Platonic (27 page)

All of it already feels instinctive.

When they manage to let each other go—propriety demanding Mark do it, hunger for lunch convincing Daniel—Daniel holds Mark by the shoulders and looks him up and down, casting his eyes back to the steps up to the main doors and the drabness of the overcast day and the milling lawyers around them.

“So this is your world,” Daniel says. “This is the cause of the technicolor underwear.”

Mark just pulls a face.

They get smoked chicken baguettes and eat outside, holding hands and still watching each other. Afterward, as they walk across Columbus Park, Daniel leans close to whisper in Mark’s ear. “And what kind of outrageous underwear are you wearing today? You’d think I would have been paying enough attention this morning to notice, but—”

Mark is starting to think Daniel really does have a thing for his colorful undergarments. “Really? Rita was so distracting you didn’t even bother to watch me change my underwear this morning?” Then he blushes because he realizes they’re in the middle of a park, wrapped up in each other and discussing underwear.

Daniel giggles at him and then giggles harder when Mark refuses to answer him, setting up the game. So Daniel flirts with him, holds his hand and asks him whether he can take an extended lunch and not go back to work for a few more hours. And then he hails a cab and whisks them off the dozen blocks uptown through Little Italy to his other store. Once they arrive, Daniel takes Mark back to a dressing room and pushes him behind the draped curtains. He presses up behind him and goes all the way up on his tiptoes, hooks his chin over Mark’s shoulder, and catches his eye in the full-length mirror. He tickles his sides and kisses behind his ear and slides his hands quickly under the waistband of Mark’s suit pants, shoving them down to get a look.

“Seriously?” Daniel exclaims, and then he’s giggling again, undoing Mark’s pants properly and letting them fall to Mark’s ankles. He giggles some more, and Mark blushes, and then Daniel tugs on the waistband and lets it snap back against Mark’s skin. “Oh my God, what
are
you?”

Mark spends the taxi ride back to his office defending the pink hearts design that he had picked out especially for his last-minute sleepover the night before.

***

On Tuesday it really begins to sink in: This is it. This is their last twenty-four hours together. Mark stays at Daniel’s, even though it’s another day when he needs to pull himself out of Daniel’s arms and get ready for work, though he’d be far happier just to stay in bed forever. He means to slip quietly from Daniel’s arms and kiss him on the cheek without waking him, but Daniel stirs as soon as he moves. He won’t let Mark leave the bed without kissing him properly, and then he follows him into the shower. They spend half an hour in the too-small space going over four days’ worth of bruises and bite marks and scratches.

“I don’t remember giving you this.”

“I do,” is followed by another possessive kiss. They get off in each other’s hands, and Mark races to work, late again.

***

That night, there is dinner and dancing and a chocolate cake-induced nap before they realize it’s the last night. They don’t feel anywhere nearly as sad as they think perhaps they should. The separation seems superficial when the depth of what they’re feeling—and how long they’ve waited to feel it—is overwhelming.

“I’ll miss you,” Mark tells him.

Daniel nods and slips his pants off his legs, already yawning again. “You too.”

Mark sighs. “I think we’re going to be just fine,” he admits. And he thinks maybe that’s why it doesn’t seem to hurt so much.

“Yeah,” Daniel mumbles, growing impatient and moving to help Mark with his clothes. “Yeah, me too.”

Daniel begs Mark to fuck him slowly, until they’re both sweating and twisting, their skin burning so hot they don’t know where one of them finishes and the other begins. Mark babbles a hundred promises until Daniel leans back over his shoulder and pulls his hair and kisses him to make him be quiet. They lie together, slowly moving together until it’s too much, and Daniel comes into the fist of Mark’s hand, and Mark slips out of him to come across the curve of his ass.

They fall asleep without cleaning up.

***

Mark won’t let him leave the bed the next morning. He gets bagels and fruit delivered because that’s the lifestyle on the Upper East Side—or so he tells Daniel, who just laughs and admits he’s never tried to order breakfast in. Mark only stops kissing him long enough to pull his underwear on—floral: disgustingly, hideously, perfectly floral—and collect the delivery from the guy who knocks on Daniel’s door. When he returns to the bedroom, Daniel is sitting up in the center of the bed, his face buried in his hands as he shakes with giggles and tries to cover the blush that goes all the way to the very tips of his ears. Mark admires the view for a moment and then bounces back onto the bed with the bags of food and an innocent smile.

