7. Ryan #2
Tonight, he’s wearing low-slung sweats and a long-sleeved t-shirt.
His ankles and feet are covered with white socks.
Bailey is almost as casual in yoga pants, a zip up UC Berkeley hoodie, and short Ugg boots.
I feel overdressed in my black sweater and jeans.
I’m not uncomfortable or anything, but no one told me it was a pajama party.
Malcolm takes a second to look me over. “Plans later?”
“No.”
“You dress like this all the time?”
Why is he noticing? Why does he care? Don’t think about it. “Sometimes I wear a suit.”
He huffs. “Right.”
I’ve come prepared to brainstorm after my noon gym session with Calyx. He had a ton of hashtags for me and a list of possible handles for both me and Malcolm. I already know which ones we’re using, but I still need to pitch the stitch idea to the group.
First, we watch Malcolm’s videos.
Leaving him alone was the right choice, much to my dick’s apparent delight, forcing me to enter a state of cognitive dissonance while I watch the way he perfected the lean on the wall, complete with the occasional run of his hand through his thick hair, a rub of his morning stubble, or a stroke down his chest.
His voice is low and rough—like he just got laid and is about to crash—as he aims those aqua eyes at the camera lens and talks about 401ks and Roth IRAs.
He gets particularly sexy when he mentions a website he uses to follow market trends—like he’s trying to get the web developers into bed with him.
I’ve got a semi by the time we get to the end of his content, and I want to say works for me , but I bite my lips together and wait for Bailey’s assessment.
“The one where Stephanie licks your chin is priceless,” she says.
A fucking dog named Stephanie. But she does look at Mal like he hung the damn moon and all the stars just for her, so Bailey’s not wrong.
I need to change the subject, so I tell them about Calyx’s idea.
Malcolm dismisses it with a scoff. “Like you would do that.”
Excuse him? “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because you acted like you were allergic to being the one to do the videos before.”
“I did not. I just didn’t jump at the chance to rip off my shirt and show off my pecs quite as fast as you did. I don’t mind making a few videos.”
Bailey perks up. “Then show us the goods. Are you pasty? Because we can’t have pasty.”
“Then hire someone else,” I tell her. “I don’t look good with a tan.”
She sighs. “There’s always filters, I guess.”
“I don’t need a fucking filter,” I say.
“You have tattoos any place besides your arms?”
I stare at her, and she holds my gaze in a challenge that feels a hell of a lot like a dare.
Fine. I stand up and peel off my sweater and the black t-shirt beneath it.
I keep my eyes on Bailey, yet I’m fully aware of how Malcolm looks quickly away.
With my sweater wrapped around my wrists, I let her examine my upper body.
She squints at the tattoos, her gaze moving from one to the next.
The crescent moon outlining my right pectoral muscle, the nautical compass above it and the phoenix on the left that extends to my shoulder.
Straight down the center of my torso is a sword with the handles beneath my collar bones and the tip stopping at my navel.
“Damn.”
Malcolm looks up, and my muscles tighten involuntarily. “When the hell? Where’d you get the money for all that?”
It’s a fair question. I easily have twenty grand worth of work on me, but the artist who tattooed me in Portland took a hefty amount off for alternate forms of compensation.
She and I almost had a thing going, but school was always getting in the way for me to be more than anything but a casual hookup.
Still, I’m half of her portfolio. “None of your business,” I tell him.
To Bailey I ask, “Can I put my shirt back on?”
She laughs and nods. “Please.”
I do, smoothing back my hair once my sweater is covering me.
“And you said you have a cat?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
“Please say it’s a black cat.”
“He’s a tuxedo cat.”
She literally squeals and claps her hands. “Yes! Oh my god, this is perfect. You’re like total opposites, and the whole cat and dog thing is fucking gold. But you,” she says to me. “You need to be dark. Can you do that thing with your eyes—like make them look kind of evil?”
“What?”
“Like…” She attempts to demonstrate, taking her eyes from normal resting to intense glare. “Smolder.”
“I’ll work on it.”
“This total objectification doesn’t bother you at all?” Mal asks me.
The conversation I had with Norah about making money comes back to me. This isn’t the same thing. “It’s not porn. ”
“I’ll set up the accounts,” Bailey says, phone already in hand. “Send me the licking one.”
