Somewhere With You, Chapter Nine, Take Two
Somewhere With You, Chapter Nine, Take Two
The world spends Sunday recovering and Heath joins in for the first part of the day, but by noon he needs something to think about besides himself and his hangover so he cracks open his briefcase and his laptop and works till his eyes start to cross and nothing makes sense anymore.
On Tuesday he goes straight from work to Anne’s. She feeds him shepherd’s pie and corn bread, then he unwinds the lights from her tree and hauls it down to the curb. The whole time she talks about Jason, wishing he was over his ex so they could date for real and Heath tries to pay attention and say the right things, but it’s hard because he keeps getting distracted thinking about his own situation.
A boyfriend. He’s been thinking that once the dust settles around his newly discovered sexuality, (ie: once he gets done learning the basics from Jake) he’ll start looking for someone to date, a guy who’ll want to go out to dinner with him and meet his friends and do all the stuff that people do when they’re having a life. But even with all the potential for good he can see in that scenario, the potential for bad is pretty amazing too.
Coming out at work shouldn’t be so bad. It’s a friendly firm, and for attorneys, they’re a pretty liberal group, but still, it’ll be weird. He’s never had much of a social life before, his girlfriends popping up, then fizzling out before anyone takes much notice. But he knows how the gossip mill works, and anyone who has anything remotely interesting going on in their life gets run through it relentlessly. Suddenly showing up with a boyfriend when, up to now, he’s been the most boring guy in the firm, will definitely get some unwanted attention.
His friends away from work are cool with most anything. Some of them - like Anne - probably won’t even be surprised. Still, they’ll want to know how he figured it out and how he managed to stay in the dark all this time and he’s not really into sharing at that level. Besides, buying a blowjob from a hooker in a seedy bar isn’t a story you can tell most people, not even your friends, especially when you’re a lawyer.
The biggest hurdle, he decides, is the world at large. It’s judgmental and mean, and he’s not sure how he’ll feel walking down the street holding hands with some guy while people smirk and imagine him taking it up the ass, which they probably will because that’s usually the first thing anyone thinks about when they realize a person is gay - that they like to get ass-fucked.
And that shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what people think about what he does in bed. He’s at peace with himself, mostly, and that’s all that counts. But this is all so new and he’d like to be cool and pretend like it’s nothing but the fact is, it’s something. He’s gone from being the guy who makes excuses to leave as soon as things start getting handsy to the guy who has to stomp down on his inner caveman to keep from getting rough when he hears the word no because he wants it so bad it makes him crazy.
He doesn’t think it means he’s a closet rapist who’s just been waiting for the right person to push his buttons. He’s given it some thought - like a lot of thought - and he’s pretty sure he’s not toting around a bunch of violent tendencies he just never noticed before, but it does make him realize he’s probably not giving this enough time to settle in his soul. He’s not the guy he used to be and it’s a big deal. It’s going to take longer than a couple of weeks to figure this out. Boyfriends can come later, once he has a better handle on what makes him tick and what he needs out of life to be happy. Right now, he'd be more likely to fuck things up with some poor schmuck who doesn't deserve it than get anything close to right, and that just doesn't need to happen.
*****
Anne serves wine with dinner that night and Heath has a beer while he’s manhandling the tree, but not nearly enough to zap him. When he gets out to the street, though, he feels like a zombie and walks just far enough to catch a cab the rest of the way home. Cold medicine gets him through the day on Wednesday, but that afternoon his secretary tells him in no uncertain terms that he’s not welcome back until he’s well and not carrying deadly plague germs.
Heath spends the next four days in miserable solitude, switching back and forth between his bed and the couch, eating noodle soup from the Vietnamese take-out place down the street, sucking on cherry cough drops that don’t help and blowing his nose. His only human contact is with the delivery guy and texting with Anne and Ethan, and he wonders if Jake notices when he doesn’t show up over the weekend. It’s the first weekend since they started their thing that he hasn’t tracked him down looking for sex. He remembers how cold Jake was the last time they got together, on New Year’s Eve, how he couldn’t wait to get away to be with his friends, and decides Jake probably isn’t missing him at all.
In an ugly moment of truth, Heath wonders when - in his head - it went from him buying services from a hooker to him and Jake having a thing. He’s pretty sure he’s the only one of the two of them thinking that, and he remembers Anne whining about Jason and decides he needs to get over himself before this gets completely out of hand.
