Page 12 of A Man To Remember (Skin on Skin #3)

JESSE

STANDING OUTSIDE AUSTIN'S apartment building, I'm pretty sure I've lost my mind.

My palms are sweating like I'm about to take the SATs again, except this time the stakes feel higher than my education.

This time I'm not sure what I'm even testing for.

My phone tells me I'm three minutes early, which means I've been standing here long enough for the security camera to probably flag me as suspicious.

Great. Nothing says "stable adult making rational decisions" like loitering outside someone's building while having an existential crisis.

The thing is, I have no fucking clue what I'm doing here. Yesterday happened—that much I know. But knowing something happened and understanding what it means are two completely different concepts, and right now they're wrestling for dominance in my skull while I stand here like an idiot.

Maybe I should leave. Turn around, get back in my car, pretend I got the address wrong or had a family emergency or spontaneously developed amnesia.

Instead, I press the buzzer.

"Yeah?" Austin's voice crackles through the intercom, and even distorted by the shitty speaker quality, it does something strange to my nervous system.

"It's Jesse."

The door clicks open without another word, which somehow feels both welcoming and ominous. Like walking into a trap I'm setting for myself.

The elevator ride to the fourth floor gives me exactly thirty seconds to come up with a plan, a script, some kind of roadmap for how this evening should go. Thirty seconds to figure out what the hell I want from this interaction.

I come up empty.

Austin opens the door before I can knock, like he's been waiting right there.

"Hey," he says, stepping aside to let me in.

"Hey."

Brilliant conversation so far. Really setting the intellectual bar high.

His place is nicer than I expected—all clean lines and carefully chosen furniture.

Photography equipment is scattered around in organized chaos—tripods folded in corners, camera bags lined up like soldiers, a laptop open on the coffee table surrounded by memory cards and lens caps.

It looks like the workspace of someone who takes their craft seriously.

Someone who's built a life around creating beautiful things.

I feel like I'm contaminating the space just by being here.

"Nice place," I manage, shoving my hands into my pockets because they need somewhere to go that isn't reaching for him. "Airbnb?"

"Week-to-week rental. Seemed easier than a hotel for this long." Austin closes the door behind me, and the soft click feels unnaturally loud. "Can I get you something to drink? Water, coffee, beer?"

The offer hangs in the air between us, innocent enough except for the way his eyes flicker when he mentions beer.

Like he's testing something, waiting to see how I respond.

Most people wouldn't think twice about it, but I've spent seven years learning to read the subtext in casual drinking references.

"Water's good," I say, and pretend not to notice the way his shoulders relax slightly.

He disappears into what I assume is the kitchen, leaving me alone to stand awkwardly in his living room like a kid whose parents just left him unsupervised in a supermarket.

I resist the urge to touch things, to explore, to leave fingerprints on his carefully curated life, even if it's just temporary.

When he returns with two glasses, the ice cubes clink against the sides like tiny wind chimes.

"So," I say, accepting the water and immediately taking a sip I don't need. "The photos?"

"Yeah, they're on the laptop. Come here."

Come here.

Two words that shouldn't sound like an invitation to sin, but somehow do when they fall from his lips.

I follow him to the couch, sitting down a careful distance away—close enough to see the screen, far enough to maintain some semblance of personal space. Austin opens his laptop, the screen illuminating both our faces in the dimmed light of the living room.

"Fair warning," he says, fingers hovering over the trackpad. "These might look different than you're expecting."

"Different how?"

"You'll see."

He clicks, and suddenly I'm staring at myself.

Except it's not really me.

Not the me I see in bathroom mirrors or in the reflection in bar windows. This version of me looks... confident. Comfortable in his own skin.

Like he knows something the real me doesn't. Some secret about how to exist in the world without constantly second-guessing every decision.

"Fuck," I breathe, leaning closer to the screen. "Is that really how I look?"

"That's exactly how you look." His voice is quiet, professional, but there's something underneath it. Pride? Satisfaction at having captured something true? "You just don't see yourself clearly."

He clicks to the next shot, then the next.

Each one shows a different angle, a different moment, but they all share that same quality—like he managed to photograph the person I am when no one's watching.

When I'm not performing or apologizing or trying to convince everyone that I deserve to take up space.

"I look..." I trail off, searching for the right word. "Normal. Like a real person."

Austin glances at me sideways. "What did you think you'd look like?"

"I don't know. Awkward. Out of place. Like someone playing dress-up in someone else's life." I gesture vaguely at the screen. "Not like... this."

"This is just you, Jesse. This is who you are when you stop trying so hard to be someone else."

Ouch.

He keeps clicking, and I keep staring, mesmerized by this alternate version of myself. Then he stops on one particular shot, and the air in my lungs turns to concrete.

It's just my face and shoulders, bare chest barely visible at the bottom of the frame. But I'm looking directly into the camera with an expression I don't remember making.

Open. Like I'm offering something precious and hoping it won't get broken.

"This one's my favorite," Austin says.

"Why?" I rasp. "It's not even... I mean, you can barely see anything."

"That's exactly why. It's the most naked you look in any of them, and you're barely showing any skin."

I stare at the image, trying to see what he sees. "I don't understand."

"You're looking right at me. Not the camera—me. Like you trust me enough to let me see who you really are."

The explanation knocks something loose in my chest that I didn't know was stuck there. No one has ever talked about seeing me that way. Like I'm worth seeing at all, let alone worth capturing and keeping and calling their favorite.

And the fact that it's Austin saying it—Austin, who exists at the edges of my memory, someone I should remember better but don't—makes it feel significant in ways I can't begin to untangle.

I keep staring at the photo, at my own face looking back at me with such goddamn trust it makes my throat tight.

"Austin." His name feels strange on my tongue, weighted with things I don't have words for. "I need to tell you something, and I don't really know how to say it."

He closes the laptop, giving me his full attention. "Okay."

I swallow, the action strangely painful. Am I really about to do this? Am I about to speak thoughts that have never even truly formed in my own brain?

We're about to find out together.

Fuck. Here goes nothing.

"I think I'm attracted to you." The words tumble out like dice I can't call back.

"Which is... Fuck. I don't know what that means.

I've never been attracted to a guy before.

Ever. And I keep thinking maybe I'm just confused, or maybe it's just because of where we are, all the shit going on at the club, but. .."

"But?"

"But I can't stop thinking about yesterday. About how it felt when you touched me. How it felt to touch you back."

Austin's expression doesn't change, which could mean anything or nothing. I barrel forward before I lose my nerve completely.

"I've never questioned my sexuality before. Not once. I've always just... known I liked women, you know? It was simple. Straightforward. And now I'm sitting here telling a man I'm attracted to him, and I don't know if that makes me gay or bi or just completely fucked in the head."

The words hang between, a confession I wasn't planning to make. Austin watches my face like he's reading a map, following the path of my thoughts to see where they lead.

"You don't have to figure it all out right now," he says finally.

"But what if I'm just... what if this is just some midlife crisis bullshit? What if I'm wasting your time?"

"Jesse. Look at me."

I do, and his dark eyes are steady, patient in a way I don't deserve.

"You're not wasting my time. And you don't owe me any answers about who you are or what you want. You just have to be honest about what you're feeling right now, in this moment."

Right now. In this moment.

My mind drifts to yesterday, to everything that happened.

I think about watching him work, about the careful way he touches his camera, his models, everything in his orbit.

I think about the photo on his laptop screen, about the trust written across my own face, and realize that maybe that's the most honest I've ever been about anything.

"Right now, in this moment," I say, my voice barely there, "I want you to touch me again."