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Chris followed him in, but made no moves to get undressed as Joq got his pants off and turned the shower on.
“You feel like Thai food for lunch?” Chris asked; he’d been suspiciously quiet for a while. “A soup would be good for you.”
Joq rinsed off.
“Yeah, alright.”
“Sweet, I’ll order it,” Chris replied and Joq could hear him smiling as he left the bathroom.
He got out, dried off and wondered what Chris would do next.
What Chris did next was not much. A couple of weeks went by and they spent every night together, alternating between each of their places but always dropping by Joq’s to make sure Delia was alright. They went out for dinner and Chris not so subtly encouraged Joq to pay on every second “date”, even though Joq saw it pained him to do so when they went to an exclusive restaurant and the bill was hundreds of dollars.
Chris also invited him to his office and introduced him to Terry, his assistant.
“This is Terry,” he said, his demeanour shifting from the endearingly soft lunatic Joq thought he was, to an affable yet closed off authoritarian, “my assistant. If you ever need me but can’t get in touch, call Terry and she’ll get me.”
“Nice to meet you,” he said to her and shook her hand as she stood.
“Joaquin,” she smiled politely. “Nice to meet you too.”
“Anytime at all, Terry will put us in touch,” Chris reiterated.
“Uh, okay,” Joq replied because he wasn’t sure what was going on here, but he had a feeling it had something to do with being even—rich people could, after all, cut themselves off from others if they wanted to. See George’s lawyer showing up on the doorstep of their shared home of ten years to kick Joq out and Joq not seeing him again until George deigned it was necessary.
“No matter what happens,” he went on.
Even Terry was looking at him strangely now—she hid it well, just a slight raise of an eyebrow, but she replied smoothly, “Of course.”
“Right, good, lunch?” Chris asked Joq.
And they left, Joq feeling a tad bewildered, but oddly better.
It was a week later when Joq had to concede the shoe he was waiting for to drop wasn’t dropping. They were stretched out on the sun loungers in Chris’ courtyard, drinking an incredible bottle of merlot Chris had brought out of his wine cellar when Joq noticed he was acting the way he did when he wanted to ask something but was working himself up to it—he’d look at Joq, then look away; get up, get more snacks or wine or anything they didn’t really need and come back, run a hand through his hair and sit down, saying nothing.
So, the shoe was about to drop.
“Out with it,” he finally said after Chris came out with more olives when they hadn’t even eaten the current plate of olives.
Chris huffed a nervous laugh. “Sorry, I just wanted to ask you something.”
“Go on,” Joq pushed his sunnies up.
“Okay,” Chris sobered. “The last few weeks we’ve been together, right? Like, not just sleeping together, but together?”
“Yeah,” Joq sighed.
Chris laughed, nervous. “And you’re okay with it. You seem okay with it.”
“I can’t promise I’ll always be okay with it,” he said after a while. “But, yeah.”
“But if we stay like this? We’re together all the time and the only thing I’d like to ask is, if you’d let me, I’d like to,” he shook his head.
Joq’s curiosity was piqued.
Chris met his eyes, he was so damn nervous it was making Joq nervous.
“I do have more money than you,” he said quickly, “and sometimes I’d like to, you know, do stuff for you with that.”