*****
Heath’s well by Monday and goes back to work. The world is back to normal after the disruption that Christmas and New Year’s brought and Heath takes advantage by keeping as busy as possible. He even goes to happy hour Wednesday evening with some people from his office and actually enjoys himself until a girl who Kyle from Estate Planning knows comes over to their table and starts hitting on him. All the guys are smirking behind their martinis and he knows they’re all thinking he’s a fool when he suddenly fakes a text and has to leave.
It’s not because of Jake - nothing to do with Jake at all - it’s just that now that he knows absolutely that it’s never going to work out with a woman, he doesn’t want to deal with the drama that even twenty minutes of innocent flirting will bring. If he lets it go any further, Kyle will never drop it until he asks her out, and if he asks, she’ll say yes - they always do - and then it will snowball from there like it always does and just… no.
So he leaves and goes straight home even though it’s been almost two weeks since he saw Jake last, and although he hasn’t been obsessing about it at all, he’s still young enough that sex is supposed to be a regular part of life. He could really use another session (Session? Is that what they call getting sex from a prostitute? Is it like seeing a massage therapist or a shrink, only illegal?) but he can still see Jake’s look of almost disgust the last time he tracked him down and he can still hear Anne all bummed out because her love life sucks. That gives him the willpower to turn left towards home instead of right towards Jake when he leaves the bar.
*****
Martin Luther King Day means yet another long weekend coming up and Heath’s sister sounds really sad when he talks to her later that evening. When he casually suggests a possible visit, her voice sparks with excitement, so he goes on-line and books an overpriced ticket to Miami for Thursday night, hoping the break away from the city will do him good.
It does, in a way. It’s comforting to be back with people who love him, even though Heath feels like a giant fake and a liar when Kate asks him if he’s met anyone since Mallory and he says no. He would tell her if there was anything to tell - she probably wouldn’t even be that surprised - but it’s not like Jake even counts. He’s never going to be his boyfriend, never going to be the guy he asks to move into his house and opens a joint checking account with.
Assuming he does that with anybody, which he probably won’t because who does that actually work out for anyway? Nobody. Therefore, there’s definitely nothing to tell.
He spends Friday with Kate and his twins nieces, making a late, messy breakfast of pancakes and sausage and scrambled eggs, then they run errands and spend a couple of hours at the ocean, enjoying the January sunshine. The girls and their little dog chase seagulls and a ball up and down the beach while he and Kate keep pace, walking barefoot in the sand. He listens to all the family gossip and does his best to steer the conversation well away from his love life.
On Saturday, he plays golf with his dad and they talk mostly about his career and his dad’s business. His dad wants him to move back to Florida and Heath figures one day he might, but no time real soon. He has no great plans with the firm but he’d like to put in ten years before he makes a change. Of course, nothing’s carved in stone and he might change his mind if the right offer comes along, but he’s not looking. Miami’s a busy city with lots of opportunities and it has a thriving gay community, a definite bonus.
Moving back would be great in a lot of ways - no more obnoxious winters, he’d actually get to drive his car more than four times a year, and he’d be back with his family again. He’s always been close with his sisters, especially Kate, and being away has robbed him of a lot of precious time with them that he’ll never get back. But moving back would mean coming out to his family too - no way to hide it since he doesn’t plan on living like a monk for the rest of his life and his family is way too involved in each other’s business to keep anything a secret for long.
Actually, the idea of coming out isn’t even that frightening. Heath’s pretty sure there are a lot worse things he could lay on them than the fact that he’s gay. They love him way more than they care about who he loves, just so long as he’s happy - he’s confident of that. But it’s still so new. He’s not even square with it himself. It’s way too soon for him to try to explain it to anyone else, especially to people he really cares about. He needs time to let it settle in his own mind before he starts telling the world.
So for the moment, for lots of different reasons, moving’s not something he’s interested in. Jake’s face pops into his mind, one of many things he’s not ready to say goodbye to yet, and although he doesn’t pursue the thought, he knows that his life in D.C. is a lot more than just his job and a piece of real estate.
The whole family gets together for a giant Ledger/Bell dinner at his mom’s house on Saturday night and she does make a point to ask about his love life, probably miffed with his father for failing to get the scoop. He tells her more about Mallory, a fluffed up version of the truth, but he keeps the rest of it vague and they keep getting interrupted and finally she gives it up.
