little love stories everywhere

Mei peeled the second earring free and set it on the vanity with a small, definitive click.

The room was barely big enough for the bed and the chair he'd commandeered, the mirror bolted crooked to the wall, the whole of it smelling of someone else's cigarettes under the bleach. Perfect extraction-point ambiance. He found Gero in the mirror over his shoulder, sitting on the edge of the bed with a first-aid kit open on one knee, dabbing antiseptic over knuckles split from tonight's work, watching Mei.

“You’re staring,” Mei said, easing another pin from his wig.

“I know,” Gero said.

Mei’s hand paused. He’d expected the usual: Gero’s ears going red, some mangled apology about propriety. Instead Gero had watched the updo come loose pin by pin with the same terrible concentration he brought to analyzing a compound.

“Careful,” Mei said, setting the last pin beside the others. “A girl could get self-conscious.”

“But you’re not a girl.”

Mei stopped, a cotton pad halfway to his mouth, and held it there. “Does that make you uncomfortable?”

“No,” Gero said. “Not at all.”

Mei brought the cotton the rest of the way and wiped until the bold red color gave out.

His wig hung loose now, the short blonde layers brushing his shoulders while the longer lengths fell down his back, paling into pink at the ends. Mei unfastened the necklace at his throat and set it beside the earrings, the recorder still tucked inside its clasp. Then he reached under the hem of the dress and drew the venue's master keycard from the garter at his thigh. The manager had been very certain it was still in his own pocket.

Gero kept at his knuckles without looking away. “The woman in green,” he said. “I said the wrong thing to her.”

“You said several wrong things to her.” Mei checked his reflection, decided his own face would do, and turned the chair around to him. “You told her she’d looked at the door six times in twenty minutes.”

“It’s what I noticed.”

“You noticed she wanted to leave, and then you told her so, to her face.” Mei pressed two fingers to his temple. “We are doing this again. Now. Before you go back out there and start counting someone’s exits for the next twenty years.”

᯽

By the time the rain started against the window, Gero still hadn’t gotten the compliment right.

“Again,” Mei said. He’d curled deeper into the chair, heels off and one leg tucked beneath him, the hem of the dress arranged properly even here, with nobody to see it but Gero in his sweatshirt, still perched on the edge of the bed as though there were some meaningful moral distinction between that and actually getting on it. “The woman in green. What did you actually think of her? What did you really notice about her?”

“That she looked at the door six times in twenty minutes,” Gero said, dutiful enough that Mei suspected he thought repetition might eventually improve it.

“Still not a compliment.”

“That’s what I noticed.”

“You noticed she wanted to leave.”

“Yes.”

Mei let his head tip back against the chair and addressed the ceiling. “Gero. Sweetheart. The line is you have a lovely laugh, or that color suits you, and then she decides whether you’re worth the trouble. You don’t hand her a surveillance report.”

Gero considered this with the seriousness he brought to everything, including tying his shoes. “But I didn’t notice anything else.”

“Then lie.”

“You told me not to lie.”

“I told you not to lie about money. Everything else is presentation.”

The rain came harder. Mei’s wig had gone mussed over the last hour, a few shorter strands working loose around his face, catching at his mouth when he turned. A run had opened in his left stocking somewhere between the venue and the taxi, climbing thin and ivory up his calf.

Gero looked at it a second too long. “That happened when you kicked the driver’s door shut.”

“It happened because someone insisted on running interference instead of letting the extraction go the easy way, and left me kicking taxi doors shut in four-inch heels.”

“You told me not to intervene unless it was necessary.”

“It wasn’t necessary.”

“But you were outnumbered.”

“That’s usually the situation.” Mei examined the run with more irritation than a five-dollar stocking deserved.

When Mei glanced up, Gero was still dabbing at the same split knuckles, an absurd amount of care for a man who could dose himself through blood loss and keep moving. His gaze had moved from the stocking to Mei’s mouth, bare now and tender where the cotton pad had scrubbed the color away. The longer he looked, the more Mei felt it sting.

Mei knew what to do with attention. He’d built entire evenings out of less. But Gero gave Mei no line to answer, no graceful way to pretend he hadn’t understood. Trust Gero to issue an invitation and leave Mei to explain it.

A demonstration, then. Mei could already see the end: Gero red to the ears, Mei back in the chair laughing. That version of the evening, he could manage.

“Fine,” he said, rising from the chair. “Since talking isn’t working, I’ll just show you.”

He crossed to the bed and sat beside Gero, close enough that his knee pressed against the outside of Gero’s thigh. Turning toward him, Mei tipped his chin and lowered his lashes just enough to soften the look without breaking eye contact. His voice dropped into the register he used on men with expensive watches.

“There,” he murmured. “Anyone can look at someone. Looking like you’ve got nowhere else to be. That’s the skill.”

Gero’s eyes dropped to his mouth and stayed there. His next breath came slower, warm in the narrow space between them. Mei had preferred that concentration on the hair pins.

“Do it again,” Gero said. “Slower. I don’t think I caught the part that worked.”

Mei should’ve charged for repeat lessons. He did it again anyway, raising his chin by degrees and letting Gero’s gaze follow before he lowered his lashes. Gero inhaled and held it. Mei took his time, aware now of exactly where he was looking.

When Mei let the expression fall away, neither of them moved back. The laugh Mei had planned never made it out.

“Gero,” he whispered. “I distinctly remember telling you to save this for your wife.”

“You did.”

“Good. Glad one of my lessons stuck.”