They forget to have sex, though. The entire morning, they talk and talk about anything and everything—movies and books, politics and recipes—making out like teenagers, and then talking some more. Daniel drags Mark into the shower and says he has to strip the bed before he leaves since the movers are coming tomorrow for the last of his furniture. So they talk in the shower, and touch every place they’ve learned in the last five days, and then pull the sheets off the bed together.

The apartment is empty, leased to one of Daniel’s friends for the next nine months. All of Daniel’s things are either being shipped to London or have been put in storage, and now there are only the two of them, the bed and Daniel’s luggage at the front door. And Max, of course, racing around the wide-open spaces and barking at Mark because he knows Mark will bend to scratch behind his ears.

“Where are the sheets going?” Mark asks when they’re finished and the sheets are scrunched up in a plastic bag.

“Alexis will get them cleaned and then they’ll go to Goodwill along with the duvet. They’re getting a bit ratty to throw in storage ”

“Can I have them?” Mark asks. “Not in a creepy way or anything…” He trails off. “Actually yeah, it is creepy. I’d like to put them on my bed and be able to smell you there. That’s creepy as fuck, isn’t it?”

Daniel laughs at him and crawls across the naked mattress to kneel in front of him. “It’s romantic.”

Mark smiles into a kiss and mumbles, “What kind of laundry soap do you use?”

Daniel laughs at him, but tells him a moment later.

***

Alexis, Daniel’s assistant, turns up just before two in the afternoon. She looks Mark up and down and seems slightly confused when Daniel introduces him, but then Max trots out and she’s completely distracted. She scratches at his ribs and checks that all his things are in the box by the door.

Then Mark, fidgeting, leans into Daniel’s side and whispers. When he pulls back, Alexis is even more confused to see Daniel grinning.

“Hey, Lex,” Daniel says, stepping toward her and fixing her with his boss-eyes, something which is just a little bit sexier than Mark expected. “Mark is going to be playing godparent while I’m away.”

She arches an eyebrow and turns her gaze on Mark.

“To Max,” Daniel adds, as though that wasn’t clear.

Now Alexis is even more bemused, Mark can tell and he feels a burst of excitement. He knows Daniel hasn’t had a real boyfriend in months and months and that they weren’t really boyfriends before, just hookups; so he wonders just how many times Alexis has encountered Daniel with a significant other. He thinks maybe never, judging from the look on her face. And now Daniel is leaving and Mark is here and Mark is going to help take care of Max.

“I could take him on some weekends,” Mark adds, enthusiastic and happy, turning on all his charm and catching Dan’s eye, knowing that, at least to him, Mark’s puppy-dog eyes and his smile are gorgeous. He looks back to Alexis. “Or I could just take him for walks. If you need to go out of town or… anything. I could help.” He sounds so keen; and when Alexis looks from him to Daniel and back again, Mark’s eyes are wide and so earnest that she softens immediately.

“I don’t think I could go a whole year without seeing him,” Mark admits, and gazes at Daniel with that same soulful, loving look.

“Sounds good to me,” Alexis agrees, more intrigued than anything else. She takes Mark’s offered phone and keys in her number. “Call me tonight and we will work something out.”

“Fantastic.” Mark’s face splits into a grin.

Alexis gives Daniel another hard look, one that says she expects a bit of backstory soon, and then clips Max’s leash onto his collar. “I’ll see you when I see you!” she says to Daniel and kisses him on the cheek.

Once she’s gone, Mark crosses to behind Daniel in the suddenly empty-feeling apartment and wraps his arms around his waist. “Thank you,” he mumbles.

***

They kiss on the stoop of Daniel’s apartment building with cab waiting to take him to JFK and Mark’s phone vibrating in his pocket with calls from work. They hold hands and stand too close and when Mark mumbles, “I love you,” Daniel mumbles it back.

“I’ll see you in a year,” Mark says, beaming.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” Daniel counters. “And I’m sure I’ll see you in not too long at all.”

