Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
JOSH
I’d avoided the dog park. Avoided my phone. Avoided Lukas’s house. My sister. Hannah. Everyone. It felt like the universe was against me. It dangled probably the most perfect man in my entire dating history in front of me and then yanked him away.
I’d talked to Asher about it. And Hannah. And not Violet. Asher and Hannah were a team—call him back. Violet would try to set me up with another eligible—in her opinion—bachelor. It wasn’t fair for her to be single but be so focused on my love life.
But then three days ago, David had gone silent.
No more texts. No more voicemails. The idea that he’d given up made me sick to my stomach, so I hadn’t bothered leaving the house.
I’d ordered food and took Nitro for his walks, and that was the most I did.
I had hours of footage to edit, but instead I spent my time in my pajamas watching BL dramas on my laptop.
In short, I was a mess. So it was a good thing it ended now before I got invested for real.
Because if I was like this after a single date, how would I be if we’d gotten serious?
Would I survive a breakup with this man if being ghosted—through no fault but my own—after one date was enough to bench me for days?
Tomorrow, I told myself. Tomorrow I’d call Lukas and ask for a shoot. I’d get back to work editing in the meantime, and I’d forget all about David.
Nitro’s ears perked up and he started to bark.
It was his standard response when someone was at the door.
I shushed him so he wouldn’t annoy my neighbors and went to answer the door.
I didn’t remember ordering anything, but then again I’d been a bit of a flaky disaster the past couple days, so anything was possible.
I yanked the door open and came face to face with David, who stood there, a bouquet of flowers and an envelope in his hand.
“I—”
“You weren’t expecting me. I know. Don’t shoot him, but Asher gave me your address. It took some coercion, but—can we talk?”
My apartment was currently a shithole. Dinner dishes and take-out containers littered the sink and the counter. My laundry had made it as far as the couch where it had lived in a heap for the past few days. My room was a tornado of messy bed linens, dirty clothes, and, shamefully, some trash.
“It’s—God, David. My place is a mess.” And yet I found myself opening the door wider, letting him inside. “I’m a mess,” I mumbled.
Once David was inside, I shut the door and filled my lungs with a deep breath before turning around.
He looked good. Better than good. He was in faded jeans and a black shirt with the sleeves pushed up. I squinted at him. “Did you get a haircut?”
He smirked. “I did. Yeah. I—these are for you.”
He thrust the flowers at me first. A bouquet of carnations in rainbow hues. Then came the envelope. “This is for you too.”
I tucked the envelope in my pocket and winced as I went to the kitchen. “I’ll—ah—find something to put these in.”
When a quick search turned up nothing resembling a vase, I resorted to using a large water glass. Shame kept me from looking at David. For sure he was going to look around at the state of my apartment and decide that I wasn’t worth the trouble.
Except, he wasn’t even looking at my apartment. Not the dishes or the laundry or any of the other mess. David was crouched low, petting Nitro and looking at me.
“You stopped calling,” I said, stupidly hurt by that fact. Not that I’d been answering, but it had been reassuring somehow to get those phone calls. Even when they went to voicemail. It made me feel like he thought I deserved the effort.
“I did some thinking.”
“That’s ominous.”
David’s brow furrowed. “Is it? I mean, I did bring you flowers.”
“Maybe they’re apology flowers. Like sorry for wanting nothing to do with you. It’s not me, it’s you.”
“I don’t think that’s an occasion that would call for flowers. Maybe you should open the envelope.” David’s gaze never wavered from me. He never faltered. He looked like he would have crouched there all day long, waiting patiently for me to get my shit together.
“I—can I get you anything? I think I have a couple beers in the fridge. Maybe a soda or two.” Coffee was out of the question unless I wanted to do dishes first. I did not.
“Josh. Open the envelope. Please.”
My breath quivered out of me, wavering like my shaky resolve. I’d tried to be okay with the idea of David walking away, but even scarier was the idea that he might not.
I pulled the envelope out of my pocket and carefully opened it. David had nice penmanship, the capital J was handwritten and had extra curls, giving it a fancy look. Inside was a short letter with the same swoopy cursive and then a song list.
Josh,
My life has been the same for a long time. And then I got a dog. And then I met a guy in the park. And the guy I met was interesting. Funny. Sweet. Attractive. And though he was a bit younger than me (okay a lot younger), we hit it off.
Your job doesn’t change any of those things. I thought about what you do, and confession time — I watched some of your work — sorry if I should have asked first, but I think… you’re still you. You’re still the guy from the park with the cute dog and I’d still like to get to know you better.
A source close to me says that a playlist is as good as a mix tape, but I have my doubts. I also doubt you own a cassette player, so enclosed is a playlist. I hope you’ll do the honor of listening to it with me so I can explain why I picked the songs I did.
Consider it date number three.
David
I folded the letter and put it back in the envelope, then read through the playlist a couple times. Some of the songs I was familiar with, others I’d never heard of before.
