9. EVERETT

I used to have a tough time asking for what I wanted. I just did things without the help of anyone else. My brain was so self-centric, I could often forget other people were around. I had to take full blame and accountability for that, but with Bryce, I wanted to do things with him, or for him. We shared a shower, he washed my back, I washed him, no need for a large back loofah and do it alone. And then we shared a bed, our bodies entwined for an entire eight hours of uninterrupted bliss. I was usually a restless sleeper, moving around, left and right, trying to find comfortable positions. Bryce eliminated all of that. Unless he moved in the night, we'd slept undisturbed.

Bryce continued to sleep when I woke. I left him in bed as I gathered my clothes and went through my phone, getting back to the texts I'd ignored from Daniel and Mark. They both wanted updates on where I was going to be this morning. I was just after eight. A later start for me than usual, but I wasn't planning on going anywhere, unless Bryce asked me.

Daniel was immediately responding back to me.

— Mark isn't going to let me work unless you're there. Come on. You got laid. You can come in now. You've done the good part.

Sexual intimacy was a bonus, but it wasn't everything.

— I'm not coming in. Mark has my support when I'm not there. But I offered you work, so do the work. You're both adults. Don't make me come in. Otherwise I won't be anyone's friend. Got it.

I left my phone as Daniel appeared to type up a storm from the appearance of the bubbles at the bottom of the screen.

Usually, I'd warn myself off snooping, but that was when it was online. For his apartment, I allowed myself some leeway to snoop for coffee, or at least some food. I had an idea of what I wanted to present to Bryce when he woke up. Unfortunately, his cupboards were bare, except for cans of tomato soup and his fridge only had bread and cheese.

Just as I received Daniel's message, I switched out of the app. I knew how to do one other thing that might put a smile on Bryce's face when he woke up. A breakfast order, except, I didn't know what his breakfast order was. From the delivery app, I scrolled through items. I made sure to order a couple different coffee drinks, with some marshmallows and sprinkles separately. To the order, I added a couple breakfast bagels. I wish I could've got a clue to the type of breakfast he ate. He didn't milk or cereal so they both seemed to be off the menu.

Daniel's text flashed up as a notification again.

— Please send him a message then. Send someone a message to let them know I'll be there. I don't want a repeat of last time when I was escorted out of the building. I had to come back an hour later as well, and it would save everyone a lot of time and money.

Of course, he mentioned money, but I wasn't going to respond. I hadn't had my morning coffee yet, and I'd just had the best night of my life in a while. There was no room for anyone to ruin that, it didn't matter how long they'd been friends with me for.

As the delivery got closer and I got dressed in yesterday's clothes, I looked around for a key. I'd ordered the delivery to his building, but I'd left the floor and apartment number off the order. It was far too early to think of that and the address was still fresh after giving it to my driver last night.

Without a key, I wouldn't be able to let myself back in. I used the genius idea of keeping the door propped open with a shoe while I went down to meet the delivery driver with the food. What could wrong?

The delivery driver handed off the brown bag of food and a cardboard carrier with four small coffees of differing variety. It wasn't until I reached the top floor that I realized I didn't remember which apartment was his, and none of the doors were being propped open by a shoe.

My idea of breakfast was a bold one, the execution of it fell only slightly flat. My eye twitched as I looked up and down the hallway. I had no clue which apartment was his, nothing discerned it from the others. Not even a trail of—the light hit the ground just right, showing me the glitter that took me right to the front door.

I knocked once.

No answer.

I knocked twice.

Wrapped in a blanket, Bryce answered the door. "Yeah?" he rubbed his sleepy eyes. "Oh. You—"

"I went for breakfast," I said. "And coffee. Well, I actually only went downstairs."

"Downstairs?"

"Yeah. I ordered. I couldn't find your key to—"

He chuckled, pulling the door open wider for me to enter. "I heard the door bang, and I just assumed you'd left," he grumbled.

"That would be awful way to leave," I said.

"I guess I'll delete the text I was about to send my friends," he said with a big smirk. "I'm kidding. I figured you were a busy hot shot anyway."

"Well, I tried to keep a shoe in the door."

"The door is heavy, I think it's a fire one. You can't really prop them open with a shoe." He cocked his head, looking at my hands. "Uh."

