Chapter Nineteen
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ryan
I tapped the end of my digital pen lightly onto the desk, staring at the pen display and the unfinished piece of art on the screen in front of me. I was supposed to be finishing up the lettering for some merch, but I couldn’t seem to make the letters form the shapes I wanted. Half of my work was all hand-drawn digital lettering, something I usually really enjoyed, but today my brain was utterly disinterested in doing any of it.
Instead, all I could think about was Mason.
The way he kissed me, all sweet and eager to please. The way his hands felt on my body, broad and firm, and the way his thick fingers felt as they ran over my chest, my stomach, all the way down to my cock. And the way they felt slowly sliding inside me, splitting me open and making me gasp and moan.
The way he sounded when he came, the look on his face when I praised him, and the gentle determination to excel in everything we did together.
Fuck, I’d never been with anyone who was so dedicated to my pleasure but was also happy to let me spoil him. He seemed to want whatever I wanted, and that was a dangerous, heady experience. The amount of power and responsibility he placed in my hands was so beautiful, I couldn’t help but get lost in thought whenever it crossed my mind.
But it wasn’t just thoughts of the sexual part of our friendship that were running circles in my brain. It was everything.
Mason’s smile when I pressed a cup of tea into his hands in the morning, his heavy, sleepy footsteps on the stairs, the sound of his laughter and the way he cursed when he played video games, the fondness in his voice when he talked about his family and friends, the excitement in his eyes when we played Dungeons & Dragons , and the sound of his singing, because when he wasn’t playing it up for dramatics he had this soft baritone that sent shivers across my skin.
We’d been friends ever since we’d first met, but suddenly I was noticing new things about him at a rate that was almost frightening. I wasn’t supposed to have gotten this involved.
I saved my file and put my pen down, rubbing both my hands across my head and groaning self-pityingly under my breath. I needed someone to talk some sense into me before I did something reckless and asked Mason if he wanted to go on a date instead of hooking up again .
Grabbing my phone off the desk, I pulled up the group chat I had with Ink and Peaches.
Legs
I’m having a crisis. Are either of you around to talk some sense into me?
Ink
Yeah, what’s up? Want to get coffee?
Legs
Coffee would be amazing!
Ink
Give me thirty minutes and I’ll meet you at Castle Coffee. The one at the top of Steep Hill. @Peaches get your butt in here and tell us you’re coming too.
I chuckled because if he was busy, Peaches was notoriously bad at answering his phone. His excuse was that being on-call and available twenty-four seven was an objectively insane way to live, which I totally understood and agreed with, but it wasn’t helpful when I was having a crisis.
Leaving my phone on my desk, I stood up and began to dig out some clothes to wear from the pile on my armchair since I had to change. Currently, I had on my ratty old beach trousers that had a hole in the crotch and a crop top I’d been wearing for three days straight because it didn’t give me sensory issues with fabric touching my arms while I worked.
I hated the way certain fabrics felt against my skin when I was hot, especially if I was trying to concentrate, and given the current ADHD medication shortages, my brain was happy to use it as an excuse to distract me from working every ten seconds until I ended up working in my pants just to stop myself from focusing on my skin.
Luckily the sky was overcast and stepping outside wouldn’t feel quite like stepping into an oven, so I pulled on some loose beach trousers patterned with palm trees and a white linen shirt that I’d added floral embroidery and sequins to because the thought of owning a plain piece of clothing made me shudder. I’d always been a whimsical dresser, even as a child, and I’d fully embraced my love of bright colours and clashing patterns as I’d gotten older.
After all, I only got one life, and I was dammed if I was going to live it in boring clothes.
I grabbed my bag—a bright green backpack I’d accessorized with sparkling rainbow food and animal charms—my phone, and my wallet, pulled on my sandals, and headed outside, remembering to grab my keys before I got locked out and had to wait for the boys to get home from training to let me back in.
