#mcsackler

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. ”