Four

JULIEN

Julien counts out his tips at the end of the night, doing the mental math he's become so good at when it comes to budgeting.

It's hard to do math, though, when visions of your hot new coworker keep plaguing you every five seconds. Seeing Greg Harlow in his shirt was a sight he was wholly unprepared for. The way the fabric strained over Greg's shoulders and hugged his chest more than the soaked cotton T-shirt ever could made Julien's knees weak.

It was easy to write off his instant, heated attraction to the personable mixologist when it was only TikTok videos making his heart race and his pits sweat, but it was more difficult to deny when his new coworker was on full display for his eyes only back by the bathroom.

And what a display it was...

He shakes his head to himself, frustrated and having lost track of which piles of cash and coins he's counted and which he hasn't. He'll have to start over now. Fantastic. He pockets the bills and heads into the office where he laid Greg's T-shirt out to dry after blotting it with dish detergent and cold water.

When he stole a peek at the tag on Greg's T-shirt, he saw the name of some designer he'd never heard of in a lux script font. Julien owns a similar T-shirt which he bought for ten dollars at Target. Four of Greg's fancy T-shirts could probably pay Julien's way through his advanced sommelier course and exam.

He doesn't want to resent his new coworker for his excess, but it seems he already does.

As he folds the shirt up to return to Greg, Aunt Augustine comes into the office, sipping another bottle of sparkling seltzer. Her hair is up in a ponytail now, and a pair of patterned glasses rests atop her head. She's always the last to leave because she's a night owl and does her best accounting work when the restaurant is quiet.

"Assaulting our new hire on day one," she says, waltzing over to the desk. "Not your best move, hun."

"It was an accident," he says, running his fingers across the soft fabric of Greg's T-shirt. It feels lovely. Maybe there is something to be said for splurging on nicer materials.

"I know. I'm just yankin' your leg," she says. She plops down in the chair and blows a stray hair out of her eyes. "It was nice of you to lend him a shirt, though I think some of our customers were concerned we were planning on starting an all-male revue with how close those buttons were to popping off and poking someone's eye out."

He doesn't think too hard about that particular image. Nope. Uh-uh. "It was the least I could do."

Aunt Augustine looks up over the rim of the cheetah-print readers she's put on. "He's a good-looking guy."

"Sure," he says.

"Sure? All you have to say is sure?" she asks, spiritedly prodding.

He shrugs. "Sure."

She lets out a frustrated groan and closes her file folder. "You know he's gay, right? It says so on his TikTok profile. He's done pride cocktails. And don't you dare say sure."

"Yes, I know he's gay." He deduced that in his little cyber hole, which he still feels guilty about falling into.

"You've been single for two years, Julien," Aunt Augustine says with that matchmaker playfulness he's become used to but still doesn't like. The last guy Julien dated, Lance the vet tech, was a nice person and the sex was good, but he didn't understand Julien's single-minded pursuit of becoming a sommelier.

"You just want to get paid to be drunk all the time," Lance said when he found out how much Julien was spending on his first course.

Julien firmly said, "That's not true," and then proceeded to break up with Lance. Because when Julien reads the alcohol content on a bottle of wine, his first thoughts are about astringency and proper storing methods, not how tipsy it will make the drinker. Tipsiness is a sensation he doesn't need to experience. Alcohol is an ingredient, not a cure-all.

"You hired him to reinvigorate our bar, not my love life," Julien says. "Should you really be encouraging your employees to date each other anyway?"

"Hey, there's no rule against it, and I would know because I make the rules." She sassily shakes her head.

"Whatever. I don't have time for dating. Dating is just a time-consuming way to waste your money."

Aunt Augustine gapes at that. "That might be the most cynical thing I've ever heard come out of your mouth, and I raised you!"

"I need to save my money for my advanced course, okay? On top of the tuition, I have to afford a flight to Texas and lodging. It's a lot," he says.

