donuts: it's what's for breakfast

INTERLUDE

Adam has a key to Thomas’ apartment. It’s nothing special; he’s only allowed to use it during emergencies. Sometimes when Thomas is out on week-long trips, he has Adam come by to water Phyllis, his house plant. Thomas’ apartment is quaint and simple, with neatly-matching furniture and spectacular views that aren’t just brick and concrete. It’s the total opposite of Adam’s living space which is precisely why Adam likes it.

Thomas doesn’t have errant socks lying everywhere or bits of accumulated junk stuffed into every nook and cranny. He puts thought into organizing his belongings, using his own complicated system Adam can make neither heads or tails of. But everything has a place for certain: all his books and his clothing, his motley collection of vintage brooches.

When Adam is bored and he knows Thomas won’t be at home for a while, he hangs around Thomas’ apartment and looks at all the nice things he keeps in his drawers. He has a pair of reading glasses that he stores in a leather case in his bedside drawer that Adam has only seen him wear once when he was squinting at something on the back of cereal box. A prescription bottle of sleeping pills lives inside the medicine cabinet while a hardbound copy of A Very British Scandal sits primly on the windowsill bookmarked to page fifty-six with the corner smudged in what appears to be soy sauce. But Adam digresses. It’s probably a misprint: a blot of ink.

This is Thomas after all and he never leaves messes.

JANUARY

Neither of them really talk about that night but Adam remembers it with startling accuracy. Ever since he stopped drinking, his memory has been sharper though his sleep pattern is still shit: that was all the alcohol was good for in the end. Drink enough and he can feel less dead inside. Drink some more and his sleep will be dreamless.

Adam doesn’t do bars but there’s one he likes to frequent on account of how Hannah and her friends will never be caught dead there. It’s a place near Barclay’s Center and though he can’t drink anymore, he still allows himself the occasional pilgrimage. Sometimes he goes for the free peanuts; other times because he needs a place to stew. He doesn’t have a lot of friends because Hannah pretty much took his when their relationship fell apart as they were hers first and only his through osmosis.

That’s where he sees Thomas for the first time, scanning the crowd of people and looking for an empty booth. Their eyes meet briefly and Thomas elbows his way through a sea of people to ask Adam whether the seat across from him is taken.

It takes one, maybe two minutes for Adam to realize that he’s seen Thomas before. Something about him that’s so familiar then it all comes together: the accent, the hair, the dress shirt and slacks. He’s met Thomas a few times; he lives in the same building.

So this is the elusive Thomas, Adam thinks, relaxing his posture to something less hostile and more open. He’s the new tenant the doorman kept mumbling about, the one who complained about the structural integrity of the fire escape. Adam nods to the empty seat in front of him. Thomas shoots him a grateful look before taking the proffered seat and sipping from a complicated-looking cocktail. It has bits of pineapple in it. A colorful striped umbrella dangles cheerfully from the rim of the glass.

“I know you,” Adam begins, watching Thomas glance at the dance floor with some degree of trepidation. “I think we might be neighbors.”

Thomas blinks. He’s cute, in an uptight, fussy sort of way. The accent does elevate his charm somewhat as does the reds threading his brown hair. Thomas offers his hand to shake. His nails are buffed to a shine, well-manicured. Adam can already tell how loud he will be in bed which is very loud indeed.

“I thought I recognized you,” Thomas says, sounding abashed. “I’m rather good with faces.”

“Are you?” Adam takes his hand and they exchange requisite introductions. It’s brief and rote. Then Adam points to Thomas’ drink. “What are you drinking tonight?”

Thomas makes a face. “Oh, this and that, I’m not quite sure what this is but I asked the bartender for the most outrageous drink on the menu and this is it apparently. It tastes like breath mints and feet.”

“Which, as everyone knows, is a great combination,” Adam adds.

“Exactly,” Thomas agrees. His grin is fleeting. Almost just as quickly, he goes back to fiddling with a corner of a paper napkin.”So, er, do you come here often?”

Adam laughs. “Are you trying to pick me up?”

“What? What, no, I am not, I beg your pardon. I was just making conversation—“

“I do,” Adam cuts him off, to spare him the misery. “They always give me free peanuts here. I think the bartender on Tuesdays has a crush on me.”

“I’d like free peanuts too,” Thomas mutters.

“Then get ready to suck some cock.”

“What?”

“I was joking,” Adam informs him, cracking a peanut shell open and dropping one into his mouth. “Relax. You seem a little tense.”

“I’m relaxed,” Thomas lies, though his posture seems to be bely that statement, a little stiff and awkward. His shirt is buttoned up all the way. He keeps rubbing the side of his neck self-consciously, throwing glances at the table, his drink, the bar, anywhere but Adam. “I’ve just — I’ve never been to bars like this before. We don’t have a lot of them in Windermere, and the few places I’ve been to in London typically don’t have bartenders exposing their midsection for tips.”

“It is something of an acquired taste,” Adam settles on, barely managing to reign in a smirk. This is true: the place is a bit kitschy, those Yelp reviews can go fuck themselves, but the men are easy and he’s almost always guaranteed someone to take home. When insomnia hits the hardest, he’d rather be somewhere else with people than marinate in his own thoughts. He’s working on being comfortable with his own company but it’s an uphill battle when he doesn’t quite like himself and prone to breaking things when left on his own for too long.

They talk all night: Thomas is a chatterbox, loosened by alcohol, and he tells Adam he’s just moved here from the UK. When Adam presses, why America, why New York, Thomas tells him it’s because he wanted a fresh start, and the biggest city he could think of was New York. He didn’t like Paris; his French was terrible and he thought Parisians were snobs. He came here to escape. Adam envied him a little. He wishes he could escape too. He may live in a different neighborhood now but his fuckups still haunt him like vengeful old ghosts, the kind that can only be put to rest if he were brave enough to confront them.

Watching Thomas talk rapid-fire, listening to the soothing cadence of his voice, Adam wondered how long before he could take him home. He knows it’s a terrible idea; the potential for fallout and subsequent awkwardness are high mainly because they happen to live in the same apartment building, but the more Thomas said, the more Adam wanted to fuck him and shut him up preferably with his cock. He’s never been with a British person before.

“Hey,” Adam interrupts, already reaching for his jacket folded across the back of the booth. “It’s getting pretty late. Do you wanna maybe head home?”

Thomas’ face falls and then brightens again when understanding dawns. “Oh! You want to — yes, of course! I still have work tomorrow. We can share a taxi, split the cost…” he trails off.

Adam helps him into his double-breasted burgundy coat. He lets his hands linger on Thomas’ shoulders, brushing off invisible lint. Thomas lets him.

MARCH

Adam gets the call at two in the morning at which point he has two options: one, let it go to voicemail so he can sink blissfully into sleep after a fourteen hour day, or two, take it like he’s always been — for the last six months. Either option will leave him feeling guilty so he just takes the call anyway, mostly because he has zero self=preservation skills and somewhat of a masochistic streak.

When he swipes the screen to answer, Thomas’ voice fills his ear almost immediately, warped by white noise and static.

He needs a ride home.

*

Adam doesn’t consider Thomas a friend, at least not in the strictest sense. Thomas invites him over periodically for lasagna and drinks, just like normal friends do, but Adam can’t remember ever being seen in public with him in broad daylight even though they live in the same apartment building and there’d been plenty of opportunities for Thomas to ask him to accompany him to various daytime excursions. Not that Adam is big on daytime excursions, he wouldn’t even know what those entailed, but it would have been nice. It’s the principle of the thing.

Anyway: what does it matter when Adam’s fuzzy on the notion of normal friendship. He either tries to sleep with his friends or the friends of friends, or else they’re driven away by his general demeanor and lack of tact. Hannah had been a friend to him, someone he was actually invested in because her misery mirrored his, until their lives took them both different directions and he saw her for what she was: a receptacle for all the hang-ups he shouldn’t probably have lied about to his therapist. He still sees her from time to time; it’s a small neighborhood after all.

But Thomas. Well. This thing with him is different, by virtue of the fact that Adam has never had it with anyone else before. He just sometimes wishes Thomas stopped calling him in the middle of the night to pull him out of every fucking gay club in Brooklyn whenever things get a bit too much for him to handle. It’s been a year since Thomas moved to New York to escape the trappings of his old life and at this point you’d think he’d learned how to call an UBER for himself, but apparently he still needs Adam to act like his big scary boyfriend whenever he’s hit on by strange characters.

Adam shows up at the club half an hour later after dragging himself out of bed and pulling on the same clothes he’s worn the day before. It’s one of those clubs that’s deep in the basement of some building with a staircase that’s level with the sidewalk and an erratically flickering neon sign hovering above the entrance. The packed heat hits Adam like a wall of plastic sheeting, coating every exposed inch of his body. He hates it immediately; he hates clubs and crowds. What’s more: he hates crowds in enclosed rooms as people in large groups tend to do stupid things and this is doubly true if they happen to be under the influence of alcohol and other dubious substances.

It’s just as well that Adam locates Thomas quickly, standing awkwardly at the bar and getting chatted up. Adam watches him for a few minutes: how he laughs and touches his left elbow self-consciously, how he knocks back his drink in one smooth swallow before pulling out his phone from his back pocket and texting furiously. Adam’s phone pings in his right hand but he ignores it. The man next to Thomas isn’t even all that intimidating, not like the last one had been, truth be told; in fact, he maybe even Thomas’ type: well-dressed, neat, though he looks like he’s had some work done on his teeth. His clothes look expensive.

Adam approaches them, first with his hands jammed inside his pockets then out of them. The guy glances up at him in surprise before giving him a once over, lingering on his shirt which is tight, but also on backwards because Adam threw it on in the dark. The tag curls out of his collar like a lazy tongue.

“Adam!” Thomas looks relieved to see him, as if he hadn’t been the one to summon Adam and send him half a dozen panicked text messages every ten minutes.

“You ready to go?” Adam asks, offering his arm out to him.

Thomas glances back at his — date? prospective fuck? — companion before taking Adam’s proffered arm. “It was nice to meeting you, Lucas but I’m afraid I have to go.”

“Sure,” Lucas says, quirking his mouth in don’t treat me like I’m not an idiot way.

They leave without fanfare.

*

This is the part where things get a little hazy: their UBER arrives, they take the stairs up to Thomas’ floor, and Thomas invites Adam in because that’s what he usually does. Thomas is tipsy, which accounts for his loose mood. He’s not caustic, or hypertense, or kicking Adam out prematurely, but shutting the door behind himself before leaning his head against it with his eyes closed. “That was a close call,” he says. Adam simply grunts in answer.

Thomas has had a number of these so-called “close calls” and Adam is not sure it means what Thomas thinks it means. He thought the whole point of going to gay clubs was for Thomas to experiment, let loose, and explore a side of himself that he has kept locked up for fear of judgment and scrutiny by his peers. But maybe he isn’t ready for that anytime soon. Because he may have left his old life behind in another continent, but he still carries his hangups around like precious luggage.

Thomas’ apartment is just two floors above Adam’s. The building is an old walk-up with creaky banisters and the original wainscoting still in tact. Thomas had the interior remodeled entirely; the windows are new, all the furniture is modern, there are no pale shapes on the walls where old photographs once hung. In the open kitchen, Thomas pours himself a glass of water which he gulps down thirstily. He forgets to offer Adam anything. Adam doesn’t mind.

When Thomas stumbles his way to the bedroom without another word, Adam takes it a s his cue to follow. The bed, like everything else in the apartment, is new and it dips under their combined weight when they lay on it, Adam flat on his back, staring at the ceiling, Thomas with his back to him. Then Thomas rolls towards him, once, then again, until his right elbow is resting against Adam’s chest and he’s peering up at him from an angle, his head tilted towards him. Neither of them budge for a while resulting in a weighty silence that simply goes on and on. But Adam has been here before; he knows what comes next.

*

Adam has Thomas reverse-straddling him in no time, naked from the waist down, panting up at the wall. Adam’s jeans are pushed halfway down his hips and every movement scrapes his thighs with the most pleasant burn. Thomas’ shirt is matted to his back with sweat. Meanwhile, he’s shaking, and Adam thinks he probably has the most beautiful back he has ever seen. He has no objections to fucking him like this, mostly because he has a great view of Thomas’ tight clenching hole and he likes being able to grab handfuls of Thomas’ ass each time Thomas squirms down his dick. He’s so keyed up with lust it’s almost funny; his cock drips sticky dots of precome on the bed sheets and it fills Adam with perverse glee knowing it’s gonna be hell to clean up later.

Adam grunts, kneeling up behind Thomas to splay him onto all fours. Thomas catches his weight on his elbows, his cute little ass pointing upwards. Adam has fucked his way through all five boroughs, and he’s never met anyone whose ass he could ever call cute. Until Thomas. It’s springy, and almost all of it fits in one hand. And it’s always seems to be fresh as a daisy at least whenever Thomas lets him anywhere near it.

“Yeah,” Adam groans, bumping his cock against Thomas’ rim when he pulls out all the way. “You like that, huh? Riding my big fat cock?”

Thomas moans, cock leaking harder. He used to blush furiously at Adam’s dirty talk which Adam learned by watching filthy porn throughout his teens and occasionally up to present. But now Thomas takes it just as well as he takes Adam’s cock, that is to say with as much dignity as he can muster, with his face buried in the sheets. Adam reaches up inside Thomas’ shirt to cup a hand over his stomach: the skin there is soft and the small roll of belly quivers with every breath. Adam ignores Thomas’ straining dick and slides both hands around Thomas’ hips for traction, so he can fuck him in long hard strokes that leave him gasping like a swimmer running out of air.

“You’re never gonna get dick this good,” Adam says, and he doesn’t know whether that’s a taunt or a promise, but Thomas seems to eat it all up anyway: the cake and the whole damn plate, nodding his head frantically like he agrees, screwing himself down the length of Adam’s dick. He can act coy all he wants but they both know he loves cock; he went without for his entire adult life, and now can’t seem to get enough of it. It’s like giving sugar to a starving man.

Adam gives his ass a playful swat, then another and Thomas goes crazy, his whole body convulsing as he comes hard, streaking the sheets.

Adam follows not long after, shooting his load across Thomas’ back while Thomas is still slumped on his belly and catching his breath. They say nothing again for a little while, but Adam is used to these kinds of silences as they happen so often around Thomas.

Thomas glances up at him then, and something about his expression, or maybe the light from outside softening the angles of his face, makes him seem young and vulnerable. Tricks of the environment but it lasts just a moment, and then Thomas is yawning and bumping his ass against Adam in a subtle gesture to get him to move. Adam rolls onto his back next to him, flinging an arm over his overheated face. Sex with Thomas is like getting a full body work out, both often leave him vacillating between exhausted and then energized. He should leave, he knows, as it’s late enough already and he has to be in Queens by ten o’clock for an audition. It’s probably 4 am now. Adam tells himself he’ll go in a minute, maybe five, but when he opens his eyes again, a few hours have already passed. It’s morning: sun is slicing bright and hot through the slats between the curtains. Next to him, the bed is empty, cold. Fuck, Adam thinks, palming his face awake. There’s the smell of something cooking permeating the air. Bacon, he thinks, as he slips into his t-shirt from the night before, then his jeans. He can’t find his shoes for some reason but those are negligible because Thomas will end up finding them anyway and returning them the very next day. Adam has left a few of his belongings in his apartment before: a watch, his favourite leather jacket, a bottle of lubricant which they used a good portion of the first time Thomas asked to be fucked in the ass. Thomas returned each item in a discreet paper bag, including the very large fleshy dildo Adam had left on purpose as a kind of welcome gift into the world of anal fun. Adam thought it meant the end of their arrangement; apparently Thomas had simply been under the impression that the toy was on loan.

Adam finds him in the kitchen, wearing a silk robe with his initials monogrammed on the breast pocket, which is just par for the course. He looks freshly showered though his hair is free of any kind of product, soft and fluffy-looking though combed into submission. He’s made breakfast. Adam catches him laying out matching cutlery on the table. His plates all have gold trim on the edges, matching his saucer and cups.

“Tea?” he offers when Adam looms into view, halting by the doorway.

Adam blinks himself out of his stupor: no reason to be taken aback by a sight he knows all too well so shakes himself out of it. “I don’t drink tea,” he says, still not moving from his spot by the door. He curls his toes into the carpet. Thomas doesn’t look at him.

“I forget sometimes you’re American,” Thomas says, before pouring Adam a fresh cup of coffee from one of those expensive espresso machines which he happens to have just sitting in a corner. Adam ambles over to accept it, swiping the mug neatly from his grip before their hands can touch. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if that does happen: probably something stupid like lean over and kiss Thomas. Or say: thanks, babe, appreciate it. So instead he drinks his coffee in silence while Thomas smears jam and cream over his toast and reads the morning paper which he folds and unfolds in one hand.