It’s a good visit overall. It’s great seeing everyone and they’re all happy and life is good, but in the end, it leaves him feeling lonely more than anything else and he can’t quite put a finger on why.
*****
Heath catches the last flight out on Sunday night because he wants a day at home to catch up on things before he goes back to work. On Monday he does as much laundry as he can stand, vacuums his entire house - which takes all of thirty minutes and only that long because he has to lug the machine upstairs, then get down on his hands and knees to get all the dust bunnies hiding underneath the bed - and finally blows the last of the dead leaves away from the front doorstep. When he finds himself considering rearranging his kitchen cabinets and actually drawing out a schematic for the best way to store his plastic ware, he gives up. A guy can only live off hand jobs for so long. It’s time to cry uncle, find Jake - who he is definitely not obsessing over, it’s just sex, really - and get some relief.
When he gets to the bar, he’s disappointed when he doesn’t see Jake hanging around out front. It means there’s a chance that he’s busy and Heath doesn’t want to wait, already feels shimmery and hot just from the prospect of sex. Plus, if he doesn’t actually see Jake with another dude, he can pretend like it’s not happening. He knows that rationale isn’t any more healthy than any of the other little fictions he tells himself about Jake, but that’s a worry for another day, when he’s not so hard-up and desperate.
Inside, he finds the place almost deserted, just a couple of dried up old guys drinking beer at one end of the bar and a couple more playing pool. George Jones is wailing away in the background, which suits the mood of the place perfectly. Heath parks on a bar stool, gets a beer and waits to see if Jake comes out of the men’s room, but after fifteen minutes he decides that’s not going to happen. When the bartender brings him his second beer, he swallows his pride and asks, “Umm… you seen Jake around here today?”
The guy shakes his head, doesn’t even pretend not to know who Jake is, doesn’t act like it’s odd that Heath’s asking. Heath wonders if he gets a cut of Jake’s take or if he just doesn’t really care that Jake’s running an illegal operation out of his bar. Since he’s probably not the owner, Heath’s betting on indifference, or maybe a little bit of both.
“He doesn’t come around much till the end of the week.”
“Oh. Ok.” Heath’s dick is insistent, half-hard just from being here where sex sometimes happens, and since he’s basically outed himself as a user of male prostitutes, there’s no point trying to save face. May as well go all the way. “You happen to know where I might find him?”
“Nope.” The bartender smirks and Heath’s stomach turns but he ignores it. “Guy named Nate comes around sometimes, but with today being a holiday and all, doubt he’ll show.”
The idea of getting with Nate - whoever he is - holds absolutely no appeal, even with the dire situation going on in his pants. Being a one-hooker kind of guy is another nail in his Coffin of Fucked-Upness, as is the fact that he’s exposing himself to someone he doesn’t know from Adam on the off-chance that he might help him find Jake. The uncoolness of the situation is, in fact, pretty much epic. Heath says thanks, pays for his beers and leaves before he starts drawing hearts with their initials in them on the bar napkins.
*****
By Friday he’s been through at least a dozen different imaginary scenarios that involved him finding Jake instead of striking out, and absolutely none that involved him hooking up with a single other person - hot, muscle-bound football stars and drop-dead handsome actors included. He’s rubbed a sore spot on his dick in the process and fleshed out his fantasy life to an embarrassing degree. It’s gotten him through the week, but it hasn’t changed his need for the real thing at all - fantasies are ok but Jake is way better and Nate the-mystery-guy is still not an option.
This fact is starting to bug Heath, who does not want to get Jake and sex tied up in his head like he did Captain Crunch and breakfast when he was five years old, so that for the next three years he couldn’t conceive of one without the other and had to pack little tubs of cereal with him whenever he stayed away from home overnight. He has a feeling that Jake won’t be nearly so easy to wrangle as the Captain was back in the day.
The whole thing has the potential for ugly stamped on it in big red letters, which is why, when Anne texts him at noon saying they’re going out that night with some people she does volunteer work with, Heath texts back, “OK” without even asking for any details.
Whatever she has planned is better than trying to stay away from Jake and failing. Anything’s got to be better than that.
