Platonic (16 page)

“Come for me.”

And Mark strains, hips twisting and sweat dripping from his temple to his chin, lips bitten red and eyes squeezed shut as he imagines Daniel all over him, inside him, his, and comes saying his name. “Daniel, Daniel,
Daniel.”
It twists through him, hot and reckless, and the pulse of electricity down his spine, in his blood, makes him gasp and arch higher.

He watches as his cock throbs in his hand, the white streaks that stretch high up his belly and onto his chest, his ass clenching and rocking as he shoots over his fingers and come dribbles through the coarse dark hair at the base of his dick. He holds onto the delicious heat of it for as long as he can, taut and breathless and begging the feeling to never end, chasing the images of someone naked and perfect and so utterly not his—until Daniel disappears and he collapses onto the couch with a sigh.

He still doesn’t quite feel guilty. And he doesn’t think he should. He loved Daniel once, and tonight there were mutual thanks for everything they’d shared. Daniel will never know and there’s no harm done and—he starts to smile—he thinks that may well have been one of the best orgasms he’s had in a long time.

He stretches, feeling his muscles tense and unknot. His skin feels too tight and wonderful all at once. Rocking to his feet, grinning and blissed out, he pads barefoot to the bathroom to wipe the mess from his chest.

Once he’s done this, he walks back out into the living room, still basking in how good his orgasm was. He hears the vibration of his phone. It’s late now, too late for it to be anything but a work emergency.

Except it’s Daniel.

And now there is guilt, a jolt of it right up through him. He has an irrational thought—
Oh God, what if he knows?—
and then shakes it off.

He swipes his finger across the screen to answer and does his best to sound normal. “Hi, Dan.”

Daniel’s voice comes back to him, quiet and intense, just his name, just, “Mark.”

They miss a beat and Mark can’t quite bring himself to ask why Daniel would be calling him after midnight when they only hung up an hour ago. Then there’s another missed beat and Mark’s about to call his name and make sure the call hasn’t dropped.

“Do you ever think of me?”

Mark’s mind flashes hot and fast to every single fantasy that has flickered behind his eyes during the last half hour. The visions and tastes and smells. Hardly any of it means anything, because he doesn’t
know
Daniel like that anymore and it can’t be what Daniel is talking about. He rolls the phrase over in his mind once, twice, trying to dissect what Daniel is asking.

Do you ever think of me?

He says, “Of course,” without really meaning to.

He thinks he hears Daniel suck in a breath a little too quickly. Not quite a gasp, but something like it. And then Daniel laughs, light and happy.

“It’s so ridiculous that we still haven’t actually managed to catch up in person,” Daniel says. “I would like to.”

Eyes falling closed, Mark tries to imagine Daniel right now: comfortable in pajamas and lounging somewhere in his apartment, calling him and wanting to meet up.

“If you’d still like to?” Daniel’s question interrupts his thoughts.

“Yeah. Of course.”

Daniel starts to ramble, suddenly nervous, it seems: “I just mean we could try. If you’re not too busy. And I’m not too busy. We could try.” He clears his throat. “We could try being actual friends who hang out.”

Mark’s mind is somewhere else and his heart is beating too fast. He doesn’t mean to ask, but he so,
so
does. “Do you want to come over for dinner?”

CHAPTER 8

Yes
.

Of course Daniel’s answer is yes. They’ve been trying to meet up for eons, so it makes sense. It’s a breathless, happy response that comes hushed through the phone, and then he asks when and Mark is too caught up in it all to really think. He says tomorrow before he realizes that tomorrow is
tomorrow
.

Daniel’s voice pitches high and he agrees, babbling about how someone just cancelled on him so now his night is miraculously free and Mark says seven and Daniel agrees and then they both hang up too quickly.

Mark messages Daniel his address before he can forget and then falls backward onto his bed, dizzy and blushing red and still quite a bit tipsy. He sets his alarm for earlier than usual: He has a full day of work tomorrow and now has important shopping to do as well. He sets a reminder on his phone to call Rita as well.

Then he screws his eyes shut and forces himself to drift off to sleep.