I placed the bag and drinks on the counter. "I know what you're thinking. Four coffees, what a caffeine junkie. That's not the case. I didn't know what to get you. I should've asked. So, I got a double espresso shot. A cappuccino, a latte, and a mocha. All the varieties. And—" I opened the bag. "Ta-da!" Two see-through containers with mini-marshmallows and sprinkles. "I figured if it was all wrong, these would help."

"All coffee is good coffee," he said, hugging the blanket tighter around his naked body. "And you're right, those do help. What else is in the bag?"

"Breakfast bagels."

"Mhmm."

"So, I got two things right." I gave myself a pat on the back, as much as I could touch my back, which wasn't a lot.

Bryce got dressed in some sweatpants and a t-shirt before sitting on the sofa with me. I prepared the bagels on plates for us. "I'm sure you've got somewhere else to be soon," he said.

"Unless you want to do something else," I said, trying not to appear desperate. I wanted to explore what we had, assuming there was actually something there. "I'm open all day, if you do." I handed him a plate with the sliced bagel. The cream cheese and salmon threatening to come away from the bread.

"Really?" he asked, grabbing my arm. "Ok, so if you want, there's this vinyl sale happening at a record store I wanted to check out. I do most of my mixing digitally, but obviously, nothing beats the way music sounds on vinyl, in my opinion, it's got texture to it."

"I don't know much about music," I admitted. "But I'd love to come and see it."

"Assuming you want to go and get changed first," he said. "Or, you can raid my clothes. We're a similar height and stuff."

What Bryce was wearing now had been a style I was heavily into when I was just starting out. It was comfort clothing. I didn't own much comfort clothing now. Everything was tailored. "I think I'd like to see what clothes are hiding in your dresser," I said. "In the spirit of being open, I did go around your apartment, but in fairness, I was looking for food or coffee."

He laughed. "I can be like a maze when all the drapes are down." He took his first bite of his bagel and moaned. My cock twitched, recalling the sounds he was making last night while I was inside him. It should've been criminal to have these feelings so early in the morning.

"You're telling me." I wiped the cream cheese from the edge of his lip and licked my finger clean. "You'll have to show me the parts of the apartment I missed."

"It's deceptively big," he said. "I mean, you'll see what I mean. Did you look at my music equipment?" He asked between bites. "Not sure how much you know about music tech."

"Absolutely nothing. The music you played last night sounded familiar though," I said. "It's like something I listen to in my office."

"I made those beats myself," he said. "I have a beat machine. It looks like one of those dance mats with like colorful buttons. You push them and obviously beats come out." Bryce was visibly excited talking about music. He finished his bite and rushed off to the corner of his room where all his tech was neatly laid out. "Usually, I have the output set to my computer or to the equipment I'm using." It was a large rectangular object with small square buttons laid out across it in all directions. Some of them had torn pieces of white tape and symbols written over them. The moment he turned it on in his lap, all the buttons lit up in an array of different neon colors.

"I'm not going to lie, it looks fun," I said. "Like one of those memory games."

"Sometimes it feels like one. Trying to remember what's programmed where. I know this one is a kick drum. And there are a couple settings. One is looping, another is echo. It just helps create beats." He gestured with it in my direction. "Press something."

I wiped my mouth before putting the plate on the coffee table. "I'm not creatively inclined," I admitted. "I don't think it'll sound good."

"Lucky for you, you're just pressing buttons." He giggled.

There was some weight to the item as it sat in my lap. As I pressed a button, it lit up yellow and a sharp tisk came out. "Ok. And you know what they all are?"

He shrugged and nodded, filling his mouth with more bagel.

I went across the pad, pressing each of the buttons. Some of them were vocal, others instruments. Some were fast, others drawn out. It must've taken real skill and talent for him to do this. I was impressed. "I guess this makes more sense for what I saw about you online."

"Oh, we haven't talked about that. What did you find out about me?"

Spilling my truth to him, I told him all about the computer which operated background checks on a smaller scale. He stared back at me, unblinking before a big smile formed acorss his face.

"Can you do that on my friends?" he asked. "I think it would be funny to pull up pictures of them from like their high school graduation or something and sprinkle into conversation stuff. I bet they'd be super shocked. But I could just play it off like psychic abilities."

"You're missing the part where I got a friend to look at your information," I said. "In all honesty, I hate surprises, I like to know what I'm letting myself in for. My mind was made up about you when I saw that you'd been a part of the Playhouse Club before."

"And I left," he said. "Out of curiosity. Do you think we would've ever met if I'd kept going?"