*****
Which is how Heath finds himself in a gay bar several hours later, getting his ass grabbed every time he goes to the bar and popping wood watching guys make out on the dance floor. Anne’s friends are maybe gay or bi or just super-liberal, he can’t decide which, because nobody’s wearing rainbow t-shirts and it’s loud as fuck so he can’t really make conversation. When the DJ finally takes a break, they chat some and everyone seems nice - at least one of the guys is definitely gay and interested - but there aren’t any sparks and Heath doesn’t want to fuck things up for Anne by being a disappointment to her friends.
Later though, when some random dude comes up and starts flirting, Heath decides to let it happen. He wants to know what it’s like to get picked up just because the guy has a thing for him and not because he’s getting paid.
The guy’s name is Matt and he’s like an older, respectable version of Jake, which doesn’t make Heath feel any better about himself, but he’s got to start somewhere. Matt’s classically handsome with pale skin, dark hair and piercing blue eyes. His five o’clock shadow is perfect, and he’s wearing a tight sweater and slacks that make it obvious he’s not coming to the party empty-handed. Heath looks and looks some more, can’t decide which view he likes better, the front or the back. When the music starts up and Matt pulls him out on the dance floor, he gets brave and cops a feel from both directions and decides it’s all good. A few songs later Matt asks him if he wants to leave and Heath, breathless and a little high from all the touching, says yes.
It’s awkward once they get out on the street, away from all the noise and the music and the people, but Matt assures him that his apartment is just a few blocks away, then starts talking about people he’s met and interesting things that have happened to him on the job. It’s cool, nothing pretentious, no name-dropping or anything like that, and Heath listens, but mostly just to keep his mind off what they’re going to do.
Somewhere between saying yes to a dance and saying yes to going home with the guy, he’s gotten himself in over his head.
It seems that in no time they’re at Matt’s apartment, which is actually half of a house he’s subletting from some government consultant to the blah blah agency Heath doesn’t really care. They tromp up the steps and Heath waits while Matt unlocks the door, a sick feeling of “oh fuck” creeping up his throat as the door opens and he has to follow him inside or run away like a major fucking loser. He wonders if this is how Jake feels when he hooks up with someone new or someone he doesn’t really like. Maybe Jake’s been doing it for so long he doesn’t even care anymore. Heath suddenly realizes that he never wants to get that jaded.
Matt solves the problem of having to make awkward, pre-sex small talk by shoving Heath against the just-closed door and jamming his tongue down his throat. Heath can either kiss back or choke and die, and since he’s not ready to check out quite yet, he grabs hold of Matt’s hips and tries to find something good about what’s happening. Matt doesn’t have bad breath or any sharp teeth he can cut himself on, which is a plus, but the guy’s tongue feels a lot like an octopus tentacle squirming around in Heath’s mouth and he wonders if anyone’s ever actually asphyxiated from kissing.
Just when he starts to think he’s going to have to push Matt off to breathe, Matt suddenly disappears. Heath spends a few seconds gasping for air and by the time he’s fully conscious again, Matt has Heath’s trousers down around his knees. Heath’s dick, which has been dying for any human contact other than his own hand for weeks now, is making a strong case for a blow job in spite of all the negativity running around in his head, bobbing hard and needy right in front of Matt’s face.
Matt mumbles, “God, you’ve got a gorgeous cock!” and proceeds to get busy, swallowing Heath down like a pro. Heath watches and feels and it’s good as far as head goes - Matt definitely knows what he’s doing - but the sick feeling in his stomach never lets up even an inch, not even when he shoots down Matt’s throat. When
Matt stands up and starts kissing him again with his comey tongue, Heath has to push him away.
“Sorry.” Heath sucks in a ragged breath. “Umm… I know this is an asshole move, but I gotta go. This was a mistake.”
For about three seconds, Matt’s face goes blank and he genuinely looks surprised. Heath wishes he could turn back the clock and undo the whole evening, or at least say no when Matt invited him home because he’d known it wasn’t a good idea but he was horny and desperate and that made him careless.
“I’m really sorry,” he adds when Matt doesn’t say anything. The blank look disappears in a blink, replaced by a tight, cynical smile.
“Hey, it’s no big deal. Take off.” Matt steps away from him, arches one eyebrow and looks pointedly at the door. Heath wants to apologize again but he’s pretty sure there’s no good ending available at this point no matter what he says, so he zips up his pants and slips out, shutting the door very quietly behind him.