***

Mark calls Rita during his lunch break and is happy when she answers on the third ring and only sounds mildly distracted. “Hello?”

“Hey, Rita, it’s me. How are you?”

“Oh,” she suddenly doesn’t sound distracted at all. “Of course it is. I’m fine. Books, deadlines, asshole publishers, the usual. What can I do for you?”

“I’m having dinner with Dan tonight…” He lets it hang.

“Yes, I know, he called me at two a.m. to tell me.”

“Really?”

“Yes, and now you’re calling me during your lunch break to discuss what exactly?”

“I just…” Shit, for a lawyer he’s finding himself suddenly, woefully under-prepared. “I figured I should tell you since we’re mutual friends—”

“Is it a date?”

He stops dead and stares at the blank legal pad before him. “What?”

“Is this romantic? Are you trying to get back into his pants?”

“No! God, Rita, when have I ever given you any indication that that’s—”

“I’m just asking.”

“Wait, does he think it’s a date?” Mark had worked so hard not to think about it.

“He sure as hell doesn’t know.”

“Well then it’s not.” He breathes a sigh of relief. “We’re friends, really, really good friends and I want to cement that and not screw it up.”

“Because you’ve screwed it up once already?” Rita asks.

“Yeah, I think we click really well and I know how busy he is. We don’t need this to be anything complicated.”

He can hear Rita sighing and thumbing through the pages of a book on the other end of the line. “I think that’s smart, Mark. I really do.”

He waits for more, but no explanation comes. “Neither of us wants anything more than what we’ve got… unless you’ve heard differently.”

“He was freaking out because he missed you, but that’s all. He… look, I’m gonna talk about stuff I promised I wouldn’t talk about when this whole mess started and you moved to New York. Basically both of you swore me to secrecy with regard to the other—don’t deny it, that’s pretty much what happened—and I’ve been really good with that until now.

“I think you should be friends, I think it is fantastic that you are friends and being able to be in the same room together sounds great to me because I would like to be good friends with both of you, and let me say, it is now a serious fantasy of mine to be able to sit in a room with both of you and drink wine and eat takeout and bitch away the rest of the world because I love you both.”

She pauses for breath and Mark interrupts, “I’m sorry it’s been like that, and we are friends and we can do that soon—”

“Yeah, good, but there are more important things here than what I want. I get that high school and him leaving you for New York fucked you up. I get that you’re over that and living the good life and that is fantastic. But you need to understand that you
letting
him do that to you fucked him up pretty bad as well. At least you’ve had a couple of real relationships, ones that felt like they were going somewhere. He’s never had a Ben, he’s been in love exactly once since you left and
that
broke him into a million pieces because the other guy was never in it for love at all and Danny fell really, really hard.”

“He’s never told me about that…” Mark trails off. It hurts, the lie of omission.

“It had a lot more to do with you than I think he’ll ever admit. He was still searching for you back then. This guy was just a new version of you in a lot of ways.”

“When was this?”

“It doesn’t matter. If you and Dan are getting on so well, I think that is fantastic. And I am happy the whole penpal ridiculousness is winding up and you’re going to talk to each other in person. I’m also saying: Be careful.”

Mark’s brows knit as he tries to make sense of the conversation and how it has managed to deviate so far from what he expected.

“Mark, if this is a date, you need to be really careful.”

“It’s not.”

“That’s good, trust me, keeping this simple for now is the right idea.” She sighs. “You know I laughed so hard at him when he called me last night.”

“Why?”

She makes a noncommittal sound. “Be careful either way, for yourself and for him. Just have a nice dinner, catch up, talk, be smart about things.”

“Rita, I think you’re completely overreacting to this.”

“He called me at two in the morning. I thought he’d been mugged or something.”

“He’s probably just as excited as I am.”

“Yeah.” She sighs again, and Mark can hear her closing a hardcover book with a thunk. “Was there anything else?”

“No, I just wanted you to know.” Mark rakes a hand through his hair and takes his glasses off, letting them skitter across the table as he vents just a little of his frustration.

“Okay. I love you. Be careful.”

Mark starts to say something snarky in return but she hangs up too fast.