Listing it all aloud only magnifies how far he has to go before hitting his goal. He adjusts his mental math from earlier, shifting even more dollars into the Save column. He'd rather have a fluffy cushion than a deflated airbag should anything change in the immediate future. Frugality is the name of the game. A game he's certain Greg Harlow doesn't have to play based on his belt and his shirt and the way he carries himself like a runway model.

"Too bad it's not in Orlando," she says. "You could've used the time-share."

"Yeah, too bad."

Aunt Augustine goes over to Julien and places her hands on his shoulders. "While I'm endlessly proud of you for going after your dream, I want to be sure you're not putting all your life eggs in one basket because if you drop that basket... Splat!" She shakes him up a little with a laugh.

He cracks a tentative smile. "I appreciate you saying that, but I've got it under control. I'm studying, saving, and doing everything right."

She sighs, and he thinks it's because she feels like she's not getting through to him. Which, maybe she isn't. He isn't in the market for opinions that contradict his own currently. "Okay, but there is more to life than that. I would really like it if you would actively try making friends with Greg. He's new in town, and I'm sure he could use someone to help make his transition a smooth one."

He wants to protest that he's too busy, but because Aunt Augustine knows him better than anyone else, she knows that he spends most free hours studying and jogging and watching old episodes of Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy. She probably knows, too, that since the breakup with Lance and the end of his friends-with-benefits situation with Colin he hasn't gone out with anyone. Hasn't gotten close to anyone. Hasn't gotten off with anyone... "I'll make an attempt."

"That's what I like to hear! You can start by giving him his shirt back before he leaves and not clutching it in my office like you're going to sneak it home and start a shrine to him," she says, glancing down at his fingers. He stops rubbing the delicate fabric which he didn't even notice he was still doing.

For a second, he imagines the feel of this soft shirt draped over Greg's hard muscle. An arousing duality.

Dating might not be on the menu, but if he saw Greg included in the buffet of men on his hookup app du jour, he certainly would not deny himself a helping of that Grade A beef, should it be available to him.

"Good night," he says quickly, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

"Night, hun."

He leaves the restaurant flushed with newfound possibility.

GREG

Greg looks for Julien before leaving to tell him he'll wash his shirt and return it tomorrow, but he finds Braydon, the guy with the bar napkins and the painted nails from earlier, instead.

"One night down, a million more to go," he says, closing his locker and slinging a tote bag up his arm. "How'd it go?"

Throughout the shift, Greg could tell Braydon was using every excuse in the book to come over to the bar. Table two wants to know what cocktail you recommend. The couple in the corner asked which vodka they should have in their Moscow mules. Is it time for your break yet?

In Greg's quest to make one friend tonight, he knows Braydon isn't looking for the kind of friendship he is. It was open flirtation. Which is fine. It's flattering. Braydon is an attractive dude.

But ever since Stryker, Greg's sexual confidence has been in the tubes. His stomach twists at the thought of being intimate with a stranger at this weird stage in his life. He needs to get his bearings in this new town and job before he can rebuild his bravado.

"It went well, I think," Greg says. "The customers were all really kind, and I made some good tips." When he counted out his tips a little bit ago, he couldn't help but spy Julien from across the dining area looking a little grim. The floor staff—the servers and bussers and hosts—all split tips, but since Greg worked the bar solo tonight, he's netting it all.

Part of him wanted, and still sort of does want, to offer Julien a cut. As the night went on, a lot of the diners were asking Julien for wine recommendations, and he was fetching, pouring, and checking in on every one of them. At most other places Greg had worked before striking gold on TikTok, the bartender did both the liquor and the wine.

He's not offended by the overstep. It made his night easier and less lonely.

By the third time Julien slithered behind the bar to fill a drink order without speaking to him, Greg started taking closer note of his coworker, tracking as the muscles in Julien's face relaxed and his posture righted. There was a suaveness to the way he found a bottle without needing to glance in the wine fridge, opened it without issue, and poured it with aplomb. Before he turned to go, tray in hand, Julien's chest would widen, and the hanging pendant lights over the bar would glint off a circular pin attached to his shirt.