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The world spends Sunday recovering and Heath joins in for the first part of the day, but by noon he needs something to think about besides himself and his hangover so he cracks open his briefcase and his laptop and works till his eyes start to cross and nothing makes sense anymore.
On Tuesday he goes straight from work to Anne’s. She feeds him shepherd’s pie and corn bread, then he unwinds the lights from her tree and hauls it down to the curb. The whole time she talks about Jason, wishing he was over his ex so they could date for real and Heath tries to pay attention and say the right things, but it’s hard because he keeps getting distracted thinking about his own situation.
A boyfriend. He’s been thinking that once the dust settles around his newly discovered sexuality, (ie: once he gets done learning the basics from Jake) he’ll start looking for someone to date, a guy who’ll want to go out to dinner with him and meet his friends and do all the stuff that people do when they’re having a life. But even with all the potential for good he can see in that scenario, the potential for bad is pretty amazing too.
Coming out at work shouldn’t be so bad. It’s a friendly firm, and for attorneys, they’re a pretty liberal group, but still, it’ll be weird. He’s never had much of a social life before, his girlfriends popping up, then fizzling out before anyone takes much notice. But he knows how the gossip mill works, and anyone who has anything remotely interesting going on in their life gets run through it relentlessly. Suddenly showing up with a boyfriend when, up to now, he’s been the most boring guy in the firm, will definitely get some unwanted attention.
His friends away from work are cool with most anything. Some of them - like Anne - probably won’t even be surprised. Still, they’ll want to know how he figured it out and how he managed to stay in the dark all this time and he’s not really into sharing at that level. Besides, buying a blowjob from a hooker in a seedy bar isn’t a story you can tell most people, not even your friends, especially when you’re a lawyer.
The biggest hurdle, he decides, is the world at large. It’s judgmental and mean, and he’s not sure how he’ll feel walking down the street holding hands with some guy while people smirk and imagine him taking it up the ass, which they probably will because that’s usually the first thing anyone thinks about when they realize a person is gay - that they like to get ass-fucked.
And that shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what people think about what he does in bed. He’s at peace with himself, mostly, and that’s all that counts. But this is all so new and he’d like to be cool and pretend like it’s nothing but the fact is, it’s something. He’s gone from being the guy who makes excuses to leave as soon as things start getting handsy to the guy who has to stomp down on his inner caveman to keep from getting rough when he hears the word no because he wants it so bad it makes him crazy.
He doesn’t think it means he’s a closet rapist who’s just been waiting for the right person to push his buttons. He’s given it some thought - like a lot of thought - and he’s pretty sure he’s not toting around a bunch of violent tendencies he just never noticed before, but it does make him realize he’s probably not giving this enough time to settle in his soul. He’s not the guy he used to be and it’s a big deal. It’s going to take longer than a couple of weeks to figure this out. Boyfriends can come later, once he has a better handle on what makes him tick and what he needs out of life to be happy. Right now, he'd be more likely to fuck things up with some poor schmuck who doesn't deserve it than get anything close to right, and that just doesn't need to happen.
*****
Anne serves wine with dinner that night and Heath has a beer while he’s manhandling the tree, but not nearly enough to zap him. When he gets out to the street, though, he feels like a zombie and walks just far enough to catch a cab the rest of the way home. Cold medicine gets him through the day on Wednesday, but that afternoon his secretary tells him in no uncertain terms that he’s not welcome back until he’s well and not carrying deadly plague germs.
Heath spends the next four days in miserable solitude, switching back and forth between his bed and the couch, eating noodle soup from the Vietnamese take-out place down the street, sucking on cherry cough drops that don’t help and blowing his nose. His only human contact is with the delivery guy and texting with Anne and Ethan, and he wonders if Jake notices when he doesn’t show up over the weekend. It’s the first weekend since they started their thing that he hasn’t tracked him down looking for sex. He remembers how cold Jake was the last time they got together, on New Year’s Eve, how he couldn’t wait to get away to be with his friends, and decides Jake probably isn’t missing him at all.
In an ugly moment of truth, Heath wonders when - in his head - it went from him buying services from a hooker to him and Jake having a thing. He’s pretty sure he’s the only one of the two of them thinking that, and he remembers Anne whining about Jason and decides he needs to get over himself before this gets completely out of hand.