To anyone else, they must look like the picture of perfect domesticity with the sun filtering in through the windows and catching the threads of the curtains, highlighting the reds of Thomas’ hair.

Adam beats a hasty exit before he starts feeling comfortable. He has somewhere to be after all. Thomas doesn’t even ask him about his shoes.

MAY

Because they live in the same apartment building, it’s only inevitable that they’ll run into each other at some point in time. On Thursday, just as Adam is returning from another failed audition, he spots Thomas walking up a flight of stairs, carrying a can of paint in each hand. Adam runs up to catch up to him, palm slapping dully against the banister over and over. Before he can think about it, he calls out a “hey!” in greeting.

Thomas squints at him in surprise, then mild suspicion.

Adam wonders whether Thomas realizes that his face is so easy to read. He can usually tell what Thomas is feeling though mostly in relation to him. It’s often a combination of ambivalence and horror when Adam tries something new in bed or eats something off the floor. Some of the time, when he’s softened by an orgasm and dumb with pleasure, he looks at Adam with something resembling fondness though of course that’s completely up to interpretation; it’s easy to evoke tenderness after giving someone a phenomenal blowjob complete with a finger up their ass.

“Need help?” Adam asks, taking the can labeled eggshell white from Thomas. It’s rather hefty, which makes him look Thomas up and down with newfound admiration. “Doing some redecorating?”

“I’m expecting a guest next weekend and I thought I’d repaint the walls.” Thomas shrugs. “They’ve been looking rather dull lately.I thought I should repaint them.”

Adam snorts. Of course Thomas “Neat-freak” McGregor will think that even if his apartment is completely spotless. “Aren’t your walls already white though?” he asks, just to be difficult.

“Well,” Thomas huffs, clearly affronted. “They can still be improved.”

“By making them even whiter?” Adam deadpans.

Thomas doesn’t deign this with a response, instead maneuvering the can around so he can reach into his back pocket and fish out the key to his apartment. He has a number of keys adorning a gold plated ring which has a Harrods charm dangling from it as well, just one of the many things from the store that he’d brought home entirely by accident. He worked at Harrods for ten years before moving to the countryside and he has an accumulation of various knick knacks to show for it: pens and t-shirts and castoffs from the gift shop plus a ton of other decorative odds and ends. He even has a black and white photo of the storefront sitting on his bedside table which Adam has never asked about though there’s probably a good story behind it.

Adam hands Thomas the other can once Thomas manages to wrestle the door open. Standing in Thomas’ living room always makes him feel strange because it puts him in the mood for sex though he and Thomas never fucked anywhere but in the bedroom before 10PM.

“You could make yourself useful you know,” Thomas says conversationally, beginning to put the can on the floor. Adam turns to him so abruptly that he makes himself dizzy, until he realizes that Thomas isn’t making a pass at him; he’s being straightforward, has an earnest, almost hopeful expression on his face. This isn’t code for sucking cock. “If you’ve got nothing better to do this afternoon, you could help me paint the walls.” Thomas gestures vaguely to the entirety of the living room. There’s plastic tarp over the sofa and coffee table, and the shelves have been moved aside in preparation for the paint job.

Adam raises both his eyebrows. “I won’t help you even if you paid me fifty bucks.”

“There’s a free dinner in there for you,” Thomas says, “And I promise it won’t be bagel bites and tomato sauce.”

Adam should really say no. He’s learning how to, is making progress, but today he backslides.

“You do know a way to a man’s heart,” he says, before making a quick detour to his apartment to change into baggy shorts and an old musty shirt he won’t mind getting paint on. The sleeves have been completely sawed off with a box cutter two summers ago during a heatwave, exposing the line bisecting his upper arms into two distinct shades. When Adam comes back fifteen minutes later, Thomas is already wearing an apron, a checkered bandana over his hair and a pair of clear plastic goggles which swallow half his face.

How he can look criminally attractive while looking like that Adam will never know, but stranger things have happened.

Thomas hands him a paint roller without fanfare, stepping back from the wall before adjusting his goggles. Adam tilts his head to look at him curiously, suddenly overcome with the intense desire to slot an errant curl of hair back into place. He manages to reign in the impulse and instead gestures to the wide expanse of Nordic white wall. There’s a lot of wall to cover; Thomas’ apartment is bigger than Adam’s with the added feature of a second bedroom so his rent is a little more expensive. Old newspapers have been set out on every square inch of carpet in case there are any stray drops of paint though Thomas may have gone a little overboard by covering the entire living room floor in newspaper. It’s a quirk of his: he likes to be prepared. Adam has flashbacks of their first hookup: the only time he can recall Thomas ever doing something brazen without thinking about the consequences. It had been messy and quick, dirty just the way Adam liked his sexual encounters: getting each other off with handjobs while the two of them were still mostly clothed, then fucking off after. The next morning they bumped into each other at Trader Joe’s and Thomas gave him a tight-lipped smile, a thanks but no thanks type of expression Adam is used to seeing by now.

Adam had chalked up the entire experience as a one-off, a fever dream brought about by a solid year without alcohol, but two weeks later, he ran into Thomas again, this time at a bar in Bushwick and they ended up sharing a cab home. There is a definite upside to being neighbors with Thomas but Adam had not accounted for his situation to escalate. It is in many ways like his relationship with alcohol: one minute he has a bottle of beer in hand, and years later he can’t ever remember a time he went to bed without one. Sex with Thomas has its own addictive qualities and Adam has always had a hard time fighting off his impulses especially when they make him feel good.

“Do I get goggles and an apron too?” he asks Thomas.

“I only have one pair of each,” Thomas says defensively. “I didn’t account for you helping me.”

“Right,” Adam mutters. “You’ve done this before though, haven’t you?”

“I read a book about it once,” Thomas coughs, “It should be easy, I suppose. I mean how difficult can it be, it’s just paint.”

The answer is: very, though this is largely due to the fact neither of them have ever painted a room before. Eventually, Thomas caves and they watch a video on Youtube which instruct them to pour the rest of the paint into a large bucket and invest in a bucket screen and $20 roller sleeves. Between the two of them, they manage to repaint the whole living room an even shade of white all the while getting the least amount of paint on themselves and the floor, a feat in and of itself.

Thomas pushes all the windows open to keep them from choking on paint exhaust but the result is a barrage of noise filtering in from the street outside. It doesn’t bother Adam in the least; he’s used to the holler of traffic and industry. He’s lived in New York most of his life and the mark of a true New Yorker is managing to sleep through sirens, earthquakes, and pretty much anything. Thomas, however, wrinkles his nose at the noise and shuts the windows immediately. He’s moved here early last year from London but Adam still doesn’t know what he does for a living. All he knows is that Thomas dresses impeccably and takes good care of himself; that he had a fiancé once, and has an allergy to blueberries.

Thomas is too tired to cook dinner so they order green curry from that famous place on Myrtle Ave with the best pineapple rice. They eat standing in the kitchen, crowding the counter, Adam straight from the box, hunched and leaning on one elbow, Thomas with proper cutlery. It’s peaceful, and for once Adam doesn’t mind the silence because it’s not laden with meaning and is just is. Then he finds his thoughts veering off into dangerous territory and he’s immediately uncomfortable, compelled to break the spell mostly by asking brazenly whether he could fuck Thomas after he finishes dinner.

It was a stupid thing to say; Adam regrets opening his mouth to say it. Thomas’ eyes nearly bug out of their sockets as he drops his fork in shock. He’s never fucked Adam without some amount of alcohol in him. “I don’t, I don’t smell so good,” he says and clutches the front of his shirt like he’s suddenly the heroine of a romance novel.

“I could fuck you in the shower,” Adam offers.

“What?”

Adam shrugs. “It’s sexy,” he tries.

“But one of us could slip!”

“Hey, I like to live dangerously—”

“Or break a hip,” Thomas continues, ignoring what Adam’s just said.

Adam wisely drops it as he recognizes it for what it is: a lost cause. Too much hemming and hawing from Thomas doesn’t make it seem worthwhile anyhow. He balls his paper napkin and tosses it onto the counter. “Forget it. I was just teasing you anyway.”

“Right,” Thomas scoffs quietly, regarding him with suspicious eyes. “Sometimes I never know with you.”

“Yeah, well, I like to keep you on your toes,” Adam says breezily. “Someone around here has to.”

JUNE

Probably Adam’s biggest flaw is that he acts first and asks questions later. Which is why when he sees Thomas leaving the apartment building accompanied by a pretty brunette, he throws caution to the wind and ditches his own plans for the evening to follow them all the way to the restaurant. If he were a better person, and more well-adjusted, he probably would have left them alone. But being none of those things, he has no compunction tailing them to their destination.

It’s a nice place, a little cramped, but what part of the city isn’t. Adam has lived in spaces smaller than the one he occupies currently, in one bed-room apartments with dead leaves on the windowsill and pill-bugs for company. He seats himself in a booth across Thomas, hiding his face behind the menu card which he clutches with a white-knuckled grip. Thomas’ back is facing him; it’s an ideal position for eavesdropping.

There’s a curl of hair at the base of Thomas’ neck that Adam suddenly wants to lick just to scandalize his present company, but he’s not that person anymore, he’s seeing a therapist, so he settles in and orders a ginger ale with nothing much better to do with his time. His stomach pinches up when it becomes perfectly clear that it’s a date. He should have known, he should have fucking known, but he didn’t want to jump to any conclusions.

And she’s pretty. Her name is Bea and she’s known Thomas a while judging from their conversation. She reaches out and covers Thomas’ hand in hers on the table and Thomas smiles at her and squeezes back. She asks him how he’s doing, and Thomas launches into an overlong story about his job in a store on Fifth Avenue, how it’s just like working his old job at Harrods but not quite the same. Bea laughs appreciatively at all the right pauses and they keep their hands linked the entire time. It occurs to Adam that he’s never seen Thomas like this before, laughing full of unbridled glee, his eyes shining with happiness. He’s patient with her; he waits before speaking. This is the Thomas that Adam rarely gets to see: who doesn’t have his guard up and makes ridiculous jokes.This is him, living, breathing, outside of his apartment where their entire relationship lives. They aren’t friends; Adam realizes this now with a kind of bitter resignation that sits heavily in his stomach.

It takes a while for Adam to realize he’s still staring at the back of Thomas’ head, lost in his train of thought. He finishes off his drink and orders himself another. After topping it off, he finally fucks off home. He walks all the way there. It’s only a few blocks and the night air helps clear his head. Back in his apartment, he strips down to his boxers and throws himself onto the bed. There’s a hot flash of jealousy creeping up his chest but he tamps it down before it can boil over. His eyes hurt. He digs his knuckles into them before slamming the heel of his hand over his forehead repeatedly.

He’s not angry. It’s nothing to get worked up over. Thomas is good at compartmentalizing different slices of his life which is probably why Adam has never seen or heard about this woman before. And why, Adam thinks, he and Thomas never interact much outside of bed. Adam is great at fucking; that’s all really Thomas wants from him.

Which is fine. Absolutely fine.

*

Adam doesn’t sleep that night. He takes two painkillers for his headache which he drowns with a glass of water, and takes his script with him out to the fire escape where he smokes a cigarette in a crouching position and watches a man walk his dog down the street. It’s a residential neighborhood: quieter than anywhere he’s lived in the last ten years though he can still hear the muted hum of traffic from not so far away.

Thomas’ light is on. Adam glares at his window as if he’s personally offended and then wonders what Thomas is still doing up at this hour. He doesn’t check the time on his phone until he’s jumping into a pair of jeans. Some hours before 3AM. Maybe Thomas can’t sleep either. He wouldn’t be the only one. Adam takes the stairs three at a time, leaping onto the landing before pivoting straight onto Thomas’ doorstep. He hesitates for a second before rapping on the door with his knuckles. It doesn’t take long before Thomas is answering the door and Adam glances up and he looks —

He’s wearing pyjamas and a wrinkled t-shirt, his hair is slightly askew. He squints at Adam accusingly. “It’s 4 in the morning, Adam,” he says by way of greeting.

Adam realizes that. He feels only half-awake, like he’s wading through water in a space suit. Probably the painkillers.“Couldn’t sleep. Wanted to see what you were up to,” he mumbles pathetically. He eyes the tumbler of whiskey in Thomas’ hand. “Wanna fuck?”

Thomas glances around the hallway before glaring at Adam. “Can you keep it down please?” he hisses, “Someone might hear you.”

“Sure,” Adam snorts, and is surprised when Thomas lets him in anyway. Once the door is shut behind him, he relaxes visibly. “Honestly, you have no tact whatsoever…”

“How long have you been seeing her?” Adam blurts out.

“What?” Thomas blinks at him, then he rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “Oh you mean Bea? How did you—”

“Saw you guys together,” is all Adam lets on, shrugging, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He probably should have worn a shirt, but he wasn’t thinking when he left his apartment five minutes ago, and wasn’t thinking then when he asked Thomas about his date. “She seems nice. How long have you two known each other?”

“Two years, eighteen months? I don’t know,” Thomas says, a frown tugging at his lips. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

“It is when I’ve been fucking you,” Adam tells him.

“Are you jealous?” Thomas’ entire face changes but it’s an expression Adam can’t quite read clearly. He turns his back to Adam and starts pouring himself another drink. “I took a lovely girl to dinner, Adam. She was visiting. That was all there is.”

“Does she know you like men too?”

“What?”

“Does she know you like men,” Adam says, slowly this time, as he stalks behind Thomas and pins him against the counter. Thomas elbows him in the ribs but there’s no real effort in it and he’s more annoyed than reluctant. “You’re an arsehole.”

“Didn’t stop you from wanting to sleep with me.”

“You think this is charming, don’t you?” Thomas scoffs, turning in Adam’s arms and shoving at his chest. “Look, whatever you’re trying to do, it’s not doing to work. ”

The day Allan moves next door, Bernard covers his face with a paperback copy of The Hobbit so he doesn’t have to look at him. He slides his headphones on instead and grips the edges of his book a little more firmly, forcing himself to finish a chapter before heading back inside to escape the nascent summer heat.

When Allan comes over to introduce himself two days later, it’s in an outrageously tight shirt that’s disarming as his smile. Bernard realizes then that god must hate him. Therefore, fuck it. Fuck his life.

In no particular order Bernard hates: mushy peas, cold feet, and the smell of cold noodles. But nothing comes close to the wave of self-loathing that hits him when Allan moves into his eyeline to ask whether he could borrow a wrench.

Allan curls his hand into a fist to demonstrate the heft of it (Bernard knows what a wrench looks like, thanks) while Bernard stares and stares and… stares. Allan explains that he needs the wrench for repairs of some kind, leaning into Bernard’s personal space as if they’ve known each other all their lives. He can probably drop in by parachute and insinuate himself into any conversation whatsoever. He’s friendly, practically oozing charm, which is more than what Bernard can say about the old folks that used to live next door who were always complaining about the dog Bernard’s family never had.

And he’s American because — of course he is.

“I’m Allan by the way,” Allan says when he remembers to introduce himself. He flashes Bernard a brief smile, the kind that can thaw snowdrifts and cure epidemics.

“Bernard,” Bernard tells him, managing to keep his voice from shaking. He returns Allan’s gaze mildly, fiddling with the hem of his shirt. Then he shifts around for a bit in mild panic before shutting the door in his face.

It’s not exactly the best first impression, but how can you blame Bernard when he’s only had one friend in his life and a little rusty on social interaction. People don’t come up to him to talk because he kind of just hangs back in the periphery and melds into the furnishings. People forget about him, overlook him, which is fantastic, really, as he prefers to avoid attention. Put him on the spot and he’ll probably piss himself (he did once, in primary school during a talent show) but he likes school enough where he gets good grades and is in the good graces of most of his teachers because of his stellar attendance record and generally agreeable demeanor. His peers are another story altogether. He never makes any new friends because no one notices he’s there.

So it doesn’t make any sense that when Allan sees him in the supermarket, he waves at him from across the frozen food aisle. And the park. And the bookshop. And from his front yard where he’s helping his dad mow the lawn. Allan, the boy next door, in the tight t-shirts and cargo shorts, with the floppy dark hair and the lightly-stubbled jaw. He’s older than Bernard by about a couple of years, which is just the thing to make Bernard’s delicate heart pound a little harder. His mam says Allan is supposed to be on his second year of uni but that he’s taking a break to care for his ailing grandma and help his dad with the move. It’s all very Christian, though they hardly see them in church on Sundays.

Bernard gets the nervous sweats around Allan largely because he’s unused to the attention and partly because Allan can get a little intense: he leans, he touches, he calls Bernard Bern. He makes these jokes that go way over Bernard’s head but are charming in a plebeian way; American humour is so bizarre and mystifying; somehow it almost always has to involve poop.

And he walks around without a shirt on, never mind the time of day. Once he came over to return Bernard’s dad’s hedge clippers, his chest shiny with patches of sweat. Normally, Bernard wouldn’t have a problem with this if Allan wasn’t so keen on teaching him the finer points of American football and tackling him on the ground.

