Hard Tail(34)

I ate my lunch (yellow rice salad with prawns; a sort of cold paella that tasted of sunshine and made me yearn for a holiday in Spain) sitting alone at the counter. It was a nice day, so I'd encouraged Matt to go out and get a bit of sun, rather than stay cooped up inside with me. While his well-being had genuinely been a motive, I'd also wanted some time to think things through, and his presence was very definitely a distraction. I couldn't deny it to myself any longer-I was falling for Matt.

Or was I? If I was brutally honest with myself, was I just fixating on the first openly gay bloke I'd ever spent any length of time with? My heart screamed No!-but then, what did it know? It hadn't exactly had a lot of experience over the years. I'd never felt this way about anyone-at least, not since my teenage years when I'd had a crush on an older boy that had first clued me in to my not-quite-straightness. I'd seen men I fancied since then, of course-but that had all been about their bodies and yes, all right, their cocks. With Matt …  I just kept thinking about his smile, and the way his eyes crinkled up at the corners, and that shaggy brown mop of his that was just made for running your fingers through.

Why the hell did the first bloke I seriously thought might be worth coming out of the closet for have to be unavailable?

Maybe Steve would meet an untimely end, I mused hopefully. Trampled to death by a herd of rampaging New Forest ponies, perhaps. Or gorged to extinction on a surfeit of Matt's gourmet cooking. Perhaps not that-I wouldn't want Matt feeling guilty about it. I sighed and speared a prawn with my fork, wishing it was Steve's body I was impaling on those stainless steel tines …  God, what was I thinking? If I really cared about Matt, I wouldn't want him to be unhappy. And I was fairly sure that mourning the untimely death of a live-in lover was likely to be a bit of a downer, at least for a day or two.

Maybe … maybe I should just go for it? Coming out, I meant, not jumping on Matt (down boy! I told my libido sternly). Maybe I'd find a bloke who could stop me fixating on Matt. Someone like …  I searched my mind for gay men I knew. All I could come up with was a mental image of Adam. He looked even more ape-like in my imagination. At least, I was fairly sure his knuckles didn't really scrape the floor as he walked. Yeah, right. Me and Adam. Like that was ever going to happen.

But someone else, maybe? The trouble was, coming out as gay-or even bi; I'd been married to a woman so I could probably pull that one off-was so bloody final. A huge, irreversible step: a Rubicon for our times. I couldn't escape the thought that Caesar's crossing of that little dried-up river had technically involved a death sentence. If I couldn't have Matt, was it really worth taking all the risks involved? Worth upsetting my family for, and probably mortifying Kate? 

By the time I'd finished my lunch, barely restraining myself from licking the plastic tub clean-it was that good-I still hadn't reached a conclusion, and my head was starting to ache. I was glad when the bell jangled, relieving me from having to think about it anymore-although as it was Matt returning from his lunch break, my thoughts weren't any less confused.

"Had a good break?" I asked, peering at him. "You know, I'd swear you're browner than when you went out. Or you've picked up a few more freckles or something."

He grinned, adding dimples to the already scarily adorable mix. "Yeah, I've been out in the park behind the library. Found a quiet corner and took my shirt off. Got to take any chance you can to get a tan in this country."

I swallowed. My mind conjured up an image of a half-naked Matt that was so detailed another part of me clamoured to give it a standing ovation.

"You know, you should get out sometime," Matt continued, oblivious to my piquant discomfort. "Not tomorrow, obviously, as it's half day-but Thursday maybe? If it's nice, I mean. I could easily mind the shop for you."

"I'm not sure the people of Totton want to be treated to the sight of me with my shirt off in the park," I said drily.

Matt laughed. "Why not? I mean, I wouldn't mind-" He broke off abruptly, probably at the look on my face. "Sorry. That was … sorry." He took a deep breath. "I'll be out back."

I stared after him. Had he meant what I thought he'd meant?

He couldn't have … could he? I looked down at my skinny chest. Underneath my shirt, it was the sort of luminous white the makers of biological washing powders could only dream of.

Matt had probably just meant he could do with a good laugh.

***

The two men who walked in the door half an hour later were an unlikely pair of friends, I thought. One of them was a bit on the tubby side, wearing glasses and a nervous smile that peeked through his scruffy beard. The other-well, the only reason I could think of for him hanging around with The Beard was to make himself look better by comparison. Except he really didn't need to. He was younger than the other guy; hotter, blonder-well, think of any positive descriptive term you can, and add "er" and you've got the general idea. If he wasn't a model, he ought to be. The only thing I didn't like about him so much was his eyes-they were quick, sharp and icy cold. They made a brief pass over me, then turned back to the bikes, obviously not finding me worth lingering over.