Page 45 of In Frame
Leo Whyte would never equivocate or avoid confessions of desire. Wants laid open and transparent and unafraid. Held out with both hands.
One of those wants had been calling Sam from bed. Sam’s gut, and other places, tingled with heat. “Also in bed. Notinbed, I mean, it’s early, just here for, um, privacy. The door locks. To my bedroom.” His sentence got distracted by the mental picture of Leo in bed, the bed where they’d made love, curled up and sipping hot chocolate.
He wanted to keep Leo warm and cuddle away all the tiredness. He also wanted to roll Leo over into rainbow pillowsand taste chocolate-flavored kisses, and then get his mouth into other places and make Leo scream his name.
He poked his blanket again just for something to do, some motion, a fiddling with toes.
“So we’re both in bed,” Leo mused, the lifted eyebrows audible. “And you’ve got a locked door. I’ve never had phone sex with a man—well, obviously not, since you’re my first—but I’m not opposed to trying.”
Sam’s foot kicked the blanket off the end of the bed.
“That is, if you’d like,” Leo finished. “Though I don’t know how much time you’ve got.”
“I have time! Um. I mean. Yeah, I—I would, of course I would, but you don’t have to, either.” The blanket-blob eyed him with some reproach, from the floor. “You don’t have to do anything you’re not up for. And you did say you had a question. It wasn’t about phone sex, was it…?”
Leohadsaid that. And any questions took priority. Not Sam’s dick, which had some opinions on this subject too.
“Oh, I want to.” Leo paused for a sip of hot chocolate. “I like the idea of exploring that with you. But yes, I did have a question. So…first, you’re not busy next week, are you? Or are you? Other assignments and such? Because this may not work after all, though I’d like to think we could sort it out. I’m good at arranging things, sometimes.”
“Um…nothing definite. And yeah, you are. Why?” Atlanta, maybe, but not officially yet. If Leo wanted to know his schedule—Leo would be in America, in California, forthatpremiere—if Leo wanted…
Possibilities spun like tops in a hurricane: candy-colored, dancing, tantalizing. He couldn’t dare to reach out for one. “Leo?”
“Sorry, I’m here, just…having emotions for a second. About possible things. Like dandelion fluff, only in a whirlwind.Right, yes. So I talked to Colby and Jason. Earlier, not during the press carnival. After you left, I mean.”
“Okay…”
“The thing is,” Leo said, as usual with refreshingly straightforward candor, “I did rather want someone to talk to, I realized, about the sudden arrival of sex-with-a-man desires in my life. And you were on a plane, and in any case that might’ve turned into phone sex atthatpoint, and I wanted to talk to someone who wouldn’t immediately distract me by being incredibly desirable, and Colby and Jason know about managing sexuality and coming out and our profession.”
Sam bit his lip. Hard. Arousal ebbed in the face of those words. Leo’d needed to talk to someone, hadn’t been fine, after all. “Are you…um, doing okay? Can I help?”
“Oh, I’m wonderful.” Leo sounded confident. Sam exhaled again. Leo went on, “A bit of self-reevaluation, but I’m starting to figure out that in retrospect me looking at men’s mouths and thinking about how nice they’d feel probably should’ve been a clue. Jason says it’s all right to still be sorting it out, to not feel as though I need to rush into a label or anything like that, though I suspect it’s something like bi or pansexual. I’ll say as much when I tell my mum and dad, tomorrow.”
“Sorry, when youwhat?”
“It’s not as if I’m not going to tell them! Er…I know not everyone does run off to tell their parents first thing, of course. But I want to. We do tell each other most things. But that was part of my question. Would you like me to also mention you? Or…that’s getting ahead of the rest of the question. I should finish asking first.”
Of course Leo Whyte told his parents everything. Of course this wouldn’t be a secret. Leo would be himself, the way he always was. Standing in front of the world and baring that heart.
That courage left Sam a little stunned, a little spun around. Hurricanes and whirlwinds reemerging.
Leo did keep secrets, he decided in the wake of the spinning. Or one secret. Had to do with loneliness. With breakability. With the knowledge that everyone else saw the jokes, the pranks, the top hats and interview-crashing, and then assumed the surface covered up nothing more.
With a wistful smile into a teacup. And hesitant delight in hazel eyes, at being seen.
Somewhere in there he’d made a choice. He knew he had, though he wasn’t sure he could put it into words. But he knew.
He sat up more, back against the old battered pine of the headboard. He said, “You can mention me. I’d be honored.” His voice scraped, rough with the truth of it. “Just tell me what you want me to be. A friend, or…more. Whatever you want.”
“Yes, well…” Leo drew a breath, let it out. “That’s the second part. If I had a—an offer—well, really it’s Colby’s offer, but he’s doing it for us…it’d bring you to Los Angeles…would you be interested?”
“You’re gonna have to explain that some more, I think?” Colby? ColbyKent? Making him some sort of…offer?
“I told Colby and Jason that I wanted to see you again,” Leo said, clear and simple, as if it could be simple, “and Colby asked whether you liked your current job, and I said it was a bit complicated, and he offered to give you exclusive access to follow him and Jason around in Los Angeles for a week or so and document their life together, on the condition that all your photos remain your pictures, your property, and any money you make from them is all yours.”
Sam nearly fell off his bed. Would’ve, if he hadn’t been more or less sitting in the middle, against the headboard. It propped him up while he forgot how to breathe.
“Oh, and they’d like copies of any they particularly like, ifyou wouldn’t mind,” Leo heaped atop that. “Not a condition, but a request.”
