Prologue

Chris watched the condensation swell into droplets, expand and burst until it ran like a stream down the side of his glass. Summer was over, but it seemed like the weather never got the message—the heat and the humidity lingering into autumn. His body shook with barely contained laughter as Brendan regaled their little group with the story of that one time Chris tried to sneak a hook-up out of their shared London flat back when they were studying and then working in the UK.

It was a good story if you didn't know the details, Chris thought with the usual mix of embarrassment and shame. But for Brendan's part, it was a good story.

"No," Chris interjected, smiling, "you said, ‘I know you like dick, man,'" imitating Brendan's voice with a mocking baritone, "‘don't need to sneak him out like I'm gonna think you're gonna jump me while I sleep.'"

Their little group laughed, the afternoon sun lighting everyone up against the clear blue sky on the rooftop bar, the sound of other groups talking and laughing against the muted beats of a playlist toeing the line of popular and familiar—Kanye, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé.

"I didn't say that!" Brendan replied, grinning.

"Babe," Tegan bumped his shoulder, "that so sounds like you."

"I think you were drunk?" Chris said and sipped his beer. "Also, I was just trying to avoid the awkward morning after, not hide anything."

And that wasn't the whole truth. He was half-heartedly hiding from Brendan because he couldn't be bothered having the conversation—he knew Brendan would be cool, he'd just never found an opening in their groove to say the words. Brendan had been his best friend since primary school, and now he was his lawyer and business partner. But some things, Chris didn't want to tell a soul.

Thankfully, the conversation moved on when Tegan asked, "What's it really like though, going to Cambridge?" And Brendan launched into another story about all the booze he drank while Chris got up and rowed crew every morning like a lunatic.

Chris chuckled and glanced around, eyes skimming the usual crowd who got dressed up for a Sunday session on a sunny afternoon in Melbourne. He was looking without really seeing when his gaze swept over a guy and he had to backtrack.

The guy was smiling, close-mouthed, and nodding his head to something another guy was saying. He was the kind of handsome you had to pause over—lithe, tan, Scandinavian blonde hair and, though Chris couldn't see from here, he'd bet blue eyes. He was exactly the type Chris was attracted to.

But attraction wasn't ever his problem, it was what came after.

So when Alan, an old school friend, asked how the app development was going, he severed his attention on the guy and joined the conversation. This he could discuss with real confidence. This was going to be huge. He exchanged a grin with Brendan as he replied. Yeah, they were really going places.

"Another round?" he asked the group.

"Shots!" Brendan yelled.

"We're not doing shots," Chris said as he got up. "What are you? Eighteen?"

"Getting drunk is not just reserved for young people," Brendan countered.

"I gotta work in the morning," Alan said.

"So do I," Brendan replied, "but until I'm thirty, I can do shots."

"I'm not buying shots," Chris insisted, but Brendan grinned at him like he knew that was a lie, and Chris wandered over to the bar with a head shake and a smile and left them to it.

It was busy, the thick of the mid-afternoon crowd lining up three deep at the bar, and Chris watched the bartenders moving up and down the line, leaning over to hear orders over the noise, swiftly moving back and pouring pints, grabbing bottles, mixing drinks with fluid hands. His back was damp with sweat, and the cool breeze lifted the loose material from his skin with a wash of relief.

He turned his head and saw him. The guy. He was in the line beside him, eyes on his phone as he tapped the screen every now and then.

He was better up close. Not as tall as Chris, maybe two inches shorter, and he appeared older, but not by much—he had the faintest lines around his eyes, not a scrap of extra fat on his body, and Chris guessed around mid-thirties. His shorts and shirt were classic, well-tailored, and he looked clean. There was barely a metre between them and Chris swore he smelled it too—fresh, a hint of understated deodorant.

The line moved up until they were behind the front person. Chris tucked his hands in his pockets and tried to ignore his awareness of the guy. What was he going to do? Ask him out? He snorted and then coughed to hide it, chancing a look to his left.

The guy was still focused on his phone, but glanced up and looked at the bar lazily before going back to it. His eyes were blue and his skin, this close, unblemished. He was looking at his phone again and Chris looked too, trying not to be obvious about it.

A gay hook-up app. Chris recognised it. He was bloody well on it; more for research purposes than actual use nowadays, but he was there even if not on the screen of "nearby" right now. He was peering at the profile the guy had opened—a burly looking dude holding up a fish—and speaking before he could stop himself.

"You could do better," he said.

The guy glanced at him, but if he was offended, he hid it well. He quirked his lips at Chris—a brief acknowledgement of a stranger—and replied, "I know."

Chris laughed, surprised. The guy looked back to his phone, clicked the warning symbol and blocked the guy.