While Malcolm does that, I open my texts to find Calyx’s list of handles. “Call him at justthetipfinancebro.”
“No way,” Malcolm says.
I sigh pointedly. “Are you gonna disagree with me about everything?”
“I should at least get to pick my own handle.”
“What were you thinking then?” I ask.
“Mal’s hot tips?”
I scoff. “That’s gonna look like Mal shot tips. No. And it has to sound like money.”
“Let’s compromise on the fact that you both came up with the word tips in the handles and use Ryan’s. It’s objectively better. What’s yours gonna be?” Bailey asks me.
“At billiondollarblackcat.”
“Love it. Suits you.”
Malcolm is glaring at me. Again. “What?” I snap.
“That’s gotta be too many letters.”
“The character limit is twenty four. Mine’s twenty-one. Yours is twenty. We’re fine.”
“Do you need help writing responses, Ryan?” Bailey asks.
“I’ll send them like I sent the last ones so you can do your thing with them.”
“What else can I do?” she asks, sitting at attention, ready to be put to work.
“You know how to make a video go viral?” Malcolm asks.
Bailey reaches out her hand for my phone. “Show me your hashtags. I made a list, too.”
I pass it over to her and she hums and nods as she reads. “Who’s your friend?”
“Gym buddy of mine. He’s a model, so he’s always posting.”
“What’s his handle?” she asks .
Do I want to tell her that?
I decide it can’t hurt. He’s got something like thirty thousand followers on TikTok just for being so damn pretty while he talks about how cute he looks in the clothes people send him.
That’s his hook, trying on clothes and popping his ass out as he looks at himself in a mirror.
His Instagram is more refined, mostly professional modeling photos, but he’s a slutty little thing on TikTok.
“It’s just his name. CalyxTeal. With an X.”
“Calyx?”
“It’s the outside of a flower,” I say. “Did you take biology in school?”
She makes a pissy cat sound like I’m being rude.
I ignore it. If I tried to smooth out my rough edges all the time, I’d have no time to think about anything else. Anyway, Bailey doesn’t take it personally.
“Whoa—this is a guy ?”
“Pretty, right?” I ask.
Malcolm’s scowl is visceral. I feel it in my soul.
“Yep, he’s a real boy.”
“Not trans?”
“Nope.”
“Lemme see.” Mal grabs the phone while Bailey is mid-scroll. His scowl deepens. “Who the fuck is this?”
“A guy at my gym,” I tell him slowly like I’m explaining it to a child.
“Is this your?—”
“I’m not fucking gay, Malcolm. Jesus Christ. Get the fuck over yourself.”
Bailey jolts and looks from me to Malcolm.
He doesn’t seem to notice her strong reaction. “Well, what am I supposed to think when you?—”
I give him a harsh warning look and lift my hand off my leg, ready to shut him up with my fist if he brings that shit up in front of Bailey.
“Called him pretty,” Malcolm self-corrects.
I pivot quickly and gesture at the screen. “Do you not think he’s pretty?”
“Objectively,” Bailey says, “He’s beautiful.”
“I mean if he’s a model…” Malcolm mumbles, studying the screen where Calyx is showing himself off in a mint green swimsuit that barely covers his ass.
Mal’s cheeks are pink, and his breaths are heavy.
He shoves the phone back into my hand, from which, Bailey promptly takes it back to keep scrolling.
I meet Mal’s eyes, and the pit in my stomach doubles in size. “You’re straight,” he says bluntly, a clear challenge in the words.
I gesture at Bailey. “Do you fucking mind?”
“She doesn’t care,” he says.
“I’m actually listening very closely, so if you two need a minute…”
“We don’t,” I say.
He gives his head a small shake like I’m not getting off that easy.
“It’s okay,” Bailey says. “I wanna work on this from home. No offense, but this place is the worst. I also want to send a blast email out to everyone I went to college with to comment on the video so we get some early engagement.”
“I should do that, too.” I start to stand. My circle of contacts is likely much smaller than Bailey’s, but Norah could probably help. Everybody likes her .
Meeting resistance, I look down to see Mal’s fist furled in the fabric of my sweater. He shakes his head again.
Oh shit. “Can I go to the bathroom at least?” I ask quietly.
He lets me go. I smooth out the sweater and head for the depressing, fluorescently lit bathroom.
My face, as expected, is too hot and too pink.
