“It’s not like that,” Nolan said, trying to sound as neutral as possible.
He clearly failed, because Stephen held his hands up. “All right. Unclench. Sorry to imply anything. He’s cute, that’s all. If you wanted to tap that, I’d understand.”
Well, there was that too. “How’s the book publishing biz, Stephen?”
By the time Stephen moved on and left the store without buying anything, Nolan had lost track of Grayson. Figuring he was in a fitting room, Nolan walked to the back of the store. “Grayson?”
There were three large fitting rooms in the back, each with a black door. One of those doors opened and Grayson stuck his head out. “Hey, in here. Tell me what you think of these pants.”
Nolan waited for a beat, but once he understood that he was supposed to go into the fitting room and not wait for Grayson to walk out, he sighed and followed Grayson inside.
“The pants appear to be invisible,” said Nolan.
And then Grayson was on him, pressing him against a mirror, grinding his brief-clad hips against Nolan’s, kissing Nolan like his life depended on it.
Nolan went with it for a moment, savoring the taste of Grayson and enjoying the press of Grayson’s near-naked body against his clothed one. Then he slowly pushed Grayson away. “What are you doing?”
Grayson gave Nolan another quick kiss. “I dunno. Cheering you up? You’ve seemed sad all day.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“I do want your take on this pair of pants, though.” Grayson picked up a pair of black pants with zippers in strange places and pulled them on. “Who was that guy?”
“My friend Stephen. Are you just this jealous all the time?”
“When the guy I’m with is you? Yes.”
“All right.”
“I heard you tell him we were just coworkers. Which is totally cool, by the way. I don’t need the world to know about our sex life. I just had a moment. What do you think?” Grayson modeled the pants by posing and then slowly turning in a circle.
“Your ass looks great, but I don’t like the zippers.”
“Oh. I think the zippers are cool.”
“If you like the pants, buy the pants.”
“Oh. Sure, right. I keep forgetting I have money now.” Grayson picked up a blue button-down shirt with small white polka dots. “It doesn’t really go with these pants, but do you like this shirt?” The shirt fit Grayson like a glove, showing out how surprisingly fit his thin body was.
“I do like the shirt.”
“Cool. Well, that’s something.”
And so it went for the next few minutes. Grayson must have brought half the store into the fitting room with him. He swapped out pants and shirts and sweaters and asked Nolan’s opinion. He seemed completely unselfconscious, and why shouldn’t he be? He was young and beautiful and had a great body. No gray hair, no visible scars. The only marking on his whole body was a black star about the size of a quarter tattooed on his abdomen that Nolan had been meaning to ask about.
And why not now? Grayson pulled a shirt off over his head, so Nolan stepped forward and touched the star. “What’s this?”
“Oh. Stupid drunk bet when I was nineteen. I mean, I wanted a tattoo, but I couldn’t decide what it would be, and then a friend plied me with tequila shots and took me to this place in the Village. I spent, like, an hour going through the design books and just couldn’t decide. The tattooist must have been really fed up with me, because he said, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ And I said, ‘A star.’ And that’s how that happened.” Grayson put the shirt he’d been wearing earlier back on. “I’m thinking about adding some more stars there just so it doesn’t look so lonely and weird, but I keep chickening out. Not sure if you knew this, but they put tattoos on with needles.”
“I did know that.”
“You don’t have any tattoos, so I will just say, it fucking hurts. And I’m a big wuss about pain.”
“Good to know.”
Grayson finished putting his regular clothes back on and then surveyed the damage. “Okay. I’m taking the pants, the blue shirt, and the sweater. I love this sweater. Feel how soft it is.”
Nolan reached over and touched it. It was very soft. “Cashmere?”
