Country Mouse (9 page)

“No worries. I take it you miss your mum?”

“Text her every day,” Owen said without apology. This morning she’d warned him not to get too attached to whoever he had in bed. “What’s next?”

They had a walk around the many small side altars and looked at the mosaics, but it was also really quite full and Owen was getting hungry. Malcolm ended up taking him to a quick Japanese restaurant down a side street.

“It’s just a chain, but the food is okay. Mango Tree’s not far away in Grosvenor Gardens, but it’s maybe a touch formal . . .” Malcolm looked so worried over it that Owen had no choice but to grin and tell him he would really just like to eat something, anything, that didn’t involve much waiting. When he suggested McDonald’s, Malcolm acted like it was some sort of crime, and instead dragged him to the Japanese place, where they actually managed to score a pile of food in under ten minutes. They also did a ginger and white chocolate cheesecake, which, Malcolm insisted, was the best thing on their menu. Even though he hadn’t tasted the other seventy or so items, Owen agreed readily. It seemed he was ready to trust Malcolm on a lot of things, something that probably would have surprised almost anyone else. But Owen had been raised to trust his instincts—to close his eyes in a holy place and allow himself to be guided. So far, this man didn’t seem to be steering him wrong.

“Okay,” Malcolm said after some internal deliberation that Owen figured involved scales and an abacus, since it dragged on so long. “That’s a solid half day’s work in terms of tourism. Buckingham Palace is just down the road, too. If you ask me, it’s an ugly old box and inside it’s as tasteless as any place I’ve ever been, but we can do it.”

“I didn’t ask you,” Owen said, and then leaned over and kissed Malcolm soundly on the cheek, in spite of the people flowing around them at the restaurant. “And thank you for taking me anyway.”

When they came to the front of the palace, the wall opened to a large wrought-iron fence, and policemen in dark blue were guarding the single entrance. Lots of tourists were taking pictures in front of the fence, and Malcolm pulled out his phone and shot a couple of Owen.

“I’ll email them to you, no problem.”

Was that Malcolm’s “really clever” way to score his email address? Sounded like it, right? Excellent.

“Here,” Owen said, giving Malcolm his phone. “Put in your digits, and I’ll put in mine.”

Malcolm nodded and they sat down at the monument in front of the palace for a minute, entering in phone numbers and email addresses and such, and then Owen said, “Here. Let me take one of you. That way your picture will flash up when you call me.”

“I’m going to be calling you a lot?” Malcolm’s voice was funny, like he couldn’t decide if he was being sarcastic or begging.

“Well you’ll have to,” Owen said gently. This was a commitment of sorts, wasn’t it? In a no-strings-attached one-night stand? “You’ll return my calls, right?”

Malcolm nodded eagerly. “Absolutely.”

“Then you’ll be calling me a lot.”

The smile Malcolm gave was almost winsome, and very brilliant. Owen looked at it and swallowed. How much was that going to suck, seeing that face pop up on his phone and knowing its owner was half a world away?

Something about his silence must have reached Malcolm, because he said, “Here, let me look. That’s not a bad picture.”

“Did you doubt it?” Owen laughed, but his voice was still a little off and he knew it.

Malcolm shrugged, but he looked pleased. “You had enough of the tourist gig, then? Ready to go collect your clothes and make some plans for the night?”

Owen looked around and realized the shadows were lengthening and the sun had escaped the veil of low clouds to reach, chill and orange, across the horizon. It was time to start thinking about the night. “Why not?” he asked, determined to have an amazing night with the man who had made him smile and taken time out of what was, apparently, a hellaciously busy life to play tour guide. “What did you have in mind?”

“Could have a really nice dinner—you wouldn’t be allowed to look at the prices, though, okay? Or go clubbing, or grab some takeaway and go back to mine. Have plenty of great sex, you know, the usual.” Malcolm delivered the last part with a completely straight face, which meant he was being either sarcastic or ironic—or protecting his feelings.

“You really want to take me out to dinner, don’t you?”

Malcolm hesitated. “I want to dress you up and take you out to dinner, yes,” he said, not looking Owen in the eyes, and Owen had to admit the silk and wool of Malcolm’s work clothes the night before had felt fine under his palms, and Malcolm had looked outstanding in it. Anywhere this man wanted to take him would probably have a dress code—or at least a way of making Owen feeling really gauche if he wore the wrinkled khakis and button-down in his duffel bag.

“You think better clothes will make me less of a hick from the States?” He managed to keep any defensiveness from his voice. The man was trying to offer him something nice—something he wouldn’t likely get on his own.

“I think you’d stand out in a crowd no matter what you wore,” Malcolm snapped, and then turned away from the palace and the sunshine, and, it seemed, the really great day. He blew out his breath when they’d crossed Green Park. “Also, to be honest, I’ve seen Yanks in Veeraswamy wearing shorts and T-shirts, and the people serving there are perfectly nice about it. I mean, they wouldn’t let you feel it, and they are just off Regent’s Street, so you probably get some funny walk-in customers. I’m fine with that. I just—I don’t know. Maybe I don’t want you to feel like I’m your sugar daddy or something. If we’re both wearing nice clothes, that makes things more equal, you know. But then . . .” He chuckled, and whatever was funny, it was very funny, because he broke into laughter. “I probably have some khakis somewhere. So we can both play tourist there.” He grinned at Owen. “Whatever you want and feel comfortable with. I’d be okay to ask them to deliver, and we can eat on the couch, fireplace on, and get all nice and cuddly.”

Owen smiled. “Khakis,” he said decisively. “A nice dinner out. Take home dessert.”

“Take home dessert?”

“I
really
crave sweets after amazing sex. Since I don’t plan on any other kind . . .”

