Page 26

They stood face to face, sharing a startled breath at their sudden proximity, and then they were moving.

Alex, dragging him in, and Timi falling into his arms like a puppet with strings coming apart.

Strong arms locked tight around him, crushing him into a hard body.

And Timi, who needed to feel anything other than this unbearable heaviness, held on just as tightly.

His whole senses drowned in lemon, something woodsy, and sweat.

He permitted himself to burrow his face in the crook of Alex's neck as he'd imagined a few times, breathing him in like a chronic asthmatic on oxygen, and blinking away the gritty hotness behind his eyes.

Above him, Alex sucked in a breath, his arms tightening further, thwarting any chance of them separating.

There wasn't enough sanity in the air to question what it meant for two men to have their bodies fused so snugly. Thighs to thighs. Chest to chest. Warm breath snuffed against a smooth neck, and scattered ones ghosting the shell of an ear. A synchronised hammering of heartbeat against heartbeat.

They stayed like that, with Timi feeling down to his soul every moment he got lighter.

He wasn't exactly a preacher of healthy coping mechanisms, but damn, hugs were underrated.

Fifteen years later, and he'd forgotten what it felt like for someone to hold him, just for the sake of it.

And for his body to allow it without feeling like it was wrapped up in swine turd.

But as with his moments of relief, the world Alex's arms shielded him from began filtering in too soon.

First, it was Edet's door creaking open, then, a loud coughing fit.

Alex's arms slackened as awareness ushered in awkwardness, and Timi stepped away, clearing his throat, eyes everywhere but the man beside him.

Silence sat between them like an African aunty tasked with upholding a holy alliance between sticky lovers, until Edet's bodily noises ended with a slam of his door.

Alex released a deep breath then. “The faces, did any change?”

Timi leaned against the counter, slowly shaking his head. “Tried not to look.”

Silence reigned for another moment, before Alex said softly, “You asked why I was here.”

Timi stayed mute.

“I came over so you could see mine.”

Timi's teeth clenched to keep his face from crumpling.

During one of their night conversations, they'd discussed his illness.

“Faces scare me, true,” he'd said. “But they don't change unless they remind me of things I'd rather forget. There’re some that just appear different though. Unthreatening. Calm. Uncle Jude's for example. Agu's, surprisingly.”

“And others?” Alex had asked.

“By the time I met them, the problem was long gone,” Timi said.

Alex's next words had come out hesitantly. “You think mine would've been different? If I was in that room at Buck, would you have been scared to look at me?”

He'd wanted to tease, but Alex's face the first day they met filled his mind. Handsome, haughty, cold. Too busy being aloof to deign Timi worthy of harm.

Timi had replied with a smile. “Whenever the faces change, just show me yours.”

Alex's soft 'okay' may have sounded like a vow sealed in blood, but Timi hadn't expected him to take his words literally.

He braced himself against the counter, burning eyes fixed on a glass cabinet housing Bone China cups on saucer sets and porcelain bowls. “It's not…” He pulled at his shirt's collar. “You didn't have to come.”

Alex shifted on his feet. “I saw the comments and…found myself here.”

What was Alex saying? They were friends, they talked every day, he was okay with that.

Why keep saying stuff like this, turning Timi's head inside out and causing his heart to flutter with a hope he had no business feeling?

Their arrangement was temporary. In about five months, they'd shake hands and bid each other farewell.

Alex would go on with his life, Nejeree forever by his side, and Timi would retire to Byron Bay, communing with nature and becoming the last of him.

How could he think to rely on Alex beyond the cause that brought them together?

“I would never ask that of you,” Timi said, almost harshly.

Alex's gaze bored through his skin. “You didn't ask for anything.”

“Then, stop. Just stop.”

“What should I stop?”

Timi swung to face him, frustrated words at the tip of his tongue.

But upon seeing his earnest face, he couldn't bring himself to say them.

Because it would establish the fact that he saw Alex in a certain way he shouldn't, and make it seem as though his relationship with Nejeere bothered him.

But didn't Alex understand the concept of fidelity?

Or was it Timi who had become so attention-starved, he was reading meanings into harmless words and gestures ?

He straightened. “I'm sticky. I need to shower. You can take the Camry since it's late. You'll have to fuel it though.”

Alex placed a hand on Timi's arm as he turned to leave. “You're not doing anything wrong,” he said quietly.

A mirthless laugh escaped Timi. Of course, Alex would guess his turmoil. What a fucking mind reader.

Alex continued. “And I'm not doing anything wrong either. Just in case you think I am.”

Timi's whole face burned. “I didn't say we were doing anything.”

Alex dropped his hand. “Go ahead. Ask me.”

