Chapter Five
I’d watched him leave from my perch on the countertop, then stared out into the darkness beyond the pool as my brain attempted to file through the events of the evening.
Even with the taste of him still bright, it felt unbelievable.
As though I’d conjured the whole interaction in some feverish fantasy to distract me from unrequited lust. Well, lust and - if I was being honest - loneliness.
It wasn’t a fantasy, though, and if I was to take Kai at his word, neither was it unrequited. Otherworldly as that idea still seemed.
The chill as evening segued into night finally brought me down from my thoughts, and from my seat.
The warmth of the underfloor heating welcome on the soles of my feet, as I pulled the doors closed and locked them.
Kai hadn’t said anything, but I had the strong feeling that he wouldn’t be returning tonight, even once his chauffeur duties had been satisfied.
I knew I could - maybe should - feel disappointed at that, but somehow I didn’t. Was deep, instead, in the memory of what had happened; replaying each step as best my recollection could manage. Allowing myself to wallow in self-pity at what hadn’t taken place seemed greedy.
And yet, lying in bed later, my hardness in hand, the fact that it was my own grip rather than Kai’s felt like an insult. I gave a few exploratory strokes but couldn’t go much further. Instead I lay there, stiff and frustrated, until I finally drifted off to sleep.
#
It felt like a hangover the next day, slumped at my computer at work, even though I’d not had much more to drink after Kai had left.
Frustration masquerading; manifesting in a headache and shortness that had already seen me snap at a colleague and prompted raised eyebrows from others.
I’d sought isolation in my office, but little cut through the sense of prickly solitude.
I’d cursed myself for not getting his number before he left. It felt ridiculous that he lived next door to me, a matter of feet separating the houses, and yet I had no way more convenient to communicate with him than pushing a note under the front door.
There was, of course, one option, but it was one that I’d been reluctant to attempt.
I had social media accounts, sure, but I hardly used them.
Hearing about the dating and marriages and offspring of old school friends quickly lost its charm; I’d turned off the helpful notifications of when it was my birthday, after being faced the first time with a long list of identical “Happy Birthday!” messages.
Responding to them had felt more like a cruel chore than an opportunity to be reunited.
There was more than that dissuading me, though.
It was also the thought that, if I found Kai’s profile, I might also come face to face with Kai’s past. More specifically, his dating past. Not something I figured myself ready to see, or indeed to compare myself to the sort of people he’d been intimate with before.
Rationally, I knew it could plunge me into depression. Emotionally, though, I wanted to make contact with him. To at least confirm - as if it would be so clear - that we’d had the connection I’d felt. The connection he’d insisted I wasn’t imagining.
And so I searched for his name, and then scrolled down on my phone until I found his profile picture.
My fingertip hovered over the “Friend” button, before drifting to the link that would take me to his profile page. Obviously I’d only see what he deemed suitable for public consumption, but even that could be soul-destroying. Which only really left the message button.
“Hey, it’s Tate,” I tapped out into the chat box.
Waited a moment and then, before I could second-guess myself for the twentieth time, sent it.
Forced myself to lock my phone and put it, face down, on the desk next to me, rather than watch obsessively to see if the little icon flipped from ‘delivered’ to ‘read.’
That may have been the intention, but while I might not have been staring at my phone screen, it didn’t mean I was concentrating on work any more intently. My fingers drummed an anxious pattern against the desktop.
When the phone buzzed, I almost swiped it onto the floor in my haste to pick it up.
“You found me!” he’d replied, with a grinning emoji.
“I’m basically a detective,” I told him, smiling as I punched out the characters. “Did your parents get home okay?”
“Oh god,” he sent back, “they were so drunk, it was embarrassing.”
I chuckled at the thought of it. I’d only met his mom and dad a few times, but they seemed like pleasant people. Clearly they weren’t afraid of letting their hair down once in a while.
“It’s a parent’s job to embarrass their offspring,” I pointed out.
“Then they’re clearly the best parents.”
I was about to thumb out a response, but then saw the “a message is being typed” icon flutter.
“I’m sorry I had to leave early,” Kai wrote.
I blinked at the screen, not quite sure how to reply. The risk of coming across as either too desperate or, conversely, too cold was something I didn’t quite trust myself to navigate.
“I get it, you did promise them,” I said, eventually. Vague and safe.
“I know I did, but I also know that you probably started over-thinking as soon as I left.”
I grit my teeth. Being so damn obvious was starting to make me suspect I might be two-dimensional, or something.
“I had the memory of your ass to keep me going,” I teased.
Kai sent a slyly-winking emoji. “Just my ass...?”
“Not just your ass, no,” I conceded. “Your mouth was good, too.”
I could picture him licking his lips as he stared at the screen, his fingers swiping quickly across the keyboard.
“You were mainly buried in my throat, if I remember rightly.”
My cock lurched in my pants at the reminder. “I stand corrected.”
I paused for a moment, trying to fight the urge to tell him I wanted to see him again, while also not appear too desperate. Or, at least, no more desperate than anyone who has just gone hunting for someone on Facebook.
“Are you coming over to swim tonight?” I asked him eventually. Found I was holding my breath as the app told me he was typing a reply.
“Are you really inviting me to use the pool, or for something else?”
“Well if you don’t swim you might not wear the Speedo,” I pointed out, smirking to myself.
“Just for you I’ll wear one with some history, then” Kai replied.
“I look forward to hearing all about it,” I told him. I wasn’t sure exactly what sort of history he had in mind, but I suspected it might be a story I’d enjoy.
“What time will you be home?”
I glanced at the clock on my computer. There were, in theory, still several hours to go before I could realistically head out. In theory.
Sighing, I resigned myself to good behavior. “Not for another few hours at least,” I sent, “some of us have to work, y’know.”
Kai replied with a stream of outraged-looking emojis. “I’ll be working hard enough when I graduate, I think.”
“Then I guess I should make the most of your downtime now,” I suggested. I could definitely think of a few ways, just off the top of my head.