It all comes to a head one afternoon when Allan pins him on grass after a short-lived match that involved a lot of grunting and yelling and Bernard trying to run back inside the house. Allan is shirtless, naturally, and sweaty, as usual, when he straddles Bernard’s skinny hips and flailing limbs and hovers above him with a triumphant grin, his arms braced on either side of Allan’s head. He smells like freshly cut grass and clean sweat and Bernard can feel him breathing, every ragged inhale going straight to his —

“Hey,” Allan says, blinking, cutting cleanly into whatever thought was about to morph in Bernard’s head. He flicks Bernard gently between the eyebrows with his middle finger and thumb and Bernard scrunches his nose and rubs at his forehead before shooting him a baleful look. “You look cute when you’re all thoughtful. Like a baby chipmunk,” Allan observes. He laughs like this is somehow funny to him, and Bernard can feel that too, the sound of it reverberating in his stomach, his chest, every part of them that’s touching.

When Allan pulls away and rolls off him,  he’s almost disappointed enough to make a sad little noise. Whether Allan hears it or not remains a mystery, because he says nothing as he lies there on his back on the grass next to Bernard, staring up at the sky that’s shifting to dusk above them. Then he tilts his head and glances at Bernard thoughtfully, before leaning up on one elbow and touching Bernard’s hip.

Bernard stops breathing, stops thinking, his body frozen in paralysis. He waits: for something, for anything, and trembles like a leaf when Allan’s hand moves away to tug Bernard’s shirt down where it’s hiked up above his ribs. Then he smooths a hand over Bernard’s stomach, once, twice, and Bernard makes that sound again, that pitiful pathetic noise like when the kid from across the street kicked the tar out of him two summers ago.

Allan smiles and sits up abruptly on his elbows. Bernard wants him to — he wants him to kiss him. He’s so beautiful.  He’s dreamt about him before, the weight and smell of him. His kind laughing eyes. Father Flannagan gave him two Hail Mary’s for it, but Bernard had added another two because this is what he didn’t say: that he’d rolled onto his stomach in bed after that dream and rubbed his cock against the covers, coming in his briefs shortly after imagining Allan watching him from the doorway. He was so weak and trembly after that he cried just a little from how pathetic he felt, and he feels like that now, like he wants to get up and leave, like he wants to  cry, like he wants to pull Allan back flush against his body if only he was brave enough. He’d been so warm, so alive. It was nothing like those dreams.

“You shouldn’t let me bully you,” Allan says, keeping his gaze forward and fixed at nothing in particular. He sounds almost angry. “If I do something — anything that makes you uncomfortable, you need to speak up.”

Bernard has no idea what he means. “You don’t bully me.”

“Well, I obviously make you uncomfortable,” Allan snorts.

Bernard thinks about his next words carefully. “That’s not true at all. You’re kind of cool.”

“Just kind of?” Allan grins. Then his expression morphs and he leans forward to brush his knuckles down Bernard’s cheek. “There was a bit of a — ” he cuts himself, trailing off, leaving Bernard holding his breath. Then Allan kisses him — on the cheek after Bernard jerks in alarm and turns his face away, body stiff with panic. It’s quick, barely anything, and Allan looks ashamed as he climbs to his feet and wipes grass stains off his jeans, looking everywhere but Bernard. “Right,” he coughs awkwardly, hands on his hips. “Sorry about the — shit. I better go.”

Ren returns from lacrosse practice tired, sore, aching all over. It’s late as always; she’s missed the bell for dinner again. The halls of the third floor dormitory are awash with a kind of eerie silence that Ren finds strange comfort in. Lights out was two hours ago so everyone must already be asleep. Even Hux, Ren thinks briefly as she trudges up another flight of stairs to the floor where the senior year rooms are housed. End of a season, end of the term, and they’re both hard at work doing what they love best. In Hux’s case, it’s drowning herself in coursework until the bags under her eyes deepen while Ren continues to beat people with lacrosse sticks to temper her aggression. They’ve been roommates since start of term. Hux had breezed in without compunction after Ren had finished putting up all her posters above the bed, and Ren crushed on her immediately, despite the shelf teeming with old heavy books or maybe because of it. She was everything Ren’s mom wanted her to be: focused, driven, singular in her desire to be the best in class. Ren’s dad had always said Ren lacked clear goals for the future but Ren didn’t care, she liked to live in the present.

But when Ren nudges the door to their shared room open, Hux isn’t asleep like Ren is expecting  There she is, Hux, sweet-faced hot-headed Hux, straddling a pillow in Ren’s bed. Ren’s pillow, Ren’s mind supplies. Her hips move in a languid rhythm; Ren can hear the soft little noises she’s making even from where she’s standing by door. Hux is still in her uniform, which means she must have fallen asleep in it again. The light from the quad outside is the only light in the room but Ren can see Hux’s pale little ass plain as day: her skirt  is hitched up to the waist, a pair of conservative black panties curled around one ankle. She’s still wearing her school-issued socks.

Ren’s brain starts leaking out of her ears, in increments then all at once until her head is emptied out completely and her mouth runs dry. She’s never seen Hux in this capacity before. Yelling, issuing commands to the rest of the rowing team where Hux sits as coxswain, but not — not like this, never. Ren had been of the opinion that Hux would never debase herself so, Hux who curled her lip at lewd jokes, and never once showed any sexual interest toward men. Or women. Now Ren knows better.

“Hux,” she says, because what else is there to say? Ren has half the mind to run to save herself from the impending embarrassment of confrontation but she’s rooted to the spot and where else can she go at this time of the night?

“What, what—” Hux says, sounding dazed, and she rolls onto her back in a flash, giving Ren an eyeful of, well, there it is now, pretty just like everything else about her, her soft pink pussy, flushed from rubbing too hard. She’s wet, really wet, there’s a glistening stripe of it down Ren’s pillow where Hux must have ground her clit.

“Ren,” Hux says, her voice flat. Her legs are still spread, her voice thick and sleepy with lust. Then she comes to grips with herself and sits up in a panic. “Oh, oh bloody — fuck!” Mortified, she closes her eyes, grinds her teeth. It’s too dark to see properly but Ren can imagine the hot spread of color across her face. She has such fair coloring. Ren delights in teasing Hux more times than not, hiding her lucky socks, upsetting the painfully precise arrangement of her books, only so she could reap the benefit of seeing Hux’s pretty face morph into confused annoyance. Also it’s fun to see her hop around the room yelling.

“You’re in my bed,” Ren points out.

“Yes,” Hux says evenly. “And?”

“Do you—do you need help with—?” Ren flaps a hand to indicate the problem between Hux’s legs.

“I’m not a child,” Hux hisses, pressing her knees together. “You could say it, you know.”

“Your cunt’s really pretty,” Ren says, and even as she says it, feels a hot pulse between her own legs.

“Right.” Hux glances down at her lap. She has a thin little patch of hair, same shade as the one on her head. It’s cute.  Ren wants to lick it. “Thanks,” Hux says absently then lets out an absolutely horrified squeak when Ren drops everything at the door and starts kneeling on the bed.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Ren rolls her eyes. “It’s my bed! And you’re in it.”

“Ren,” says Hux when Ren touches her ankle. It sounds like only half a warning so Ren boldly presses on, taking Hux’s left ankle in her other hand to test the actual heft of them: thin, delicate, which is just as expected even when Hux clothes herself with enough layers to appear impenetrable in more ways than meets the eye. Also dainty, which is not a word Ren often associates with Hux who can probably kill her fifty ways in her sleep with a pencil and a toothbrush.

Hux says nothing, watching silently as Ren sweeps both hands up the length of Hux’s calves then up the smooth inside of her creamy white thighs, sticky with slick. Ren wonders how long she’s been at it, and whether Hux humping Ren’s pillow means anything other than revenge for eating the last of the health bars Hux hides under the bed for when she’s hungry.

Hux still says nothing when Ren meets her gaze and lowers her face to the seat of Hux’s lap where her smell is the strongest, making Ren’s mouth water.

“I’m going to eat you out now,” Ren announces.

“Well then bloody do it already and stop—” Hux’s head falls back on the pillows with a soft thump. Her shoulders shake, along the rest of her body, moving minutely with faint tremors when Ren puts her tongue to Hux’s slick folds, parting them the way she’s often seen people do in porn which is to say earnestly. The truth it, Ren’s watched enough porn to last her a lifetime, and her computer at home is probably riddled with all sorts of malware, but she hasn’t had firsthand experience because there’s never been anyone to experience anything with. People in school, with the exception of the lacrosse team, are afraid of Ren. Surly Ren, Scary Ren, Give-you-a-black-eye-if-you-so-much-as-looked-at-her-wrong Ren. Ren with the inconsolable temper. She’s heard it all. But Hux seems to have always been immune to the hearsay, the first one to look at Ren disdainfully and demand she turn down the music because she’s  in the room studying.

Ren glances up at Hux whose chest heaves with every breath. It’s like the books they read in English her bosom heaved with every sigh except Hux is mostly flat so there really is no bosom to speak of. Ren can verify this fact because she’s caught Hux dressing for PE once and can honestly say Hux needs the extra padding. Ren is the exact opposite, ungainly with too big hands and feet and a chest that gives her back pain when she trains too hard for a game. Or runs. Or does much of anything really.

But Hux is perfect, gorgeous, with a mouth that never knows when to stop, so Ren tries her very best to please her. She pushes her tongue into Hux and drags the tip of it upwards and downwards. Hux makes a series of heartbroken noises as she gets wetter and wetter, twitching under Ren’s probing tongue and undulating her hips; Ren gives her clit a long languorous lick before pushing two fingers in and out of Hux’s cunt, blushing a little at the obscene squelching noises it makes.

“I want to kiss you,” Ren says, moving up to lean over Hux while still fucking her with two fingers.

Hux’s breath is getting choppier by the second, sweat gathering on her forehead, but her annoyance doesn’t seem to waver in the slightest, as if getting a fingering from Ren is the absolute worst thing in the world that could happen even when she happens to be enjoying herself.

“Kiss me?” she repeats, “After you put your mouth on my, my — ”

“Cunt,” Ren supplies.

“No,” Hux says snottily but she’s blushing and Ren knows: she’s probably not completely averse to the idea. Maybe she’s thinking about it, the way Ren has been thinking of putting her head under Hux’s skirt lately and kissing her through her panties till the cotton is soaked through with her wetness. Of pulling Hux’s delicate little ankles up to her shoulders and fucking her with a strap on to watch how her body opens up greedily to a plastic cock. Maybe they’ll take turns with the strap on, maybe Ren will even let skinny little Hux with the long legs and obvious knees fuck her with her favourite dildo. Maybe afterwards Hux will let Ren kiss her, and do the things Ren has long dreamt of doing with another person the second Hux walked into the room with her heavy books and conservative haircut.

Ren doesn’t let up the rhythm of her fingers, stroking Hux bold and deep until Hux whines and smacks her on the side of the head with a foot. “I’m close,” she warns, short of breath, and Ren takes that as her cue to rub the flat of her tongue over Hux’s clit, on and on while she fingers her in a jerking motion. Hux reaches down to fist Ren’s hair in both her hands, grinding her sopping wet slit against Ren’s face until Ren forgets how to breathe. Ren moans at the taste, the smell, the delicate heat of her and then Hux is coming with a choked noise, shuddering and shuddering and softly breathing Ren’s name.

“Jesus Christ,” Ren says when she pulls her fingers out. “You ruined my fucking bed, Hux. Look, you little slut. Look what you fucking did. There’s slick everywhere.”

But Ren is not mad. She wants to give Hux everything. “You can sleep in my bed,” Hux says sleepily, eyes closed. She looks indecent like this, with her legs still indolently spread, and next time Ren will have Hux sit on her face and straddle it, if there’ll even be a next time. Ren is wet too, wet in her underwear, and she won’t let Hux fall asleep on her without doing something about it. She starts taking off her shorts but stops halfway in the act of pulling it off one foot when she finds Hux yawning.

“You’re going to sleep? You’re a selfish brat, Hux, do you know that?” Ren says.

“Really,” Hux snorts, blinking one eye open. “I’m the brat now?”

“Look what you did.” Ren lifts the hem of her shirt, shows Hux the very obvious wet patch on her panties. Ren is half-expecting Hux to turn her away, say something scathing to drive her off now that Hux has gotten what she wanted, which is a mind-blowing orgasm that Ren knows has rocked her world irreversibly. So Ren is pleasantly surprised when Hux reaches forward to slide a pale hand inside Ren’s panties, where she slips two fingers inside Ren’s wetness and starts to rub.

Ren shudders, her mind blanking out as she trembles above Hux. Her knees almost give out at first but she finds her center and starts to move against Hux’s fingers, bearing down lightly, experimentally, then roughly once Hux finds the secret spot. Ren’s always loved fingering herself, and though she usually can take three or four of her own, Hux more than makes up for it with a knowing rhythm that makes Ren feel close to coming every time.

“Hux,” Ren gasps, “Hux, I’m gonna come. Fuck, you make me so wet. Fuuuuuck,”

“Then come,” Hux says, with a smug little laugh that Ren doesn’t know whether she wants to kiss or kick her for. Ren comes with Hux’s fingers still trapped in her panties, slumping on top of Hux and slapping her on the wrist so she’d stop teasing Ren’s clit. When Hux relents, they stay like that for a minute longer, Ren breathing hotly down Hux’s neck, and marveling over how great her hair smells, like lilacs.

“I still want to kiss you,” Ren says, because she can’t help herself and she’s an idiot who doesn’t know how to be suave.

This summer is a hot one. Clyde spends most of it in his bedroom, half of which he shares with his big brother Jimmy, after he breaks his arm during one of their little ‘adventures’. The real story is that Jimmy had challenged him to climb the highest tree he could think of, and he’d ended up fracturing something important that couldn’t have just been fixed with a little ice and a bucket of Earle’s famous fried chicken from down the road. Clyde had to be driven to the hospital and everything, given pain medication so strong his whole body felt like it was stuffed with cotton with all the bones replaced.

Now he has to wear a cast for the rest of the summer, and it’s eight weeks of tumultuous heat making his skin crawl with sweat.

It’s going to be absolute torture, but one day Clyde’s mom buys him a telescope which she helps him assemble by the window piece by piece. “Somethin’ to keep you occupied so I don’t have to see you mopin’ round like a sittin’ duck,” she says, then kisses him on top of the head. He’s still grounded, though.

Most days, Jimmy is out hanging with his friends from school, up to his usual mischief so it’s usually just Clyde, his baby sister Mellie, and his grandma left at home. Clyde’s mom works as a nurse at the local hospital while his dad tends bar, a long-standing Logan family tradition that began when Clyde’s great granddaddy bought that alehouse at the turn of the century and called it Duck Tape.

Every afternoon, Clyde sits by the window, tinkering with his telescope and swinging it around like an arctic explorer while sweat mats his t-shirt to his back and drips stinging line into his eyes. And the telescope is great and all, he’s not trying to be ungrateful, but he’s fourteen years old and bored out of his goddamn mind. He wants fresh air. He’s sick of staring at the ceiling and jerking off with his left hand, coming only half the time. He loves Mellie but mashing peas in a little bowl for her to eat is starting to wear him down.

All that changes though when he sees a moving van nosing up the driveway next door where the Millers used to live. Clyde peers into his telescope, then sits back and squints instead, watching the steady progression of boxes being unloaded and carried inside the Millers’ front door.

Then a kid jumps out of the passenger side of the station wagon, wearing oversized cargo shorts and an X-MEN t-shirt. He has the reddest hair Clyde has ever seen, redder even than the sunsets they get down here in Boone County in midsummer. The kid looks to be somewhere around his age, same height, though he’s scrawny and pale, with a floppy haircut that’s just starting to settle. He plants himself down the sidewalk, sitting with his fists resting under his cheek, staring straight ahead at nothing in particular. Clyde imagines he’s moping. He knows what moping looks like; he’s been doing it for the last three weeks. The kid will burn up before he knows it, Clyde catches himself thinking, in the idle way he thinks about anything at all. But he puts it out of his mind entirely and shuts the window to keep the flies out, then heads down to the kitchen to make Mellie and his grandma some lunch.

A few days later, Clyde’s mom tells him she spoke to the new neighbors and there’s a kid Clyde’s age that he might want to say hello to. She hands him a tuna casserole before shoving him out the door with a firm nudge and a squeeze. The bowl sweats with humidity when Clyde, with only one functional arm, brings it over next door where the Millers used to live. He’s almost surprised to see that the front yard is no longer overrun with weeds. Yesterday he’d watched that redhead kid mow the lawn. Actually, he didn’t really mow the lawn so much as lay on the grass and drink from a juicebox while swatting away bees. He’d been barefoot the whole time, had worn a tank top and raggedy shorts. His arms were thin as reeds, white as milk, and Clyde remembers feeling overheated watching him lie there under the shade, spread across the grass like a starfish, his red hair like spilled paint. He didn’t understand why.

