Page 45 of The Moon Also Rises
“Do as you’re told, Forester.”
“Jesus,” he says on a deep exhale before obeying.
“Hop on,” I say as I stand in front of him.
“What?”
“Get on my back. I’m taking you to bed.”
Silently Jake climbs on and I piggy-back him up the steps, back through the bar and eventually up the stairs and down the corridors that lead to our room. Jake is silent throughout, and his body becomes heavier and heavier with each passing second. So much so, I assume he’s asleep but then he speaks as I turn the key in the door.
“Rami, I really don’t want to have sex with you,” he says.
“Excellent,” I say. “Those are always words I want to
hear.”
“Not because I don’t want to, but I’m suddenly very tired and suspect I’m incapable of brushing my teeth, let alone giving you a night you’ll never forget.”
I laugh at that. “Well, funnily enough, I don’t want to have sex with you either for very similar reasons.”
“How rude,” he says as I lower him onto the bed.
“But I’ll tell you this.” I move to pull his trainers off his feet. “Nobody is sleeping in the bath or on the floor. We’re going to share this bed like two sensible queer men who can keep their hands off each other.”
“I can’t believe you’re queer. But then again, the dancing should have given it away.”
“Straight people can dance,” I say as I start unbuttoning his shirt while his hands go to the fly of his trousers. It takes far too much restraint to not look at what is revealed when he slides his trousers down his thighs and kicks them away.
“Not like that,” he says as he shrugs off his shirt. This time there’s nowhere else for me to look and I take in the generous dusting of golden-brown hair that covers his toned chest and stomach. My fingers itch to touch it.
“Get into bed,” I say after swallowing. Walking into the bathroom, I quickly take off my suit and shirt, hanging it over the side of the bath. I then find my toothbrush and Jake’s and load both up with toothpaste.
“Open your mouth,” I say when I come back to Jake whose head is already on the pillow, his eyes closed. When his mouth falls open, I start to brush his teeth with my right hand while doing my own with my left; being ambidextrous does have its benefits.
“Please don’t remind me of this at work on Monday,” he says as the toothpaste starts to foam.
“I’m assuming we won’t be talking about a lot of today at work,” I say.
“Oh, yeah. Company policy, schmolicy,” Jake says around his toothbrush. “Ridiculous really. Everyone’s at it, you know. You want to know who’s fucking who? I can tell you.”
“Another time. Right now, you need sleep.” Leaving Jake’s toothbrush hanging out of his mouth, I go back to the bathroom to rinse and spit. When I return, I have the two plastic cups from the bathroom, one with water in it.
“Sit up so you can rinse,” I say as I give him the water to sip and the empty cup to spit out into. Once he’s done, he falls back on the pillow with a soft thump.
“I hope you don’t snore, Mr DJ,” he calls out through the bathroom door as I use the toilet. I roll my eyes.
“You never stop, do you?” I say as I wash my hands. But there’s no reply. He must be asleep.
As quietly as I can, I go about packing my bag and setting out some clean clothes in the bathroom so I can change quickly in the morning. I also pick up Jake’s suit and drape it all over a chair so he can find it easily tomorrow. I then plug my phone in to charge and turn out all the lights. As I get into bed, I finally look over at Jake who is almost certainly asleep. The room’s curtains are next to useless, and they let in plenty of the moonlight, allowing me to see Jake’s face at peace as he sleeps. I take in the way his eyelashes rest against the tops of his cheeks, how his nose is perfectly straight, and it makes me smile that his mouth holds a natural pout when it’s not busy talking or being pushed into one of his hundreds of expressions.
And how I loved kissing that mouth.
Granted it’s been years since I’ve kissed anyone, but I refuse to believe that is the only reason I find myself bringing my fingertips to my lips to trace where Jake’s mouth was.
Do I like Jake? Do I want to be more than friends with Jake? Even though I instantly know the answers to those questions, I am just as quick to put all these thoughts to one side, because although my life is depressingly empty, filling it with a likely unrequited crush on my colleague is hardly a healthy way to fill it.
The sigh that leaves me is a lot louder than I expect.
