Page 60 of Just Like You
He was funny. So sharp and put together, yet almost aggressively forward. And now he was behaving like a toddler who needed a nap.
“I need a shower.”
“Then strip,” I said, a smile brewing on my face. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. Just get yourself cleaned up and go to bed. I need to file some forms online, and then I’ll be in bed too. You want a cup of tea? A drink?”
“No,” he said, doing exactly what I’d told him to. Letting his crumpled suit fall to the ground, struggling with the buttons on his shirt. His tie half on, half off, like he’d tried to remove it and had given up.
“Here.” I walked up to him and took over. Gently pulled the tie over his head and stroked his cheek as I let it fall to the floor. “No sex. Don’t look at me like that. I know you, you’ll say one word and get me on all fours, and then I won’t be able to walk tomorrow.”
“You walk fine,” he muttered, but it was there. A little smile.
“There. Shirt off.” I tugged it over his shoulders. That hairy chest. The way his shoulders shaped into his arms. His nipples all pert underneath the clothes that were now pooling by his feet. And it suddenly, in my weird state, occurred to me how lucky I was. That I was here and he was with me, not because of any other reason than that…he wanted to. That he wanted to be with me. And he was tired and probably a little grumpy, the quietness of him perhaps should have made me wary, but instead I just smiled. Let my hands stroke down his chest.
“I really like what we have,” I murmured. “And sorry for just… you know, not handling anything very well. I should have talked to you and not just run off. But… I don’t know. I was scared, and I didn’t want to get in deeper when it would all end in tears anyway. I didn’t want that.”
“What?” He was…actually really out of it, and majorly overtired. But I could feel it, the way he was relaxing with every word coming out of my mouth. That if I just kept talking…this thing I was doing. Calming him down with little strokes of his skin.
“Sorry. Just wanted to say it,” I repeated.
“It’s fine. You know now, and…”
“We need to sleep. Then later? We will…talk. Lots of talking and…”
“Fucking.”
“You like fucking.”
He giggled into my neck, having scooped me back up where I belonged. Him almost naked to my still fully dressed self. “I do. I especially like fucking you, but you’ve probably figured that bit out.”
“This, you and me, how come it’s become so simple?” That wasn’t a lie. This was simple. And I’d been completely honest, and I still was. “It’s easy with you. You understand me, and the way I live and my job and…you haven’t once told me that you resent it.”
“Why would I?”
“People always do. They see it as something temporary, a little fun thing to do before you settle down and get a proper job. And when you meet someone, it’s like two minutes before they ask when you’re giving it up.”
“Don’t give it up. I want to go back to the Maldives with you.”
“It might not be the same, second time around.”
“Oh, trust me. Give me a beach and a little room with a veranda and stick you and me there? It will be amazing. It was then, and now we’re here. Another adventure.”
“Don’t forget all the rosé we drank, gives you rosé-tinted glasses, that does. That was the Maldives, and this is central São Paulo, not quite a paradise island.”
“This place has room service? No? A bar? I’m getting you a glass of nice rosé. And when we get back, I need to take you to the Patek shop and get this wristband changed.”
His hands were stroking down my arm, now trying to unravel my shirt, finding his watch.
“I’ve worn it. Because it…it’s yours. It made me feel happy.”
Stupid, but true.
“I want you to have it.”
“I can’t just…”
“Shut up, Julian. It’s not a case of yours or mine here. I think from now on? It’s our watch. I bought it. You wear it. No strings attached. That work for you?”
“And I thought you were a romantic?”
