Armand
Lazingin bed with Zio was becoming one of my new favorite things. Being near him brought me immense peace and satisfaction. I wasn’t in a rush to do anything, so I let him sleep after such an invigorating night.
When he stirred, it was adorable watching his sleepy mind try to process my presence. His shyness warmed my heart as he murmured, “Hi.”
“Bonne après-midi,mon petit chou.”
His smile turned into a beautiful grin. “Since you didn’t say, ‘Bonjour,’ I’m assuming I missed the morning?”
“You slept right through it.”
“Good.” He reached over and traced the outline of my jaw to brush against my stubble, then rubbed against the grain before smoothing it down. “Hmm.”
“Are you trying to decide if you enjoy that?”
“It’s different.” He continued stroking my cheek to test the roughness. “My face doesn’t do that.”
I had to bite the inside of my lip to stop myself from laughing at his innocence. “Ah, that’s because you’re abébé, and I’m practically agrand-pèrenext to you.”
“Please don’t make grandpas sexy.”
I laughed that time. “Are you worried about developing a complex about it?”
“No, but if you keep it up, then I might have a reason to be concerned.” His expression turned pensive. “I had a girlfriend who always called me ‘babe.’ Ihatedit. But when you call me ‘bébé,’ it makes me happy. Why?”
“Perhaps it’s more palatable in my French accent?”
“Maybe. It helps you aren’t whining it at me, too. She whined abouteverything. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He scowled at the memory before frowning. “Actually, that’s not true.”
I rubbed my thumb over his eyebrows to smooth the stress lines away. “You were younger back then. We all made mistakes, me included.”
It broke my heart to see sorrow overtake him. “I’m such an idiot.”
“Not at all.”
“I didn’t date anyone in high school because my social anxiety was worse back then, if you can believe that. My parents assumed I was closeted because I never expressed an interest in girls, and it bugged the hell out of me.” He huffed in annoyance.
It was easy to connect the dots from there. “You dated her to prove you weren’t gay?”
“If I did that on a subconscious level, it backfired. I was miserable while I was with Sammie, so they used that as more evidence that I wasn’t straight.” He curled up on himself, so I reached out to stroke his arm in comfort. “I met my second girlfriend in Japan, but my parents were convinced Mayumi was a figment of my imagination, especially since they never met her because she lived in Japan. It was only after I brought home my third girlfriend, Hyuna, to meet them that they finally believed me. And now they’ll think they were right this whole time.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Only in the sense that two people who don’t know me at all somehow knew that about me before I did.” He sighed before reaching out to trail his fingers along the length of my collarbone to my shoulder, then down my arm. “I’m so stupid. I was so determined to prove them wrong, it never occurred to me they might be right. Mom tells her friends I work in finance because she can’t be bothered to understand what I study. Dad says I’m an attorney because he’s embarrassed that I’m pursuing something as ‘worthless’ as art. How could they know more about my sexuality than me?”
I captured his hand in mine to squeeze. “It’s not that they knew more about it than you. Sexuality has a fluidity to it that can shift as we learn more and grow. At that time, they were wrong. But you’re not the same person now that you were then. Things change, sometimes in the most unexpected ways.”
He traced the length of my fingers with his. “Have you always known you were interested in men?”
“As an unabashed hedonist, I only cared about pursuing pleasure in whatever form it took.” As he followed the lines on my open hand, it reminded me of palm readers. Did he see his future with me?
He didn’t quite meet my gaze. “Does that mean you’ve slept with women, too?”
“Oui, I’ve been with people of all types across the gender spectrum, because pleasure isn’t limited to the male-female binary for me. All I cared about was making myself and my partner feel good, no matter what body they possessed.”
He gazed at me with a curious expression. “You really don’t care if it’s a man or woman?”
“Non. ‘Either, neither, or both’ has always been my philosophy when it comes to my partner’s gender. Pleasure is pleasure, regardless of the form it takes. My only requirements were someone had to be of age and consented. Everything else is details.”