Chris blew out a breath; he felt the guy hear it in the way he smiled, shook his head a little bit.

His heart beating a little faster, he looked again—a suit this time, but the shirt was open and the face obscured; great body, but it screamed ‘I'm just here to get my dick wet'—and Chris was speaking again like he couldn't quite believe his own audacity.

"He's not going to reciprocate."

The guy actually chuckled this time. He exited the profile without doing anything further—no block, no favourite—and Chris smiled curiously at the side of his head. Did this guy like being used?

The line moved them to the front and Chris felt annoyed—just that slight movement shifted the energy, broke the little bubble they'd been in.

None of the bartenders came over to them though and he glanced back at the guy; he'd obviously deduced the same and fixed his gaze back on his phone.

Chris didn't bother to pretend he wasn't looking. And okay, this one was nice looking in sunnies at the park, hugging a chocolate-coloured Labrador, but, "Way too young," Chris said.

The guy huffed a laugh, blocked the kid and pocketed his phone.

Chris knew this was the moment he needed to say something. The guy looked at him, an appraisal in that look, and he was about to say something too, and Chris held eye contact, his heart beating faster—

"What can I get you?" came from in front of him.

He startled and felt the moment break.

"Six pints of the pale," he said, dropping his volume as much as he could, "and a Slippery Nipple."

The guy next to him snorted a laugh. Chris looked back, relieved for the new opening, but embarrassed too—curse Brendan's love of ridiculously sweet, terribly named shots.

"It's not for me," he said.

"Sure it's not," the guy smiled at him. It was a real smile—eye contact held and everything—and Chris couldn't help smiling helplessly back. Shit, but this guy was hot, and so relaxed in the way he leaned back on his heels, hands resting easy in his pockets as he checked Chris out.

A bartender was in front of him and the guy focused on him, placing a normal order— the boutique pale ale on tap, rather than the standard—and Chris' drinks appeared. He swiped his card, got the drinks between his hands in a three-pint hold, the shot balanced precariously with a beer, and tried to think of a way to keep this going.

"Well, good luck with all that," his mind supplied in about the most useless attempt at showing interest he could get.

The guy gave him a languid smile though. "Thanks, you too," he nodded at the shot.

Chris huffed a laugh. "Jesus, it's not mine."

He was met by an open-mouthed smile, perfect white teeth, and Chris got a fluttery feeling. He decided on an impulse he'd put the drinks down and then go over to this guy's table and tell him to open up the app again, check "nearby", and point to himself, say something suave like: "That guy definitely reciprocates."

"What took you so long?" Brendan asked as Chris tried to gracefully place all the drinks onto the table and spilled beer all over his hands.

"Have you seen the line?"

Brendan took the shot and downed it in one go.

Chris rolled his eyes and sat, looked in the other guy's direction.

The guy was back, setting the drinks down gracefully and saying something to his friends, who all laughed.

Chris felt himself blush for no reason—it's not like the guy was talking about him.

He tuned back into the conversation, half there and half in his head—to talk to him or not? He glanced up and as if feeling it, the guy looked his way and smiled—nothing too personal, no real interest, just a nice, acknowledging smile. Chris smiled back feeling a little wrongfooted. He dropped his gaze and picked up his beer.

After this pint, he'd go over there.

When he finished it and looked again, the guy was gone, the table filled with a new group.

He was disappointed, but if the guy actually liked him, he'd see him on the app and message.

His phone stayed silent for the remainder of the afternoon.

When Chris got home, he opened the app and searched.

After an hour of growing bewildered then frustrated, he realised the guy must've blocked his profile. He felt insulted, bereft.

And weirdly turned on.

The next time they were going out, he suggested the rooftop bar again.

No sign of him.

He did it again.

And again.

Until Brendan said, "Geeze, man, it's good, but can we try somewhere new?"

Chris shrugged. "Sure, sorry, I thought we liked that place."

"Not every time," Brendan replied like Chris was insane.

And, well, maybe he was; he was kind of stuck on the guy, which was stupid and stalker-like.

"Alright, well, you pick then," Chris said and went back to scrolling on his phone, testing their new app out before the big launch.

It was for the best, he thought as he scrolled through profiles of women and men who'd agreed to beta test for them; the guy had clearly blocked him. Chris had checked for his profile an embarrassing number of times since that day to be sure.

The problem was, he couldn't get the guy out his head.

"What about the green icon?" Chris asked.

"Too close to the messaging app," Brendan replied swiftly. "Not sure on patents."

Chris nodded along, went back to the profiles, and wondered if the guy might pop up as he scrolled. It was an idle thought, irrelevant and useless.