An easy answer. I shook my head. "Nope. I never went. Well, a handful of times, but it was always overwhelming for me. Too many people were there at all times. And I much prefer my one-on-one time with people."

Bryce wore his emotions on his face, which was nice, because I could sense where the direction of any conversation was going, or he was just good at wearing a mask like that. "Yeah, plus, there was a lot of voyeur stuff happening there. The men were mostly watchers, and sure, it's nice at first, but then, you quickly realize that it's a bit uncomfortable when you're just there with friends trying to play."

"I think that's another reason I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped," I said. "And I'm an investor. But I consider it a good one still because it does create a safe space for our community to interact and play."

He nodded. "I agree. Some people love it, and they go all the time. I think I like to play on my own terms though."

"Well, I have the entire day, so, if you can think of anything you'd like to do, I'd love to know," I said. "It's probably the first day I've had off in a while too."

"I think it might also be the longest date I've ever been on too," he said. "After we've played a little dress up, as in, me dressing you in my clothes, we'll hit up the record store, then maybe go for coffee somewhere local, they have all these fancy places, but some of them are too weird for me. I'm not sure if you've heard, but there's a place that sells egg coffee." He puffed out his cheeks in a fake wretch.

"Egg coffee," I repeated. "A Vietnamese specialty. Never had it myself, but I've heard about it."

"Oh. Well, I can't get passed the idea of hot espresso scrambling egg and all that textural nightmare stuff," he said, shuddering. "Anyway, it's your day off, what sort of things do you want to do?"

On the spot. I considered myself quite boring. Routinely boring in comparison to Bryce's ability to decide what he wanted to do on a whim. I suppose I was doing the same by not going into work, but I was also in a position to just decide that. "Honestly, just spending time with you."

He whacked my leg, blushing. "I don't know where you've been hiding all my life, but you're smooth, I'll give you that."

Now I was blushing. I'd never considered myself smooth, or even someone who could talk themself into a date. "Personally, I'd love to play some more with you. I heard you like tea parties."

"Who told you that?" he laughed.

"Princess Valeria," I said. "I hope I got that right."

"Take your pants off."

"What?"

He wiped his mouth. It was impossible not to get cream cheese everywhere. "Because you deserve head for remembering so much about me. And it's the only way I can think of rewarding you."

I shook my head. "I'm the Daddy," I told him. "I reward you."

"Then give me head."

My hand on his knee, I went slowly up his thigh. I leaned over in my best attempt at being suave. And in the process, I pressed my chest into the remaining bagel, squashing it and squeezing the cream out. My shirt was covered and even some of my exposed chest had a stripe of cream through it.

Bryce laughed. "Now you have to get undressed," he said, clapping his hands.

I put my plate back on the coffee table, beside his music machine. "It's my fault. Well, the place I ordered from. I didn't realize they were putting an entire thing of cream cheese on it."

Bryce went around his apartment, pulling at the drapes and with the partitions removed, the space opened up with unimpeded light flow. "I'm going to go out on a limb here and say your usual style is formal."

I followed him, trying to the cream from my chest hair without matting it in. "Usually, but please, dress me as you see fit."

He turned to me, squinting. "How about a crop top and some cargos?"

"Or we stick to full length t-shirts?" I said. "You'd look great in a crop top though."

"You're right, I do."

Bryce had clothes railings scattered around the apartment with garment bags hiding the clothes away. And a single dresser where he seemed to only keep underwear. I found most of the fun in there. It didn't take me long to dig around and uncover a realistically colored dildo hiding amongst his socks.

"Oh my god!" he raced over to me.

I pressed the shaft of it with a finger. I couldn't recall touching adildo before. The plasticky silicone texture of it was strange in my hand, and very bendy. "I don't have anything to worry about," I said.

He took it off me and buried it back into his sock drawer. "I rarely use it."

I pulled him into an embrace. "I'm not judging. But it explains why you're so tight," I said, riding a hand down his back.

"It's my little princess hole, of course it's tight." He squeezed me in his grip. "Oh balls. If we don't leave soon, all the good stuff might be gone."

"Good stuff?"

"Yeah, every Monday, they restock, and sometimes the stock is exclusives or like limited edition first prints that haven't been around in twenty years," he said.

I had a lot to learn, and I was willing. It was nice to be out of my usual rut, even if routine was everything. There was something about Bryce that warmed me, and I was desperate to cling to it.