Malcolm chuckled wickedly. “You, my American friend, are like a hidden landmine of sex appeal. I’m going to have to look out for you.”

“Too late.” Owen raised his face to the unfamiliar smells, breezes, sounds of the city, enjoying them even more now that he knew something of it and it had become personal to him. “I’ve already exploded. You’re caught.”

He tilted his head back and laughed, inviting Malcolm to share the joke, but Malcolm was unusually quiet much of the way back to his apartment.

Malcolm was trying—hard—not to be buried too hard in his own disappointment and his own head. It was a hookup, right? A random hookup. A weekend thing. A boy, someone to play Dom with, someone—

Oh fuck. Who was he kidding. He wanted Owen to remember him. He wanted to be seen in his city with him. (
His
city, through which this beautiful, enthusiastic young man who’d closed his eyes in a cathedral and spoken unapologetically about his mum had walked with wide strides and a delighted smile and a laugh for every lame joke or bit of trivia Malcolm could remember from school trips or nights out with a client.) He wanted—even for a night—for there to be a “them.”

He had really wanted to give him something. He thought the suit was all he’d get to give.

“All right,” Owen said as they were stepping up on the curb to Malcolm’s building.

“All right what?” Malcolm asked, startled out of his own head.

“I don’t know why it’s so important to you. If I knew, maybe we could wear something besides khakis.”

Malcolm swallowed. Really? As sappy as he’d been getting over this? Big bad Dom Malcolm was supposed to
tell
this guy how he felt? The image of Owen closing his eyes in the cathedral came back to him. He’d closed his eyes. Unguarded, unafraid. It had been so simple for him to share something about himself. Oh, hell. So did that make Malcolm a bloody coward now?

“It was just a really good day,” he said as they went through the door. He smiled absently at the doorman, who glanced at him almost like he didn’t recognize him, and he and Owen stood quietly at the lift.

“A gift?” Owen said quietly. “You want to give me a gift?”

“Not like . . . not like, ‘Go buy yourself something pretty,’” Malcolm said. The lift doors opened, and then they were in, and it was almost too close for the two of them. He’d spent a good twenty minutes with this man’s dick in his ass, but he couldn’t spend two minutes in a lift? He needed to clear this up before he climbed out of his own skin.

“Then what’s it like?”

“I want you to remember me,” he said, feeling twee and silly and generally like a fourteen-year-old.

Owen seized his hand.

“Okay,” he said, as though the subject hadn’t just chewed up an hour of what was turning into an abominably short weekend.

“That’s it? Okay?”

“Malcolm, if you think I’m going to need the suit to remember you, I’d better let you buy it for me. I’m pretty sure it’s not necessary, but, seriously. Knock yourself out.”

Malcolm grimaced, then lifted himself to his toes and gave Owen one of those surprising kisses on the cheek that Owen was always giving him.

“Plan to, mate. Seriously plan to.”

Which is how they ended up in a very high-end men’s clothing store, looking at the triple image of Malcolm’s American student looking back at the both of them skeptically. Obviously, a fully bespoke suit would have been nicer, even a semi-fitted one, but there was really no time for initial measurements and several rounds of fittings, and how Owen would take to a traditional tailor was anybody’s guess. So he’d opted for the ready-made.

The salesman was perfectly nice about fitting Owen into a dark blue Zegna suit—still pretty casual, overall, but something he could quite easily have gone to work in anywhere in London or Canary Wharf. Black wingtip shoes completed the ensemble, and black socks, of course, since Owen had nothing in his kit but trainers and sweat socks.

Malcolm drew nearer while Owen was still standing in front of the mirror, adjusting collars and cuffs and moving from one leg to the other like he was about to rugby-tackle an enemy. “You’re looking great. Comfortable? You like it?”

Owen shrugged and turned to look at himself from the side. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Great.” He ran a hand along Owen’s arm. “I’ll make it very much worth your while when we get home.” He winked at Owen, and caught a fond little smile from the salesman. The understanding there was immediate, and while the guy tallied everything up at the counter, he asked, “Your boyfriend from the States?”

Malcolm hesitated, and figured if it weren’t for Owen, if this had been a random hookup (not that he bought them suits), he’d have denied everything and slipped the sales guy his card, but he found himself grinning. “They lost his luggage at Terminal Five. Fucking Heathrow.”

“Oh, I know how it is,” the sales guy said, and ramped up his camp a little more as he handed him the PIN pad. Malcolm quickly typed in his PIN and took the receipt when the sales guy handed it all back. “Well, have a great evening, sir.”

It was like a prophecy, really. Dinner was brilliant. Owen was acceptably awed by the plush and colorful array of London’s oldest Indian restaurant (hell, potentially the oldest Indian restaurant in Europe, period), and by the history of it. He said he felt like one of those noirish characters in a 1930s film—all that was missing was the small mustache, the white kerchief, and a woman in a really bizarre dress. That got them both talking about old movies and how either one of them would have banged Cary Grant in a hot second, and the conversation went fast from there to favorite movies, past and present (Owen liked a movie called
Drive,
and Malcolm had recently become a fan of
District 9
), and music.

They had a lot of non-alcoholic mint and ginger coolers, and then a bottle of red with Owen’s Nihari lamb and Malcolm’s Nizamu Murgh. Wow, Josh would absolutely murder him and feed him to the “other pigs,” as he called it, but feeding Owen great food and enjoying his own was completely worth it.

Of course, to complete the irony, a bunch of American tourists did come in, and half the group was wearing jeans. Malcolm managed to not break out in helpless laughter.

He also managed to settle the bill without Owen seeing how much it cost, and then stepped out into the street with Owen and called a taxi. Perfect evening that it was, the first cab coming around the corner stopped for them. “My lucky day,” Malcolm murmured into Owen’s ear and opened the car door.