He finally lets himself wonder just what tonight is meant to be. He hadn’t expected Daniel to call Rita, certainly not in the middle of the night. He also hadn’t expected this to work out so smoothly. In some corner of his mind he is still convinced that Daniel will be whisked off to London or out to an important business dinner or something before they can actually lay eyes on each other.

He works hard for the rest of the day and starts to pack up for the weekend just after four. A few of his colleagues ask him where he’s going as he makes his way out; he never leaves so early. Their questions aren’t malicious, just curious, and he quickly slips into saying, simply, “Having dinner with an old friend.” That seems a true enough answer.

He pulls his coat tighter around his shoulders because there’s been yet another end-of-season dumping of snow and walks quickly to Chinatown. He feels his cheeks warm and butterflies in his belly as he shops for all the groceries he needs to cook tonight’s meal and picks up an extra couple bottles of wine. Then he catches the F train home and begins putting everything together before the door to his apartment has even swung shut. It’s just gone five-thirty and he needs to shower and start on the food and he really wishes he’d organized this for a Saturday so he’d have real time to prepare.

There are piles of paperwork all over his apartment and the clock above the fridge needs new batteries. Freshly cleaned laundry hangs over the backs of all his chairs and none of his DVDs are put away. All of his mess just gets picked up and deposited in haphazard piles in the bedroom. At least he’s vacuumed recently and is obsessive about dusting. The place looks okay, but he’s still in his suit and can feel a day’s worth of grime beneath, so off to the shower he goes.

***

The buzzer for his apartment goes off ten minutes early and Mark lets Daniel into the building without even checking that it’s him. He’s still got his toothbrush in his mouth, his hair is damp, he hasn’t found shoes to wear and he’s not convinced the wine has chilled properly.

All he manages to do in the time it takes Daniel to come up to the fourth floor and knock on his door is spit and rinse and pointlessly push his hair around. None of which is really important. The food will be good once it’s cooked and they will finally get to catch up together in person, and since it isn’t a date, his forever-unmanageable hair isn’t that big a deal. He really wishes he’d found shoes.

He throws open the door a little too forcefully, broad grin already in place, and here’s Daniel, a small smile already on his lips, wearing worn jeans and a dark blue Henley under a heavy black coat. He looks entirely casual and absolutely gorgeous and he holds a bottle of wine in one hand and a bunch of bright turquoise flowers in the other.

This is absolutely a date.

Mark just grins wider and says, “Oh, I love orchids!” as he reaches for the bouquet and lets his fingers brush over the petals.

“When did you get glasses?” Daniel says before Mark has finished speaking, and only then does Mark realize they are still perched on his nose and there is still a washcloth on his shoulder.

Both their smiles grow broader and Mark can see Daniel’s cheeks heating up at the same time he feels his own start to burn. The silence has stretched too long now for him to launch into the story of his glasses and they’re just staring at each other, eyes flickering, drinking in ten years of physical change.

This is so a date.

“I’m going to London on Wednesday,” Daniel suddenly blurts.

CHAPTER 9

Mark’s head swims and he wants to be angry but can’t quite muster it because ten minutes ago he hadn’t thought this was a date at all and surely Daniel doesn’t either. He’d lapsed for just a second, and then reality had come back to him. He can tell Daniel is nervous now, shifting from one foot to the other, slowly shifting so the wine and the flowers aren’t quite so obvious.

They can—and will—still have a wonderful night catching up and they will deal with London just as they did a month ago when there was so much physical distance. It doesn’t matter. Mark forces a smile and steps back, tilting his head to usher Daniel through the door. When Daniel has his back to him, he asks, prompting for more: “You’re going back?”

“I can’t turn this offer down,“ Daniel says, almost in a whine. “The London store is happening after all and it still needs a lot of work for me to be happy with it, as you know, so I have to go back for that—”

“Well, that makes sense. How long will it take?” Mark just wants a number, how many days, weeks, months?

“Yeah.” Daniel shifts from one foot to the other and uses the wine bottle to scratch at his forehead. “That’s the thing. It could just be another quick trip over. But that’s not… you’ve heard of the new Holly Martinez line? Newgen Wear, they’re calling it?”