Now the front door opens right before Clyde has the opportunity to knock. There he is, up close, green-eyed, freckled. He’s wearing braces and Clyde falls in love on sight, his thoughts sputtering as his palms start to sweat.

“Hello,” Clyde mumbles, and blinks, and blinks. He turns red. He blames it on the weather.

“Hi,” says the boy. He has an accent. Clyde’s mom said they were from Ireland wherever that is, it’s probably in Ohio, they always get folk from there moving to Boone County for the property tax.

“I’m Stensland,” says the boy, rubbing his eyes and scratching a toe up and down his left ankle. He looks like he’s just woken up, hair all mussed up at the back, cheek lined with pillow marks, his skin reeking of sleep laced with sweat.

It takes Clyde a second to stop staring, another to actually respond. “Clyde,” he stutters, then releases a breath he doesn’t know he’s been holding. “Pleased to meet ya’. I live next door. My mom made you tuna casserole.”

“Oh,” Stensland says, and then squints at Clyde’s chest. He bites his lip before swallowing hard and turning red, probably from the heat. “Thank you,” he says, then flits a shy glance up at Clyde, shoulders hunching up. “My parents aren’t home but you’re welcome to come in if you like. That seems like the neighborly thing to do, doesn’t it? We have tea and day-old pastry and the AC happen to be working again and I have playstation…”

“Sure,” Clyde says before Stensland has even finished speaking.

Stensland looks up, startled, but a small friendly smile starts to warp his expression, smoothing it into something softer, more open.

(P1) So: CLYDELAND AU where idk STENSLAND IS AN ORPHANED YOUNG BOY SENT TO LIVE WITH THE LOGANS (IDK HOW THAT WILL HAPPEN IT JUST DOES WE'LL FIGURE OUT THE LOGISTICS LATER, maybe they adopt him, knew whis parents?)

Life in america is difficult, when you're an orphan from ireland

(P2) Stensland does try to make friends though, he's witty and clever and funny but he has an accent and is very ginger and the kids ostracize him in school bc they think he's strange. The logans are kind to him, mellie and jimmy esp, but the other kids pick on him

(P3) Clyde stands up for him that one time by the railroad tracks when Stensland is pushed around by bullies. Clyde has been bullied himself, thought too quiet/slow/dumb, and is immediately empathetic. They haven't spoken till now. Stensland was maybe a little wary/afraid of him

(P4) so they form a tentativr sort of friendship, growing up and going on huck finn/tom sawyer-esque adventures courtesy of stensland, until they're old enough to develop feelings for one another and repress that. Pretty girls at the fair want to get with clyde once he sheds -

(P5) that boyhood awkwardness, and he grows up, you know, RIPPED from hauling hay and chopping firewood. Stensland's not blind. He knows what he likes, he knows something's wrong with him, feeling heartstick over clyde (his best friend) he's seen him naked swimming -

(P6) - in the lake once but felt nothing then now he finds his presense overwhelming. Maybe they're too close, they shouldn't allow themselves to fall sleep in the same bed anymore, stensland pulls away, angry at himself, at clyde for growing up and being "normal" unlike him-

(P7) but clyde adores him, adored him even then, but he's not very vocal about his feelings. He feels... protective of stensland, can't really articulate why, and as they grow older their ~attraction~ is unmistakeable. Clyde doesn't want a pretty farmer's daughter at the fair -

(P8) he wants stensland! anyway some expositional UST happens, as you do, and maybe clyde has to go enlist (????) or something and when he comes back, he's lost a hand, he's not quite the same, more withdrawn, and stensland pulls some english patient shit and cares for him

(P9) until clyde becomes more himself again. maybe in doing so they get closer again, talk about their childhoods etc, until one night stensland creeps into clyde's room to check on him and finds clyde jerking off or sth and stens is like "wait, don't stop" and he watches -

(P10) or offers his hand or his mouth, and it's clinical but also very hot and stensland can't deny how hot and bothered he gets. THE SETUP CONTINUES FOR MONTHS until stens fools himself into thinking it's part of "caring" for clyde, but they both know that is A BIG FAT LIE

(P11) bec Clyde gets stensland off too. anyway maybe there's FARM DRAMA brewing, the logans have to sell the farm and live a modest life and clyde can't get work bc of his hand and stensland, he offers to stay with clyde and work in his stead till they figure stuff out

(P12) they're basically living together at this point, getting each other off at night, sleeping in the same bed and if that's not gay idk what is. Both of them are idiots and think the other one doesn't want/love them in that way/will leave them when the time comes

(P13) couple years pass, they're still living together, clyde works as a barkeep learning how to do everything w only 1 hand. Life is good. Jimmy has a kid, asks clyde when he'll settle down. He's not gettting younger and he needs a wife (oh jimmy lol) to care for him

(P14) clyde thinks of stensland. They take care of each other, always been that way and he's happy lile that. But they're not strictly speaking a couple and they haven't really talked about what's been going on bet them in the last few years. Stens overhears the conversation-

(P15) - feels bad for keeping clyde 'miserable' and 'unmarriagable' so he brings it up and insists clyde go and meet more women so he can start a family. Clyde is confused, stens wants him to leave him? He has a family, it's stensland and he doesn't need anyone else.

(P16) but stens is like don't be silly, it's different with me, i can't give u children and we'll end old crabby men together and who wants that, not you, so he shoves clyde out the door. clyde comes back, little tipsy, and slides under the covers next to stens and stens is like-

(P17) 'home so soon?'

& clyde just sighs & kisses his forehead & wraps an arm around him all 'yep, i'm home now, you can go to sleep.' 'u should go again tmr.'  a snort 'or we can just get it over with and u can marry me instead.' 'what,' stens says, but clyde is already asleep

(P18) so stens obsesses over that for a while, pfft surely clyde doesn't mean it, was drunk when he said that, but clyde stops going to meet new people, just stays indoors w stens and sits w him after dinner in front of the fire, and neither of them shy away anymore when -

(P19) it's time for THE SEX. usu how it happens is stens rolls over in bed and faces clyde and puts a hand on his belly and they get each other off that way, kissing sloppily. Sometimes clyde even lets stens straddle his thigh and hump him. They get bolder and bolder

written for viv, and jeu who said a good way to de-stress was to imagine how your favourite character would handle stress. also not sure if i should post it on ao3 bec of its length.

When Thomas is eighteen, he spends an entire summer in Paris. The trip is funded by a wealthy aunt who favors him because she has no children of her own but also due to the fact Thomas reminds her of her late husband: fussy, mildly appraising, always needing to have the last word. It lasts all of nine weeks. Most of it is glorious. The rest of it is hot and muggy, leaving him dizzy and irritable in turns. 

Thomas develops a fisherman’s tan, uses all the wrong verbs, upsets some of the locals, and buys bread and soft cheeses to take back to his hotel every day of the week. He drinks coffee by the hour long, reads The Albatross in its original French, though he only comprehends about a third of it, and feebly grows a wispy mustache which he grooms with careful swipes of his fingers. 

In Paris, it is said that one can always find romance if one knows where to look, but Thomas instead finds a dress shop on the Rue de Rivoli, and his life is never the same again after.

*

Thomas starts dating Adam after the fifth and final time he comes by Harrods to return an item he’d bought. He’d asked to see a manager, and Thomas had given him his blandest most polite customer service face, which he only uses to cow difficult customers, rowdy children, and small misbehaving animals. Adam had asked him out a total of three times before Thomas accepted his invitation for coffee. 

After that followed a series of brazen attempts to get into Thomas’ trousers. 

Adam invited Thomas to his play’s opening night, bought him an expensive cashmere scarf when the weather started to turn, but Thomas didn’t start sleeping with him until well into their fourth month of ‘dating’ after Adam showed up at his flat with half-burnt soup in a thermos when he’d complained about having come down with a cold.

Adam comes by often enough that he leaves his rubbish behind: several hole-ridden shirts hang in Thomas’ closet, Adam’s battery-operated toothbrush now permanently resides in a water-spotted glass on the sink, and he always, without fail, borrows an umbrella only to lose it on the tube. There are many things to be said about Adam, and he can be something of an acquired taste, but if there’s something Thomas likes about him it’s his uncanny ability to remain largely unflappable even when faced with the outlandish and bizarre. 

“What the actual fuck,” Adam says when he walks in on Thomas in lingerie. “What the actual fuck.”

*

Adam has not seen Thomas in lingerie before because Thomas doesn’t make it a habit to totter around his flat in garter belts and heels. It’s something he does only on occasion, when he’s had a long week and he needs a respite from being, well, himself. He hangs up the suit and with each article of clothing peels a layer of artifice off his skin. 

In Paris, years ago, Thomas learned to cut his own hair after the heat made everything unbearable. But there he also learned to luxuriate, to enjoy himself for the sake of it, though he only allows himself the reprieve in small doses lest it overrules his life. 

There’s a shop on the Rue de Rivoli with the most beautiful silk lingerie, with pieces so delicate they feel like they’ve been woven out of dreams. He’d stumbled across the shop while searching vainly for a shorter route back to the hotel and found himself drawn to the statuesque mannequins posed behind the glass window, dressed elegantly in women’s knickers. Except these weren’t just regular knickers, made of cotton, bought from a multipack, for £9.50 from Marks & Spencer. 

Thomas has cousins, he attends a coed Catholic school, he’s seen his fair share of women’s underwear, but none of them had looked this fine, this beautiful. This expensive. 

He wondered what he’d look like in them. He wondered, briefly, if he’d look fine and beautiful too.

*

Adam likes coming over without warning to raid Thomas’ pantry. Thomas regrets ever giving him a spare key but Adam’s visits are not without its merits. He vacuums when Thomas is able to wheedle him into doing it, and he knows a little bit about plumbing for him to tinker with Thomas’ sink to get it working again. He’s Thomas own handyman; all he asks for payment is a hot meal and maybe some blowjobs.

What Thomas doesn’t like is that sometimes Adam shows up in the middle of the night and creeps into his bed, which is how he finds out that Thomas sometimes likes wearing knickers to sleep. It’s nothing sexual; Thomas just finds them snug and comfortable, and extremely flattering to his physique besides. If he happens to chafe himself rubbing too vigorously on the bed covers then that’s none of Adam’s business; his interests are many and varied, some people collect porcelain dolls, Thomas collects luxury lingerie to wear on his down time. 

But he’s in a fresh pair with pretty ribbons when Adam slides under the covers and spoons him, jarring Thomas out of sleep when Adam snuffs a hot breath down his neck and squeezes his ribs firmly. Another thing about Adam: he’s not afraid to show physical affection, even in public. He’s kissed Thomas before in the middle of the street, groped him on the tube, licked his ear in an Indian restaurant while waiting for dessert, his breath reeking of curry. On their first date, he put an arm around Thomas’ waist under the guise of reaching for the door.

“Hey,” Adam mumbles, soft, kissing down Thomas’ collarbones, parting his shirt. “You really asleep? Or are you just pretending?”

Thomas used to kick him whenever he did this but several bruises to the shin later and it no longer warrants a violent reaction. But then Adam cups his hip, then his thigh, then his cock, still soft in sleep and covered in a thin layer of silk, and Thomas snaps his eyes open.

“Babe,” Adam says carefully, and in the dark, his voice echoes throughout every corner of the room. “What are you wearing?”

“I can explain,” Thomas says, but Adam is already peeling back the covers, flicking the bedside lamp on to peer at Thomas’ lap. He raises an eyebrow. Then the other one. “Huh,” he says.

“Look,” Thomas begins to say, already pointing a finger. He wants to die.

“Is this for me?” Adam interrupts, grinning. “Were you planning on seducing me and then fell asleep?” 

“Not everything I do is for your sake,” Thomas replies, but then he catches the intent way Adam is staring at his lap, and it’s either the ribbons that has him so deeply fascinated or the fact that the waistline of Thomas’ pretty knickers catches low on Thomas’ hips. Thomas hasn’t trimmed himself in recent weeks so there’s a conservative little patch of forest peeking out of relevant corners of his underwear and Thomas, he decides to run with it, better to let Adam think this is a seduction tactic than Thomas’ secret hobby and predilection: that lingerie makes him feel incredibly beautiful and so outside of himself that it’s the only way he knows how to relax aside from getting the fucking of his life. 

There are things Thomas would only talk to his therapist about, then there’s this. He’ll take this to the grave with him and murder anyone who knows. All right, maybe not murder, he’s not a psychopath. Adam is sweet when he wants to be, and he makes Thomas laugh. He knows what colour Thomas’ eyes are, has memorized all of his food allergies which is a list almost as long as his arm. Thomas will spare him. Blackmail, then. 

Thomas spreads his legs slowly, not missing the way Adam’s eyes widen considerably, his jaw unhinging as he stares and stares and stares. He knows how to use his body to his advantage, and Adam is easy to wind up.

“Would you like to touch it, Adam?” 

“Yeah,” Adam pants. “Hell yeah.”

*

The second time Adam encounters Thomas in knickers, Thomas is in the bath, with one foot hooked over the side of the tub, and a hand furiously gripping his favourite dildo which he’s pumping into himself with such focused intensity he doesn’t hear the door creak open.  

The water has all but drained, leaving Thomas in a pair of clingy translucent panties, uncomfortable if not for the fact it deeply arouses him.

It had been that kind of day: a long earful from his manager prompted some boxed wine, Puccini’s La Boheme as performed by the Berlin Philharmonic, and he’d walked around his living room for a bit, naked except for the panties, admiring himself in all reflective surfaces including the window which he leaves slightly ajar because he likes the sound of birds, before drawing himself a warm bath full of luxuriant bath oils and petals. He doesn’t take the panties off and eats expensive cuts of cheese off an inflatable tray. 

Adam could have walked in at any given moment but he chose to do so when Thomas is having a wank, which is really rather typical. Adam does what he wants, whenever he wants. This makes him very unpredictable, a trait Thomas is both wary of and attracted to; he needs that volatility in the humdrum of everyday life. His therapist says so. Thomas knows so. 

“I feel like this is one of those fever dreams,” Adam says later as he’s sliding into Thomas and then fucking him in short little jerks, running his hands down his ribs and squeezing the backs of his thighs. Thomas’ panties are clinging dearly to one ankle and then Adam tugs them off completely and starts putting his back into fucking him. Thomas forgets his last name, the year, the current Prime Minister. He comes with Adam’s cock buried almost painfully into the hilt, his own trapped between the noisy friction of their bodies. 

Adam rubs at his forearms and licks his neck until he comes to. Afterwards, he orders them takeaway and they eat lo mein with forks because they’re heathens who don’t know any better. 

Adam tells him about his day, his legs thrown over Thomas’ knees on the sofa. “So, guess what. I got a really sweet gig today. Got cast in a beer commercial, of all things. A fucking beer commercial. Like I’m not trying to complain or anything, money is money, but I’m a recovering alcoholic. It’s not very on-brand, you know?”

Thomas tells him about his day. “I got into a row with my new boss,” he says, staring morosely at the last piece of dumpling. “I don’t think he likes any of my ideas.”

Adam stops eating abruptly, slurping on a greasy string of noodle with a loud noise. He nods his head and shrugs. “You know where he lives?” he asks cautiously, because say what you want about him but he’s the type to think kicking the shit out of something is somehow the magical answer to everything. He wears his heart on his sleeve and sometimes lets that rule him.

Thomas looks at him, horrified by the implication.

“I’m joking, I’m joking! Jesus,” Adam laughs, but then he turns serious eyes on Thomas again when they lapse into a long silence. “But seriously, if you want me to intimidate him a little bit…” he nudges Thomas with a foot. 

Thomas pinches him in the big toe, but Adam, he just laughs and laughs.

*

Thomas doesn’t get the promotion. Nigel Bannerman does. 

Thomas takes the rest of the day off and puts on his best pair of lingerie and he gets a little bit tipsy on cheap red wine while listening to strings of Monteverdi issued by an ancient iPod perched on the coffee table. He’s on his second glass of wine when Adam walks in, swinging a bag onto the floor before taking off his clothes. He leaves them in an unruly pile on the floor and then he’s down to just his undershirt and boxers. 

Then he catches Thomas in the act. Or, rather, there’s nothing to catch, really, because Thomas only happens to be drinking wine and eating crackers with cheese. In lingerie. His legs are crossed primly, he’s wearing garter belts to hold up his stockings, and his bralette is sheer enough that it does a poor job of hiding his peaking nipples. He’s not doing anything outrageous but Thomas still has to tamp down the urge to throw himself out the window, the only other alternative being to throw himself in the path of a speeding train. 

“I can explain,” he says.

“I feel like this keeps happening,” Adam interrupts him. “Not that it’s a bad thing. You look great by the way. It’s just that — wow, look at the legs on you. You shave today, baby? Wow.” Adam blinks, then kneels next to him on the sofa. 

