Page 4 of Exhale

“You’re desperate for this coffee thing, huh?”

“Just to clear my head,” he said again. He sounded a little defeated, but I was grateful for a plan that didn’t involve taking him home. I wasn’t sure I could deal with that right now, however much I liked the idea of seeing him naked.

“Come on. Let’s go get you a large coffee—”

“I prefer espresso.”

“You sound like one of those posh kids,” I teased. I couldn’t help myself.

“Maybe once upon a time, I was posh. Not anymore. I still live at home with my siblings in a rundown council terrace in Thorpeton Green, and not the posh part. Like, backstreet-dump Thorpeton, near the industrial estate under the M4.”

“Working-class posh,” I blabbed on. “You look posh, you talk posh, and you look like you just stepped out of a fashion shoot.”

I regretted it even before I finished speaking because now he really looked freaked out, my beautiful, gorgeous man. I wondered how people survived having a partner who looked like him. I mean, he would be with someone amazing one day. Probably some big, rich, muscle bear of a man who would love him and spoil him, while I would be stuck alone in my dingy flat, dreaming of him. I was already jealous of the imaginary rich boyfriend, the one he would love forever.

“You’re deranged,” he said, smirking at me. I sighed, fiddling with my fingers. I’d heard that one before. Then he reached out and grabbed my sleeve. Tugged at me. Smiled as he led me down the steps towards the road. I followed him, thinking at that moment, I would have followed him anywhere. Blindly, desperately and, I think, a little bit in love.

JAMIE

He took a seat opposite me, twirling his Diet Coke bottle like he didn’t understand how to open it. The whole table shook from his leg jiggling, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Calm,” I said quietly. “Calm down.”

He flashed a little smile, for a second showing off a different side to his handsome face.His Adam’s apple bobbed from his repeated swallowing, drawing my gaze to his slim neck and then down to where his fingers still fidgeted with the bottle top. In fact, his entire body was in constant motion from small, erratic tics.

“I’m not going to eat you. You’re looking at me like you expect me to jump and murder you any minute now.I’mthe one who hasn’t done this before, remember?I’mthe one who should be shaking with fear. You have nothing to worry about with me.”

“That’s what all the serial killers say before they chop you up,” he mumbled, finally unscrewing the lid on his bottle. The hiss sawed at the uncomfortable silence like a blunt butterknife.

“I’m not a serial killer.” I stirred a sachet of sugar into my espresso, making trails in the golden foam of my tiny paper cup. I took a careful sip and let the hot, sweet liquid calm my frazzled nerves. He made me nervous. Not because of who or what he was, but because of what he might let me do to him.

“Exactly. Another thing that always happens in those horror movies. Isn’t that what they say? The bad guys?” He was back to looking young. Young and in need of someone to protect him. Love him forever. Yeah. That was my brain working overtime again. Life didn’t happen like this. People didn’t fall in love over hissing bottles of Diet Coke and bad espresso served in tiny paper cups. This was just a meaningless encounter that would lead to nothing but embarrassed laughter, told as an insane joke in a pub. I could actually see myself sitting there with my friends, turning the whole afternoon into a funny story, making them laugh at my naivety.

“Can I ask you something?” I tried to keep my voice steady, but I was sweating under my coat and wondering why I’d decided to wear so many layers. It was a warm, spring afternoon, and I was in my full winter gear, having dressed in a haze of daydreams mixed with frantic anxiety. I needed to calm the fuck down and get myself back to some kind of normal state, where I could speak without stuttering and my armpits weren’t drenched in sweat. I had no problem sitting down chatting with customers at work, talking about the weather and making jokes about current affairs. Yet, here I was all stupid, just because the guy sitting next to me at the rickety café table was the most normal man I’d ever seen.

He was an ordinary bloke. A nice bloke even. Someone who could easily have been the latest apprentice at the garage where I worked. But he was gay, and he’d agreed to have sex with me, and I was terrified, which made no sense. It was only sex. At the same time, looking into those big eyes, or at that lush mouth, or the mop of tight curls on his head, I wanted to reach out and touch him, brush my thumb over his cheek, feel his stubble under my fingertips. I wanted to stroke his lips, his eyebrows. I wanted to kiss his temples, and…yes, I wanted to do a lot of more than that. But still, here we were.

I took another sip of my coffee that was already going cold. “The thing is…” Fuck it. I needed to ask, though. I had expectations. I had hopes. I had bloody paralysing fears. “This sex thing? Are you into, like, all of it?”

“Allof it?” he asked and started fiddling with the coke bottle again.

“I’ve had…like, anal with girls. I’ve never been brave enough to ask anyone to play with mine. Is that…what you kind of expect to do?”

He smiled, and I breathed a too-loud sigh of relief.

“Sex is whatever we make of it. If we both have fun, we can do whatever you want. I totally go either way, happy to bottom or top. So…there. We’ve had that awkward conversation.” He sat up a little straighter, his eyes trained on his hands as he asked, “You want to bottom then?”

“I don’t know?” There I was again. This was…such a stupid idea. I was an idiot. That much was obvious.

“It’s good to talk about these things.” He suddenly sounded far too grown up, despite his voice trembling. “Because then we can just go with it. I like that you asked—that’s decent of you. But the sex is usually the only part of my hook-ups I get right. It’s the after bit that I fuck up.”

“Then talk to me,” I said, trying to knock some sense into this conversation. We were both freaking out and that needed to stop. “What part goes wrong?”

“As I said, I’ve had more than a few hook-ups. None of them have been any good. I tend to go for guys who end up pitying or laughing at me. It’s kind of my own fault, as I go for a certain type, and they’re always wrong. I know what I’m looking for, what kind of guy would make me happy. Well, IthinkI know.”

“Chemistry and attraction are sometimes two completely different things,” I started, then I stopped. I had no right to claim to know what I was talking about.

“Exactly!” he agreed, beaming at me. “I go for people I fancy, but they never really fancy me back. Not when it comes down to it. They may like how I look, but they don’t want to talk to me or even stay the night.”

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