Page 2 of Skeletons in the Closet

Smoking helped me think. It relieved anxiety. It calmed my jumpy nerves. Some days, I wondered if I wasn’t better off risking lung cancer.

Checking the glove compartment for the third time, confirming I was fresh out of Nicorette, I sighed, making a mental note to stop at a store on the way home. My doctor had suggested a stupid kid’s toy, something called a fidget spinner, for when I was anxious, but I’d left it on my desk at the office. I hated to admit the damn thing helped, but it did.

When I used it.

“Go inside and talk to him or go the fuck home. Simple as that.”

I did neither.

Another hour passed as I stared at the back door to the building, envisioning myself entering the lobby and buzzing Tallus’s apartment, explaining over the intercom why I was suddenly showing up after six months of silence. The conversation in my head went about as well as I expected it might. Three hundred kilometers an hour into a brick wall.

But then I envisioned Tallus letting me in, riding the elevator to the seventh floor, and knocking on his door. From there, mythoughts spun wild, revisiting the first and only time I’d been inside his apartment. To the white robe he’d been wearing, to the playful look in his eyes, to the feel of his mouth on my cock before I buried myself in his ass, and to his obvious disappointment when it had been a less than satisfactory exchange.

Hello, brick wall. We meet again.

Growling, ejecting those miserable and embarrassing thoughts from my mind, I flicked through radio stations. Unable to find anything bearable, I turned it off. I scrolled Spark, the dating app I used when I needed to scratch an itch. Three messages awaited attention in my inbox. All three were big fat nos, so I deleted them. My size attracted too many daddy-seeking twinks, and the mere notion soured my gut.

For a short while, I browsed profiles, but no one stood out. Every single person was lacking in one way or another. I’d had the same issue six months ago when Tallus Domingo had preoccupied my every thought and fucked with my libido.

“And now look where you’re at. Way to fucking go, moron. You’re a no-good fucking idiot. Shit for brains. Good-for-nothing.”

Dr. Peterson’s face appeared inside my mind, and I curbed the self-recrimination.

I closed the dating app and tossed the phone on the passenger seat. Tipping my head back, I closed my eyes and tried formulating the sentences required to politely ask for Tallus’s help. No snarling. No grunting. No demanding.The embarrassing fuck we shared doesn’t matter. It’s in the past. He probably won’t remember it.

Ten minutes later, I was still in the Jeep.

Shortly after nine thirty—three days and three hours into my new habit of creeping the sexy records clerk under the pretenseof requiring his help—Tallus emerged from the back parking lot door and headed toward his Jetta.

I sat straighter, fingers tightening on the steering wheel. The air in my lungs solidified. But, once again, Tallus was too busy typing something on his phone to notice the Jeep not twenty feet away. He passed right by as clueless as earlier.

Gone were the fitted trousers and mauve dress shirt. Gone was the silky silver tie. He wore black designer jeans with pre-torn holes down each leg, shiny Doc Martens, and a flashy, silky, skin-tight buttoned shirt with a patterned design in various shades of bright purple, turquoise, pink, and black. The top three or four buttons were undone, exposing a great deal of his smooth chest. The balmy end-of-May weather meant he didn’t wear a coat, and I was not sad.

Every chiseled curve was on display, and I stared shamelessly.Goddamn.Not for the first time, I thought Tallus was in the wrong business. The guy was model material. If he had a calendar, I’d buy one for every wall of my shitty apartment and an extra to keep beside the bed because why the fuck not?

The only missing accessory was his dark-framed glasses, and I mourned their absence. Tallus’s glasses tipped him over the edge from seriously good-looking to knee-weakening, stomach-floppingly gorgeous.

He got into the Jetta and pulled out of the lot. Despite knowing how inappropriate my actions were, I followed—like I’d been doing for the past three days. At some point, I would get my head out of my ass and confront him.

But as it stood, I needed to know where he was going at almost ten o’clock at night.

The sun had set less than an hour ago—a bonus of the approaching summer. Not fully black, the sky had darkened to an inky cobalt, smearing indigo on the opposite horizon. In the city, it was rare to see many stars, and that night was nodifferent. A hazy, muted glow from streetlights and illuminated storefront windows hung over the city, reflecting off a thin veil of low-hanging clouds. The sliver of a rising moon drifted in and out of sight.

Traffic was steadier than expected. Trailing four car-lengths behind, I had to pay attention so I wouldn’t lose Tallus as he weaved between cars, driving faster than the posted limit.

Only when he passed an overcrowded cinema did it register that it was Friday night.

No wonder it was busier on the road.

No wonder Tallus was heading out, dressed to the nines. Did he have a date?

What was I doing? I needed to turn around and quit this nonsense.

When he pulled into the parking lot of Toronto’s most prominent gay nightclub, Gasoline, I wasn’t surprised. What shocked me was the twist of irritation in my gut, knowing Tallus was likely on the hunt for some weekend fun. A bed partner.

I shouldn’t have cared. Tallus was young, attractive, and single—so far as I knew. Why shouldn’t he dance, drink, and invite some stranger home? If the mere idea of crowds and conversation didn’t make my skin crawl, I’d likely spend my Friday nights doing the same. As it stood, I was better off with a discreet app and a phone screen as a barrier while I decided what kind of encounter I was prepared to handle.

Tallus parked and got out of the car. I wanted to power down the window and call his name, distract him from his goal. I wanted to interrupt the flow of his night, so he didn’t head inside. So some other man didn’t get to touch him like I craved.

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