Thomas frowns at him. Adam is the only one he can frown at openly without intimidating completely. That or Adam is starting to get comfortable around him; he’s stopped showering after sex.

Adam takes in the surrounding mess of half-eaten crackers and cheese, the crumbs on the cushions, and makes a thoughtful noise in his throat. “You had a bad day at work?”

Thomas frowns even harder. His entire face twitches; it’s practically a tic. He can be easy to read sometimes, more so when he’s dressed down in expensive lingerie and trying his best to look dignified despite it.

“Is this about the promotion?” Adam hazards a guess, and when Thomas says nothing for a really long while, Adam sighs and opens his arms, wrapping them around Thomas and squeezing his shoulders awkwardly. He smells like meatloaf but not in a bad way. 

Thomas happens to like it because the thing about meatloaf is you can eat it even when it’s already cold and it’ll still be good. Meatloaf goes well with anything, bread, beans, potatoes, eggs, and maybe that’s why Thomas likes Adam so much; he can be a prick, but so can Thomas, they can drive each other crazy toe-to-toe but when things get rough Adam’ll stand his ground and still be there to hound and annoy and bugger the hell out of Thomas, in more than the metaphorical sense, immovable as a statue. 

“You only whip out the panties when you’re sad,” Adam tells him, speaking into his hair, rubbing his back. 

Thomas pulls back from his loose embrace, spluttering and smacking him on the chest. First of all: how dare he.  Secondly: how dare he. “That— that isn’t remotely true at all! Don’t be stupid! Sometimes I wear them when I feel like it! It’s not some sort of therapy, or or means to cope with stress!”

Adam looks at him dubiously. “I know, all right? And it’s okay!” he all but yells. He softens his voice when Thomas goes all stiff in his arms, and not in the sexy way they both enjoy. “You can act like it’s a big fucking secret, but I practically live here, Thomas. I do the laundry from time to time. I’ve seen all manner of kinky shit in your sock drawer. Lingerie isn’t even the worst of it. It’s not even in the fucking top three.”

Thomas almost doesn’t respond. So: Adam’s seen the ball gag. Might as well move to Cornwall and become a fisherman. “So you don’t think it’s strange,” he says, after a pause, already dreading the answer. 

“I’ve been an alcoholic for most of my life,” Adam laughs. “Until recently. I’ve done my fair share of weird shit. Not that you enjoying lingerie is weird. I just mean that life is too short to get hung up on trivial shit, you know? I once stole a tuba from my high school marching band. I’ve woken up in my own pool of vomit and piss under a bridge. I was covered in blood. There was a whole fucking lot of it. And it wasn’t mine and I was—”

“Do you want to see the rest of my collection?” Thomas interrupts. “Of lingerie.” Not ball gags, though Thomas has a few of those. 

Adam looks at him quietly. He rubs the skin under his grisly stubble, a nervous habit though that could also mean he’s being coy. “Are you going to model them for me?” he asks hopefully.

*

“I bought this one in Luxembourg,” Thomas says, holding a delicate piece aloft, the one with lace trimmings. 

Adam swallows. “So are you going to put those on or is there more you’re going to show me?”

“More,” Thomas says.

Adam thumps his head against the pillows and groans.

*

When Thomas is eighteen, he enters a dress shop on the Rue de Rivoli with some measure of trepidation. He smells like sun and traffic, and he’s sweating through his shirt from the heat, itchy under the scalp where he’d tried giving himself a haircut. It’s 2003 and he’s on his gap year. He’s never even kissed a person before. He’s only ever dated one boy and held his hand in the dark of a cinema while worrying about getting popcorn stuck in his teeth.

When he sees the assortment of clothes displayed neatly at the back of the shop, his heart starts to race, his palms sweat. They’re meant for women, these fineries, but he can see himself wearing the best pieces, can imagine the smooth glide of stockings over his mosquito-bitten legs, delicate satin cups cushioning his soft chest. 

A saleslady asks him if he’s lost or needs help. In perfect French, Thomas replies, “I was just looking,” and for years that’s all he does.

*

Thomas uses some of his inheritance money to buy two plane tickets to France. He books a respectable hotel because now he can afford it, one with an actual view of the cityscape and not a concrete wall or masonry. He and Adam take turns buying baguettes and cheeses from the cafe across the street and Thomas shows Adam all his favourite places: the museums, the restaurants, the poorly-ventilated bookshops with wallpaper peeling on the walls and a fat orange cat sunning itself outside. They take long walks by the river. 

Eventually, because Thomas can’t help himself, he drags Adam to the shop on the Rue de Rivoli. The shopfront has  had several facelifts over the years but the gilded letters stand bright and gleaming against the setting Parisian sun: Sabine.

There are two things Thomas loves most in the world: London and a good book.

To a lesser extent he loves other things: a perfectly pressed shirt, the smell of fresh paint, and not the least finding good homes for all books in his possession. He has multitudes stowed away, books hidden in cupboards and wedged between shoeboxes, tucked away in tight nooks and corners while a dozen more spill forth from the depths of his dresser drawers.

Of course, it wasn’t always like this. There’d been a time when things were not in such a state of chaos, when books didn’t materialize at every turn like uninvited guests popping round for tea. Around that time, Thomas worked for Harrods where he kept a tight ship. He was terrific at his job, excelling in detail work; he knew where everything was even with his eyes closed and had a mental grid of every floor stamped into his mind. Then he lost out on a promotion: ten years of hard work crawling his way up from the till and Nigel Bannerman had sent it all tumbling down with a smirk but that’s a story for another time and almost futile to discuss.

The story is set in Windermere which is approximately 400 kilometers away from London. In a bookshop at the end of street with a hunter-green awning, Thomas McGregor flips the sign at the door from closed to open.

The shop, like his violent aversion to dairy and small animals, has been in his family for decades and Thomas has been  its sole proprietor ever since his uncle had legged it to Sussex to try his hand at beekeeping. It’s a dying business when most people prefer digital over print, the commercial familiarity of a big name brand over a shabby little bookshop that hasn’t had a facelift since Margaret Thatcher first became PM. The shop is a fire hazard waiting to happen, crowded and small, poorly lit.

Thomas’ uncle’s only condition before allowing Thomas to take over was that he leave everything as is, undisturbed and untouched. A man of nostalgia and tradition. Thomas has taken that to mean quite literally, electing to keep the unfortunate wallpaper, the brass deer bust, the rotary phone, the paisley sofa. On a regular day, the shop gets about half a dozen customers, rarely more. Most of them are repeat customers, regulars, or tourists asking for directions after mistaking the shop for an entirely different establishment altogether.

This is how Thomas meets his assistant Stensland, who’d wandered in one day and simply never left. That’s an exaggeration: he leaves after business hours and after getting into rows with customers who question his literary tastes. Thomas can’t even remember why he’d hired him, or when, or how; one morning Stensland was just sort of there, making coffee and eating scones, telling Thomas about the new Murakami novel and offering to clean the windows. He’s helpful. Most of the time.

McGregor’s sells all kinds of books: secondhand and brand new, academic and fiction, self-help and the Bible though really the pièce de résistance are the rare and obscure pulp novels sitting in a neat row on an isolated shelf. Mostly people ask for the latest young adult novel anyway or Stephen King, which Thomas stocks on occasion.

It’s easy to accumulate books this way: sometimes Thomas goes on day trips to Marylebone in London to check out what the other shops are selling, or he walks into Foyles or Hatchards to admire the sleek shelving. He always leaves with a book or two tucked under one arm, which he sells for half price back at home in Windermere after peeling off the tags. During these excursions into the city, he feels a kind of triumph but also a certain blankness that’s harder to define these days.

*

Home. Home wasn’t always Windermere. Home was London once upon a time, in a nice little neighborhood near Kensington where the exorbitant rent guaranteed the best views.

There’s nothing to see in the country: just farmland and small houses, and so much green. It’s beautiful, yes, but only to those who don’t have to suffer through it everyday. People see Windermere and imagine that life is easy, and that’s true to an extent but what they don’t know is that it is also slow and dismal; the monotony breaks you down in tiny increments. It’s not the kind of place where it’s easy to disappear. In London you can constantly make and remake yourself.

People know your business here; they know your last name, they know your family tree. Generations of McGregors have lived and died in Windermere but Thomas is the first one to set up shop out of necessity rather than choice. Harrods had spurned him by denying him that promotion. Not just any but the one he’d been eyeing since first setting foot in lower management, several years ago. He was still reeling from the betrayal, a year after the fact. His uncle’s offer of a job couldn’t have come at a better time though Thomas only meant to do it for a few months until he found his motivation to do anything again.

But time is a funny thing and filial obligations even funnier and this, this is his life now: shelving and re-shelving books, selling used James Patterson novels for 50p. He’s losing money faster than he can make it. And on top of everything else, he keeps amassing books and running out of places to put them. Thomas wonders how his uncle kept the shop afloat for over thirty years with his terrible bedside manner and aversion to teenagers who make up the bulk of their customer base. Thomas is a stark contrast; he breathes customer service and can chat up a complete stranger.

Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays see the shop’s peak in foot traffic. On weekends, there’ll often be a few tourists. Business fluctuates depending on the weather and season though that’s only true half the time. A typical day in the shop is punctuated by stretches of silence, interrupted from time to time by Stensland commentating on whatever it is he happens to be watching on YouTube. When the bell at the door tinkles, Thomas shuffles out of his little office in the back to assist the potential customer. That’s his favourite part of the day, when he gets to talk to people about their favourite novels and make recommendations based on the genres that interest them.

He has made it his mission to sell all the ‘hurt’ books sitting outside in a dusty box, books that have been dogeared to death and roughly handled because even books with shabby appearances have their worth and deserve a home. He hasn’t succeeded so far, the box is only a third empty, but one day they’ll all be gone and not because someone has stolen them. It’s this kind of sentiment that his uncle often berated him for; books don’t have feelings, he’d say. Stop anthropomorphizing them Thomas! They were made to be consumed.

“I’m going out for a walk,” Thomas says to Stensland on a day like all others as he massages a crick in his neck.

It’s a slow day and they’ve only sold two books and it’s already half past two. When he doesn’t get a reply, Thomas checks the counter where Stensland is planted throughout most of his shift and sees that Stensland is fast asleep, his arms folded across his chest, his head twitching forward intermittently. Not surprising as the only reason Thomas has hired him, he suspects, is for the company and occasional entertainment he provides, not his work ethic. He takes far too many froyo breaks and is late half the time. He reads sci-fi and trashy romance novels.

Thomas decides not to wake him. He’s gone for only an hour, walking around aimlessly. He goes for a coffee, and buys Stensland a buttered roll and his favourite blended drink, topped with whipped cream and chocolate shavings. When he returns to the shop, Stensland is nowhere to be found and there’s a man in a leather jacket hovering by the shelf of pulp novels. He already has three books in his grip: two on photography, the other self-help.

The man shoots Thomas a brief look when the bell at the door tinkles to announce his arrival. Thomas sets the drink and pastry down before offering the man his assistance. “Can I help you?” he says, remembering to keep a respectful distance. He folds his hands in front of himself and affects a bland, pleasant smile.

The man looks up. His smile shows a hint of dimple but it’s brief and he turns away again. Thomas has  a feeling he’s seen him before, though he can’t place when or where: not in town certainly, where he knows everybody. But somewhere. The man has a very distinct face.

“Do you work here?” Ah, and he’s American. Therein lies the rub. A tourist most likely. The man picks up The Case of the Seven Sneezes and rifles through the pages with a thumb. His eyes move along the text, never stopping.

“Well, it’s my name on the sign outside,” Thomas says.

“McGregor?” Abruptly, the man stops reading to give Thomas an appraising look that has Thomas feeling mildly self-conscious.

“Ah, not the McGregor,” Thomas says, clearing his throat. “That’s my great great grandfather but a McGregor. It’s a family business, you see.”

The man hums. He lifts a book to eye-level. You’re Lonely When You’re Dead, the cover worn from mishandling. His entire hand encompasses it spine to edge. He has massive hands. Everything about him is — massive. His presence fills the room. And still Thomas struggles put a name to his face.

“Are these any good?” He means the pulp novels. They’ve always been quite a conversation-starter; the lurid covers and outlandish titles attract everyone’s attention as does the sexual imagery.

“I haven’t read them yet,” Thomas confesses. He tried a few times but the writing could never sustain his interest. He prefers his literature maudlin, written before the turn of the century, peopled with solemn characters hellbent on murder, revenge, or rising above their station. “It’s an acquired taste like marmite or black pudding,” he continues. “They were popular in the 1930s a little bit before the first world war. They’re absolutely ridiculous but they have a kind of charm, I suppose, if you look hard enough. Some people collect them and sell them fifty times their worth on eBay. My uncle bought them as a young man; I imagine he’s read all of them.”

The man raises his eyebrows. “There are about a hundred of these that you’re selling. He’s read them all?”

“He had a lot of free time.” Thomas shrugs. “And he was a professor. Of literature.”

The man laughs, not meanly like a schoolyard bully, but in amusement, his dimples making another appearance. He’s handsome, and Thomas has only just started noticing this, hit by the sudden realization like a lighting bolt when the man grabs a handful of random pulp novels and flashes him a soft grin showing a hint of teeth.

“I haven’t read a book in a long time, I’ll tell you how it goes.”

“Are you visiting?” Thomas asks, as he rings up the man’s purchases. It’s an innocuous line of inquiry and there’s a moment of silence before he receives a reply.

“Kind of. I’m here for work.”

“You’re in Windermere. For work?” If Thomas sounds incredulous it’s because he’s never heard that one before. “This is often where people go to retire or hide from their mistresses,” he explains. “No one goes to Windermere for work.” Least of all men like this one who seem better suited to the whims of London. What does he do for a living, Thomas begins to wonder. He doesn’t seem like a businessman, or a corporate executive, or a banker though his clothes fit him very well and seem mortifyingly expensive. It’s the shoes that give him away. Thomas knows the look and style of high end brand; he worked for Harrods after all for ten thankless years. This man looks like he could afford shopping there.

“Are you, then?” The man prompts, and when Thomas gives him a confused look, he adds, “Hiding from a mistress?”

Thomas flushes, not meeting his eyes. Often when he makes small talk with customers, he’s met with either apprehension or polite letdown, never encouragement. It throws him off his game. “Ah, I’ve got no mistresses to speak of. That’s not really my area of expertise,” he says, “Women, I mean. And mistresses. Do you want a pastry to go with that? I seem to be babbling.” He holds up the buttered roll between them, which has sweated through the flimsy paper.

“Thanks,” the man laughs, accepting it.

Thomas hands him his change afterwards, a crisp one-pound note. “You saved this business by buying more books than the average patron. Thank you,” he jokes.

“I’ll be sure to come back then,” the man says with a smile. “I was going to steal them but now I’ve changed my mind.”

“Well, I suppose that’s a good thing,” Thomas says. “As stealing is bad for business.”

The man laughs, then he mimes tipping a hat. When he’s left, Thomas slumps against the wall like a deflated balloon, feeling oddly winded.

The bell at the door chimes again shortly thereafter but it’s only Stensland, his assistant, panting and wearing a different pair of trousers.

“Sorry I left, it was an emergency,” Stensland says, wiping his hands across his bright-orange shirt, same as his hair. “I had to go number two and you know how bad the plumbing is here.”

His expression brightens when he sees that Thomas has bought him a drink. “Ooh, is that for me?” he says.

*

The weather in Windermere, for the most part, is pleasant and temperate. The rain is terrible. It stops for nothing and no one and goes on and on throughout the day, sometimes lasting deep into the night. It rains on a Wednesday, when Stensland is on his day off and Thomas has stepped out for lunch. There’s a deli across town with quaint seating and better Wifi than anywhere else, that makes the best quinoa and mango salad Thomas has ever had. He’s halfway into his lunch when there’s a sudden downpour. Thomas looks up at the sound of rain hitting the sidewalk and remembers where he’d left his umbrella. It didn’t rain in London as frequently as people who didn’t live there liked to believe but in Windermere the rain came often without warning. It could be sunny in the morning, then a torrent well into the afternoon.

An hour later when the rain shows no signs of letting up, Thomas braves the deluge and makes a run for it. It’s only a five minute walk if he hurries. He darts under awnings and bus stop roofs for cover, skidding and slipping in his brown leather shoes. Then he hears his name being called from across the street and he stops abruptly to whip around and face his interloper.

“McGregor!” the man says, and Thomas squints through the rain dripping into his eyes, trying to remember how he knows him. He meets a variety of people everyday, old and new customers, people who come back to the shop and people who don’t. “It’s you! What are you doing out here without an umbrella?”

The man jogs briskly towards him, tipping his bright black umbrella towards Thomas to shelter him from the rain. He stands close enough for Thomas to feel the warmth of him. Thomas notices for the first time the whiskery beginnings of a mustache and goatee. He smells nice, like expensive cologne, nothing too overwhelming or citrusy.

