Dom #6
“Really? He was like...seven.”
“Gay can recognize gay sometimes, even at that age. I didn’t magically end up gay at the age of twelve just because I randomly found a boy cute. There were signs long before that, well before puberty reared its head.”
“Huh, straight guys don’t have to go through that. Mostly, we just went through the ‘ew girls’ stage. I guess gay guys don’t have to worry about that sort of thing getting in the way, huh?”
“We don’t,” he said, eyeing me in amusement. “And last I recall, you weren’t all that straight.”
I snorted. “I can tell you right now that would be news to my family, that’s for sure. I’ve never dated a man, and as far as they know, I’ve not been with any men in any way.”
“Interesting,” he said. “Did you go into the closet without ever really coming out, or was...that just a bit of horny teenage fun?”
I cocked my head. “I guess I never really thought about it, but if I had to give a name to it...I’d say I just never bothered to come out in the first place.”
“Not what I would have expected from you,” he said with a snort. “I knew back then you weren’t coming out for your own reasons, but I always expected that one day your ‘I don’t really care what other people think of me’ would kick in and you’d be free from the closet.”
“It’s not like I’ve been hiding anything,” I said, a little uncomfortable now we were on the topic. “I just...never saw a point in bringing it up. I’m not really all that different about that sort of thing from what I was back then. I’m not all that interested in guys...just once in a while.”
“I have a few memories that say otherwise,” he said, and although he’d stared at me before, this one felt different, searching and intense.
“And everything I said also means that there’s still a chance I could be into a guy.”
“So...there were others?”
“A few,” I admitted, trying not to be obvious that I was squirming in discomfort.
It wasn’t that I didn’t talk about that sort of thing often, which I didn’t; it was just..
.weird admitting I’d been with other guys to him.
Not that there should have been any expectation that I would somehow remain gay celibate, I certainly didn’t expect that he had kept it in his pants.
“But it never sticks. Actually, my family would tell you none of my sexual escapades stick. I haven’t exactly had the best luck with relationships; they tend to fizzle out or blow up in record time. ”
“I know the feeling,” he said with a snort. “It’s not easy to have a love life with the kind of...well, with what I do.”
“I can imagine,” I said, thinking that ‘drug and crime lord’ was probably something that would drive people away or attract the wrong sort. “How does uh...I mean...Augustine and the rest of your...coworkers think about that? Or did you have to go back in the closet?”
“I neither had to come out nor go back into the closet,” he said with a shrug.
“I live my life as I see fit, but I don’t make a spectacle of myself either.
It works out, allowing people who don’t like it but are willing to mind their own business a way for them to ignore it, and the rest simply don’t care.
I get to do what I want in that regard, and others are polite or smart enough to keep their mouths shut. It works.”
“I see,” I said, looking him over. “So...now what?”
“Funny, I was preparing to ask you the very same question,” he said with a snort. “This is the second time you’ve found me, and after I swore I wouldn’t go where I knew you’d hang out.”
“And yet you came here.”
“I was walking, and saw the building was still standing, albeit with a different name,” he admitted.
“I was shocked. I would have thought that with the owner gone and the entire building a ramshackle death trap, no one would want to touch it with a ten-foot pole. My shock overrode my sense, and I came in. And even if I’d been thinking, I wouldn’t have suspected for a moment that you would come in here. ”
“I come in once or twice a week when I’m not out of town,” I admitted.
“Started when I realized it had reopened. I couldn’t even tell you why.
Maybe at first it was just to see if the place was still the hellhole it had been before, but after that.
..I don’t know. We used to come here all the time, drink pop and munch on fries, remember? ”
“Mom would sneak them to us because the prick of an owner would have taken it out of her pay if he saw her handing out free food, even if it was cheap food that wouldn’t be missed,” he said with a shake of his head.
“And you could tell too. Even as cheap as the food here was, it was still overpriced.”
“Yeah, I guess I couldn’t help but think about it every time I came in. Your mom was easily the best part of this place, and maybe in some weird way, it was like going to her grave,” I said quietly.
“Mmm,” he hummed, but added nothing else.
Which still begged the question...what happened next?
I’d finally gotten him to sit down and talk, but I could sense the conversation was shifting toward its natural end.