*****
Heath’s well by Monday and goes back to work. The world is back to normal after the disruption that Christmas and New Year’s brought and Heath takes advantage by keeping as busy as possible. He even goes to happy hour Wednesday evening with some people from his office and actually enjoys himself until a girl who Kyle from Estate Planning knows comes over to their table and starts hitting on him. All the guys are smirking behind their martinis and he knows they’re all thinking he’s a fool when he suddenly fakes a text and has to leave.
It’s not because of Jake - nothing to do with Jake at all - it’s just that now that he knows absolutely that it’s never going to work out with a woman, he doesn’t want to deal with the drama that even twenty minutes of innocent flirting will bring. If he lets it go any further, Kyle will never drop it until he asks her out, and if he asks, she’ll say yes - they always do - and then it will snowball from there like it always does and just… no.
So he leaves and goes straight home even though it’s been almost two weeks since he saw Jake last, and although he hasn’t been obsessing about it at all, he’s still young enough that sex is supposed to be a regular part of life. He could really use another session (Session? Is that what they call getting sex from a prostitute? Is it like seeing a massage therapist or a shrink, only illegal?) but he can still see Jake’s look of almost disgust the last time he tracked him down and he can still hear Anne all bummed out because her love life sucks. That gives him the willpower to turn left towards home instead of right towards Jake when he leaves the bar.
*****
Martin Luther King Day means yet another long weekend coming up and Heath’s sister sounds really sad when he talks to her later that evening. When he casually suggests a possible visit, her voice sparks with excitement, so he goes on-line and books an overpriced ticket to Miami for Thursday night, hoping the break away from the city will do him good.
It does, in a way. It’s comforting to be back with people who love him, even though Heath feels like a giant fake and a liar when Kate asks him if he’s met anyone since Mallory and he says no. He would tell her if there was anything to tell - she probably wouldn’t even be that surprised - but it’s not like Jake even counts. He’s never going to be his boyfriend, never going to be the guy he asks to move into his house and opens a joint checking account with.
Assuming he does that with anybody, which he probably won’t because who does that actually work out for anyway? Nobody. Therefore, there’s definitely nothing to tell.
He spends Friday with Kate and his twins nieces, making a late, messy breakfast of pancakes and sausage and scrambled eggs, then they run errands and spend a couple of hours at the ocean, enjoying the January sunshine. The girls and their little dog chase seagulls and a ball up and down the beach while he and Kate keep pace, walking barefoot in the sand. He listens to all the family gossip and does his best to steer the conversation well away from his love life.
On Saturday, he plays golf with his dad and they talk mostly about his career and his dad’s business. His dad wants him to move back to Florida and Heath figures one day he might, but no time real soon. He has no great plans with the firm but he’d like to put in ten years before he makes a change. Of course, nothing’s carved in stone and he might change his mind if the right offer comes along, but he’s not looking. Miami’s a busy city with lots of opportunities and it has a thriving gay community, a definite bonus.
Moving back would be great in a lot of ways - no more obnoxious winters, he’d actually get to drive his car more than four times a year, and he’d be back with his family again. He’s always been close with his sisters, especially Kate, and being away has robbed him of a lot of precious time with them that he’ll never get back. But moving back would mean coming out to his family too - no way to hide it since he doesn’t plan on living like a monk for the rest of his life and his family is way too involved in each other’s business to keep anything a secret for long.
Actually, the idea of coming out isn’t even that frightening. Heath’s pretty sure there are a lot worse things he could lay on them than the fact that he’s gay. They love him way more than they care about who he loves, just so long as he’s happy - he’s confident of that. But it’s still so new. He’s not even square with it himself. It’s way too soon for him to try to explain it to anyone else, especially to people he really cares about. He needs time to let it settle in his own mind before he starts telling the world.
So for the moment, for lots of different reasons, moving’s not something he’s interested in. Jake’s face pops into his mind, one of many things he’s not ready to say goodbye to yet, and although he doesn’t pursue the thought, he knows that his life in D.C. is a lot more than just his job and a piece of real estate.
The whole family gets together for a giant Ledger/Bell dinner at his mom’s house on Saturday night and she does make a point to ask about his love life, probably miffed with his father for failing to get the scoop. He tells her more about Mallory, a fluffed up version of the truth, but he keeps the rest of it vague and they keep getting interrupted and finally she gives it up.
