Page 35 of Everything's Better With You
“See something you like?” He couldn’t resist, but he should have. “Sorry, I’m just going to—”
Leslie reached for him, but let his hand pause in midair. “You know I do. You’re killing me, Joe.”
It was killing Joe, too, the tension, the inability to reach for what he wanted, what was right in front of him. Once they crossed that line—
As if on cue to remind him of exactly where he was, shouts filtered into his apartment from the lobby. Most likely Leslie’s football players.
“I’m sorry,” Joe whispered. “That wasn’t—It’s not fair of me. Let me go shower.”
Leslie swallowed hard and then smiled weakly. “Make sure you come out of that bathroom in more than just a towel?”
Joe nodded, should have said more, but took the easy way out of this awkward interlude. He closed himself in the bathroom and exhaled.
So not fair. Why couldn’t they be naked in Joe’s bed right now? Oh, right, because for the foreseeable future he’d be living in a student dormitory that likely had thin walls, he had to pretend to be Leslie’s rival, and he needed to be all upstanding and shit. That meant no more stripteases in front of Leslie, who looked as if he might have popped a vein in his neck fighting the urge to grab shirtless Joe. It wasn’t fair to play with Leslie’s emotions like that. Joe knew just how much Leslie cared about him, that he was attracted to him. He didn’t need to rub it in his face.
Quit being a dick.
Joe showered, shaved, ran his fingers through his hair with product and let his curls dry natural. He dressed in tan cargo shorts and another short-sleeve collared knit shirt, this one black, and put on a pair of Sauconys. He figured this would count as reasonably covered. He entered the living space of his apartment as Leslie was ending a phone call.
“Everything okay?” Joe asked. “Did you need to be elsewhere?”
Leslie looked way too proud of himself. “Nope. I just called in the janitorial service for the network studios in Des Moines. They aresending a crew down to redo these floors, paint, hang those mirrors you bought—yeah, Barry told me—and do some maintenance in this building.”
Joe’s chest deflated. “Les, I was going to do it myself.” His voice sounded muffled in his own head so he could only imagine how it sounded to Leslie. “You didn’t have to do all of that. I don’t want you to feel like you have to swoop in and save the day.”
“I just want things here to be good for you,” Leslie said.
“They are good, or they will be. You gotta give them a chance to be.”
“I’m sorry, I thought you would appreciate…I just wanted—”
“You’re making a fuss over me. Do I seem like I need to be fussed over?”
“No, Joe, I just—”
“Would you have done this for anyone else?”
“Joe—”
“Like, would you have Barry’s office floors refinished and walls painted?”
“I want you to be happy here, Joe. I—” Leslie’s face turned beet red and his forehead crease deepened.
“I’m fine, Leslie—”
“I want you to want to stay.”
Leslie’s words hung in the air between them like the crowd shouting at a football game might cut out when their team missed a field goal and lost the game. Even though they’d spoken quietly, their words seemed to echo off the walls of the apartment.
Joe opened and closed his mouth a few times, he shifted his weight, he brought his hand up to gesture, although what the gesture was going to be he had no clue. Would he have slapped Leslie like Cher inMoonstruckand told him to snap out of it? Would he have grabbed him by the collar and shaken him? Or kissed him?
“Leslie,” he began, his hand sort of floating in front of him. “I just got here. All right? Give me a second before you start assuming I’m going to leave.”
Leslie exhaled and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”
“What? Coming over this morning? Taking me car shopping?Swooping in like some superhero to save the day? Which part?” Joe made sure the teasing in his voice was loud and clear.
It worked. Leslie gave him a shy smile. “I just…I can’t settle down.” He barked out a laugh. “I’m like a damn puppy, ready to fetch your slippers or bring you the paper or some shit.” He brushed his hair back, the baby-fine golden strands looking like silk, and Joe wished he could press his face against it and inhale, wondering if his hair smelled like the sunshine it always reminded him of.