I put my headphones on and strolled into town, half dancing, half walking along the pavement. Lincoln wasn’t a big, buzzing city by any stretch of the imagination, and it was the student population that had given it a sorely needed injection of diversity. I’d been a bit hesitant to move here but London had been out of my price range unless I wanted to move in with my extended family, which was on the no way in hell list, and I didn’t have enough connections in Manchester or Birmingham to get me regular drag gigs. I’d have had to bust my butt for a pittance to even get a foothold there.
In the end the reason I’d moved here had been the offer of a permanent place on The Court’s roster from the owner, Phil, who’d seen me performing while he was on holiday in Newquay with his husband. He’d followed me on social media, offered me a couple of guest spots, and when he’d discovered I was looking to move out of Cornwall because of the skyrocketing cost of living, he’d dropped into my inbox with a job offer.
That had been nearly a year ago and I’d never looked back.
Castle Coffee was a small coffee shop at the top of Steep Hill, tucked away on a cobbled street that ran off the Bailgate between the castle and cathedral. When I arrived, I saw Ink sitting at one of the tables outside, her teal hair shining in the sunlight. She was wearing a bright pink pair of dungarees patterned with dinosaurs, a crop top, and a pair of very battered Birkenstocks, her rhinestoned septum ring and eyebrow piercing casting rainbow reflections across the metal table.
Ink’s real name was Alice, which I only knew because she’d shown me her driving licence once to prove she had resting murder face. Most drag artists tended to keep their government names to themselves, preferring to use some version of their drag name with fellow artists, even outside of drag. Ink and I had been friends ever since we’d moved here, and I didn’t think I’d ever called her Alice once.
Just thinking of her as Alice felt wrong. And I was sure she felt the same about calling me Ryan. I was Legs to her and everyone else in the drag world and always would be unless I actively asked people to call me something else.
And Peaches would always be Peaches because none of us had a clue what his real name was.
“What’s this crisis then?” Ink asked as I flopped into the chair next to her. “Are we talking work? Sex? Relationships? Or did you hot glue yourself to your props again?”
“Ah-ha, very funny,” I said. “And hi, nice to see you too. I’d love a coffee, thanks.”
Ink grinned at me and nodded her head at the coffee shop door, which was propped open, the smell of good coffee and pastries drifting out on the early afternoon air. “Peaches is ordering now. I told him to get you some cake as well because we can’t do crisis resolution without cake.”
“You’re an angel.”
She winked at me. “I try.”
Footsteps sounded from behind us and I twisted in my seat to see Peaches emerging through the door balancing three plates of cake in his hand like an industry professional. Peaches had always been known as the tall, dark, and handsome one, with dark hair that curled softly around the base of his neck and expertly styled stubble on his sharp jaw. He was wearing a pair of loose cream trousers and a baby blue wrap top that had a deep V in the centre and barely covered his nipples. He looked like he belonged on the French Riviera or Amalfi Coast, not slumming it with Ink and me outside a coffee shop in rural England.
“You saw my message then?” I asked as he walked towards us.
“Of course,” he said with a charming smile. “I’m like Lincoln’s gay Batman. Light the Bat-Signal and I’ll appear.” He slid the three large slices of cake onto the table and gestured at them. “Pick your poison. We’ve got almond and raspberry, chocolate and orange, or pineapple and coconut.”
“Yoink, almond and raspberry for me,” I said, stealing the plate of cake and pulling it across the table. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Peaches said, gesturing at Ink to pick hers before sitting and reaching for the final piece, the chocolate and orange. “I ordered some drinks as well. They’ll bring them out in a minute.”
“You’re a lifesaver. Let me know how much I owe you.”
“Consider this my contribution to crisis resolution,” Peaches said. “So, what’s the problem? This wouldn’t happen to be something to do with your hot as fuck housemate, would it?”
“Yeah.” I sighed and picked up the silver cake fork that’d been tucked onto the edge of the plate. I’d known neither of them would dance around the subject, but it would have been nice if I could’ve had some cake first.
“Has it all gone to shit?” Ink asked. “Did he suddenly freak out over getting off with you? I’ll admit, I thought if it was gonna happen, it would’ve been weeks ago.”
