Chapter 77 Stuart
Stuart
I straighten my cufflinks and smooth down my lapel again.
The whole black-tie thing isn’t really for me, but Elliot was nervous about attending this work function and asked me to come with him, so I’m here.
His eyes darted from my face to my shoes twice when he told me about it, and his voice had a little husk that isn’t usually there.
I’d never let him do anything that makes him look like that without me.
So, of course, I’m here. In a shiny elevator, on my way up to a shiny floor of a shiny building downtown.
I’m not a big fan of places like this. Give me a backyard barbeque and laid-back people over this type of thing any day.
The doors open, and I’m met by an expanse of mirrored surfaces, dark wood, and tile. I’m twenty-seven floors up, but I feel like I’m underground, stuck in a crystal geode.
I was right. It’s shiny as hell in here.
I mill around the perimeter, about to reach for my phone to let Elliot know I’m here when I feel a tap on my shoulder.
I stop and turn around, fully expecting to look into big chocolatey eyes and a cocky smile.
I flinch when I’m met by a cool blue gaze instead.
A lithe figure. Dark hair and a delicate face I know well.
A face I used to know better than any other.
“Hey you,” he says, curving a shoulder at me and sinking a hand deep into his pocket. His lips turn up in a well-practiced smile, parting slightly and offering me a tiny glint of an incisor. His eyes don’t flicker.
“Damien.” It feels strange to say it. Strange to see him.
And strange that it’s strange, given how normal it used to be.
I wait for bodily chaos to consume me. The last time I saw him, my hands shook and my heart beat faster for almost an hour after he left.
This time it’s different. My throat feels a little tense, but the main thing I feel is surprise.
I wasn’t expecting to see him. “How are you?”
“Oh, you know me. I’m always well,” he lies.
He leans in close, placing a hand lightly on my chest, and kisses me sweetly on the cheek.
The familiar scent of his cologne burns a little stronger than I remember.
Too strong, I think. I step back. “I’m here with Jed,” he says as if I should not only know who that is but should be infinitely impressed by it.
When I don’t give him the reaction he’s after, he adds, “Jed Bronstein.”
“Oh,” I say. That means less than nothing to me.
“He’s a producer,” he explains, puffing a breath of air at me in a way I suspect is designed to make me feel stupid. “He’s fabulously wealthy.” That time, his eyes flicker like crazy.
“Oh,” I say again. “Well, congratulations.”
He casts his gaze slowly down my body, eyes moving from left to right at my pecs and then down to my groin. He steps closer, crowding me.
“Wanna know a secret?” he whispers into my ear. “He’s completely vanilla.” He draws the last word out as if it’s distasteful. “Completely.”
I haven’t seen Damien in almost a year, but suddenly, that doesn’t feel long enough.
I have less than no idea how one’s supposed to respond to that, and I find I don’t have a huge amount of interest in working it out.
I look over his shoulder, scanning the room for Elliot.
Damien doesn’t like being ignored. He never did.
He ups the ante, sliding a hand up my chest and pretending to remove a piece of lint from my shoulder.
“Not like you, huh?” His voice drops almost an octave.
“We had some fun, you and I. We had some kinky good times.” He looks down, and when he looks up again, his eyes are wide and clear, the picture of boyish innocence.
A picture so pretty and perfect that I bought into it for way, way too long.
He grazes his bottom lip with his teeth, “Didn’t we, Daddy? ”
“Stop it,” I hiss, looking around again to see if I can find Elliot.
“We did lots of things, you and I. So many things. All the things, I guess you could say.” His hand is on my chest again, and he’s close.
Too close. “You know what we never did though…breakup sex. Ex-sex. A fuck where you’re inside me, fucking me hard and rough, even though we both know it’s over.
A last time.” He nods slowly. “Mmm. Yeah, we should totally do that. A final fuck. For closure, or some shit like that.”
I think of the sad bottle of moisturizer I kept in the bathroom for months, and I think of what I felt like when he left.
I think of all the hours I’ve spent going over what I did wrong and how I could have been better.
Then I think of the photograph of him and Sadie, and I see it torn up into neat little pieces at the bottom of the trash can, and I smile.
“I’ve had closure.”
“Hmm.” He bristles, but he shakes it off quickly. He twitches his head to my left and narrows his eyes. “Who’s Puppy Dog Eyes over there? He’s watching you like a lost little stalker.”
