Page 19 of Hush

GrindMe, an app whose name made his jaw drop, but promised a world of secure and protected interactions with gay men all around him. He could meet other gay men. Chat with them. Trade pictures, eventually. Maybe meet up. As a tool for a small, dispersed community—one that still had more than a fair amount of fear ingrained deep in their culture—it was practically a perfect solution.

It was too perfect. There had to be a catch.

He downloaded the app, though, watching the progress bar building in chunks across his phone, and then install and plaster an innocuous looking mask icon on his home screen.

Tentatively, he clicked it.

Setup was relatively simple. He didn’t know what to choose as a display name. Something relatively obscure. He settled onJustice95, 95 for the year he graduated law school.

He cringed when it asked for his age. No hiding that, though.

Clan? What the hell was a clan?Oh.

Well, he wasn’t a bear. He wasn’t an otter. He could hardly be described as rugged. He’d long ago left behind any possibility of being called a twink. Clean-cut fit. Did they have a “boring” clan? He’d belong in that one.

He also chose “discreet.”

Height, weight, and body type were depressing. Five foot eleven, one-eighty, brown eyes, salt-and-pepper hair. They tricked that up a bit, and he smiled when he checked the box for “silver fox.”

Looking for. He bit his lip. Chat, dates, friends, networking—people networked on this app?—a relationship, or… right now. Well. Not to put too fine a point on that.

He chose chat, dates, and friends. He wasn’t ready for anything else.

Relationship status. He snorted. Single. Perpetually single. Eternally single.

He had no social networks. He’d learned long ago not to get involved in social media online. It was a tool for defense attorneys and vicious, vengeful criminals to try and find and use against you.

It wanted a picture.

He couldn’t put a picture of his face on the app. He just couldn’t, no matter how anonymous it promised to be. He’d seen scandals born in Washington DC from anonymous encounters, promises of secrets being kept. He didn’t want to end up as another headline, another DC has-been.

He picked a cute picture of Etta Mae and put it up instead. Everyone liked dogs, right?

And then… he was online.

Holy God.

A stream of images, men’s torsos, men’s asses, men eating popsicles and bananas, men bare-chested, men pouting. Close-ups of biceps and pecs. Pictures of bulges, what looked like tube socks shoved down suit pants.

Men tied up in leather.

His jaw dropped.

It was all—relatively—clean. Nothing pornographic, nothing hardcore right on the front page. But, holy hell, the line was seriously pushed and blurred.

He didn’t know where to look first. His eyes bounced around the screen, flicking from one younger guy to the next. Everyone seemed gorgeous, and perpetually in their late twenties to early thirties.

He was a dinosaur in comparison.

Where were men nearer his age?

He found the search settings and skewed the toggles up to only show ages from the mid-thirties to… just under fifty. He wasn’t ready for that number yet.

More beautiful people. More torsos. But more faces, too. Smiling, confident men.

One profile caught his eye. Someone a little younger, well-built. He had a tank top on, a backwards ball cap, and a ridiculous smile. He looked like he’d been caught laughing by the camera. The edges of his hair were sandy blond, almost honeyed. His eyes weren’t blue, but they were still nice. He clicked on the guy’s picture tile.

A larger photo appeared, and a chat icon at the bottom of the image.