Page 78 of Dirty Air
“Please leave.”
“C’mon, you don’t have anything I haven’t seen before.”
Dieter wins their little door scuffle, of course, because he’s paid to be a muscle-bound idiot. When the door opens wide, his eye immediately zeros in on Henry’s dress shoes. “I’ve never seen those shoes before.”
“Now that we have proven you wrong, we can meet in the lobby later.”
“Henry?” Dieter calls out.
Fritz has hope, just a smallglimmerof hope, that Henry will not answer. Hopefully he’ll just hide under the covers until Fritz can control his pest problem.
Dieter isn't advancing any further into the room—which is probably a good decision, actually. Maybe they can get away with it.
But Henry ruins Fritz’s hopes so quickly. “Good morning, Dieter.”
Dieter makes a wholly undignified noise and Fritz finds just enough strength to push him back out into the hallway. “Let’s meet in the lobby in thirty minutes.”
“I fuckingtoldyou not to?—!”
Fritz shuts the door in his face before he can say anything else and pointedly applies the security chain. He should use them more often.
He pads back into the wider room portion, hoping for a few more minutes in bed, but Henry’s already turned the lamp light on.
He sits up against the headboard, his wide chest exposed, his arms bulging, tense from where he’s holding the covers up around his lap. As if Dieter would try to rip the blanket away from him.
“Dieter gone?”
“Yeah,” Fritz confirms, eyeing him. “Can I suck you off?”
“What?!” Henry stands and searches for the clothes he dropped last night. He bends over to grab his boxers, giving Fritz a show. “You need to pack.Ineed to pack.”
“Yeah.” But Fritz remembers what happened the last time Henry left his hotel room. “Just one face fuck? It will not take thirty minutes.”
Henry, that stupid, insightful man, stops gathering the papers strewn about the desk and looks up.
Fritz squirms under the scrutiny, feeling even more exposed than when he was standing bare naked in front of the window.
“I’m not leaving you,” Henry says, finally.
“Great. Then we can fuck.”
“No, I still have to get back to my room. I’m serious, it’s a wreck, there’s clothes everywhere.” Henry shakes the stack of papers, tapping them against the desk until they fall into place. “I’m not leaving you, though. This isn’t like Silverstone.”
Well, time will tell.
“Come here.” Henry drops the organized stack of papers and holds his arms out. When Fritz doesn’t move, Henry huffs and crosses the room. “I’m sorry for abandoning you—I thought I was helping.”
Fritz snorts and looks away, back to the ugly painting over his bed. It’s better than speaking—than revealing any more of himself.
Henry leans into Fritz’s eyeline, but Fritz is stubborn and just turns his head further away.
“Hey, look at me,” Henry coaxes, cupping Fritz's face and guiding it back towards himself. “I really am sorry.”
“It is okay.”
“No, it’s not. I should have talked about it with you.” Henry squeezes Fritz’s cheek, and it grounds him, somewhat. “I acted more like a race engineer than a partner. I’ll do better at separating those things in the future.”
Partner.