I don’t need the toilet because for whatever insane reason, the conversation we just had coupled with his hand wrapped up in my sweater got me rock-fucking hard, and that, more than anything, needs to settle itself before I go back out there.
Here’s the thing: I’m a straight guy who would fuck Malcolm Walsh in a heartbeat. But my sexuality isn’t that simple. The tattoo artist I used to hook up with called me demi who got really horny sometimes, and in terms of labels, it mostly fits.
My connection with Malcolm when we were kids resulted in a physical attraction. Simple.
It also explains why I prefer to take women on dates instead of just showing up at their apartments expecting to get laid.
It’s why I’m taking it slow with Norah. But I do get horny, and not sometimes, but often.
I prefer a connection, though. It doesn’t have to be incredibly deep.
Like with Jia. It was enough that we talked casually and work together.
I’m not the textbook definition of anything, but I know what I’m attracted to, and Malcolm is my OG. Most men don’t even tweak my radar.
Some—the ones who remind me most of Mal—same hair, same body type, similar nose or eyes—they’ll get my attention, but no part of me wants to push them against the wall and start devouring them the way I apparently still want to do with him .
It’s a soul deep desire that doesn’t understand it can never be fulfilled.
I run my hands under some cold water, hoping to tame my cock into something less noticeable.
I think about the bond market and oil prices.
I think about the other interns and what amazing plan for money making they’re putting into action.
Finally, I’ve got a deflating semi, and I flush the toilet for realism.
I’ve been in the bathroom embarrassingly long, and by the time I’m out, Bailey is gone. Malcolm is in the kitchen, stirring a spoon in a coffee mug.
“Coffee?” he asks. “It’s decaf. ”
“No.” I take a stool on the other side of the counter.
He doesn’t look at me. “Explain what you said earlier.”
“Which part?”
“When you said you’re straight.”
“I only fuck women.” I say. “It’s self-explanatory.”
“Since when?” he asks.
“Since I started having sex.”
“Which was when?”
I glare at him in case he happens to look up. “That’s not your business.”
“Humor me.”
“Why would I do that?” I ask.
He glances at me, then looks back down at his mug.
Suddenly it hits me that I’m alone with him. Completely alone for the first time in more than a decade. I don’t understand why he’s allowing this.
“Because I want to understand,” he says quietly.
“Since when?” I need to get my guard back up fast. I didn’t come here prepared for a talk or whatever this is.
“Since forever. I just want to understand, Ryan. Why do you have to make it impossible?”
I’m impossible? “Your interest in my sex life is brand new to me.”
“I’m not interested …” Malcolm sighs. “If you’re straight, then why the fuck would you—” He cuts himself off, shaking his head.
I stare at him and don’t answer the question I know he’s asking. Instead, I say, “I wasn’t trying to break anything.”
He sighs heavily, shoulders sagging. “I know.”
It doesn’t matter, though. That’s the truth between us that can’t ever change. “Where’s Kaylin?”.
“I don’t know. Out. At her place.” He shrugs.
“I assumed she lived here. ”
“No,” he says.
Did I misread something? “Are you not still together?” I ask.
“We’re close, but we’re on a break.”
On second thought, I don’t want to know about his relationship issues. I don’t even like knowing he has relationship issues. Hope isn’t an option here, and I can’t allow it any oxygen. I can’t believe I’m letting myself wonder. Maybe I didn’t learn my fucking lesson which is so simple:
I can’t make him be attracted to me.
It’s weird enough that I’m attracted to him.
Talk about fucking awkward. Our parents got married when we were eight .
I should think of him like a brother, but I’ve been in awe of Malcolm since I met him.
He was taller, cuter, sweeter, and better at everything.
I wanted to attach myself to him. I wanted to be him. Do everything with him.
That explains why—way before I knew I was actually attracted to him—when I got my first boner while we were snuggled up watching a movie one day, I wanted him to touch it with me.
Discover it together. I wanted to learn if his body was like mine, if it could feel the things mine felt.
Obviously I didn’t ask—I was too shy and embarrassed.
Because what if my body was weird or something?
And then, later, when I understood boners and knew I’d fallen for him, I wanted to know what it would feel like to be naked with him while we cuddled with our legs tangled. I wanted to kiss him because, more than anything, I wanted to know he felt the same way.
I wanted to know what I meant to him.
And then, in a way I never wanted—I found out.