“Sackler,” the man says when Thomas continues to look at him blankly and noiselessly. “Adam. Though I don’t think I introduced myself last time. I saved your business? Bought a dozen books last week and you thanked me for my patronage.”

Thomas nods slowly. “Right,” he says as he remembers. The American. And now he has a name: Adam. They walk the rest of the way, avoiding wayward cyclists and other pedestrians with no trouble, Thomas wet as a drowned rat and just as pitiful while Adam tries his best to keep pace. Their shoulders bump a few times; they exchange smiles.

Thomas drips rainwater all over the carpet. He excuses himself for a moment, thudding up the stairs to the loft to change out of his clothes. He catches sight of himself in the bathroom mirror just as he’s pulling a shirt over his head: the blindingly pale back that hasn’t seen a proper sun since 1998 and the narrow but soft waist. Still: nothing to be done about that and he’s made peace with his over all appearance in his thirty-four years of living. He emerges a fair bit later with a towel round his neck and his hair standing in static tufts, skin feeling clammy but otherwise dry.

Adam hasn’t left. Thomas catches him poking at the shelves and picking up books.

“Hi,” Thomas says, announcing his presence.

Adam tears his gaze away from a hardback edition of Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island. He has shaggy dark hair framing his jaw and it softens the jut of his nose. “Hi,” he says.

“Thank you for the er —” Thomas gestures vaguely at the whole of Adam, trailing off. Handsome men don’t render him speechless all that often, but there’s something about Adam that makes his reflexes sputter a bit before he can find his footing. Maybe it’s to do with the fact he hasn’t had a handsome man walk into his shop, ever, barring that one night a detective in a red flannel shirt asked if he knew someone named O’Malley.

“Sure. Don’t mention it. I mean…” Adam shrugs, trailing off as well, but he does it in a charming way that isn’t as awkward.

“Would you like some tea?” Thomas asks, his usual tactic whenever a conversation hits a low point, which when you’re him is often. He finds that tea always fixes everything more so than a glass of scotch. Tea is warmth and home, a reliable source of comfort however brief; scotch is fist fight in a seedy back alley in Glasgow, leaving you concussed and missing a pair of pants in the aftermath.

“I’m more of a coffee man,” Adam says. Ah, Thomas thinks. A true American.

“I can make you coffee. If you like.”

Adam gives him a look of mild appraisal. He has eyes a shade lighter than his hair but they’re difficult to read and Thomas shouldn’t be looking into the eyes of strange men anyway so he breaks his gaze abruptly. “If you don’t mind,” Adam says.

Thomas excuses himself a second time to disappear into the kitchen upstairs.

Thomas lives in the loft above the bookshop, a cliché to end all clichés. His uncle has a house in the outskirts of town, with a lush garden and several spare rooms, but it always terrified him, the thought of living alone in such a seemingly infinite space as if he were a country governess in a gothic novel haunted by the unrestful spirits of his ancestors. Mostly, he hates being alone and living in cramped quarters lends the feeling of not-quite aloneness. Living in town means living with the noise of people and foot traffic which although pales in comparison to the city’s, reminds him enough of his days in London.

It’s not the same living conditions as he’s accustomed to: a sagging double bed tucked under the eaves and dingy yellowing wallpaper shadowed with the ghosts of posters past. There’s a kitchenette, a bath, a profusion of unhelpfully shaped cupboards which he uses to store new books. Six months ago he brought a reading chair upstairs and parked it next to the window so he could watch his patch of street outside and the comings and goings of everyone that passed his shop. He saw it all.

The kettle whistles and he finishes pouring the coffee. “Up here,” he calls, leaning over the banister to peer down at Adam who’s sat on the countertop and invested in twirling a complimentary Windermere postcard in his hands. He follows Thomas up the stairs, stopping abruptly to survey the room. The loft isn’t made to fit more than two people. Adam can cross it in several strides but it’s clean enough and cozy, outfitted with soft rugs.

“Fuck, wow,” he says. “Nice little setup you have here.”

Thomas doesn’t know if he’s being sarcastic but he accepts the compliment anyway.

“Sorry about the… smell. And the books.” Thomas clears a spot at the breakfast nook and invites Adam to sit. He realizes he hasn’t had anyone up here since he started running the shop. Well, except maybe for Stensland, but he mostly comes up to raid the fridge and nap during his shift.

“No it’s, it’s really cool,” Adam says. He glances around: the flypaper on the wall, the window fringed with succulents, the bed in the corner with mismatched quilts, and then back to Thomas again, his gaze lingering a beat too long.

Thomas flushes. His fair colouring makes him red down to his throat.

They sit at the table, knees bumping. There’s hardly any room but the same could be said for the loft itself. Thomas has laid out a plate of scones which he reheated in the microwave but they’re still as good as they had been this morning. The bakery that sells them makes them fresh every day.

Adam starts stuffing one in his mouth and eating with his mouth half-open. Thomas supposes no one can be perfect and discreetly flicks crumbs off his lap.

“How are the books?” Thomas ventures.

“I have a confession to make,” Adam interrupts him.

“Please don’t tell me you’re a serial killer and I’ve made the mistake of inviting you to my home,” Thomas says in a rush. Perhaps he’s been alone too long because Adam just stares at him for a long time before blinking.

“What?” he says, sounding mystified. “No, what? Do I look like a serial killer to you? I was gonna say I was a comp lit major in college but I didn’t do anything with it and I haven’t finished a book ever since I flunked out. No book ever resonated with me, but movies. I love movies. I’m more…into visual arts, you know what I mean? What’s the last movie you’ve seen?”

Thomas shrugs. “Forrest Gump?”

“Seriously?”

“It was on telly the other day.”

“Fuckin’ Forrest Gump?” Adam lets out a guffaw though he sobers up just as quickly when he sees that Thomas is not impressed. “I’m an actor,” he settles on.

Which explains why he looks so familiar, Thomas thinks. “Have you been in anything I’ve seen?”

“You know you’re the first one to ever ask me that in a while but to answer your question, no, probably not. I mean I’m not exactly Tom Hanks. I don’t make those kinds of movies.”

“What do you mean those kinds of movies?” Thomas says, genuinely curious. “The kind that gets awards?”

Adam gives him a wry smile. “Sure.”

“Well, at least you’re not in pornography,” Thomas says. “Or are you? Not that there’s anything wrong is that.”

Adam laughs again, giving Thomas a look that seems to vacillate somewhere between open amusement and utter disbelief. His smile could thaw snow drifts and cut glass at the same. It makes him seem dangerous but also like the kind of person who would help you change your tires in the middle of a deserted highway. “You think I could do porn?” he asks, sounding genuinely interested in Thomas’ answer.

“Well, you’re a strapping young man,” Thomas replies. And it’s true: underneath those clothes he’s probably a specimen. He works out; that much is clear to any impartial observer. Which Thomas happen to be. Completely impartial, in fact.

“You sound like an old person. ‘Strapping young man’? We’re the same fucking age, I bet.”

“I’m thirty-four,” Thomas sighs.

“Two years older then,” Adam hums. Then he picks up a book sitting on the kitchen counter. It’s the new one from Nora Roberts, rather dry and depressing, set in Turkey. “You’ve read this? All these books?” He gestures to the room at large, all the corners bursting with books. Thomas shakes his head and launches into a very long and involving story of how he’d ended up with more books than he knows what to do with, starting from the very first day he’d set up shop two years ago. It began with that first book which he’d purchased on the way to Windermere and read on the train there. There are brighter points in the story, emphasized by Thomas’ wild gesticulation, but mostly he rattles off the titles of all the books he’s bought since, like it’s a spelling contest where speed actually counts.

When he finishes, the rain outside has thinned to a drizzle and Adam has eaten all the scones, drunk all the coffee. The atmosphere is slow and settled. Adam’s half smile shows a hint of front teeth when he helps Thomas clear the table.

As Thomas is ushering him out, Adam’s phone vibrates in his pocket. He checks his messages and darts Thomas an apologetic look.

“Well, I guess that’s my cue to leave,” he says, sounding sheepish. It’s already late, judging by the grey haze outside softening the murk on the windows. “Thank you for the coffee, and the scones. And the uh life story I guess. I feel like I’ve gotten to know you really well.”

Thomas groans. “Oh  god. I talk too much don’t I?”

“A bit,” Adam admits. “Okay, you talk so fucking much but the accent makes it bearable, makes it kind of sweet.”

“Right,” Thomas says, trying to remember the last time he’d been called sweet. He has a memory of his mother back in primary school, sending him to class wearing a red bowtie and matching jacket. She died when he was eleven. Car accident, the usual story. Afterwards, he lived with various relatives, first in Cardiff, then in Berkshire where he spent most of his young life before moving to London at age twenty-one to try his luck. He got a job at Harrods after working six months as a telemarketer.  

Adam shrugs into his jacket, the same one from a week ago when he’d bought all those books. Thomas hands him his umbrella which he’d left drying by the door, a puddle now seeping into the soft rot of the floor.

Adam nods once he’s all sorted. “I guess I’ll see you.”

“I suppose,” Thomas says, though these words mean nothing and he keeps twisting his fingers into nervous pretzels.

Neither of them moves.

Finally, Adam blinks. “Do you have a business card? With your number on it and your address? Not your personal number or address, I’m not a freak, but the shop’s. It’s my last day in Windermere. I’m flying back to New York tomorrow and in case I find myself in your neck of the woods again, I want to make sure I have the right place. I have zero sense of direction. I’ll need a map to get anywhere. You’d think being a New Yorker I’d have better geographic sense but I spent most of my adult life drunk on booze so my memory is kind of fucked up.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want you getting lost now do we,” Thomas says, as he hastily scribbles his number and address on the back of a receipt of a kebab place. His hand shakes. Business and personal information are practically interchangeable; after all he lives above the shop and his name hangs on a sign right outside it.

“We can’t afford a business card but I suppose that will have to do. Unless you want me to write you a map as well. In which case I wonder if I might interest you in a little travel pamphlet written by a lifelong local…”

“You wrote your name,” Adam points out, perusing the bottom of the receipt where Thomas had signed it. “Thomas. Thomas McGregor.”

“Force of habit,” Thomas says, forcing out a laugh. “Sorry. Anyway, do drop by whenever and don’t be a stranger.”

“Of course not. We shared such intimate life stories, how can I ever forget you?” He grins at the embarrassed look on Thomas’ face. “I’ll see you, Thomas,” he says, no less cryptic, then he’s off, and the door closes behind him with the jingle of a bell.

*

Stensland is quite the character. It’s difficult to fathom how he ever made it to his late twenties without being shivved in an alley or chased by a wild pack of dogs. He’s the worst employee Thomas has ever had the misfortune of hiring, but he’s useful in less discernible ways, more worldly. For example, he can name all the top 100 hits from the summer of 2013 backwards and forwards. He knows the names of all members of the pop band SClub 7, and he consumes more American media than is strictly healthy. Also he makes a great cup of Earl Grey and can haggle anyone including the baker.

One morning he bursts through the door armed with discount pastries and a pilfered copy of The Sun. “Thomas!” he cries, dropping everything onto the counter before shoving The Sun into Thomas’s chest, opened to a grainy photo of a familiar shopfront. “Thomas! I can’t believe you! You met Adam Sackler and you didn’t tell me? How could you?”

Thomas is confused. “Do you two know each other?”

“Well not as intimately as I like! But of course I know who he is! I don’t live under a rock! He’s only the star of every vivid sex dream I’ve ever had in the last five years, but also Detective Yorick, Captain Cobalt, and The Steely Eye.”

Thomas pinches the bridge of his nose. Sometimes Stensland speaks with no pauses or punctuation, making basic information hard to parse. Thomas suspects he learned how to communicate by watching wildlife documentaries as a child or making random noises with his mouth. “None of what you’re saying is making any sense to me. Slow down, Stensland, you’re giving me a headache.”

Stensland shakes his head at Thomas as if to say you poor pathetic sod, who knows nothing of the world and then points at the page again with a sugar-dusted finger. “You’ve made the shop famous. Look! People saw him coming here a few times and then leaving hours later. I’ve always thought you were a bit prudish but I guess you showed Adam Sackler a good time because he’s apparently talked about the shop on Graham Norton.”

Thomas finds all the blood draining from his face. “What?” he says, feeling faint. But there it is, on page 3 of The Sun under the heading ADAM SACKLER AND HIS BOOKSHOP ROMANCE? Several photos from that afternoon: of Adam walking him home in the rain, an umbrella over both their heads, of the two of them disappearing through the door of the shop, of Adam leaving hours later at sundown, alone. He knows what it looks like. But it can’t be farther from the truth.

“He mentioned the shop on Graham Norton?”

Stensland nods. “Says so in the article. Also apparently they think you’re some sort of witch, selling incense and pot along with all the books.”

A quick hop on Google pulls up a video clip of Adam on Graham Norton. It’s three minutes and forty-two seconds long, and he talks about his new movie where he’s playing an AI who mostly has his shirt off. Graham Norton asks if Adam has plans of ever coming back to the UK and Adam smiles in a calculated way before answering.

“Sure,” he says, and he’s more handsome in real life than he is under harsh studio lighting, “There’s this bookstore I’m fond of in Windermere called McGregor’s. I met the owner one time; he made me coffee and fed me like, fu[beep] scones fresh from the oven or some shit. It was all very charming and British. Very sweet. You should check it out if you haven’t.”

“This is in Windermere?” Graham Norton repeats, raising both greying eyebrows. The audience laughs while Adam looks mildly uncomfortable. “People go to die in Windermere, Adam. It’s the American equivalent of Arkansas, only posher.”

“Maybe someone with less imagination would think that,” Adam says mildly. “But I think it’s a really great place.”

The clip ends there. Stensland clicks out of the window and faces Thomas with his hands pressed to his hips.

“He should work for the local tourism board,” Thomas opines, still reeling from everything that’s happening: the realization that he’s met a famous actor and it slipped past his notice, the fact that there are photos of his family’s bookshop splashed across a tabloid read by thousands. That despite all this, he’s still sort of hoping Adam would walk through the door like he’d promised, asking for the latest Franzen.

“Tea and scones? Very British? It all sounds like a very euphemistic way of saying you gave him a blowjob then let him bend you over a desk! Three times!”

“Stensland,” Thomas says, horrified. “I didn’t have sex with him! I didn’t even know who he was, quite frankly, until today. I thought he was just an American, a tourist wanting to buy some trashy books! Is he really as famous as you say he is?”

Stensland’s expression softens, like ice cream melting in the shade. Thomas has only seen this expression once, when Stensland’s favourite couple broke up during season three of Dawson’s Creek after which he had to take a week off to recuperate even when he’d seen the episode five times.

“Oh no. You weren’t lying. You really don’t know who Adam Sackler is, do you? Poor thing.”

Stensland grabs the keyboard off the desk, typing Adam’s name into the Google search field. A dozen images and links pinwheel across the page. Stensland shows Thomas pictures, stills from movies Adam has been in. He’s worked with Liam, the lesser Hemsworth, Tom Hardy and Daniel Craig. He won an MTV award for Best Onscreen Kiss alongside a male costar whose name eludes Thomas, and he’s apparently openly bisexual.

But the real question is: “Why is his shirt always off?” And shiny with oils, Thomas doesn’t say.

“It’s a character choice.”

“He’s playing an alien in space. And in the last photo wasn’t he supposed to be playing an eccentric doctor?”

“Thomas,” Stensland sighs, as if speaking to a particularly slow child. “It’s part of his charm. He’s contractually obligated to have his shirt off in every movie.”

Thomas wrinkles his nose. “I don’t know. That seems a bit exploitative to me.”

“Hush,” Stensland says, holding up a finger, and the rest of Thomas’ afternoon is swallowed up watching clips of Adam on Youtube in between ringing up customers and re-shelving books. The experience leaves him feeling a bit strangely detached. He sees Adam in various scenarios: swimming in the ocean, locked in a sword fight, romancing a beautiful Parisian woman along the Champs-Élysées. In some of these clips he has his shirt off, in others, he’s grunting and soot-covered, wielding some sort of weapon.

Later in the day as he’s flipping the sign at the door closed, a camera flashes in front of Thomas’ face, leaving him blinking and blinking.

Sunspots dance in his vision and when he comes to seconds later, there’s a woman with very red nails standing just outside, holding a tape recorder. “Hi, I work for The Daily Mail, do you have a minute?”

*

To say that Thomas’ life changes after that is understatement. Reporters don’t arrive at his doorsteps in droves but a few drop by to visit and occasionally buy a few books in exchange for a sound bite. He says pretty much the same thing to all of them: that he sold Adam a few books, that he didn’t know who he was at the time, and that the scones Adam kept raving about had been bought from The Little Windermere Bakery which is right across town.