Timi met his gaze. “I have no question for you.”

“Then, stop feeling guilty. I came because I know how these comments get to you. That's all.”

Timi frowned. “Who says I'm feeling...I didn't say you came for anything else, okay? What else is there for you to come for?”

Alex studied him for a moment, then stretched out an arm.

Timi had already jumped backwards before he realised Alex was reaching for the plastic fruit bowl beside him.

Alex's lips curved as he picked up an apple.

He rinsed it under a running faucet, turned around, fixed his gaze squarely on Timi, and bit into the red, juicy fruit.

Heart beating unevenly, Timi's eyes helplessly roved those plump lips and sturdy throat as Alex chewed and swallowed.

He should say something, but his mouth had gone so dry he feared his tongue would split in two if he forced words out of it.

He couldn't look away either. Had eating apples found its way onto a page from the Kama Sutra?

Alex, on the other hand, seemed to revel in the tension crackling in the air, as he bit and chewed deliberately, his eyes never leaving Timi's for a second.

Only when he got to the core did he drop his gaze and say, “I've known Nejeere since we were undergrads, and we've never been more than friends.”

Timi blinked and looked away. Nejeere's 'He's the reason it never worked with anyone else' hammered in his mind.

Never would he have imagined his tough, no-nonsense manager a victim of unrequited love, nor thought Alex would clarify issues as though he was his jealous lover.

It didn't matter whether they were in a relationship or not, even if his heart had leapt treacherously at the revelation.

“I didn't ask,” he muttered.

Alex threw away the apple core, washed his hands in the sink and shrugged. “I know. Consider it the same as telling you about Rajesh and his skills for unearthing weird UK jobs.”

Timi swallowed a scoff. “Well, it still isn't my business. Though, I hope you're aware your view is totally one-sided?”

A shadow crossed Alex's face. “We agreed to be friends.”

He licked his lips. “So, like nothing at all?”

Alex wiped his hands on a napkin. “If there was, surgery would have been required to pull her off me.”

Silence fell. It wasn't the words that rendered him speechless, but the way he said them so matter-of-factly.

Alex; the doyen of bedroom matters. And like every mere mortal unfortunate to hear those words, an image wasted no time forming.

An Avant Garde display of a body in 3D, standing with arms akimbo over the boneless form of Nejeere.

Then, it was him, lying spent and satiated on his rumpled bed, eyes trailing the body that had destroyed him.

Strong neck settled firmly into dips of muscular clavicles.

Smooth muscles flexing on swollen biceps.

Chiselled abs on a flat stomach slicked with sweat.

A trail of silky hair down a V-curve, leading to a—

Timi snatched a horrified gaze up, colliding with Alex's which held a glint that suggested he'd witnessed Timi's eyes fall to his crotch for a second.

Could he also feel the molten heat spreading through him, or the mortifying tightening around his zipper?

Timi turned around so his frontage rested on cold marble, desperately snatching up an apple.

“Who do you think you are?” he managed to snort. “Some porn star?”

From behind him, Alex said ruefully. “I try. It's unfortunate my efforts haven't been crowned with a worthy name.”

Timi reached for the tap right on the counter, a smile splitting his face, dousing the fire within him to a manageable and less embarrassing degree.

He couldn't believe they were talking about sex, and the only part of him distressed was the chief partaker in the act.

“Lexdick sounds like a suggestion. Doesn't pack the required punch. ”

“I'll leave the names for experts like you.” Alex climbed up the counter as soon as Timi finished rinsing his apple. “I'm surprised your girlfriends allowed themselves be replaced.”

“Never had girlfriends.”

“Wow. Now, who's the porn star?”

Timi strolled towards the kitchen door and poked his head out. “Alexa, play Renegade by Aaryan Shah.” He returned to the kitchen, swinging up to sit beside Alex who had picked up a pear. “Listen carefully. Dude wrote it on my life.”

They sat side by side, munching on apples and pears, listening to a man who had become the pain he’d been trying to escape.

Who cared about nothing more save the oblivion drugs gave him.

But the lyrics that had carved its piths into Timi's bones had become shallow.

They told a story of a man he couldn't recognise anymore.

“I don't hear you in it,” Alex murmured.

Timi shook his head. How could he be right all the time? “That's because you hear what you want to hear.”

He had to admit though, the song had felt right because it provided the words he couldn't say during the dark months after Uncle Jude's death.

Pounding into his skull as he wallowed in the darkness, lost and alone.

But a man sat beside him now, offering the redeeming strength of an extra presence in his bleak world.

The song, which thrived on loneliness, didn't stand a chance.

And Timi could no longer tell how long before he damned all consequences and clung on.