Gero didn’t answer right away.

“I think this one needs revising.”

“That’s not how curriculum works.”

“You said to save it. You didn’t say for how long.”

“I implied a duration.”

“You implied a lot of things.” His eyes came up to Mei’s and stayed there. “I’ve been paying attention.”

The usual color never reached Gero’s ears.

Mei had a drawer full of lines for exactly this moment. None of them worked on a man who meant it.

“This is still teaching,” he said. “You understand that.”

“All right.”

“You agreed very fast.”

“I want to learn.”

Mei’s knee was still against Gero’s thigh, the heat of him coming through the stocking. He left it there.

Gero leaned in and stopped close enough that each breath warmed Mei’s mouth. His gaze dropped there and stayed. Then it came back up. He didn’t come any closer. Mei tipped his chin up, and Gero’s hand settled against the side of his face.

Mei had been counting on enough awkwardness to make fun of later. Some hesitation, at least, that he could point to afterward and use to put this neatly back where it belonged. Instead Gero’s palm pressed warm against his cheek, fingers curving along his jaw. His thumb moved once beneath Mei’s ear and stopped over the pulse there. It knocked hard against the pad of his thumb. Gero’s eyes dipped. His thumb stayed where it was as he leaned closer.

The kiss was light, more warmth than pressure. Gero kept his hand around Mei’s jaw, thumb still beneath his ear. He breathed out slowly through his nose, the heat passing over Mei’s cheek. Mei lasted barely a second before the restraint got on his nerves. He pressed closer, mouth parting against Gero’s, and gave his lower lip a light bite.

Gero’s breath stopped. His fingers went still along Mei’s jaw.

Surprise, at least, Mei knew what to do with.

Gero recovered too quickly to let him enjoy it. His fingers flexed once, then settled, and when Mei tipped his head farther, Gero moved with him, corrected the angle, and kept it. His mouth closed over Mei’s lower lip and drew on it slowly enough that Mei inhaled against him without getting nearly enough air, his fist tightening in the fabric at Gero’s waist. Gero let go, cool air touching the wet edge. Then he did it again. The second time Mei knew where the pressure would come, and his fist tightened anyway.

The bastard had learned.

Mei wanted to disturb that concentration now, to make Gero lose some of the composure he seemed determined to keep. Instead, when Gero drew back for breath, Mei followed without thinking. Gero stopped, and Mei realized what he’d done at roughly the same moment Gero did.

Barely an inch separated them. Gero’s hand remained warm against his face, and each shallow breath touched the dampness he’d left on Mei’s lower lip. His eyes dropped there before returning to Mei’s.

Mei could have laughed, could have said something cutting enough to put the whole thing safely back inside the joke. Instead he stayed where he was, fingers twisted in Gero’s shirt, and let him look.

Then Gero kissed him again.

And this one lasted. Mei pulled him in as Gero’s hand traveled from his jaw to the back of his neck, fingers closing warm and firm beneath his hair. His thumb pressed upward beneath Mei’s jaw as he moved closer, tipping Mei’s head back until the cooler air reached his throat.

Mei had put plenty of men in exactly this position, but he’d never been the one underneath it.

He slid a hand into Gero’s hair and pulled, turning his head the fraction he needed before kissing him properly. Mei kept the pressure slow until Gero’s lips parted, then drew his lower lip into his mouth. Gero’s breath left him in a short rush, warm against Mei’s cheek.

His arm came around Mei’s back, palm spreading at the base of his spine, hot even through the dress. When he drew Mei closer, the hand faltered halfway, pressure easing for one beat before his fingers tightened and pressed Mei fully against him.

Their mouths parted and met again before either of them managed a full breath. Mei changed the angle, Gero moved with him, and the next shift of their weight sent them sideways onto the bed. The mattress dipped beneath Mei’s hip. He slipped his hand from Gero’s hair and braced on one elbow while Gero released his neck to plant a hand beside him, the other arm still firm around Mei’s waist.

Their knees knocked as Mei shifted beneath him and remained tangled, neither of them making much effort to fix it. Gero’s hand moved slowly up his side, the heat of his palm reaching Mei through the thin fabric as it traveled from his waist to his ribs and back again. When it returned to his waist, Mei turned into the touch and pressed closer. Gero’s fingers stopped against him. He stayed there through one shallow breath, then his mouth left Mei’s and moved along his jaw.

Mei’s shoulders sank deeper into the mattress as he reached for Gero’s hair again. His fingers tightened when Gero kissed beneath his ear and down the side of his throat, each place hot beneath his mouth and cooler once he moved on. The dress had slipped from one shoulder, and Gero followed the bare line it left. At the hollow beneath his collarbone, Gero’s breath spread hot over the skin before his mouth followed. Mei’s other hand left Gero’s shirt for his shoulder and pulled him closer.

When Gero lifted his head, his glasses had slipped farther down his nose and Mei’s fingers were still buried in his hair. Mei settled his other palm against Gero’s chest; his heartbeat struck hard against it. His fingers eased from Gero’s hair to the back of his neck without pulling him down again. They stayed there with their legs tangled, the uneven rise of Gero’s chest moving beneath Mei’s palm.

“We should stop.” Mei’s voice came out rougher than he intended.

“Yeah.”

Gero didn’t get up. His thumb passed once over Mei’s waist and stopped. Mei left his palm where it was and felt three hard beats strike it before Gero’s eyes dropped to his mouth. His fingers tightened slightly at the back of Gero’s neck.