A few of his photos end up on The Daily Mail and Metro, all of them unflattering but one.

Stensland eats it all up.

Just as Thomas is fielding another reporter, his phone goes off in his pocket. Thomas has made it a point not to pick up calls from unknown numbers but it’s been a long day and his guard is down. He just had to explain to a journalist — six times — that he didn’t sell Adam Sackler anything illegal or dubious. But people will spin stories out of anything, it seems, especially if it’ll rake in money.

He excuses himself to a corner, leaving Stensland to answer questions. He’s more than happy to be the center of attention. Now that they have customers daily, he’s even started ironing his clothes and wearing proper footwear, not the socks and flip-flop combination he often prefers.

“Is this Thomas?”

Thomas narrows his eyes at the wall. “Who is this?” he asks, instantly suspicious. Only a few people know his personal number;  two are dead. It’s not information he gives away freely.

“It’s Adam.” A pause. “Sackler.”

“Ah,” Thomas says, and then he leaves the statement hanging because he doesn’t know what else to say. Little things leave him tongue-tied: dogs in appropriate swimwear, very hot soup, his uncle patting him on the shoulder and calling him son after Thomas had come to him confessing all his failures. He doesn’t know how this became one of them. It’s just Adam, a man he met a while ago. Then again he also happens to be one of Hollywood’s hottest rising actors, at least according to People Magazine and GQ. How is Thomas to conduct himself as if the fact doesn’t impress him in some base bourgeois way?

“Is it as bad as I keep imagining it is?” Adam asks, going right to the heart of it. “I saw the pictures on The Sun,” he explains. “My assistant showed me. Sorry I dragged you into my shit. You must hate me. Fuck, I’d hate me too. I mean I already do, I have to live with myself everyday, but fuck. Thomas?” He waits for a response.

“Yesterday, a gaggle of fans came by and waited for you, as if I was somehow hiding you under the counter,” Thomas says. This is true: Thomas ignored them for the most part and then caved and made them tea, the only polite thing to do in whatever social situation requiring the least possible interaction.

“Shit.” Adam winces but then he laughs. Laughter is always strange on the phone, because it sounds longer than it should be. But Adam’s laughter is deep and sonorous, like good whiskey, or the vibrations of a string instrument. And it cuts through Thomas like a knife, catching him off guard. These are strange times indeed.  

“I sent them away, each with a copy of The Hobbit under one arm,” Thomas tells him. “Really, you’ve brought me nothing but business.”

“Well, I guess that’s a good thing, if you’re telling the truth,” Adam says after a moment, “And Tolkien always makes for good reading though I really hated the last movie.”

“I’m surprised you know who Tolkien is,” Thomas jokes.

“Hey, I’m not as much of a Philistine as you probably think I am. I have taste; I have class. My interests are many and varied. Listen,” Adam says, and Thomas leans forward as if Adam were actually there, standing next to him and not oceans away. “I’ll be in town next week for a reshoot and I was wondering if I could. Come see you. I wanna make it up to you. It’s only a matter of time before TMZ gets a hold of you.” His voice drops to a whisper; Thomas suspects he’s hiding in a broom closet.

“You’re always welcome in my bookshop, you know,” Thomas says, confused by Adam’s sudden shyness. “And I don’t know who TMZ is, is that supposed to be rap group? Am I going to be the subject of a very explicit mildly derogatory song?” Thomas doesn’t think he can handle it, if he were. He likes his peace and quiet; he doesn’t want to be dragged out of hiding, immortalized in song.

“No,” Adam says, “What? Listen, so I can’t be seen anywhere near Windermere or my publicist will kill me but I’ll be in London staying at the Four Seasons at Park Lane under the name Evelyn Waugh. And before you’re impressed, no, I don’t know who the fuck that is but my assistant is the intellectual type; she thinks it’s really clever. We could have drinks or whatever the hell you want. Tea, I don’t know. Go on a boat ride on the Thames. You could show me around; I don’t know anyone in London who isn’t working for me in some capacity.”

“Well,” Thomas says, afterwards, fiddling with the hem of his jumper. That seems like a big commitment and he finds himself saying, “We’ll see,” which sounds breezy, promising and dismissive all at once. Safe. “If I’ve got nothing planned then I suppose maybe I can have my assistant run the shop on my behalf, take a day off…”

“Great! Perfect!” Adam says, “I’ll see you then!” he adds, and the line disconnects abruptly. That’s apparently that.

Thomas stares at his phone as if it might grow teeth any second. Then he pockets it and checks on Stensland, making sure he doesn’t show a complete stranger the tattoo on his left arsecheek.

*

London, London. It’s been two years but Thomas has yet to work up the courage to see his old neighbourhood. He goes on day trips to visit friends (Bea, just Bea) but he leaves old haunts well alone. He avoids them like the plague, prefers not to run into anyone he used to know: his manager at Harrods, the employees that used to be in his purview, Mrs Dalloway, his old neighbour with the fat cat and giant glasses like periscopes.

He tells himself it’s because he resents all of them, including London for spitting him out. But the truth is he’s ashamed of what he’s become in such a short span of time, a country bumpkin who startles easily in the midst of heavy crowds. Two years and he’d become complacent, changing shape to fit his surroundings. He’s gone soft in the interim, in more ways than one. He hates traffic with a passion, and prefers comfortable shoes over leather.

Stensland tells him he’s being ridiculous. “You’re being ridiculous,” Stensland says, pulling his jacket tighter around himself and furtively glancing around the street. He’s lived in the country for years, after a decade of living like a Nomad: Dublin, Seattle, West Virginia. He’s more well-traveled than Thomas but a lot less savvy, free of any chips on the shoulder. It’s why Thomas brought him along despite initial misgivings; he needs an anchor. Also he doesn’t trust Stensland not to burn the shop to the ground in his absence, and he’s due a trip outside Windermere anyway. And a paid vacation.

“I can’t believe he’d asked to see you,” Stensland muses as they walk down Oxford Street.

“He didn’t ask to see me, Stensland,” Thomas reminds him, because really, Adam didn’t. He just bandied the suggestion about, leaving it hovering for Thomas to snatch up. Who knew Thomas was a greedy bastard. Frankly, he doesn’t know what he’s doing at all. This seems like a terrible idea whichever way you look at it, and Thomas hates that he’s having this epiphany days after he’s paid for a twin room at a modest hotel and made plans to see Bea for dinner. He’ll only be in London for a few days but it’s unlike him to visit without having planned the trip months in advance.

Then again maybe he needs spontaneity which he finds he’s been sorely lacking ever since he changed locales and settled in the country. He steels himself for certain disappointment, however. Better safe than sorry.

“You need to calm down,” Stensland admonishes him for the third time that day after Thomas complains about a phantom stomachache, an effect of self-induced stress and overthinking. “You’re looking a bit peaky.” When Stensland rubs the pad of his thumb along the tip of his tongue and starts dabbing it across Thomas’ cheek in careless swipes, Thomas jerks violently out of reach.

“Sorry,” Stensland mutters, looking embarrassed, “My mother used to do that to me whenever I was feeling restless. Got your attention though, didn’t it? Now come on, I’m hungry for some fish and chips…”

“But we just ate!” Thomas states, staring at him, completely mystified. “I’m not made of money, you know. That last meal is coming out of your paycheck, I can’t afford another seafood buffet. Stensland, what on earth, where are you going — wait for me!”

But Stensland pays his warnings no heed. He drags Thomas around all of London until they’re too tired to walk anymore and have eaten their weight in all the artisan shops selling anything fried and remotely Mediterranean. In the afternoon, they take the tube, and fall into step with crowds that flow and converge like a wave. Thomas feels vaguely ill, clutching at his belly afterwards.

He gets the call shortly before dinner when his poor feet have been comfortably elevated and he’s halfway into a doze. Stensland is in the shower, singing something off-key, the bathroom door left ajar because he’s a paranoid bastard. The telly is a pleasant fuzz in the background, a wash of ambient noise that tugs heavily at Thomas’ eyelids. He almost doesn’t hear his phone buzz on the nightstand until Stensland points it out to him, having ambled out of the shower with nothing but a towel wrapped around his skinny waist. He’s as pale as a washboard, and narrow as a pole. Good heavens.  

“Would you please put some clothes on?” Thomas begs, shielding his eyes as he cups his phone with a free hand while he presses the other over his eyes. He answers the call without thinking. “Thomas McGregor,” he bites out with perhaps more venom than necessary.

“It’s me,” says Adam. “Adam. Sackler.”

As if Thomas doesn’t know who it is just from the timbre of voice. He hasn’t been driving himself mad wondering if he’s simply making a colossal fool of himself by agreeing to have dinner with  none other than Adam Sackler, no, not at all. But it’s just dinner anyhow: a meal between two people, nothing more, nothing less. Maybe some alcohol. He’s probably getting worked up over nothing. As usual.

“My schedule cleared up for the rest of the night. Are you busy?” Adam asks, and it feels like a long time before Thomas finally gathers the courage to speak. He clears his throat, and his response is an eloquent, “Um.”

*

There are two truths Thomas knows about himself: one is that he hates surprises, another is that he hates being kept waiting. The lobby of the Four Seasons is sleek and modern, marble flooring and glass chandeliers. Thomas could afford a room here if he were a Russian oligarch, or if he were a famous actor that made a lot of money like, say, Adam Sackler.

Adam’s assistant meets Thomas behind a row of potted ferns. A short woman, on the side of stocky, in smart heels and a crisp shirt. In comparison, Thomas feels underdressed in a comfortable jumper and a pair of pleated slacks that make him look like a professor of philosophy more than anything else, or like old pictures of his dad. Thomas has seen a few of them growing up, in photo albums and his mother’s wallet, though he can’t remember him being present for most of his childhood.

“Mr McGregor?”

Adam’s assistant has a handshake that doesn’t bely her appearance; it’s firm and purposeful and she grips Thomas’ hand hard. Her name is Sang Hee. She stares Thomas up and down and then presses a keycard discreetly onto Thomas’ palm. Apparently, it’s all very hush hush.

“He’ll be ready for you in fifteen minutes,” she says, nodding at him before striding off.

Ready for what? Thomas doesn’t know. And he doesn’t get to ask because Sang Hee leaves without explaining anything. He waits, then takes the lifts at the prescribed time, wandering down a carpeted hallway and counting the gilded numbers on all the doors until he reaches the right one. He hesitates a few times before rapping his knuckles against the wood.

The door opens with a click, and it’s Adam, barefoot and wearing only jeans. He’s painfully attractive and it makes Thomas ashamed to be standing in the same room as him, breathing the same air. But the ogling ends as soon as it begins because Adam frowns at him when he sees him standing in the hall.  

“Shit, shit, shit. It’s you.”

“Hi,” Thomas says, noting the lack of enthusiasm in Adam’s expression, his voice. He’s standing with his arms braced against the sides of the open door but Thomas can see the room behind him, in violent disarray. He seems to have company. Thomas can hear the heavy stomp of feet, someone’s voice shouting.

“Thomas,” Adam says, already sounding repentant, “I’m sorry but you came at a bad time.”

“What?”

“It’s my ex,” Adam says, minimizing the berth of the door as he steps outside. “She found out I was doing this movie, and she’s saying I lack artistic integrity, and I don’t know why she cares so fucking much when we’ve been broken up for months. And it’s… fuck, it’s complicated. You don’t need to hear this.”

“Well,” Thomas says, when the smile has all but frozen on his face. “I’m sorry to hear that. It does sound a bit…much.”

Adam shrugs. Thomas tries not to stare at his collarbones. It’s different seeing them up close, in real life, nice, a little surreal, though the effect is marred by the bad timing. Thomas feels himself stumble, blinking stupidly at the sudden draining of energy.

Adam says, “It is what it is but I’ll call you, okay?” Then he starts walking backwards into the room behind him. With one hand on the door he promises one last time, “I’ll call.” And shuts the door in Thomas’ face though he probably doesn’t mean to be so rude. The number on the door is gold plated, distorting Thomas’ reflection.

Thomas stands there in the hall for a full minute before sliding the keycard under the door. Then he leaves and goes on his way.

*

Stensland is eating a bowl of Shepherd’s pie and getting crumbs all over the bed when Thomas returns an hour later. He perks up and flashes Thomas a crazed grin as soon Thomas barrels through the doorway, sitting up quickly and revealing the fact he’s only wearing a flimsy pair of boxers along with his pyjama top. “How’d it go? And why are you back so early?”

At the dour look Thomas throws him, Stensland’s smile abruptly fades. “He was busy,” Thomas proclaims, voice muffled against the pile of pillows he’s thrown himself on top of. His feet hang off the edges of the bed and he feels immediately silly, like a child, having a pout, not a full grown adult whose secret hopes were suddenly and irreversibly dashed. Then again what was he expecting? A private invitation to Adam’s hotel room should have been suspect, his first tip off that something was amiss. Thomas is not that kind of guy.

“What do you mean busy?”says Stensland, peering over Thomas’ shoulder and poking it.

Thomas spits out a wad of fabric. “He told me he’d call me, that I came at a bad time.”

“Uh-oh.” Stensland rubs Thomas’ arm in commiseration, or he would if Thomas let him and didn’t flinch away as soon as he reached out. It’s nothing personal; any unsolicited touching just made him feel uncomfortable, threw him out of his element. Something to do with how he was raised; his family didn’t do hugs.

Stensland continues tsking. “Bullshit! He made you go through all this trouble only to bail on you. He sounds like an utter dick.”

“He’s probably just really busy,” Thomas disagrees, and feels another hot flash of disappointment that quickly morphs into dark self-satisfaction of having successfully avoided a catastrophe before it could happen. He rolls onto his back, hands folded over his stomach, drumming his fingers listlessly. “What are you watching?” He cranes his neck at the telly.

Stensland hands him a spare fork before answering. “Top Gear.” He grins as he shimmies down next to Thomas, sitting with his legs folded on the bed. In another life, they would have been the best of friends, but probably not in school where they would have hated each other. He would have hated Adam then, too: too handsome for his own good, and obnoxiously athletic.

“Shepherd’s pie?” Stensland offers, cutting him off from his ruminations. “It’s all gooey and warm.” The pie smells heavenly, flaky on the outside, still fresh.

“Where on earth did you get that?” Thomas wonders aloud, but he knows he shouldn’t be asking; Stensland is always full of surprises, sometimes delightful, other times outrageous. This time, Thomas accepts his cryptic shrug as a veritable response and helps him decimate the rest of the pie until there’s nothing but crumbs and scrapes of filling left.

They call it a night just after ten pm. Stensland is already fast asleep by the time Thomas finishes brushing his teeth and changing into his pyjamas, snoring with his mouth open on the pillow. Thomas checks his phone before he goes to bed. No messages at all, not that he’s surprised, though a part of him can’t help but feel a pang of disappointment more self-directed than anything. He shuts off the desk lamp before he can truly feel sorry for himself and lets Stensland’s waxing and waning snores lull him to sleep.

*

If there’s one thing Thomas knows about Beatrice is that she loves a good pint. She can drink anyone under the table but still be clearheaded enough afterwards to find her way back to Covent Garden with one eye closed. She swears by The Curtains Up on Comeragh Road in Hammersmith, a little too close to Thomas’ old neighbourhood but the pub is notoriously difficult to book: comfortable, elegant, with a white and red awning, quiz nights on Tuesdays and Fridays. He can’t refuse.

Thomas drags Stensland along because this is what they both have in common: a self-destructive nature and tendency to drink their problems away. Their problems may not have disappeared in the morning, but alcohol is an excellent inducer of temporary amnesia and sometimes that’s as good as it gets.

All three of them squeeze into a booth, Thomas sandwiched between.

“Thomas,” Bea is saying, disbelief writ in the lines of her mouth, “I can’t believe you’ve actually met him, and that he invited you up to his—” her voice drops to a whisper as she ducks her head, “—hotel. I think the only famous person I’ve ever met was that bloke from Big Brother and even then I wasn’t sure if it was really him in the end.”

Stensland snorts. “He’s a dick. An utter dick! And it’s been a day and he hasn’t called Thomas at all even though he promised!” He slams his drink down on the table, sloshing Aspall Cyder everywhere.

“He said he was busy!” Thomas argues though he doesn’t know why he’s defending Adam the same time he’s complaining about him. A part of him is glad to have nipped whatever that had been in the bud well before it could begin; a week before he was followed around by paparazzi on his way to the grocer’s and the post office. Days later, there were more pictures of him on The Sun, as if his daily chores were somehow of interest to the reading public. He’s thankful his uncle doesn’t read the drivel, more inclined to The Economist and The Daily Telegraph. Otherwise he’d probably have a few questions. Thomas doesn’t need that kind of complication in his life. He’s happy, in some ways, with his new life, left alone to brood in peace.

“Forget about him, Thomas,” Bea tells him, raising her glass. “There’s plenty of other fish in the sea!”