It’s a good visit overall. It’s great seeing everyone and they’re all happy and life is good, but in the end, it leaves him feeling lonely more than anything else and he can’t quite put a finger on why.
*****
Heath catches the last flight out on Sunday night because he wants a day at home to catch up on things before he goes back to work. On Monday he does as much laundry as he can stand, vacuums his entire house - which takes all of thirty minutes and only that long because he has to lug the machine upstairs, then get down on his hands and knees to get all the dust bunnies hiding underneath the bed - and finally blows the last of the dead leaves away from the front doorstep. When he finds himself considering rearranging his kitchen cabinets and actually drawing out a schematic for the best way to store his plastic ware, he gives up. A guy can only live off hand jobs for so long. It’s time to cry uncle, find Jake - who he is definitely not obsessing over, it’s just sex, really - and get some relief.
When he gets to the bar, he’s disappointed when he doesn’t see Jake hanging around out front. It means there’s a chance that he’s busy and Heath doesn’t want to wait, already feels shimmery and hot just from the prospect of sex. Plus, if he doesn’t actually see Jake with another dude, he can pretend like it’s not happening. He knows that rationale isn’t any more healthy than any of the other little fictions he tells himself about Jake, but that’s a worry for another day, when he’s not so hard-up and desperate.
Inside, he finds the place almost deserted, just a couple of dried up old guys drinking beer at one end of the bar and a couple more playing pool. George Jones is wailing away in the background, which suits the mood of the place perfectly. Heath parks on a bar stool, gets a beer and waits to see if Jake comes out of the men’s room, but after fifteen minutes he decides that’s not going to happen. When the bartender brings him his second beer, he swallows his pride and asks, “Umm… you seen Jake around here today?”
The guy shakes his head, doesn’t even pretend not to know who Jake is, doesn’t act like it’s odd that Heath’s asking. Heath wonders if he gets a cut of Jake’s take or if he just doesn’t really care that Jake’s running an illegal operation out of his bar. Since he’s probably not the owner, Heath’s betting on indifference, or maybe a little bit of both.
“He doesn’t come around much till the end of the week.”
“Oh. Ok.” Heath’s dick is insistent, half-hard just from being here where sex sometimes happens, and since he’s basically outed himself as a user of male prostitutes, there’s no point trying to save face. May as well go all the way. “You happen to know where I might find him?”
“Nope.” The bartender smirks and Heath’s stomach turns but he ignores it. “Guy named Nate comes around sometimes, but with today being a holiday and all, doubt he’ll show.”
The idea of getting with Nate - whoever he is - holds absolutely no appeal, even with the dire situation going on in his pants. Being a one-hooker kind of guy is another nail in his Coffin of Fucked-Upness, as is the fact that he’s exposing himself to someone he doesn’t know from Adam on the off-chance that he might help him find Jake. The uncoolness of the situation is, in fact, pretty much epic. Heath says thanks, pays for his beers and leaves before he starts drawing hearts with their initials in them on the bar napkins.
*****
By Friday he’s been through at least a dozen different imaginary scenarios that involved him finding Jake instead of striking out, and absolutely none that involved him hooking up with a single other person - hot, muscle-bound football stars and drop-dead handsome actors included. He’s rubbed a sore spot on his dick in the process and fleshed out his fantasy life to an embarrassing degree. It’s gotten him through the week, but it hasn’t changed his need for the real thing at all - fantasies are ok but Jake is way better and Nate the-mystery-guy is still not an option.
This fact is starting to bug Heath, who does not want to get Jake and sex tied up in his head like he did Captain Crunch and breakfast when he was five years old, so that for the next three years he couldn’t conceive of one without the other and had to pack little tubs of cereal with him whenever he stayed away from home overnight. He has a feeling that Jake won’t be nearly so easy to wrangle as the Captain was back in the day.
The whole thing has the potential for ugly stamped on it in big red letters, which is why, when Anne texts him at noon saying they’re going out that night with some people she does volunteer work with, Heath texts back, “OK” without even asking for any details.
Whatever she has planned is better than trying to stay away from Jake and failing. Anything’s got to be better than that.