Perhaps Julien's expertise had something to do with that shiny pin he wore like a badge of honor. Greg was wearing the man's shirt for God's sake but was too scared to ask a simple question about a tiny pin.

"Did you drive here, by any chance?" Braydon asks, hopefulness evident in his voice.

"I did," says Greg, jingling his key ring which dangles from his pointer finger.

"Listen, I know we just met, but my car is in the shop, and I'd really like to save the money for a Lyft. Any chance you can give me a ride? I'm just across the bridge," Braydon says.

That anxious stomach-twisting from before returns tenfold because when a cute guy asks him for a lift to a second location that usually means he's hoping for a hookup. It's only his first day. He doesn't want any awkwardness between him and Braydon. But, he supposes, he's damned no matter what. Either he gives Braydon the ride, overcomes the anxiety, and kindly turns him down, or he overcomes a different spice of anxiety, declines him the ride, and looks like a dick.

Ultimately, he leads Braydon to the lot where he parked his Toyota. "I'm just in a garage up the way."

They make idle chitchat through the walk, the elevator ride, and the downward drive out of the parking deck. Greg puts on his favorite album—Carole King's Tapestry. It reminds him of his mom whom he's been thinking about a lot since his life in New York sputtered out. Carole's croons of so far away dredge up why he hasn't reached out, what he can't say, so he turns his attention back to Braydon.

"How long have you been working at Martin's?" Greg asks.

"Like a year and a half. I go to the local university. I'm a junior studying theater," he says. "Didn't want to get an on-campus job, so this was the next best thing. The people at Martin's Place are chill."

Right as he says that, Greg pulls up to a stoplight. Beyond the windshield, Julien stands in a pool of hazy streetlight beside a tall metal LANTA sign. He's got headphones on, his eyes closed, and he sways a little to the melody of an unheard song. Greg imagines Julien listening to the same song he is. Carole wondering about staying in one place.

He doesn't ask Braydon if it's okay before he pulls over in front of Julien and rolls down the passenger-side window. Braydon looks confused, but Greg doesn't care. "Hey," he calls out the window.

Julien shakes back to life. "Hello?" he says, raising a hand against the streetlight. The little ridges that appear between Julien's eyes as he squints draw Greg in. They are two commas of cuteness embedded in a near-permanent scowl.

"It's Greg," he says. He flicks on the overhead light to reveal him and his travel companion. "Need a ride?"

Julien looks as if he's about to accept the offer until his eyes shift toward Braydon who is waving at him, revealing a history Greg can't quite decode. "Oh. No. I'll get the bus." There's that terseness again. The same tone from when he declined the cocktail sample. He goes from hot to cold so quickly that Greg feels completely off-balance. The tools in his socialization arsenal are clearly useless on Julien, which makes his brain buzz with confusion.

"This is the westbound stop, though, right?" Greg asks as a last-ditch effort, putting on his hazards. Click-uh, click-uh, click. "I'm going to Allentown after I drop off Braydon. I can take you, no problem."

Julien reaches into his bag and produces a neatly folded shirt. "I'm fine. But here's this back. I got the stain out before it set. You should still wash it when you get home."

Braydon takes the shirt and passes it to Greg. He's heartened by the gesture. Julien may have caused the stain, but by no means did he need to go above and beyond to get rid of it. "Thanks. Appreciate it. A ride to repay you?"

As Greg jerks his thumb toward the back seat, he spots a bus cresting over the hill about to stop.

"You should probably go before the driver gets upset," Julien says, iciness turned up a notch.

"All right. No sweat. Get home safe," Greg says, trying not to make his slight disappointment noticeable.

"See ya," says Braydon.

And they're off again. Cruising away. "What's his deal?" Greg asks, turning Carole down to a low simmer.

"Deal?"

"Yeah, why's he so..."

"Grumpy?" Braydon supplies judgmentally.

A faint defensiveness rises inside Greg at the word. For some odd reason, he wants to protest it, but can't argue with the fact that it fits Julien. At least the Julien he's seen so far. Almost too well. "Okay, yeah. Grumpy." Grumpy was his favorite dwarf in the Disney cartoon Snow White, so he says it with a nostalgic sense of endearment instead of Braydon's sass.

