Page 14 of Second Chance

They head out not long after. It’s still a weeknight, after all, and they all have jobs to get to in the morning. Tony drives Daniel’s car, leaving his own parked near Mike’s. He’s a little ashamed of how relieved he is to be driving a car where the steering wheel doesn’t jam when he parallel parks.

“You good to drive me over tomorrow morning?” he asks Daniel, who folded himself into the passenger seat and appears ready to fall asleep.

“Yeah.” Daniel yawns. “No classes till noon tomorrow, and if I get to be late for faculty council because I have to drive you places, I will reconsider giving road head.”

Tony chokes on a laugh. “I mean, I won’t. It’s a safety hazard but noted.”

Daniel chuckles, a warm, comforting sound, and Tony breathes it in. He likes how familiar it is to hear Daniel laugh, to make him laugh.

He looks over for a second at a red light, and Daniel is watching him. No. Studying him, examining the lines of his face and the cut of his jaw.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Daniel says. “Just…wondering.”

Tony forces his shoulders to stay relaxed, though instinct would have them up around his ears. He’s been weird today, andhe knows it. The heavy cloud of his annoyance after work still follows him, and he can’t quite make it go away. Daniel can ask him anything, of course, but Tony doesn’t want to explain why he’s in such a funk; he doesn’t know if he can.

“How do you know so much about dick pics?”

Tony breathes an internal sigh of relief. “Blake doesn’t know everything about me.”

“Oh?”

“I did download Grindr once.”

Daniel doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to. Tony can feel his eyes, questioning, curious.

“It was last summer when I thought I was going to move out. I had a place lined up in downtown Kingston, and I thought…I thought it would be my chance to finally do something about…” Tony gestures toward himself.

“Hmm.” Daniel hums in agreement. “Did you meet up with anyone?”

“This feels like a trap.” Tony doesn’t think it is. Daniel’s not a person who gets jealous. But Tony would rather have the lighthearted, banter-y relationship talk than try to explain his own sexual history. He’s never had the right words for it.

“I know you were with other people before we met, Tony. It’s not a big deal. I guess I want to know more about you.”

“Oh.” Tony hadn’t thought about that. He knows a bit about Daniel’s dating past, in large part because he met his ex not too long after Tony and Daniel started seeing each other. Jeff is a nice guy, and Tony likes him despite being very glad he moved to Ohio. “I met one guy. It was…fine, I guess.”

“A ringing endorsement.”

Tony shrugs. “It was pretty clear we were meeting to hook up, so we did. I didn’t think much about it before or after.”

For a moment, Daniel doesn’t answer. Then, he says, “If I hadn’t come back to the garage after we met…”

“I was thinking about you.” Tony’s glad he has to look at the road. It feels strange to admit even though Daniel knows how Tony feels about him. He must. “I was thinking about you all the time.”

He chances a glance over.

Daniel looks smug. “Sorry to pry,” he says. He doesn’t seem all that sorry to Tony, but Daniel is nothing if not polite. “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. I just… You had a whole life before I came along, and I’m sure seeing other people was part of it.”

Tony shifts uncomfortably. “Not really. I mean, sometimes, I guess, but nothing serious.” Nothing more than a quick fuck every now and again is what he means, but he doesn’t want to say that in so many words.

“You weren’t…dating?” Daniel asks, picking up on the subtext like he always does.

Tony shakes his head. “I…never felt that way about anyone.” They’re on the bridge now. He loves driving the bridge when it’s dark, the water sparkling beneath them with the reflection of the lights on the bridge and absolutely no one around for miles. “You know, I used to think I was bi.” He didn’t enter this conversation intending on telling Daniel this. He’s never told anyone. But Daniel’s willing to listen, and the night is quiet and mellow with the first hints of autumn creeping up on the Hudson Valley. Some combination of all these things has put Tony in a sharing mood.

Daniel makes an amused sound. “I think a lot of us went through a phase of hoping we could still pass as straight.”

“No, I mean…” Tony tries to find the words. “I didn’t want to date anyone when I was a teenager. And I thought, well, I don’t want to date girls, and I don’t want to date guys, so I guess I like both equally.”

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