Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
So, That Just Happened
I’m in a bougie, upscale apartment overlooking the New York City skyline at night. I only know it’s New York because some of the buildings—and the distinct shape of Central Park—are unmistakable. I don’t know who owns the apartment or even how I got here, though I’m unconcerned.
Instead, I’m mesmerized by the view through the floor-to-ceiling windows. It’s raining, and the city lights refract through the raindrops on the glass, glittering everywhere I look. I’ve never seen anything so magical.
But I’m also aware that I’m not alone.
Someone’s hands are on my back, moving slowly over my shoulders and down my spine in sensual circles.
It’s warm, making my whole body tingle with desire in a way that’s hard to ignore.
Long fingers move up through my hair with deft precision, gripping tightly, and pulling my head to the side.
A sound escapes my throat that I don’t seem to have any control over, and I shiver in response.
There’s an air of mystery surrounding my partner, and the intrigue only makes this more exciting for me.
I don’t know who I’m with, but I don’t mind as long as they know what they’re doing.
And oh, god. This person knows exactly what they’re doing.
As their mouth moves against the back of my neck, teeth barely scraping at my ear, I’m reduced to a puddle.
There comes a point when the teasing isn’t enough, and I’m no longer content to be the only one having fun.
I turn to face my tormentor, and the world around me suddenly goes still with an air of significance.
Of all the people I might have expected to find in this moment, Luke Shaw was not one of them.
Unfazed, Luke grabs my hand and directs me to the giant bed behind him, and I don’t hesitate to follow.
He pulls me down until I’m lying on top of him, pressing his hands against my chest as he grinds his hips up against me.
Any question about how I ended up in this situation flies out of my head with the motion.
Luke reaches for the back of my neck, pulling me down until our lips connect, and he moans into my mouth, sending a shiver down my spine. He’s all hands, dragging his fingers against my back, clawing at my arms. It’s hot and heavy, and I’m entirely here for it.
He’s still wearing his shirt, which is a serious transgression that needs rectifying, so I slide my hands up under the fabric and pull it over his head until his chest is bare beneath me.
It's as perfect as I remember, the firm lines of his muscles on display.
Those devastating hip tattoos taunt me, and I delicately brush my fingers over them, making Luke squirm.
His head tilts back against the pillow, eyes closing in euphoria—pure perfection.
Luke touches a hand to my face, cupping my cheek, then drags his fingers down my throat, over my chest. Down, down, down, he teases, and my heart beats dangerously fast. The lower he moves, the more eager I become for this to progress.
He’s at my navel, teasing his fingers along the waistline of my jeans, dipping just beneath the denim, dangerously close to my cock.
I’ve never felt more tortured than I do in this moment, and Luke seems to know it—he’s drawing it out on purpose.
My whole body shakes with tension, but Luke just smiles. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. He finally gives in, agreeing to end the agony of his fingers toying at my waist, and he unbuttons my jeans with one hand, reaching for me. Right as his deft fingers enclose around me…
I wake up.
Or, rather, I bolt upright in bed with enough momentum to fall out of it and onto the floor with a heavy thud, tangled up in my comforter. My head hits the corner of my nightstand with a thump, and I let out a whole string of curses at the unexpected pain.
While I’m lying on the floor with my throbbing head in my hands, my heart is still pounding inside my chest, and I’m dealing with the most severe case of morning wood I’ve had in some time.
I’m uncomfortable on every front, but my brain won’t stop racing, replaying what happened until I can feel my whole face flushing.
Did I… Did I just have a sex dream with Luke?
I mean, what the fuck. What the fuck?
It takes a long time to calm down. I focus on breathing deeply and close my eyes, trying to think of literally anything else until I’m able to pick myself up off the floor.
My bed’s a mess, and I can’t help but let out a strangled laugh to see it, dragging my hands down my face. I bend down to fix it with a groan, choosing to ignore the fact that my hands are shaking. Clearly, I was fighting for my life against the sheets.
Afterward, I take a long, cold shower.
If I’m completely honest, this isn’t the first sex dream I’ve had with a man.
They’re as common as my sex dreams with women, but I’ve looked it up before, and it doesn’t necessarily make me gay.
Many straight men have them. Dreams are weird interpretations of shit going on in the subconscious.
My brain just decided to interpret that with Luke.
It doesn’t mean it requires questioning my sexuality.
Not even if it was hyper-realistic and so, so lingering.
I don’t think I’ve ever been this turned on before.
It's fine. That’s only my body having a strong reaction to the dream, not anything specific to do with Luke. Totally normal. Nothing to panic about. I’m not panicking. Who said I was panicking?
As if I didn’t already have enough concerns regarding my obvious attraction to him. This dream certainly added fuel to the fire. Maybe that’s why I’m having trouble moving past it.
To make matters worse, it’s only 3 a.m., and there’s no way in hell I can go back to bed after that.
I have nothing to do but sit with my thoughts until I leave for work…
Until I have to pick up Luke and go to work.
Jesus Christ, how can I face Luke again after this? I don’t think I’m strong enough.
First, I try to get comfortable on the couch with a book, hoping to lose myself in its pages and escape this torment.
However, I can’t get past the first few paragraphs before my mind wanders back to the dream in its full glory, sending heat to my cheeks as it catches me unawares.
A frustrated noise escapes my throat, and I snap the book shut, tossing it down on the coffee table.
I claw my hands through my hair and groan.
This doesn’t make sense. I’ve never been this nonplussed before, and it’s unsettling to think that one simple, little sex dream involving a man—even a man with a body as devastating as Luke’s—could be enough to throw me into such a tailspin.
I don’t think I’ve ever been attracted to another man before, and I don’t know how to react.