Mark kisses him once more and forces himself to let Daniel go.

***

Mark knows which hotel Daniel is staying at; he’s booked it for two weeks until he can find an apartment for the year. It’s lavish and expensive, and Mark wishes he could be there with him, messing up hotel sheets and staying in bed all day. He calls the hotel and a local florist and makes sure that when Daniel arrives there will be a huge bouquet of orchids, in the same turquoise-to-indigo colors that Daniel brought him, waiting on the desk in his room. He gets the florist to attach a note:

I know we’ve kind of only had the one date. But it did go on for five days. And it was pretty fantastic. Enjoy London. Call me when you can.

Your long-distance boyfriend,

Mark

xoxo

Just hours after Daniel has landed in London, Mark’s phone buzzes with a text.

Thank you for the orchids, I’m not sure how they’ll do in the London climate. Love you. xoxo Daniel

Mark isn’t sure if he’s allowed to call, but he wants to so he does. Daniel picks up on the second ring and there’s nothing in the background, just Daniel’s voice a million miles away, giddy with them still being okay.

Daniel tells him, “Those orchids, the ones I bought you, I didn’t realize it until after you’d kissed me, but they were the same color as your eyes.”

CHAPTER 14

Mark throws himself into his work once more. He takes on a few extra cases and puts in extra hours chasing down leads that will amount to nothing and doing research he really doesn’t need to do. He starts showing up first to the office and turning on the coffee machine, and being the one to hang back and order takeout. Everyone notices his transition from turning up late and sneaking out early one week to becoming the office workaholic the next. Rumors swirl, and whispers of the man Mark kissed in front of the office, but he doesn’t comment on it and no one asks.

He continues to smile, though, and starts leaving his phone on top of whichever stack of paperwork is closest to him, grinning at it whenever it vibrates.

Two weeks after Daniel leaves, he tells Emma the whole story. They’ve settled a case and—having gotten less time served than they wanted—are sitting close in a booth in the back of one of the darker bars just around the corner from the court. They’ve both already had a little too much.

“What is up with you?” Emma eventually asks, watching his lips twitch up as he stares over the rim of his glass at the wall.

Mark’s eyes snap to hers before he bats his eyelashes and smirks. “Nothin’.”

Emma whacks him on the arm and Mark sighs happily.

“Oh fine,” he says, exasperated and blushing deep crimson. “I’m in love.”

This makes Emma scoff; she’s sure he’s kidding because Emma knew him when there was a Ben and then when there wasn’t. She knows Mark likes to say that he thinks he loved him, but that he isn’t sure.

When Mark just keeps smiling, her expression shifts from incredulity to intrigue and she asks, “Seriously?”

“Very seriously,” Mark says. “His name is Daniel. I met him in my first year of high school when he tried to get me to quit the jazz band so he could be the only pianist.”

This makes Emma crack up laughing again, and Mark takes his chance to signal the barman for two more drinks and to press his still-cool tumbler against his hot cheek. When she calms down, Mark tells her the whole story.

He doesn’t stop until Emma has laughed some more and has almost cried. She has always known Mark had a way with words, and with the truth, that he could make people feel whatever he wanted them to, but this story is his best and that’s what she tells him. He agrees. He loves this story, for all its angst and ridiculousness, the way it still hurts in places and makes him blush about how silly he and Daniel have been in the past. But now there’s a twist that his friends back home, Patrick, Ben, none of them could ever have predicted: an ending that seems as if it might possibly be happy.

Emma makes him promise to bring Daniel by the offices as soon as he’s back from London, and then she kisses him on the cheek as they part ways for the evening.

***

About two months after Daniel’s departure, Mark manages to get a weekend clear. He works extra hours and begs a few favors to get the Friday afternoon off, as well as a late start on the following Monday. He gets away with it, he thinks, because the entire office is gossiping about him, his five-day first date and his year of long-distance, and most of them like him enough to want to help. Emma has told one too many people the story that Mark told her—not that he minds—and now he and Daniel are part of the office mythology.

The weekend is enough reason to delve into his small savings and book a flight to London. He checks dates with Daniel and Daniel promises he will have the entire weekend free. Mark can guess that Daniel will have to work just as hard as he has to achieve that.