*****
Which is how Heath finds himself in a gay bar several hours later, getting his ass grabbed every time he goes to the bar and popping wood watching guys make out on the dance floor. Anne’s friends are maybe gay or bi or just super-liberal, he can’t decide which, because nobody’s wearing rainbow t-shirts and it’s loud as fuck so he can’t really make conversation. When the DJ finally takes a break, they chat some and everyone seems nice - at least one of the guys is definitely gay and interested - but there aren’t any sparks and Heath doesn’t want to fuck things up for Anne by being a disappointment to her friends.
Later though, when some random dude comes up and starts flirting, Heath decides to let it happen. He wants to know what it’s like to get picked up just because the guy has a thing for him and not because he’s getting paid.
The guy’s name is Matt and he’s like an older, respectable version of Jake, which doesn’t make Heath feel any better about himself, but he’s got to start somewhere. Matt’s classically handsome with pale skin, dark hair and piercing blue eyes. His five o’clock shadow is perfect, and he’s wearing a tight sweater and slacks that make it obvious he’s not coming to the party empty-handed. Heath looks and looks some more, can’t decide which view he likes better, the front or the back. When the music starts up and Matt pulls him out on the dance floor, he gets brave and cops a feel from both directions and decides it’s all good. A few songs later Matt asks him if he wants to leave and Heath, breathless and a little high from all the touching, says yes.
It’s awkward once they get out on the street, away from all the noise and the music and the people, but Matt assures him that his apartment is just a few blocks away, then starts talking about people he’s met and interesting things that have happened to him on the job. It’s cool, nothing pretentious, no name-dropping or anything like that, and Heath listens, but mostly just to keep his mind off what they’re going to do.
Somewhere between saying yes to a dance and saying yes to going home with the guy, he’s gotten himself in over his head.
It seems that in no time they’re at Matt’s apartment, which is actually half of a house he’s subletting from some government consultant to the blah blah agency Heath doesn’t really care. They tromp up the steps and Heath waits while Matt unlocks the door, a sick feeling of “oh fuck” creeping up his throat as the door opens and he has to follow him inside or run away like a major fucking loser. He wonders if this is how Jake feels when he hooks up with someone new or someone he doesn’t really like. Maybe Jake’s been doing it for so long he doesn’t even care anymore. Heath suddenly realizes that he never wants to get that jaded.
Matt solves the problem of having to make awkward, pre-sex small talk by shoving Heath against the just-closed door and jamming his tongue down his throat. Heath can either kiss back or choke and die, and since he’s not ready to check out quite yet, he grabs hold of Matt’s hips and tries to find something good about what’s happening. Matt doesn’t have bad breath or any sharp teeth he can cut himself on, which is a plus, but the guy’s tongue feels a lot like an octopus tentacle squirming around in Heath’s mouth and he wonders if anyone’s ever actually asphyxiated from kissing.
Just when he starts to think he’s going to have to push Matt off to breathe, Matt suddenly disappears. Heath spends a few seconds gasping for air and by the time he’s fully conscious again, Matt has Heath’s trousers down around his knees. Heath’s dick, which has been dying for any human contact other than his own hand for weeks now, is making a strong case for a blow job in spite of all the negativity running around in his head, bobbing hard and needy right in front of Matt’s face.
Matt mumbles, “God, you’ve got a gorgeous cock!” and proceeds to get busy, swallowing Heath down like a pro. Heath watches and feels and it’s good as far as head goes - Matt definitely knows what he’s doing - but the sick feeling in his stomach never lets up even an inch, not even when he shoots down Matt’s throat. When
Matt stands up and starts kissing him again with his comey tongue, Heath has to push him away.
“Sorry.” Heath sucks in a ragged breath. “Umm… I know this is an asshole move, but I gotta go. This was a mistake.”
For about three seconds, Matt’s face goes blank and he genuinely looks surprised. Heath wishes he could turn back the clock and undo the whole evening, or at least say no when Matt invited him home because he’d known it wasn’t a good idea but he was horny and desperate and that made him careless.
“I’m really sorry,” he adds when Matt doesn’t say anything. The blank look disappears in a blink, replaced by a tight, cynical smile.
“Hey, it’s no big deal. Take off.” Matt steps away from him, arches one eyebrow and looks pointedly at the door. Heath wants to apologize again but he’s pretty sure there’s no good ending available at this point no matter what he says, so he zips up his pants and slips out, shutting the door very quietly behind him.
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