Mason laughed low, then let go of David’s hand and backed away. After a few more seconds, his voice came out a lot clearer and louder. “Well, you think you’re ready to take a look, or you want to just move on?”
David tapped his chin. “Tempting as it might be to just move along, I think I’d like to at least take a look at my place. See if I need to hold you to account for anything.”
“Well, I’m glad you have so much faith in us.” He heard some footsteps and felt body heat move in next to him, along with a familiar cologne. Mason had stepped up right next to him. “Let’s get that blindfold off and we’ll show you around.”
David didn’t wait for any further confirmation of the plan before he peeled the fabric up and away from his eyes. It took a bit for his eyes to adjust, but he still recognized the hallway leading to his condo, and it wasn’t long before the open door clarified enough for him to make it out.
Then it was a flood. As he’d seen, the door had been left open, so he was met right away with a look inside. The floor was the same fawn-colored faux-hickory, but it seemed to catch and reflect more of the light than usual. David couldn’t help but smile as he stepped over the threshold, remembering the reveal at the very beginning, and the water damage that had made the floor too dangerous to even start working on the place.
Everything seemed to be in the same place—there was only so much that could be done with the layout of a condo, after all—but it had a new level of polish, completion, and grandeur. The front door opened straight into the kitchenette, which was now bedecked with hammered copper and a waterfall-edge island. Even the fridge was copper, and David wasn’t even sure if theymade them like that. His eyes darted around the entire space. There was a pot filler faucet behind a new, electric range, a deep farmhouse sink, and even a brand new set of knives.
Mason moved ahead of him and pressed gently on one corner of an overhead cabinet. “We went with these easy open options. Nice, modern, sleek look so that all the copper finishings can be the real star of the show.
“I don’t know.” David walked up to the cabinet, which had just swungupwardlike the doors on a DeLorean. He pressed on the one next to it. There was a tiny click—physical, not audible—and then that one rose up as well. It was impressive, but Daviddidclock a problem right away. “Is there one of those rolling library ladders so I can climb up and close them?”
Mason stared at him, then grabbed David’s hand and led it up to the bottom edge of the cabinet. David felt a tiny, shallow button. When he pressed it, a white LED flashed a couple times, and then the cabinet slowly, silently closed itself.
“We’re professionals. We thought of that..” Mason gestured out of the kitchen, toward the living room, where Evander was standing next to…David’s old couch.
Ev walked up, hands on his hips, and grinned. “This place might look familiar, but what can I say? I know good taste when I see it.” He ran his hand along the curved back of David’s turquoise sofa. “Now, we did spruce up a few things here and there. Including getting you a better TV, and actually getting your couch cleaned. You wouldn’tbelievethe grime that had settled into those cushions.”
“I would, actually. I know what I’ve used that couch for.” Which sounded way more sexual than he intended—he had a tendency to sit on that couch when he was covered in glue or ink or paint before thinking about it—but David didn’t bother to correct or clarify himself.
“Well, if you want to take a real look at it, why don’t we open up these curtains?”
Mason approached again, pressing a black remote into David’s hand. “There’s also an app that you can use to control this and all the other smart home stuff I sneaked into this place if you want it, but I like to make sure everything has its own dedicated remote.”
David looked over the remote and found the button to open. So he pressed it. All the curtains began to slid apart, revealing the familiar look out onto Elliot Bay with the sun sinking lower, the ocean dyed from gray to shades of apricot and cherry.
They also revealed Bunny standing on newly redecorated balcony. Mason took the remote, his fingers lingering a breath longer than was probably necessary, then pushed his shoulder gently. “Go. We’ll be here when you’re all done.”
Chapter thirty-seven
Mason
Waitinginthemastersuite was…hard. Mason wanted to jump out there, spend as much time as possible with David exploring the condo. Of course, he was also hoping that everyone else would leave the two of them alone and take the cameras with them, which wasn’t realistic.
So he, Robinson, and Jake all waited there, Jake and Mason in the bedroom proper, and Robinson in the doorway to the bathroom.
Jake clapped a hand on Mason’s shoulder, pulling him into a sidelong hug. “Don’t worry. You two can have the bedroom to yourselves pretty soon.”
Mason rolled his eyes…but he couldn’t rightly deny that was exactly what he was looking for. “I just hope you made the bed frame sturdy enough. In case we toss and turn too much in our sleep.”
Robinson snorted a laugh. “Right. Sleep is the problem.”
“As far as any ofyouneed to know, we’re perfectly chaste. We sleep in footie pajamas with a wall of pillows between us so nothing accidentally gay happens.”
Jake took a step back and looked him up and down. “Is that before or after he sits on your face?”
“After the face-sitting, before the blow jobs. But not in a homosexual way, that’s for sure.”
Before anyone else could say anything, the bedroom door opened. Mason took a step forward as Robinson sank back into the bathroom. Bunny and Aras handed David off and Mason took him with a smile. It was a hell of a thing, seeing the purejoyon his face as his gaze traveled around the room. Everyone had their own reactions to the results of these jobs, but this one was the closest to unadulterated happiness and excitement that Mason could remember.Or I’m biased. Surely not, though.
David slowed as he entered the room, and when he stretched his neck up to look at the new light fixture—a lotus-shaped pendant that cast curving, overlapping brightness through the room—Mason couldn’t help but look at his throat, think about latching his mouth to David’s neck and sucking until there was a big, unmistakable hickey on it. David was his, after all. Mason wasn’t typically the possessive type, but it felt like they weresoclose to finally being together, with no other pressures looming. He wanted to see what they were like when there was no job pushing in on them. Just the two of them together.
Mason was so caught up in his own thoughts—and in keeping himself from bricking up on camera—that he missed most of the room tour. Jake was showing him the under-bed storage, which was actually made with angled drawers so they wouldn’t get blocked in by nightstands, and that angel gave Mason a good view of the paintings still hung up above the headboard. Three paintings.His first time. His first heartbreak. The guy whowanted to make money off their relationship.Now that Mason knew the stories behind the paintings—at least in broad terms—he picked up a new depth from them. Undeniably, they were still erotic. Each of them was clearly a nude male form, no matter how gestural and abstract they were.
But the first one seemed to have more of an innocence to it. The sweeping lines of the hips were halting, and the penis was only vaguely depicted, halfway hidden behind a stroke of black paint that didn’t appear to be any part of anyone’s anatomy. The second one, the lines were all angular, and splotches of green and metallic gold peered through. What passed for a facial expression, in the rough linework, was half moan, half sneer. The third was done mostly in red paint instead of black, and this face had the most definition of all. The guy was smiling, his arms spread wide, head tilted slightly back so David could paint in an Adam’s apple and lines of muscle running from the sides. He was also the most fully on display downstairs, erection very plain. Plain enough that, even with the more lax content rules for this show, Mason wasn’t sure they’d be able to showthatuncensored in the final cut.