Where’s the instruction manual for ‘You Might Not Be as Straight as You Thought’?
I’m too worked up, that’s all. Stuck in my head. I’m trying to relax when there’s so much pent-up energy inside me that it’ll never work. Instead of forcing myself to ignore it, I have to move through it. I won’t be able to do that sitting on my couch. Maybe some exercise will help.
There’s a Planet Fitness a few towns over that I have a membership to, so despite the hour, I get dressed and drive down there. Thank God for 24-hour gyms.
It’s mostly empty, save for two or three other people milling about. Either they’re night owls, or their days start much earlier than mine. Thankfully, they’re all too preoccupied with their workouts to pay attention to me.
I make a beeline for the treadmills and hop on, plugging in my headphones, and turning on the heaviest heavy-metal playlist I can find.
While the music blares in my ears at intense volume, the vocalists and instruments screaming at near-unintelligible decibels, I run for almost four miles without stopping, feeling my heart pumping inside my chest.
It's hard to focus on anything with this kind of noise drowning out my thoughts, and the all-consuming fire of a good workout burns through my chest, leaving everything else behind.
By the end, I’m a sweaty mess, but as I take the speed down to walk it out and calm my heart rate, I can’t deny that I feel phenomenally better. My head is clearer, and even though I am still confused about what’s happening, I feel like I can finally face it without freaking out.
The first thing I have to accept right here and now is that I am undeniably attracted to Luke.
Going back through every interaction we’ve had since the moment he walked into the shop, it becomes painfully obvious that I’ve been fixated from the beginning.
Although I tried to write it off as passively acknowledging his ridiculous good looks, my attention toward him was much more profound than simply being comfortable enough in my masculinity to appreciate it.
Accepting that feels like an excellent first step to moving forward, but it does little to ease my overall confusion. Is this merely a one-off? Is it possible I’m only attracted to Luke, or does it extend to other men, too?
By now, the gym is more crowded with people exercising before work—people who enjoy going to the gym regularly, and it shows.
As I move around the various weight machines, I wonder if there’s any validity to my thoughts or if it’s all in my head.
Scanning the crowd as casually as possible, without noticeably ogling anyone, I come to some conclusions.
At first, it’s evident that I have a type regarding women as I find myself picking out the traits I like best—curvy brunettes, big tits, and preferably with a nice ass.
But that’s not news to me. What is shocking is that I also do apparently have a type with men, and now I’m convinced I’ve just been too stupid to notice.
All of the times I’ve ever appreciated a man’s body for how well built it was, I assumed it was nothing more than admiration for the hard work they’ve put into maintaining themselves—that I was a little jealous of how nicely it suited them when I didn’t think I could ever match it.
Now I’m wondering if my attention was really jealousy, or if I was completely missing the fact that I was attracted to them.
God, am I that much of an idiot? Have I seriously gone thirty-five years without realizing I’ve been attracted to both women and men?
Am I being Punk’d right now? Someone’s going to come out from the back room, stick a camera in my face, and shout that this is the longest someone’s gone before realizing they’re bisexual. Congratulations!
I want to laugh at how ridiculous this sounds, but I also feel like crying for how much it makes sense.
When I think about it, a lot of things should have alerted me to the fact that I was different.
Like how I clung to certain male teachers in high school.
Or how I used to like watching the football team practice on the field after school, getting hot and sweaty as they tackled each other.
It’s probably why I joined band—it gave me a reason to never miss a game.
Then, there were all the movies I found myself watching over and over again.
I devoured The Mummy with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, thinking it was purely for her and somehow not about him, with his beautiful hair and rippling muscles.
Even the Zorro movies. Catherine Zeta-Jones was hands down one of my childhood infatuations, but I was also unusually obsessed with Antonio Banderas, more so than was probably normal for an adolescent boy.
I always assumed it was because I wanted to be him, suave and debonair, with a penchant for sexy sword-fighting.
Now I’m going back over how many times I stared at his face on the screen and seriously questioning my motivations for watching it religiously.
God, how many other times have I misread the signs?
Now, on top of dredging up thirty-five years of repressed emotions, I’m being forced to navigate my newly realized attraction for Luke and what this means for me going forward.
Am I supposed to act on this? Do I really want to?
I don’t have any experience dating guys, so I feel like I’d just make a fool of myself trying to handle that for the first time.
And what does that mean for Chrissy and me?
I could just as easily ignore these feelings for Luke and continue to pursue her full-time.
I mean, she’s also attractive as hell and sweet as pie.
I could see us working well together. I think.
But then I wonder if I only want to take the easy way out, making the excuse not to pursue Luke, because it’s terrifying.
They’re completely different people, and starting a relationship with either would look entirely different, barely comparable. Even sitting here trying to imagine each of them as diverging paths of my future, I can’t decide which one would be more gratifying.
With Chrissy, it would be easy. I’d know exactly what to expect.
Quiet nights, cuddled up on the couch watching Netflix, or going out with friends, getting drunk on cheap beers while playing cornhole.
Late nights at the bar, coming home to her soft body beneath me whenever we’d make love. It’s predictable. Safe.
With Luke, it’s uncharted territory. He’s as much of a foreigner to me as if we’d been born on different planets.
You’d never guess we grew up in the same small town.
It’s almost as if we speak different languages.
But the canvas of that future path is wide open; limitless.
The thrill of not knowing where we would end up is almost more intoxicating than the thought that sex with him would be new and exciting.
And clearly something I would enjoy if that dream is any indication.
In all of my life, I never imagined I would find myself in a situation where I’d have difficulty deciding who I wanted to fuck more, and the sudden realization makes my face flush.
Dear lord, I don’t know if I can do this.