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Prologue
Chris watched the condensation swell into droplets, expand and burst until it ran like a stream down the side of his glass. Summer was over, but it seemed like the weather never got the message—the heat and the humidity lingering into autumn. His body shook with barely contained laughter as Brendan regaled their little group with the story of that one time Chris tried to sneak a hook-up out of their shared London flat back when they were studying and then working in the UK.
It was a good story if you didn’t know the details, Chris thought with the usual mix of embarrassment and shame. But for Brendan’s part, it was a good story.
“No,” Chris interjected, smiling, “you said, ‘I know you like dick, man,’” imitating Brendan’s voice with a mocking baritone, “‘don’t need to sneak him out like I’m gonna think you’re gonna jump me while I sleep.’”
Their little group laughed, the afternoon sun lighting everyone up against the clear blue sky on the rooftop bar, the sound of other groups talking and laughing against the muted beats of a playlist toeing the line of popular and familiar—Kanye, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé.
“I didn’t say that!” Brendan replied, grinning.
“Babe,” Tegan bumped his shoulder, “that so sounds like you.”
“I think you were drunk?” Chris said and sipped his beer. “Also, I was just trying to avoid the awkward morning after, not hide anything.”
And that wasn’t the whole truth. He was half-heartedly hiding from Brendan because he couldn’t be bothered having the conversation—he knew Brendan would be cool, he’d just never found an opening in their groove to say the words. Brendan had been his best friend since primary school, and now he was his lawyer and business partner. But some things, Chris didn’t want to tell a soul.
Thankfully, the conversation moved on when Tegan asked, “What’s it really like though, going to Cambridge?” And Brendan launched into another story about all the booze he drank while Chris got up and rowed crew every morning like a lunatic.
Chris chuckled and glanced around, eyes skimming the usual crowd who got dressed up for a Sunday session on a sunny afternoon in Melbourne. He was looking without really seeing when his gaze swept over a guy and he had to backtrack.
The guy was smiling, close-mouthed, and nodding his head to something another guy was saying. He was the kind of handsome you had to pause over—lithe, tan, Scandinavian blonde hair and, though Chris couldn’t see from here, he’d bet blue eyes. He was exactly the type Chris was attracted to.
But attraction wasn’t ever his problem, it was what came after.
So when Alan, an old school friend, asked how the app development was going, he severed his attention on the guy and joined the conversation. This he could discuss with real confidence. This was going to be huge. He exchanged a grin with Brendan as he replied. Yeah, they were really going places.
“Another round?” he asked the group.
“Shots!” Brendan yelled.
“We’re not doing shots,” Chris said as he got up. “What are you? Eighteen?”
“Getting drunk is not just reserved for young people,” Brendan countered.
“I gotta work in the morning,” Alan said.
“So do I,” Brendan replied, “but until I’m thirty, I can do shots.”
“I’m not buying shots,” Chris insisted, but Brendan grinned at him like he knew that was a lie, and Chris wandered over to the bar with a head shake and a smile and left them to it.
It was busy, the thick of the mid-afternoon crowd lining up three deep at the bar, and Chris watched the bartenders moving up and down the line, leaning over to hear orders over the noise, swiftly moving back and pouring pints, grabbing bottles, mixing drinks with fluid hands. His back was damp with sweat, and the cool breeze lifted the loose material from his skin with a wash of relief.
He turned his head and saw him. The guy. He was in the line beside him, eyes on his phone as he tapped the screen every now and then.
He was better up close. Not as tall as Chris, maybe two inches shorter, and he appeared older, but not by much—he had the faintest lines around his eyes, not a scrap of extra fat on his body, and Chris guessed around mid-thirties. His shorts and shirt were classic, well-tailored, and he looked clean. There was barely a metre between them and Chris swore he smelled it too—fresh, a hint of understated deodorant.
The line moved up until they were behind the front person. Chris tucked his hands in his pockets and tried to ignore his awareness of the guy. What was he going to do? Ask him out? He snorted and then coughed to hide it, chancing a look to his left.
The guy was still focused on his phone, but glanced up and looked at the bar lazily before going back to it. His eyes were blue and his skin, this close, unblemished. He was looking at his phone again and Chris looked too, trying not to be obvious about it.
A gay hook-up app. Chris recognised it. He was bloody well on it; more for research purposes than actual use nowadays, but he was there even if not on the screen of “nearby” right now. He was peering at the profile the guy had opened—a burly looking dude holding up a fish—and speaking before he could stop himself.
“You could do better,” he said.
The guy glanced at him, but if he was offended, he hid it well. He quirked his lips at Chris—a brief acknowledgement of a stranger—and replied, “I know.”
Chris laughed, surprised. The guy looked back to his phone, clicked the warning symbol and blocked the guy.
