Page 25 of Poolside

“About what?”

“Alex.”

Chuck was lost. “Alex?”

“Alexander the Great,” Tommy clarified, like that should have been obvious. “You know, I think he was bisexual. Of course, they didn’t use that term back then, but based on what I’ve read, some scholars say a lot of men back in ancient Greece were a little more…open minded about who they were intimate with.”

Of all of the things Chuck had been expecting, the revelation that an ancient historical figure was bisexual wasnotwhere he’d thought Tommy was going. But now that it was out there he couldn’t say he wasn’t curious. “What do the other scholars say?”

“That men in ancient Greece were just really good friends.”

Chuck laughed, throwing his head back even as they kept on kicking, the sounds of their splashing feet fading into the background.

“But back to Alex,” Tommy went on. “He had a male lover—his best friend, Hephaestion, and when he died Alex apparently lost his shit. Threw himself over his body and cried for a whole day. His men had to drag him away.”

“That’s fucking sad, man.”

Tommy made a low humming sound. “Yeah, but I just thought it was cool, you know. That dudes have been loving each other for a really long time.”

Chuck pressed his lips together, trying to contain his amusement. But he lost the fight a second later as a loud, sputtering laugh burst from him.

“What?” Tommy asked.

“That was both the sweetest and dumbest shit I’ve ever heard you say,” Chuck managed to get out, his smile so wide that his cheeks ached.

“So.” Tommy’s voice shifted to a lower register. “That big guy you took home from the bar.”

Chuck swallowed, his mind flashing to standing in his living room with his pants around his ankles and having his dick sucked. “Yeah?”

“Is he your type?”

He had to look at Tommy, to see for himself what kind of question he was asking. But as he looked at Tommy’s face, he saw the solid set of his jaw and the honest interest in his eyes, like maybe he was actually curious about what kind of man Chuck wanted.

“I don’t really have a type,” Chuck admitted, turning back to look at the icy blue of the water in front of them. “It’s more about personality for me.”

Tommy’s brows furrowed. “But what do you think is hot?”

Well, that made Chuck’s mouth dry. Really fucking dry. He definitely couldn’t look at Tommy now, not if he was going to answer honestly. “Competence. Kindness. Honesty. Muscles.”

“Muscles?”

Chuck flexed his fingers where he gripped the foam board. “Yeah. Like a solid back and defined pecs and all the normal shit guys are into. Bulk, you know, and,” he decided right then he could let out another little bit of truth, “back dimples are hot as fuck.”

“Oh shit!” Tommy’s mouth pulled up into a grin. “I’ve got those!” He jerked his chin back over his shoulder, like Chuck didn’t know that Tommy’s back dimples like the back of his own hand, like he hadn’t noticed them years before and thought about how it would feel to place his thumbs over them as he wrapped his hands around Tommy’s torso.

It was beyond time for a subject change. “How are your legs feeling?”

“They fucking burn.”

“Swimming is actually a workout, you know,” Chuck teased.

“You think I don’t know that? You’ve got the nicest body of the whole group. Better than Keaton’s—all that lawyering is making him soft.”

Thank fuckthey were reaching the end of the pool. Thank fuck it was their final lap. Because Chuck could feel his neck heating and itchiness under his skin spreading at the thought of Tommy noticing him, paying attention to his body and categorizing it asnice.

He let out a breath of relief when the front of his kick board nudged the wall, and then tossed it up on the side. “Put your board up here,” he told Tommy. “Let’s put in a few more laps doing basic freestyle. Focus on the changes to your breathing and how you were moving your head. You should breathe every other stroke—no reason to not have enough air. Do the first two laps at about 50% effort, and then for the final two try to up it to 100%.”

Chuck hopped up to sit on the edge of the pool as Tommy took off. His stroke still wasn’t good, and it definitely wasn’t pretty, but he looked a little bit better. At least his head wasn’t coming up out of the water every time.

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