Braydon does a dramatic shrug-and-sigh combo. "Beats me. I don't know much about him other than that Martin and Augustine raised him because of some messy shit with his parents, he's been working at the restaurant forever and a day, and we hooked up once over a year ago and he hasn't brought it up since."

Greg takes this trove of information and shakes out every small treasure. "Why haven't you brought it up to him?"

"Because you've met him now and see how he is," Braydon says with bountiful snark Greg could do without.

"Oh yeah? How is he?"

"Intense!" Braydon says. "Wasn't that interaction back there intense? He couldn't just take the ride. He's always like that. He's a certified sommelier, which you need a lot of discipline and patience for, but it's a lot."

Julien. Sommelier.Greg calls to mind Julien's classical features. His fragile yet tough manner of speaking. The way he refused the sample cocktail but dedicated his life to wine. He's an enigma, and Greg has always liked puzzles. Rubik's Cubes. Sudoku. Crosswords. It's no wonder he's already dying to solve Julien Boire.

Braydon continues, "He basically made me jump through hoops before I was allowed in his bed. Shoes off at the door, shower in advance, no kissing, absolutely no cologne. And then, after all that, he didn't even finish, which is...probably more than you asked to hear. Sorry. Everyone tells me I don't have a filter. Oh, make a left here, and you can park anywhere on the street." Braydon points up ahead. Once they're idling, he adds, "You're welcome to come up for a bit if you want. I've got some liquor and mixers. Maybe you could do one of those random ingredient challenges that you do on TikTok for me?"

Greg's tongue goes numb, and his mouth goes dry for a minute.

He respects the level of confidence it takes to come on to a man you just met, but that's the issue. They just met. Greg isn't emotionally ready to divulge anything about the pills he takes or the performance issues they sometimes cause to random guys who just won't get it.

To top it all off, he doesn't particularly like the way Braydon spoke about Julien. To him, it sorta sounded like Julien might be some flavor of neurodiverse, and Braydon was a dick about it. Something Greg experienced firsthand with Stryker.

Though, maybe Greg was a different type of dick earlier when he tried to cajole Julien into taking his cocktail sample. In the moment, he hadn't considered that he might've been putting Julien in an uncomfortable position.

This new information and matching remorse only reify his initial desire to get closer to Julien, despite his standoffishness, so he can apologize and maybe forge a connection.

"I'm pretty beat. Thanks for the offer, though," Greg says when his senses return to normal.

Braydon nods, moderately unfazed. "Chill, chill. Well, if you ever change your mind..." he points up to a dark window on the second floor "...you know where to find me."

"Roger that."

Greg drives home singing along to "Beautiful" and crying along to "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?" and parks in the middle of "Home Again." He stays in the car until the song ends, letting the soothing notes wash over him. Allowing himself to unwind after a bustling night of making drinks, taking orders, and being "on."

Exhaustion weaves between his bones.

The older he gets and the more he learns about his unique brand of anxiety, the more time it takes him to recharge after hours of intense interaction. Carole King proves the perfect balm after a frenzied shift. He can't wait to take his meds and go to sleep.

Inside, he finds Rufus on the couch, lounging in sweatpants playing a video game. He speaks into a large headset. "Get out quickly! Go, go, go!"

"Coming in on your left," Greg says about the intruder gaining on Rufus's character on the high-definition screen, but what he thinks is a helpful hint scares his cousin instead.

Rufus jumps up and pauses his game. "Shit! You almost gave me a heart attack... Yeah, Wayne, my cousin's home. I'll catch up with you soon. Sorry. Yeah, yeah. Bye." He throws off the headset and brushes some Cheetos crumbs off his shirt.

"My bad," Greg says apologetically. "I see you're enjoying your night."

"Yeah, special agent missions are a good way to de-stress," Rufus says. "Why are you...wearing that?"