“That’s the thing. It’s going really well. Too well.” I dug the fork into the cake, cutting off a huge piece. “As in, I’m totally fucking obsessed with him, can’t stop thinking about it, am super fucking horny for him, and basically am this close to asking him if he wants to turn this into an actual relationship.” I stuffed the cake into my mouth to prevent myself from saying any more, savouring the tartness of the raspberries and the texture of the almond cake. There was something about it that just nudged the little happy spot in my brain.
“Do you even have to ask him?” Ink asked as she licked some coconut icing off her fork. “Does it need to be an official thing?”
“Darling, we’re not all you,” Peaches said. “We don’t invite people to live with us after making out with them once in a bar.”
Ink scoffed. “Well, you should. It’d be easier. Anyway, Maddi and I aren’t dating and she’s not even moved in yet. It’ll be once she’s finished working for the summer. Maybe closer to Christmas. Oh, but we’re thinking of getting a cat.”
“I love you, but do you hear yourself?”
“What?”
Peaches shook his head as he picked up the piece of Terry’s Chocolate Orange that had been embedded in the icing and sucked the end of it. “Not everyone is happy to just roll with things. Some people prefer to know where the boundaries of a relationship or arrangement are. That way, everything is above board and nobody gets hurt.”
“They do if things change,” Ink said. “Especially if the people involved want different things.” She looked at me and smiled softly. “Which I’m guessing is what you’re worried about?”
I nodded. She and Peaches both had good points and that was the problem. As much as I wanted to take Ink’s approach, bury my head in the sand, and nudge things between Mason and me into a relationship, I could just see it ending badly. I didn’t imagine Mason would accuse me of taking advantage of him or trying to force him into something he didn’t want, but the doubts were still there.
“Yeah, this is his first time hooking up with someone who isn’t a woman, and there’s the whole friendship and housemate thing to consider. I don’t want to screw things up and totally ruin everything, but also… what if I ask him if he wants more and he says no? I know this isn’t the bad ending we talked about but I’m fucking terrified that this could go wrong and I’ll lose him.”
“Shit, babe,” Ink said. “You’re getting actual feelings for him.”
“I am and it’s fucking killing me. Why couldn’t he be hot, good in bed, but totally wrong for me?” I groaned and shoved more cake into my mouth. “Why did the universe have to serve me up such a delicious snack of a man who also happens to be funny, caring, and actually interested in me as a person? Last week he literally let me talk at him about my favourite fonts for forty fucking minutes.”
“Jesus,” Peaches muttered under his breath. He opened his mouth to say something but closed it again as someone from the coffee shop appeared with our drinks—three iced lattes, two with vanilla syrup for him and me and one with caramel for Ink. He sucked the straw between his lips and took a long sip. “How worried are you about it going wrong?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s probably like a fifty-fifty chance. I’d have a better idea if I knew about his exes, but he doesn’t talk about them.”
“Ask him then,” Ink said as she sipped her latte. “You don’t need all the nitty-gritty but you can ask him why none of them worked out. And it might give you an idea if he’s the problem or not.”
“I can’t see Mason being the problem,” I said.
“None of us ever can,” Peaches said almost sadly. “And even if there are red flags, we don’t always listen to our gut. Still, I do think that if Mason was a wanker, we’d have heard about it by now. West would have said something to Bubblegum, and we all know that Sparkles would have said something to you when you said you were going to move in with him. We protect each other, you know that.”
I nodded. I knew a little bit about Peaches’s complex dating history and whatever he said came from a place of love. I trusted him.
“I do,” I said, thinking everything through. “Maybe I’ll start there. Ask Mason about his exes, keep doing what we’re doing, see how we go. I’m not gonna make any rash decisions. Especially because the sex is really good.”
The pair of them laughed. “I can’t fault you there,” Ink said.
“Me neither,” Peaches said. “There are a lot of things I’d ignore for good dick. God, I need to get laid.”
“Okay, that’s our next crisis to solve,” Ink said. “Get Peaches laid.”
I grinned as I ate the last of my cake, watching as Ink began to ask Peaches a series of extremely detailed questions about his sex life and wondering how Mason would feel about letting me explore that beautiful body of his all evening long.