I didn’t question him about the letter or the songs he chose or who his source was. Instead I looked at him and said, “You called me Josh.”
“Of course I did. That’s your name.”
“Everyone calls me River.”
“Everyone you ask to call you River calls you River. You asked me to call you Josh. That’s who you are to me. You’re Josh from the dog park.”
Josh from the dog park. Not River who fucked his son. I could live with that.
“Nitro has really missed his friend.” The playlist trembled in my fingers.
Slowly, David took a step toward me. He telegraphed his every move, giving me ample time to tell him to stop or to back away. I did neither.
“I’ve really missed my friend too,” David said, sliding his hand up the side of my neck. His thumb grazed my jawline, scraping against an entire week’s worth of stubble. I still couldn’t grow decent facial hair.
“These songs better not suck.” My legs wobbled but held me upright as David moved closer, slipping an arm around my waist. When I realized that he was going to kiss me, I pulled back a little. “Oh, God. Wait. Don’t. I’ve been wallowing, and it’s not pretty. I’m not exactly kissable at the moment.”
“Okay. I won’t kiss you. Yet. What would make you more comfortable?”
God. This man was going to be the death of me with his consideration. Was it just because he was older and had learned through years of experience how to be a gentleman? Or was he just born to be this perfectly considerate man I wanted to spend entire days destroying?
“A shower. An apartment that doesn’t look like a post-apocalyptic trash heap.” An orgasm or four. Sucking David’s cock until he forgot he’d ever seen my place in the disgraceful state it was in.
“I didn’t come to see your apartment. I came to see you. And if you’d like to shower, you can shower. I can wait out here.”
I narrowed my gaze at him. “If I leave you out here while I shower, are you going to tidy up?”
A flash of color high on David’s cheekbones gave him away.
“Am I that transparent?”
“No, you’re just that nice. But please don’t clean my mess. I don’t want to think that you think that I can’t look after myself. I promise I can. I’ve just been upside down these past few days.”
“I did a thousand-piece puzzle and thought about what I was going to say to you when I saw you next. I know what it’s like to feel distracted and like maybe things are a bit messy. And maybe they are a mess. But mess isn’t always bad.”
“There are take-out containers from three days ago sitting on the counter because the trash can is full.”
David fucking shrugged. He looked at me, at my mess, and then back at me and had the audacity to shrug at me.
“That just means you fed yourself.”
“Your logic is—”
David put a hand over my mouth. “My logic is sound. I like you, Josh. I’m here because I want to be, and I’m staying unless you tell me to leave.”
I blinked at him and then nodded, earning me a smile.
“Take your shower.” He pulled his hand away and replaced it with his lips, dusting a gentle kiss against my mouth.
“I’m going to tidy up, not because I think you can’t take care of yourself but because I want to help you take care of yourself.
And then, when you’re all squeaky clean, we’re going to talk, okay? ”
Unable to speak since I’d probably start to blubber like a baby, I nodded and then David kissed me, on the cheek this time. He turned me toward the bathroom and gave me a gentle pat on the ass.
“Get going,” he said. “And take your time.”
I detoured to my room and quickly tidied things up in there, tossing my covers over my bed so it looked halfway decent.
I shoved my dirty clothes into the hamper and grabbed something clean to change into.
I gave the bathroom a quick tidy-up while kicking myself for acting like a moody teenager for the past few days, sulking and stewing in my own bad mood, taking it out on my apartment.
Then I had the quickest shower known to man. The words from David’s letter circled around and around in my head and when I was clean and dried, I grabbed the letter out of the pocket of my discarded pants and read it again.
My fingers twitched when I read the line again. And again. The reality of it sinking in. I stuffed the letter away and then returned to David.
“How much of my stuff did you watch?” I asked, intrigued by the idea of him sitting around watching me perform. What did he see? Did he like it?
David faced me, his cheeks aflame, and he shifted around. “Uh, a lot. I didn’t watch any of your pre-transition stuff. I wasn’t sure if you were comfortable with that. But I watched you with that Joey guy. Jesus Christ, he was like two of you and you fucked him ‘til he cried. It was…”
“Intimidating?”
“A bit, yeah.” David laughed, but he moved closer to me again.
Or maybe I moved closer to him. Maybe we were magnets, unable to resist the pull between us.
“It was also incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it.
I—you… you’re different on screen, you know.
When you’re with those men, you’re not you.
” He closed the distance between us. Cradling my face in his hands, he spoke in a hushed voice, but I could hear the way he was begging me to hear how truthful he was being.
“You’re still you, but you’re different.
You’re River when you’re with them. And when you were with me, you were Josh.
And that might not make sense to you, but it does to me.
And I—I really want to kiss you now, Josh.
It’s all I’ve been able to think about for days. ”
“David, are you sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure about anything.”
David didn’t kiss me because I threw my arms around him, and I kissed him first.