Thomas’ upper lip twitches, a valiant effort not to pout or frown or do something with his mouth that may bely his true sentiment on the matter. “What’s there to forget?” he says, “I barely even knew the man. Good riddance, I say! I’m better off!”

“I guess I’ll delete those pictures of him now from my computer,” Stensland muses, “You know, in fealty of my employer/friend. An entire hard drive’s worth.”

Bea raises her eyebrows. “What.”

“I’m joking. But he’s a really good actor. Until he made those movies.” Stensland sighs, his expression turning from disgusted to dreamy in a heartbeat. “The ones with his shirt off.”

“Can we please, please talk about something else?” Thomas begs, fighting the urge to grab at his hair, or throw himself in front of a passing car. “Are we not here to catch up?”

“You two are here to catch up, I never even met Bea before today, and I’m only here for free drinks,” Stensland points out unhelpfully.

Thomas ignores him, then glances up when Bea pats the back of his hand, his responses slowed down by alcohol that he fails to shrug off her grasp until too late. More quietly, she says, “Are you all right though? I mean barring that incident with He Who Shall Not Be Named—”

“You can call him by the name, you know. He’s not Voldemort.” Thomas rolls his eyes. He’s starting to hate how Stensland and Bea seem to be under the assumption that he’s just got his heart broken when nothing of the sort happened, and he didn’t even like Adam all that much anyway. What truly bothers him is the fact he’d made a trip out of seeing him: that’s money spent that could very well have been saved and all that effort gone to waste. But at least he got to see Bea again. They haven’t seen each other in six months.

“All right,” Bea nods, giving Thomas her best sad-eyed baby doe look. “How’s the shop, then? How’s your uncle? You know I’ve been meaning to visit but with right now I’m swamped with — work. But we’re still on for dinner tomorrow night, aren’t we? You can bring Stensland along.”

Sometimes, Thomas marvels over how lucky he is to have a friend like Bea in his life. Admittedly, he’s not the most pleasant person to deal with, with a list of neuroses longer than his arm, but for some reason or another she’d stuck around ever since that day they had bumped into each other at the Farmers’ Market in Marylborne and fought over the last of the gouda cheese.

If he liked women as much as he liked men, Thomas would have probably dated her, married her, began a life with her. But just like him, Bea has awful taste in men and is never in a relationship long enough to develop any true romantic feelings, another thing they have in common. She prized her art above all. Some of it, the ones of anthropomorphized rabbits, is actually good.

“You know I won’t miss it for the world,” Thomas says, giving Bea a genuine smile that she returns with a clink of their glasses.

They get drunk on vodka and horrible whiskey before the night is over, and stumble out in single file before Stensland has them thrown out of the pub with all the racket he’s making. Apparently he has a tendency to cry when he’s three sheets to the wind. Thomas, meanwhile, is a blank slate, completely silent. He feels like he’s watching everything from a distance, far removed from it all like an impartial observer. Which is why when his phone rings in his pocket, he lets Bea pick up the call for him, frowning and shaking her head when she see who it’s from.

“Hello?” she says, losing all volume control, finger plugged into one ear. “No, this isn’t Thomas. And no, you can’t speak to him right now. I know who you are, yes, yes, I’m not an idiot! He’s busy. He’s a busy man! I can’t tell you what he’s busy with, that’s an invasion of privacy. No, you’re being difficult. Sorry, but I think you’ve got the wrong number. You’re cutting in and out. What? I can’t hear you. Oops!” She hangs up the call.

Thomas blinks at her, looking up from where he’s watching Stensland hug a streetlamp.

“Who was that?” Thomas asks, a bland smile on his face as Bea slips his phone back into the pocket of his coat. She smiles and pats him good-naturedly on the cheek, and he allows the touch because he’s otherwise too tired and drunk to protest.

“Oh, just your plumber,” Bea says, laughing. She takes a taxi home. Thomas watches the taxi put onto the street before flagging one for himself and Stensland. It’s been quite the day. Miraculously, they make it back to the hotel with time to spare before midnight, kicking their shoes and clothes off before flopping down onto the covers, belly-first. Stensland is the first one out, but that’s hardly a surprise.

The next day finds Thomas groaning awake, telling himself he has to make better life choices. It takes him ten minutes to drag himself out of bed and realize that he’d fallen asleep last night with his pants tugged halfway down his knees, causing him to stumble and knock his chin on the floor. Perfect. On the bed next to his own, Stensland sleeps soundly, in a more chaotic state, with one hole-ridden sock still on and his arse cheek hanging out of boxers.

Thomas sighs and throws a blanket over him, then spends nearly half an hour in the shower until his skin is pink from the hot water and he feels halfway alive. He takes two aspirin for his hangover and is folding his laundry to pack in his carry-on when his phone slips out the pocket of his coat. He picks it up and checks his messages: twenty-two missed calls and at least a dozen texts — all from Adam, one from Adam’s assistant,  Sang Hee. He reads them in chronological order:

-HEY DID U LOSE YOUR PHONE? SOME1 ELSE PICKED UP

-THOMAS

-R U STILL IN LONDN? HOPING TO CATCH U

BEFORE I LEAVE FOR NY ON FRIDAY

-THOMAS

- SORRY ABOUT THE OTHER DAY, REALLY WANTED TO SEE U  

BUT MY CRAZY EX FOUND OUT WHERE I WAS STAYING & GAVE ME SHIT FOR

DOING A MOVIE FOR “MONEY” U SHOULDN’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH THAT

-thomas

Thomas wonders if he should respond, but less than a second later the choice is taken out of his hands when the screen starts flashing. An incoming call from Adam, as if summoned by the static waves of Thomas’ uncertainty. In a fit of mild panic, he ends up answering the call.

“Thomas?” Adam sounds relieved. “I thought — never mind what I thought. Are you pissed at me?”

Always cutting straight to the chase, this one. Thomas presses the heel of his hand between his eyes. The aspirin has yet to kick in, and he needs caffeine badly. “I’m not angry at you,” he replies evenly.“Why would I be?”

“Well, for starters if it wasn’t for me your pictures wouldn’t be all over the British tabloids,” Adam says, “And I kicked you out the other day when I invited you to my hotel. I’d be pissed at me too; I’d be livid. So: sorry. I’m sorry.”

As far as apologies go it seems genuine though that could also mean he’s just one hell of a good actor. Still, it’s too early for Thomas to pick up apart the nuances in his tone, so he settles for a simple, “Apology accepted.”

Adam sputters. “What?”

“What do you mean what?”

“That’s it? ‘Apology accepted’?” Adam sounds incredulous, and maybe he has the right to be: Thomas’ acceptance of his apology may as well have sounded far too much like a dismissal.

“It’s really quite all right,” Thomas assures him, only half-lying, feeling awkward trying to quell Adam’s doubts. “You had… business to iron out. And I was just visiting. Bad timing can’t be helped. Perhaps another time, when we’re both less caught up in other commitments. We can make plans then.”

The way he says it sounds so abstract, like the opportunity is never going to materialize, which is just the effect he wants. He’ll leave things open; there’s less disappointment that way. Less involvement.

“At least let me make it up to you,” Adam says, and he sounds like he’s pacing the room, his voice warping with static as Thomas listens to him breathe, stomp, and move around vaguely over the phone while Thomas  himself remains seated and completely rooted to one spot. He’s never met someone so alive, someone with so much vim and verve it’s any wonder how Adam’s personality doesn’t burst through his skin.

“I’m not a complete asshole. Or at least, I’m not anymore,” Adam tries. “I’d like to think I’m not anymore. I’ve reformed. I’m a reformed asshole.”

“You really think you could charm everyone don’t you? With your — your words,” Thomas says haltingly.

“Is it working?” Thomas can almost hear the smirk distorting Adam’s voice. He’s a cocky bastard, a trait that would be a character flaw in anyone else except him. It should be infuriating and yet. Thomas sighs, giving up. It’s too early for this. He’s not awake or caffeinated enough.

“There’s this cafe on Shepherd’s Bush that makes the best fry-ups,” Thomas begins, in lieu of answering Adam’s question. “I’ll meet you there at half-past nine.”

“Bossy,” Adam notes with a short laugh, “I like that. Are you sure you don’t want me to send a car for you?”

Thomas refuses to be any more of a cliché than he currently is and says as much. “I can take the tube from my hotel, thank you,” he replies curtly.

“Where are you staying anyway?” Adam asks, trying his best to be subtle and failing like an elephant on roller skates. “I could put you up somewhere better, somewhere with an actual view instead of—”

“Good day, Mr Sackler,” Thomas says pleasantly and hangs up the phone.

The Liz Café doesn’t make the best fry-ups in all of West London, that is a complete and utter lie, but it’s home to Thomas in a way that the posh restaurants in Kensington have never been; nothing in Chelsea or Bloomsbury could ever compare. The menu at St. Luke’s Kitchen is a close second but only because Thomas can’t resist a good croissant.

The outdoor seating at the Liz Café is always overrun with smokers but inside it’s beautiful lit and cozy, with just enough room to elbow the next guest. Everything on the breakfast menu is below £7. The toast is plentiful, the coffee strong enough to knock out a horse, the grease flowing. The servers are friendly which is more than what Thomas can say for some of the more upscale establishments in Soho.

Thomas looks up from a copy of Horse & Hound that someone had left on a nearby table when a shadow looms over him. He lifts both eyebrows, though before he can say Adam’s name, Adam presses a finger to his own lips and shushes him. Then he plants himself on the squeaky chair across from Thomas, shrugging out of his coat.

Thomas stares at him. The intent is to probably look innocuous but it succeeds in doing the exact opposite. Adam’s in an all-black ensemble, a black coat and turtleneck, a black beanie, designer sunglasses, also black. Thomas resists the urge to check under the table though he has a nagging suspicion Adam’s footwear is not exempt from this rule. He looks like he’s about to rob a bank.

“I had my driver drop me off three blocks from here and then take two detours, in case anyone followed me,” Adam says by way of greeting. He picks up the menu card and starts perusing his options, flipping it back to front and then back again. Thomas can feel his knee bob under the table; he’ll make a note of this later but for now he’s still staring.

Adam looks ridiculous. He looks good, he’ll probably look good wearing nothing but a sack, but he looks ridiculous nonetheless. Thomas shakes his head.

“Well, better late than never, I suppose,” Thomas says, after a moment. “On the bright side, you didn’t get lost which should count as a win.”

“I hope you didn’t have to wait very long,” Adam says, even though it’s half past ten already, an hour after they’d agreed to meet, and Thomas’ Earl Grey has gone very cold. “I’ll pay for breakfast. I’ll even pay for your Uber. God, you must be sick of me by now. I don’t think I ever run out of excuses. Anyway. Hi.” He leans back in his seat, making it creak on its hind legs, then glances around to check if anyone is watching them.

They’re in the furthest corner of the room; Thomas had picked the spot specifically so nobody would bother them. It’s not within direct eyeline of the door, hidden from view by an open-display fridge. Adam hunches forward, propping his arms on the table and lowering his head. He glances up at Thomas through a curtain of hair, unfairly emotive with his eyes.

Thomas has to look away before he does something embarrassing like wax poetic about the depth of his eyes shining like black moonless pools. He fiddles with the hem of his cardigan instead. He’s worn jeans today and looks a little less like a fussy librarian.

“I like it here,” he finds himself saying, beginning a story that spirals out of him without his permission, “I lived in the area years ago and I would come here every other day or when I was hungover and had a hankering for haggis. And the smell of bread takes me back.”

“You were a baker?”

“Don’t be daft,” Thomas cuts him with a look. “There are just smells I associate with my youth, bread being one of them.”

“You talk like you’re sixty or something,” Adam observes. “Like you’re this old fucking soul who’s lived a rich past life.”

“I like to think I’m just highly evolved,” Thomas says.

“Likely,” Adam agrees. “It’s what makes you so intimidating.”

Before Thomas can press him about that Adam barrels on, “Is it true what you said in that article in The Sun? That you had no fucking idea who I was when you met me? I thought it was pretty weird, you know, when you didn’t seem all that impressed when I told you who I was. Most people are.” He says that with such a straight face Thomas wonders if he’s joking.

“It’s nothing personal,” Thomas says. “I’m just, ah, rather difficult to impress.”

Adam’s smile is wide, but this time it creases his eyes, shows his teeth. “I’m starting to see that,” he says. He lifts the menu card. “Should we order?”

“Yes please,” Thomas says. “I’m starving.”

Adam laughs.

*

Brunch is not as terrible as Thomas had been anticipating. Adam doesn’t go easy on the charm, keeps trying to make him laugh by astute observations of their surroundings, keeps bumping his knee against Thomas’ under the table or at least keeps attempting to if not for Thomas’ smooth deflections. It all feels very strange and surreal all due to the fact it feels deceptively normal. Thomas isn’t sure what he’d been expecting. Paparazzi maybe or being hounded by Adam’s fans. But no one bothers them all throughout their meal or takes their picture and when it’s time to pay the bill, Adam offers to cover it and leaves a hefty check that has Thomas’ eyes growing wide as saucers.

“Oh,” Thomas says, a little more than winded.

“I was a server once in a shitty Italian restaurant in Brooklyn,” Adam tells him, a glitter of amusement in his eye. “Believe it or not, I wasn’t always rolling in money.” Then he winks and climbs to his feet. They fall into step with each other outside where the weather is clear and crisp for the first time in days, with a sky absent of the promise of rain. Pedestrians pass them by headed opposite directions; none give them a second glance. Maybe Adam’s little disguise is effective after all. Thomas should give him a little credit.

“Well,” Adam grins, hands folded behind his head. The action pulls his shirt up a little, revealing a patch of toned stomach. Thomas swallows.

“I had a great old time,” Adam begins.

“Lovely,” Thomas echoes and pivots his gaze back to Adam’s face. It seems like he’s caught Thomas staring because his grin doesn’t falter in the least.

“Are you free for dinner tonight?” Adam asks abruptly.

“What?”

“I’d like to have you for dinner if that’s okay,” Adam says. “I mean, with you. With you. Dinner with you.”

Thomas stares at him. And stares and stares. Brunch he can understand but now Adam wants to have dinner too? Will wonders never cease?

“Normally that constitutes a meal, some conversation. Maybe drinks afterwards except I’m banned from drinks now as I’m a recovering alcoholic…” Adam trails off.

“No, no, I know what you mean.” Thomas rolls his eyes. Then his train of thought is derailed once he’s hit with the sudden realization that Bea’s dinner is tonight. She makes the best Yorkshire pudding. “I can’t tonight. I promised my friend I’d come over for dinner.”

Adam nods though it’s clear from his expression that he’s trying to quell his disappointment. Thomas will have to examine why but that’s for a later time.

“Right, yeah, no problem,” Adam says. “Maybe some other time then.”

“Yes, well, some other time,” Thomas nods back.

Adam turns to go. He’s halfway down the street when Thomas jogs after him, propelled into action by some unseen impulse, the same impulse perhaps that once encouraged him to thrash a ten foot teddy bear and decimate an entire room’s worth of toys. “Adam,” he calls, “Adam!” He knows he’s going to regret this.

Adam turns, stares at Thomas in confusion, Thomas who is huffing and in the midst of what can very well be considered an asthma attack from what is simply light exercise. “You all right?” He looks concerned.

“Yes, just a little short of breath, I think. Do give me a moment.” Thomas straightens and smooths out his hair once his breath has settled. He’s worked up a sweat too but that’s to be expected of a sedentary lifestyle. The most exercise he gets these days is the short walk from the bookshop to the deli or the bakery, and then back. Sometimes he likes to spice it up and walks all the way to the pharmacy but that’s hardly here nor there. “You can come to dinner if you like. If you don’t mind burnt roast beef but the best Yorkshire pudding you’ve ever tasted in your life.”

Adam looks at him thoughtfully. “Burn roast beef? You drive a hard bargain Thomas McGregor,” he says. Then he  grins.

Thomas keeps an eye on the roast beef while Bea regales him with stories of her many aborted attempts to quit her copyediting job to focus on her art full time. She’s getting progressively tipsy on rosé, she’s started to gesticulate wildly, but the pies are looking lovely sitting on the counter cooling and Thomas knows how to hide the alcohol should she reach for it one more time. The doorbell cuts Bea off mid-rant, halting her from knocking Stensland in the face with a wayward arm.

The chime goes off three times before Stensland puts the potato peeler down and promises to get it, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “Hold on! I’m coming, I’m coming! Keep your trousers on,” he grumbles. “Are we expecting anyone?”

Bea shrugs, lobbing Thomas a worried look. “I don’t know. Are we?”

“Thomas it’s for you!” Stensland calls from the door.

It’s Sang Hee, Adam’s assistant.

“I hope you like cake,” she says, handing Thomas a box emblazoned with the famous Cutter & Squidge logo. “Mr Sackler can’t come tonight, I’m afraid. But he does sends his apologies. He’s a very busy man.”