’m a better person with you, Richie. If there’s one thing about my life I dislike, it’s the part where I have to lie to create a fantasy for someone else. I know I’m satisfying their needs. Maybe I’m doing good, if I look at it a certain way. But it’s deceptive. And …” My hand slides down to his shoulder, the muscle of which I feel through his soft polo shirt. “I guess when money’s involved, it always has a kind of heavier connotation to it … like I can never truly be doing good for someone.”
“Well, you have to feed yourself and pay your bills, don’t you? Don’t talk yourself down.” Richie has a hand at the small of my back. Our hips are still pressed together. He starts rubbing my back, gently. “You underestimate your own worth, Zak. You really do. Don’t you know how rare it is for a person to be so …?” He trails off right then, gazing at my chest and the royal blue tie I wore for him.
I kiss him, interrupting his thought. It’s another impulse I chase, not waiting for a proper time, not asking for permission, not holding back. Poor Rich has no chance in resisting it; he was claimed the moment I first put my lips on his.
When the kiss ends, I stare into his eyes. “How rare it is for a person to be so … what?”
“As full of beauty on the inside as he is on the outside,” he finishes almost as a throwaway, then peers curiously into my eyes and asks, “How do you do that? How do you make me feel both … supremely present … and yet caught in a dream?”
If he only knew he’s doing the same damned thing to me … “Something tells me we didn’t get to properly introduce ourselves that first night up in your fancy penthouse suite,” I decide suddenly. “I think we should remedy that.”
“How do you presume we do that?”
I smirk. “Like this.” I take his hand, then lead him off the bridge.
13
I don’t think he had this in mind.
Me, taking him to a cheap but soulful diner in the thicket of Mayville, a few blocks from his hotel, to feast on the likes of greasy burgers, greasier fries, and two tall Root Beer floats.
But it’s clear after just a single bite of that fat-as-fuck burger that Richie has been depriving himself of the more indulgent things in life—no matter how many times he’s indulged himself in spending more than he ought to have in my chat room.
“Really, though,” Richie manages to say as he helps himself to another decadent mouthful, “you are having a tougher and tougher time convincing me of how you keep that bod while eating this stuff.”
I chuckle. “Blessed with good genes and a rate of metabolism that could consume Mount Everest intact if I found a way to season it and eat it.”