Didn’t help that he had checked his phone a few times, and frowning, shifting in his seat as if he needed. ..or wanted to be somewhere else.
He snorted, an echo of a smile on his face as he shook his head, tucking his phone away.
“I can’t get away from my life, but it seems I also can’t get away from you.
I’ve long since made peace with the former, as to the latter.
..well. Three times might be the charm, but I don’t need three different occasions to start seeing a pattern.
Call it superstition or paranoia, but it seems that so long as both of us are in this city, I’m going to keep seeing you. ”
“I really like how you make that sound like a curse,” I said with a snort.
“Well, at best, it’s a mixed blessing,” he said, pushing his coffee cup toward the edge of the table. “Now all I need is to decide how I want to handle this going forward.”
“Avoiding me doesn’t seem to be working, so you might want to throw that plan out the window.”
“Yes, yes,” he said, looking out the window and frowning.
“I still don’t understand what you want with me after all these years.
We’re not...well, if not much about you has changed, I know that trying to dissuade you isn’t going to work.
You’ve never been one to take a hint, no matter how obvious it is. ”
“Worked pretty well when you left.”
“I also left the city, ditched my phone, and made sure I wouldn’t be easy to find. That’s a sign of just how much effort it requires to get you to back off and let me be on my own.”
“Wow, I almost feel bad for you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I really don’t.”
He smiled, reaching into his pocket and pulling a napkin toward him, writing on it before sliding it over to me. “Text me, it will be more reliable than trying to call, that much I can tell you.”
“Okay,” I said, taking the napkin. “That’s...our area code...this one.”
His face stiffened for a moment before he pushed to his feet. “I’ve been back in town for nearly a month.”
I snorted, tucking the napkin into a pocket. “And I’m sure the first thing you did was buy a new phone.”
“You’d be surprised what needs to be done in my life to stay on top of things.”
“You mean out of prison.”
“Or dead,” he said as he made it to his feet. “Maybe the more you understand what kind of world you’re flirting with by talking to me, you’ll finally realize what I was trying to do all those years ago.”
“And if you’re wrong and it doesn’t scare me off?” I asked him, my smirk dropping. “Seriously.”
He took a deep breath. “If that’s the case, then I hope I never live to regret your stubbornness.”
Our conversation was clearly coming to an end, but I stayed in the booth. I wanted to linger and think about what just happened after he was gone. “You’re still dramatic and morbid, I see.”
“It comes with the territory,” he said stiffly as he adjusted his jacket and began to walk off. “Text me...or be smart and throw the number away and stop looking for me. I have too much on my plate to try to keep you from throwing yourself into the viper’s nest.”
“Drama queen,” I said as he walked past me, and I felt a flush of warmth. “Hey, Levi?”
He stopped, turning his head toward me with a wary expression. “Yes?”
“Nice to see you finally got yourself an ass after all these years,” I said, glancing meaningfully down at said ass. “Was that just age, working out, or did you throw money at your ass?”
His eyes widened slightly, and he turned half a step, as if unconsciously trying to hide his ass. “Don’t...get any ideas, Dom. You’ve already had enough to last me a lifetime.”
“Hey, I’m allowed to compliment a good ass when I see one.”
“You’re the one who’s not into men, remember?”
“Ah, ah, I said most men. And once upon a time, we learned that you are not in fact most men.”
He drew himself up. “Bye, Dom.”
I couldn’t figure out if he was just uncomfortable with compliments or if the idea of me flirting with him, specifically me, was the issue.
Either way, it was pretty funny to watch him leave, moving as quickly as possible, as if that was somehow going to help.
It certainly wasn’t going to help me. From the moment I’d been turned on just because he’d bumped his knee against mine, it had started a chain reaction in my head.
I certainly hadn’t been paying much attention to what he looked like or how I felt about how he looked when I’d run into him the first time.
But within minutes of the knee bump, I was suddenly paying attention to his ass?
Admittedly, I hadn’t lied; his slacks hugged his ass so nicely that if the whole situation wasn’t awkward and weird for both of us, I might have actually been a little jealous of his pants.
I pulled the napkin out and stared at the writing, feeling a strange pang as I realized it was the same handwriting he’d had as a teenager.
“This should be interesting,” I muttered as I tucked the napkin away and sat back to figure out just where I stood.