I follow Damien’s gaze and catch sight of Elliot through a throng of people. He’s standing stock still. People all around him are moving, but he’s frozen. His eyes are huge, watery and wobbly, and his brows are raised high in horror. His chest heaves when my eyes find his and his mouth drops open.
He’s wearing a suit. It’s fitted as hell, obviously, but it suits him.
Dark blue with a pink floral shirt. He looks beautiful.
Sweet and sparkly under the lights. His hair is shiny.
It's so shiny, it might be the shiniest thing in this whole shiny shitshow. I smile slowly, watching as his whole body relaxes for no reason other than the fact I’m looking at him.
“That’s my boy, Elliot Gould.”
I say it loud and clear, taking care to pronounce each word carefully so Elliot can read my lips as I do. I start walking toward him as fast as I can, weaving through people, suddenly unable to wait another second to be close to him.
I think I hear Damien’s voice saying, “Gould? Gould?” but I don’t stop to find out.
“Hi,” says Elliot, swallowing hard.
He leans forward to kiss me and then hesitates. I circle his waist and pull him toward me, holding him tight and kissing him softly, dipping my tongue into his mouth for a taste of the sweetness he has inside him.
“Hello-o,” trills a strident voice. “Don’t think we’ve met.”
Oh fuck.
“Elliot, this is Damien. Damien, Elliot.”
“Nice to meet y—” Elliot barely gets the words out of his mouth before Damien cuts him off.
“Well, aren’t you adorable? What a gorgeous little thing.
Say what you will about Stuart, but he’s always had excellent taste in men.
” Elliot gives him an uncertain smile and looks at me like a deer in the headlights.
“I don’t seem to remember you liking them this young, but I guess things change.
” High-pitched laughter bounces off glass.
“Can’t say I blame you.” He looks Elliot up and down.
“I definitely would. Two boys and a mean Daddy? No, that’s been done to death.
Oooh! I’ve got it, a bad boy with two Daddies, mmph! ” He smacks his lips loudly.
I expect Elliot to flounder, and I don’t blame him. This conversation and Damien in general are too much for most people to handle. I step forward, ready to shut this shit down, but Elliot beats me to it.
His eyes are almost black and his chin is tilted toward his chest. “I don’t share.”
I wrap an arm around his waist and pull him toward me. “I don’t either.”
Damien laughs again. Longer and louder. Stopping only when a stout man with an expensive suit and an uninteresting face touches his arm.
We suffer through more introductions and several minutes of painfully slick small talk until Jed and Damien take their leave.
We watch them walk away, and the second they’re out of earshot, Elliot's face lights up into the most mischievous grin I've seen yet and he says, “My Daddy’s hotter than his Daddy.”
I start laughing. A belly-clenching, eye-wateringly hard laugh. A valve opens, releasing the tension of the encounter and sending it fizzing all over the room. Elliot laughs too. We laugh and laugh, and every time we stop, he says something worse.
“My Daddy is more hung than his Daddy.”
“My Daddy spanks harder than his Daddy.”
“My Daddy is more of a perv than his Daddy.”
By the time Elliot’s boss calls it a night and we can leave without seeming like we’re ducking, I’ve laughed so much that the extra oxygen has gone to my head.
I’m lightheaded. I’m light everywhere. I find myself watching Elliot’s face light up and splinter into the purest of giggles.
Eyes shiny. Cheeks pink. He looks happy.
I know I look exactly the same. I feel the same. I feel like I've spent a whole night laughing with an old friend.
I feel confused too. At what point did Elliot and I become friends? When and where did it happen?
Elliot takes my hand when we get to the garage, and we run to the car, laughing like schoolboys. Kissing and groping each other’s asses.
“Want you,” he gasps, pulling away from a particularly potent kiss, a kiss that turns the whole garage on its head and leaves me feeling drugged. “Want you right here. Right now.”
We get to the Caddy, and I open the back door. Elliot hops from one foot to the other, pulling his shoes off and unbuckling his belt. He starts dropping his pants. Not a little, not just enough to give me the access I need. He starts taking them off completely.
“What are you doing?” I ask. “Keep your pants on. Just bend over and show me your hole. I’ll be quick, and you can pull them up quickly if someone catches us.”
“But, Daddy,” He pouts, stroking my face and planting a bruising kiss on my lips, “I want to see this beautiful face when we fuck.”
“Huh?” I say, trying not to smile. “Thought you said I had a face like a leather handbag.”
“Um. I said beautiful leather handbag.”