Greg got so comfortable in Julien's shirt that until this moment he'd forgotten he was wearing it. Ridiculous, given how it could bust open at any moment. Straining. Pulling. He's used to wearing spandex to the gym, though, and this shirt had some give to it, so he didn't mind all that much.

"There was an accident involving spilled cocktails, so my coworker lent me this," Greg explains. He thinks again about how he'd like to turn said coworker into a friend. His phone, nestled in the front pocket of his bag, has been devoid of incoming texts from the so-called friends he had back in New York. For longer, it's been wiped clean of messages from his handful of academy buddies. And don't even get him started on his parents who only check in on birthdays and holidays, if they remember.

He knows he could reach out first, but that would require him admitting defeat, failure. They know him, his history. Julien—with his scowl and his intensity and his cute earrings—doesn't know him at all. From his attitude, maybe he thinks he does. But Greg is excited by the prospect of proving him wrong, of potentially forging a true connection with someone so unlike the people he ran with in his old life. Maybe even someone who shares a similar diagnosis.

So it didn't happen tonight like he thought it might, but soon. He'll work on it. Maybe ask him about his favorite wine regions or grapes or...

"Sorry to say, but you look kind of ridiculous," Rufus says, bursting out laughing.

Greg turns toward the mirror over a table in the entryway and realizes that he does look ridiculous. How anybody took him seriously tonight is beyond him. "You're absolutely right. I'm off to get changed and get to sleep."

"I'll be sure to keep the volume down," Rufus says, courteous.

Once upstairs in the swampy, slightly oppressive heat of his AC-less room, Greg strips off Julien's button-down and lays it on his bed, conjuring a picture in his mind of the mysterious, spilling sommelier who'd rather stand at the bus stop alone than take his ride.

He's suddenly struck by the urge to pick up the shirt and sniff it. Embedded in the fabric is his own familiar scent mixed with an unknown detergent—honeysuckle. It's delectable. He presses his nose farther into the shirt while his free hand wanders down his naked torso and stops against a bulge that strains the front of his jeans and presses into his zipper.

There's a vague grating voice in the back of his mind telling him he shouldn't remove his pants, lie down on the bed, or allow his hand to grab hold of his semierect dick while he huffs his new coworker's spare shirt, but he ignores that voice. He hasn't taken his medication yet tonight—the medication that balances his mind but reduces his desire for this kind of pleasure. The kind of pleasure that Stryker seemed to want and need more of than Greg could feasibly satisfy without sacrificing his mental health.

Instead of lingering on those unpleasant thoughts, he decides to reach into his dresser drawer, pull out the water-based lube he bought at the drugstore on a toiletries run, and slick his stiffening shaft with steady, tight pumps.

At first, he mines his usual spank bank—buff celebrities from action movies and past crushes—but his mind keeps pivoting.

Flashes of Julien's long, slender face and hooded eyes overtake him. Briefly, Greg manifests the heat of Julien's stare as it lingered over his skin in the yellowish bathroom light when he handed him this shirt. This shirt that is now draped over his face as he thrusts himself into his fist, sensing once more that delicious heat.

In the thick of it, unable to fight it, Greg fantasizes—with verve and great detail—that Julien was the one he gave a ride home to. That Julien invited him to his apartment for a nightcap, and Greg took him up on the offer.

Over conversation, before any clothes shed or kisses shared—if any at all—he'd let his walls down and open up about all the things he can't usually find words for. Because he has this formidable inkling that he and Julien were somehow meant to meet.

In his mind's eye, he's lying in a different bed in a different room smelling this honeysuckle sweetness from its source. He wishes he were not imagining a heat, but rather feeling it up front. Skin to skin. Mouth to mouth. Cock to...

He comes. Hard. And he muffles his moan with his left fist because otherwise he might wake his new neighbors. His body continues to shudder even as he falls off the high of it, even as he starts catching his breath.

He hasn't been that aroused in...a while. With the breakup and the move and the frequent dysfunction side effects, his mind has been pulled in every other direction but this one. Except tonight.

Tonight, something changed.