Page 77 of High Notes & Hail Marys

You run your thumb over the smooth, flat surface of the button before you undo it.

“Sounds like bad planning,” you murmur. “To do all that drinking when your pants are like a straitjacket. Seems like a disaster waiting to happen.”

“I didn’t pick them,” he says. “It was Lydie.”

“Hmm.” You shake your head slowly, and sit back on your heels. “Not what I remember. I seem to recall that Lydie left four or five outfits on the rack for you. The stylists always do. You’re Sterling Grayson. Sterling Grayson always gets to choose. I think you liked those tight pants.”

He bites his lip. “I liked the color!” he protests. “The green…”

“Oh, I know you like green,” you say. “Looks so pretty with your eyes.”

Rolling his hips in your direction in a way that probably wasn’t meant to be as sexy as it is, Sterling groans. “The buttons, Kai.”

“In a minute,” you say patiently. “We’re getting to the bottom of whose fault the pants are.”

Sterling narrows his eyes. In his slightly swimmy gaze, you see a telltale flicker: the moment that this scene between the two of you goes from being a question mark to an exclamation point. Until now, you’ve just been messing with him because it’s amusing. The newness of him being drunk around you led to some charged banter. But there’s a quiver in his legs and an intensity to the way his teeth are gnawing his lip that’s telling you something. You aren’t sure where it’s going, but you are game. (For Sterling, you’re always game.)

The fourth button is halfway down the fly, and falls right at the band of Sterling’s little black silk thong. When you’d watched him getting dressed, you’d wondered if they were girls’ panties. Now, the thought excites you more than it ought to, those flimsy, slutty little drawers barely covering his dick. You know that they have to be skimpy to keep from making lines under the pants—everything’s about the stupid pants—but you now like to imagine they are for ease of access. You slip the button out, and run your hand over the bulge between his legs. Unsurprisingly, he’s not completely flaccid, his cock chubbing up slightly at this weird, hot interaction you’re having.

“Don’t,” he says. “I won’t be able to pee.”

“Wouldn’t want that,” you agree, and pull your hand away. You aren’t sure if that was ayes-no or ano-no, and it isn’t in your nature to skirt the line. Sterling looks both uncomfortable and put-out. His teeth are going to leave an indent in his plush lower lip. Your own dick is starting to take an interest in the goings-on.

“How badly do you need to piss?” you ask, the vulgarity surprising even you.

Technically, Sterling’s pants are unbuttoned far enough that he could get himself out and use the toilet. Those last three buttons stand between the two of you and god only knows what, however, and it’s a line that he won’t cross. He shifts his weight, and the tailored pants shift, too. You gaze up at the vee of his chest that’s exposed by his open shirt. At the chain around his neck, begging to be pulled like a choke collar.

“Pretty badly,” he murmurs.

You don’t move from the floor, despite the fact that the grout lines between the tiles are starting to diginto your knee.

“In college,” you say, “when we’d been drinking a lot of booze, they called itbreaking the seal.You tried not to break the seal that first time, to put off pissing for as long as you could, because, once you went, you were gonna be back in the bathroom every five minutes.”

Sterling swallows visibly. “Is that true?”

You push his shirt up from where it’s tucked into his pants, and rub your thumb over the little patch of his lower belly. Where his bladder is. Not pushing, just rubbing. There’s invisible fuzz beneath your thumb where his hair is starting to grow back. One of these days, you’re going to work up the nerve to tell him to stop waxing it, that body hair is masculine and hot. But not right now. Right now is for troubling that tiny square of skin, teasing the band of his girly little panties.

“Couldn’t tell you,” you shrug. “They don’t cover that in exercise science.”

“Are you going to finish unbuttoning my pants?” he asks, a whiny edge to his voice.

You don’t look up. “Eventually.”

“I really need to go,” he says.

“You can hold it.”

He huffs a little breath through his nose. To besweet, you unbutton Number Five. Then you lean in and replace your nose where your thumb was, just running it over his skin. You can’t help the fact that it puts your mouth right at a level with his cock, which jerks under the heat of your breath. You can smell him; the expensive cologne and the secret, musky scent of his skin.

“Stop,” he groans. “You’re making me hard.”

You pull back a bit and frame his hips with your hands. “Do you actually want me to stop? Or are you just bitching?”

“If I’m bitching,” he complains, “it’s because I need to use the toilet. C’mon, Kai.”

“Not ano-no,” you murmur, nosing his skin again. “Thought so.”

You don’t move your hands from his hips, holding him in place. You think you see one of his shiny, white shoes do a little shuffle-step.

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