14. JACK

Iwoke to morning light filtering through the curtains, and at once, my body started protesting. The sofa bed, which looked like it was going to be quite comfortable, felt more like a torture device. I had slept but not as easily as I usually do, and with a bucketful of cocktails inside me. My back felt stiff and sore, my limbs felt heavy. A dull ache throbbed in my head.

Groaning, I rolled over onto my side, but that made my body hurt even more. My breathing was slow and sluggish. We had certainly enjoyed ourselves, perhaps a bit too much. One drink too many and a bellyful of very spicy food had blurred the edges of my consciousness.

My mouth felt dry, my tongue sticking to its roof, my throat sharp and sore as I tried to swallow. I groaned again, remembering that we were supposed to be going to the pub with the London team that night, too.

My legs felt heavy, as if somehow the sofa bed had kept them in some strange position all night. Was I really going to sleep on this for the next run of nights? Could I leave Paul here and book into a hotel with a nice, deep king-size for me to collapse on every evening?

With a sigh, I decided I had to get up and face my hangover – and the day ahead. Work awaited, responsibilities, more meetings, more talk. What I wanted was bacon and eggs and about two gallons of my favorite jetlag medicine, Coca-Cola.

Then, a small movement nearby caught my attention. Lifting my head from the pillow and bleary-eyed, I looked up to where it came, from the kitchenette. I saw Paul. He was standing at the kitchen worktop, fiddling with the Nespresso machine, opening slots, pulling out drawers. He was only in his underpants, otherwise naked, barefoot.

For a moment, I simply watched him. I looked at his slim form, his pale skin, his body all elegant sinews, light bones, a little muscle, no fat. He must have been thirty, but just then he looked about twenty.

I was grateful for his presence. I have traveled alone so many times, and even if I had slept badly, I was happy to have someone who, at least initially, I had friendly feelings toward. I did not have a whole heap of friends, though I had a long contacts list of acquaintances and business colleagues. I did not want to give this up for a lonely hotel room. I needed to have some fun. But I also thought: ask me if I feel the same after four nights on this sofa bed.

“Morning,” I groaned.

He turned to look at me and smiled.

“Oh, hey, morning.”

I swung my body round and up so that I was sitting on the edge of the pull-out bed, facing him in the kitchenette, the window behind me. My bare feet hit the slight cold of the wooden floor.

“You look like Lieutenant Uhura.”

He furrowed his brow.

“What?”

“Working the computer on the Starship Enterprise.”

He laughed.

“Wasn’t she a sergeant?”

“No!” I cried, and God, my head hurt. “Lieutenant Uhura, she was definitely Lieutenant Uhura!”

He continued to fiddle with the Nespresso machine, staring at it in incomprehension. “Do you need help?”

He turned and looked at me, grinning.

“Do you know I work in AI, at the absolute cutting edge of IT?”

I chuckled.

“But you can’t work out how to use a Nespresso machine.”

“Kirk to Enterprise.”

I laughed even more heartily. Getting up from the bed, I made my way toward him. As I did so, he stared at me. Only then did I realize it was because I was naked. His eyes were wide.

“Oh, sorry, is this cool?”

He seemed a bit flustered.

“No. Yeah. I mean, yeah.”

“I will go get dressed. I guess we have to work this bit out.”

He smiled nervously.

“No, I mean, it’s fine.” His eyes fell down to my dick again. Then he laughed. “You’re huge, man.”

I looked down at it, too, and laughed.

“Yeah, it’s big.”

Now he looked at it openly and then up at me.

“No, I mean…huge.”

I was a big guy. There was no denying it. Sometimes women had a problem with it, even tried to make me feel bad about it, so it was kind of exciting to see Paul’s eyes staring straight at it. I think that was the moment I realized that maybe he felt some sort of attraction to me. Maybe Paul was gay, and that was why he didn’t talk about girlfriends much. Maybe there weren’t any.

“I’ll get some underwear,” I said.

He went bright red.

“Shit, man, sorry.”

“It’s fine. It’s making you uncomfortable.”

I didn’t want to make it any more weird. In the dressing room, I found some clean underwear and pulled them on. I went back out to the kitchenette and started a search for Nespresso pods.

“Where are they?” I muttered to myself. I observed Paul’s charming air of confusion.

“What?”

“The pods.”

He pointed at a little box further down the countertop.

“Do you mean these?”

I began to show him how you filled the water tank of the machine, where to empty the coffee grounds, which button to press for which coffee.

“Do you want the big one or the small one?” I asked.

“Big one, please.”

I put a coffee cup under the machine, then pushed the right button, and the machine began to clank and heat, then suck the water through its mechanism.

“How did you sleep on the sofa bed?” he asked me as the Nespresso did its thing.

“I slept but I am so sore.”

He seemed genuinely concerned.

“Oh, jeez, Jack, let me sleep on there. You should sleep in the bed.”

“Did you sleep okay?” I asked.

He looked charmingly sheepish.

“It was great, actually.”

Ha! I went.

“Rub it in, bro!”

“So you will sleep in the bed tonight?” he asked.

“Nah, man.”

“Oh, Jack, go on. Let’s share the pain.” I shook my head. “Or we could share. The bed is huge.”

Paul’s suggestion caught me off guard.

“It’s okay,” I said, laughing, shaking my head.

The coffee finished pouring into the coffee cup.

“Hey, Jack. Do you want this?” he asked, picking up and proffering it to me.

I returned his smile, grateful.

“Yes, please,” I replied.

As Paul busied himself with the Nespresso machine to make a second cup, I watched him do it, there in his little white briefs showing his cute little butt and tiny scrawny waist, with a small smile on his lips.

I looked down at his bare feet on the ground, one lifted slightly daintily off the floor as he concentrated on what he was doing.

That was the moment that I, in return, thought he was quite cute. He was a cute-looking guy. As soon as the thought entered my head, I jolted.

Where did that come from?