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“Why?” Chris asked.
“Don’t you need to get to work?” Joq jerked his chin up and down Chris’ body. “Is it your boss calling?”
Chris chuckled. “I’m the boss, so, no, it’s probably Brendan.”
Joq’s stomach dropped. He had no room to judge an open relationship, but if this feeling of bleakness was anything to go by, he wasn’t cut out to do it again.
“My lawyer,” Chris smiled, “and best friend, but since he’s my lawyer now too the best friend part gets a bit strained.”
Joq nodded, relieved, but he still couldn’t fuck Chris again.
“Aren’t you like, twenty-five?” he asked.
Chris was still strolling along beside him, hands tucked in his pockets, the morning sunshine catching the natural highlights in his brown hair, his smile warm.
“Twenty-seven. And you? Thirty?”
“Thirty-four,” Joq replied just before they reached the bridge to the stadium. He stopped. Chris’ phone rang again and Joq watched him take it out, reject the call and silence it before he tucked it back and smiled down at Joq.
“So, we’re both consenting adults, that’s good.”
Joq huffed a laugh. This guy.
“Yeah, okay,” he said.
“Yeah, okay, you want to again?”
Joq shrugged. “Why not? It’s not like I’ve got a boyfriend.”
Chris frowned at him. “I fucking hope not.”
Joq laughed. He couldn’t be bothered explaining. “See you at seven,” he said and moved for the bridge. “You can stop following me now.”
He heard Chris’ answering laugh as he replied. “See you then, I’ll text you my address.”
Joq lifted a hand. He’d shoot that down via text—a hotel room was better, less personal, but then he thought, why was he still maintaining these boundaries? A decade-old habit that had no place anymore. But the thought of entangling himself with another person again exhausted him.
He looked back at Chris watching him, frowning, but he smiled when Joq looked, waved stupidly like he knew it was stupid too. Joq rolled his eyes.
Well, at least he was getting laid again. That was a good start.
He opened the little gate and walked up the cobblestoned pathway to knock on the door to the townhouse Chris had sent him the address to. Inner city and no doubt heritage-listed, the place was worth over a million in any market. Joq wondered for a second what the hell Chris did for a living. His suits were the thousands of dollars kind too—Armani and Ralph Lauren if Joq had to guess—and they looked personally tailored. And he was only twenty-seven.
Joq knocked and thought about himself seven years ago—working the stadium, stuffed in George’s closet in George’s austere mansion in Toorak—and felt a pang of insecurity. The feeling was so unfamiliar in a hook-up situation, he almost walked away. He’d certainly felt insecure with George in that final year, but not like this; this was inadequacy.
Before he could turn around, the large, green wooden door opened and Chris was greeting him with a warm, breathless smile.
“Hi, you came, come in,” he said as he stepped back.
“I said I would,” Joq replied.
But Chris looked good—in his faded jeans and bare feet, still in a white suit shirt but untucked with the collar open to bare his throat—and Joq felt the desire to fuck him, to lose himself in this young, uncomplicated body and forget about George.
“You did,” Chris agreed and shut the door with a heavy thud.
Joq kept his back to him as he toed off his shoes, glanced around—an ornate staircase in front, a long hallway with polished wooden floorboards that led to what he imagined was the kitchen and dining area, a luscious garden flanking a cobblestoned courtyard out the back and giving that end of the place open light against the white walls. He glanced to his left as he worked his shoe off, took in the sitting room, well-lived in and full. The whole place immediately felt like that—lived in, loved, with books and expensive, yet well-used furniture in front of an open fireplace.
“This is nice,” Joq said as he turned back to Chris hovering behind him.
