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“Why not?” She grabbed my hand, and we skipped along the sidewalk in the bright winter sunshine.
Chapter Twenty-One
Nigel
I’d tucked the collar away in my dresser since I hadn’t had a chance to wear it for Alastair yet. I figured I’d put it on Thursday, when we’d be home together, as a sexy surprise. But I did try it on a few times, simply to admire the way it circled my neck and gave me a Goth-punk-sex-puppy vibe.
On Wednesday, I was puttering around in my sweats and a crop top doing some cleaning. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t taking advantage of Alastair’s generosity in housing me so cheaply, so I liked to mop, dust and vacuum during the day. It made my little gender fluid heart happy to play Hazel Housewife for a bit. I even had a little white apron that I’d ‘borrowed’ from work for just this purpose.
I had turned the vacuum off and was bundling the cord together when the doorbell rang. It startled me. Did people still ring doorbells? I’d thought everyone used text like I did.
I was highly suspicious as I approached the door, especially because of my recent encounter with the stranger at the club. What if it was him? I wouldn’t be able to see who it was from the living room window, but Alastair’s door had a peep hole. I opened the inside door as quietly as I could and tiptoed into the entry, then leaned in to look through the glass.
It wasn’t the guy from outside the club. Instead, a stunningly attractive Black man wearing aviator sunglasses and a navy pea coat waited patiently for someone to acknowledge his presence. He pushed the button again, and the bell rang while I composed myself and opened the door.
“Hello.”
Then I remembered that I was wearing ratty gray sweats, no underwear and aMy Little PonyT-shirt from the children’s section of The Gap that worked as a crop top.
Fuck.
My face flushed as the man smiled and took off his aviators, revealing intense blue eyes.
“Oh, hello! Is Alastair at home?”
Oh, fuck me, he has a British accent.
I attempted a smile, but I was feeling self-conscious and caught-out, so I probably looked like a surprised goat.
“Oh, uh, no. He’s at work right now.”
“No worries, mate. But could you tell him I stopped by?”
I nodded. “And you are?”
“Oh, fuck, yeah. Sorry,” he laughed. “I’m Nigel,” he said, offering me his hand to shake, which I did. “Just tell him I’m back in town, yeah?”
“Sure.” I said, forcing myself to let go of his hand while I blinked in wonder at his beauty.
“Great! Thanks.”
He didn’t ask who I was or what I was doing at Alastair’s home. He simply turned with a wave and strolled down the porch steps with the air of a person assured of their own appeal.
I shut the door and scratched at a spot on my neck, my fingers encountering the leather of the brown dog collar.
“Oh, fuck off. Seriously?” I said to myself, tearing the buckle open and flinging the questionable accessory to the floor, wondering who in the fuck Nigel was and why he wanted to see Alastair.
* * * *
I finished cleaning, my mind turning over the sudden appearance of a gorgeous man looking for my boyfriend. The obvious answer was that he was one of Alastair’s former hookups looking for another hot date, which didn’t make me feel very good.
Sure, I was cute and seemed to be at least a bit kinky, but this man was fucking stunning and had a history of some kind with Alastair. Alastair had said that he’d hooked up with men for casual sex quite a bit before we’d met. But what if he and Nigel-with-the-British accent had had some kind of arrangement? An arrangement that meant that they’d had sex more than once?
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Hold on, yes, I did. I didn’t like it at all.
But that was in Alastair’s past, which was his business andnotmine, even though we were in a committed relationship now, except that it became my business when a beautiful man came looking for my boyfriend.
I retrieved the dog collar from the floor and changed into some nicer clothes before Alastair arrived home from work. I decided to make spaghetti, since Alastair liked the way I mixed cheese in with the tomato sauce for the finished product—a kind of poor-man’s lasagne. Anyway, it was easy, he liked it and we had the ingredients. And I needed to prove that I was a goddamned catch, even if I didn’t look as good as Nigel-with-the-British-Accent.
