Page 87 of Total Creative Control

He just missed Aaron.

The trouble was, he didn’t have a fucking clue what to do about it. Aaron’s only tie to him had been the job, and now he’d moved on. What could Lewis do now? Ask him out? He didn’t exactly have a good track record with relationships. As one of Lewis’s exes had once memorably said, “I think asking me out was your way of saying goodbye.”

He simply wasn’t relationship material. There were plenty of men who could testify to his many, many flaws in that department: fear of intimacy, obsession with work, inability to trust, self-centredness, unwillingness to commit. The list went on and on.

The truth was, Lewis wasn’t sure he even knew what a functional relationship looked like. His dad had walked out when he was two and Owen was seven. And then he’d lost his mum...

In the years that had followed, Lewis had come to accept that love, affection, and commitment weren’t his to give. As much as he loved his loyal and fiercely protective brother, who’d grafted and fought for them to stay together, Lewis just didn’t have that emotional depth himself. Not when it came to romantic relationships. He was too egocentric, too impatient. Toocowardlyto give enough of himself. And so, when he’d discovered sex, he’d never been able to put it in the same category as those softer feelings. Or any emotion really.

Not until that night. With Aaron.

He closed his eyes, remembering. Remembering his lips tracing a delicate route down Aaron’s body.

Why had it been so different with him? He’d slept with loads of other blokes, and it had just felt…normal. Carnal, yes. Pleasurable, of course. But only in a physical, transitory way. When he pressed his lips to other men’s skin, it had been with the intention of arousing and persuading. With the aim of bringing his partner pleasure, and in hopes of being given pleasure in return.

A means to a predictable end.

Not with Aaron, though. With Aaron, when he’d laid his lips on that smooth skin, it had been with something that felt worryingly like adoration. As he’d traced that path of kisses down Aaron’s body, his chest had been full and aching with some unnameable yearning. Not just to fuck Aaron but to share the feelings swirling inside him.

Even now, remembering that was terrifying.

His phone beeped again.

It was ten to one.

He paused for a moment, then swore softly and rose from his chair, reaching for his jacket.

It would be good for him to see Aaron with Tag. He may as well force himself to face reality sooner or later.

* * *

There was no sign of Aaron in Grinder when Lewis got there, so he joined the queue and ordered a mint hot chocolate with extra whipped cream and sprinkles and a ham sandwich with white bread and no salad. The server tried to talk him out of the ham sandwich, pointing to the list of more complicated options on the blackboard behind him.

“We do a great Croque Monsieur,” he said earnestly. “Or how about the Serrano ham, tapenade, and Manchego cheese piadina?”

Lewis tried to keep hold of the fraying strands of his temper. “If you can do a Croque Monsieur, you can do a plain ham sandwich,” he pointed out tightly. “Charge me the same for it if you like. Hell, charge me more! But can I just have what I asked for?”

“Okay, dude,” the server said, in a tone that suggested he thought Lewis was unhinged. “If that’s what you want. Eat in or takeaway?”

Lewis cast one last look around the place—there was still no sign of Aaron.

“Takeaway.”

A few minutes later, he was handed his sandwich and hot chocolate and headed for the door. But just before he got there, he finally spotted Aaron, sitting at a table near the window on his own, scrolling on his phone.

Aaron was wearing jeans and Converse and a burnt-orange hoodie that brought out the warm, autumnal notes in his light brown hair. He looked good.

Really good.

Lewis didn’t know what name to put to the weird hollow feeling in his stomach. Maybe regret. And a sort of achy longing.

Standing in the middle of the café, he waited for Aaron to notice him, but when Aaron didn’t even look up from his phone, he squared his shoulders and made his way over.

“Hi,” he said as he drew closer. “Are you in for lunch?”

Aaron glanced up, his expression startled.

“Oh, hi!” he said, looking anything but thrilled. “Yeah, I’m having lunch with a friend.” He waved vaguely in the direction of the now-long queue of customers at the counter. “He’s just getting our food.”