13. Chris
Chris
February, Cardiff
Fucking Isaiah Owens. It had to be some kind of horrible cosmic joke. Or maybe Chris was hallucinating, conflating the two men in his mind. Plenty of people had mint-green hair and eyes so blue you could drown in them, right?
The problem was that now he’d seen it, he couldn’t unsee it.
Quick was Isaiah. Fuck. “Quick is Isaiah,” he whispered under his breath.
Quick, the man with the cheeky smile and the sexy lace and the words that had pulled Chris out of the darkest place he’d ever been was Isaiah Bloody Owens.
Isaiah, who hated him. Resented him. Made it very fucking clear what he thought of him.
As the train sped through the countryside, whisking him back home to Cardiff, Chris briefly entertained the thought that this had all been some sort of elaborate set-up, that Owens had planned all of this to kick Chris when he was down.
Despite the fear roiling in his gut, he knew that narrative didn’t fit.
Isaiah had barely blinked at his meltdown; if anything, he’d seemed confused.
And with everything he’d learned about Quick over the past few months, he couldn’t imagine him doing this maliciously.
No, it was just the universe and its cosmic fuckery kicking him in the one place he’d had left that had felt safe. Felt like his.
An email buzzed on his phone.
He swallowed down a hard lump as he opened it.
To: c_green_run@
From: isaiah.owens@
Subject: Apologies
I’d imagine that despite your questionable intelligence you’ve managed to garner from the subject line that I am once again prostrating myself before you with an apology and a plea to not let my inappropriate workplace behaviour reflect badly on my uncle.
Fuck, now it seemed so obvious. He could hear the words rolling off in Quick’s—No, Isaiah’s posh accent, the rounded vowels and dropped consonants.
I’m sure you’re aware, but Carl is the best out there, and he wants to help you. He believes he can. Please let him.
Honestly, your career’s probably fucked without him.
Chris snorted. Even in an apology email Isaiah couldn’t help the digs.
Reading it, linking the two people who had once been so disparate in his mind together, made him feel like he was on an emotional rollercoaster.
Worse; one of those fucking free fall towers that bounced you around a bit before shooting you down to the ground.
Sorry, I can’t seem to help it.
But you should sign with him again. I won’t even be part of the agency anymore come September…doctorate and all. That is assuming I stop getting distracted by your drama and submit my proposal.
With apologies,
Isaiah Owens
There were no obnoxious letters after his name this time.
Chris stared at the words on the screen for far too long. The train slowed and pulled into the station. His mum picked him up, a grin on her face, and Chris did his best to smile back, but he was still shaking, hovering somewhere between disbelief and a complete breakdown.
“Did it go well?” she asked.
He nodded, face feeling stiff, like his skin was stretched tight against his skull.
“Did you sign with him again?”
Chris hesitated, thinking on Isaiah’s words. His career probably was dead without Carl, that was true. And now that he’d lost the one thing that had kept him afloat, he needed running to come back to him. There was nothing else.
“I told him I’d think about it,” he said. “Don’t want to jump in too fast again.”
“That’s smart. You’ve got your degree to focus on. No need for any big publicity campaigns now.”
He nodded. They pulled into the drive not long after, and Chris gave her an excuse about being tired from the train before heading to his room, where he lay still in the dark as time stretched before him.
It was worse than losing the Olympics. Which was ridiculous, because Quick was a performer, someone literally paid to get him off, but he’d been his safest place, and now that it had shattered, it felt like everything was slipping through his fingers all over again.
He picked at his nails. Stared at the ceiling.
He thought of the things Isaiah had said about him, the harsh truths wiping away every piece of confidence Quick had gifted him.
He was transported back to the way the wind had whipped around him on the bridge all those months ago, and he wished for a moment that he’d let it carry him away.
There was a live in three minutes.
Chris knew the schedule better than he knew his own.
Out of habit or compulsion, he found himself picking up his tablet and settling again on his cushions as he clicked the bookmarked link.
His pulse pounded in his ears as the stream started.
Chris studied the masked man on the screen, almost clinical in his assessment as he mentally catalogued the features that were so obviously Isaiah Owens’s.
He’d only seen Isaiah in person once before today, so he couldn’t entirely be blamed, but the man had certainly made an impression, with his sharp words and sharper cheekbones.
Chris looked at those cheekbones now, barely brushing the bottom edge of his mask.
He let his eyes trail down to the soft lips as he talked, teasing his viewers with practised charm.
He watched the angle of his jaw, the tendons in his neck, the way his Adam’s apple bobbed.
Chris blinked when Isaiah, because that was who he was, pulled off his T-shirt to reveal that swirling script on his ribs and the hard lines of his chest. Despite the clinical detachment he’d tried to employ, despite the cruel things Isaiah had said to him, Chris was rock hard.
Was it possible the man had become even sexier in the past few hours?
It was wrong to watch this now. He knew it was, but his body didn’t seem to agree with that assessment.
Someone in the chat asked Quick how his day had been.
Qu—Isaiah tilted his head to the side. Chris loved it when he did that. His untouched cock pulsed with desire.
“Weird,” Isaiah replied with a self-deprecating laugh.
Was that because of him? Was he referring to his encounter with Chris on a stream? And why did Chris hope he was? Why, even now, did he wish he could refer to him in a way other than “weird”?
Isaiah moved on, finally giving the viewers what they came for, his pretty pink hole stretched out for their pleasure by a massive green dildo that matched nicely with his hair.
Hand on his cock, Chris watched Isaiah fuck himself, the soft gasps and moans from the screen somehow more powerful than they’d ever felt.
It had him cresting the edge in no time at all.
As he finished, Chris had a flash of realisation that this wasn’t just wrong, it was well beyond inappropriate.
It was a violation now for him to watch Isaiah like this without telling him who he was.
Chris curled on his side and let the tears that had been building for hours, days, months, finally fall.
When the screen went dark, he blinked away the tears and sent a message to Quick. There was a finality to it, like this was the last time he’d ever be able to do this.
Flash23
You free for a private soon?
Need to talk to you.
Quick
Talk?
Flash23
Yeah
He didn’t know what more to say. He had to explain, to show him. And then…then he had to let him go. And he had to go on. Without him. The thought of it made his cried-out eyes burn with tears that wouldn’t come.
Quick
I can do Tuesday at 9
Flash23
Perfect.