“My flat is only a short walk away,” I said. Suddenly, my heart pounded hard in my chest. I flashed back to earlier in the night, when that young douchebag called me out for being older. It had left a mark. “You don’t have to if—”
“Let’s go,” Jamison (or Fred or Brad or Jason) said.
Okay, okay, good. I could breathe properly again.
We walked through the patio, into the pub. The lights had been flicked on, throwing the scene into stark reality, making me wish I’d put on beer goggles just to walk through the filthy space. I was pretty sure I saw five different puddles that could be considered as hazardous waste by government officials.
Outside, the London air was fresh. It was early October, so the temperature wasn’t blistering cold yet. We could get by with light jackets, although I’d been underneath the Miami sun for so long that even seventeen degrees Celsius started to feel like the dead of winter to me.
“So how are you liking London?” I asked as we walk down a quiet street, rows of homes on either side of us, blinds closed and residents fast asleep.
“I love it! I really didn’t think I would, just because I’m not a big industrial city kinda gal, you get me? I didn’t much like New York when I visited, and I heard London was a similar. But it’s not—it feels like a storybook over here.”
“That’ll start wearing off after a few months and a couple rides on the Tube.”
“Oh, I’ve gotten a taste of the subway over here.” He shrugged. “Still better than NYC. I once saw a woman on the subway back in New York, and no lie, she had a pet rat dressed in a pink tutu and wearing a top hat, and the rat would just sit on her shoulder, nibbling on her hair.”
“Okay, yeah, that is a little weird.”
We laughed, the sound of his happiness lifting my mood.
The street turned, the houses feeling more cramped as we got closer to the river. Ahead, the lampposts were all out, plunging our path into darkness. I was walking, still chuckling, and not realizing Jamison had stopped cold behind me.
“What’s wrong?” I turned to him, seeing his expression painfully twist before he forced his smile back on.
“I, uhm, mind if we take another road? I… the, uhm.”
“Sure, we can take the street over. We’ll see the river better that way, anyway.”
Something had affected him. It happened quickly and seemed to have been visceral. I felt a pang of sadness hit me. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and hold him until he felt safe again, and I didn’t really know why…
We turned and went down the street with the lampposts lighting our way. It took a few minutes for the conversation to return and for the mood to lift again, but it did. Soon, we were back to laughing and joking, walking alongside the River Thames, its gentle water spotlighted by the full moon that floated above us. There were anchored boats, most of them multitiered tourist boats that bobbed up and down, the sound of their docks creaking gently. Buildings lined the other side of the street, some of them modern apartment buildings with glass and red bricks, and other buildings holding on to their historic facades, some of them I still even remembered.
As we talked, I noticed both of us couldn’t keep our hands off the other. Not in a groping-about-to-snog-you-on-the-street kind of way. It was more of a flirting dance kind of way. He would laugh and put a hand on my forearm. I would occasionally reach over and touch his elbow, his lower back, even the nape of his neck. Every time our skin touched skin, I could feel the sparks fly. The same kind of sparks that happened the moment I met this guy.
“Jesus, Jamison, you are one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met, you know that?” I had to say it after a particularly gut-busting joke.
“Ugh, okay.” He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’m not really named after a hard liquor—that was just a dumb moment. I wanted to be someon—”
I kissed him. I couldn’t hold myself back. His lips locked with mine, and I could feel the entire bloody planet rock underneath my feet. I’d never been so struck by a snog before. This was unexpected. I shut my eyes and parted his lips with my tongue, entering his mouth, gliding and probing and tasting. His hands moved to my hips, and he tugged me against him. I could practically feel the moan rise up through his small frame. I swallowed it hungrily, letting my hands roam up and down his back, slipping underneath his shirt, feeling his soft skin under my palms. Heat blasted through me like I’d just opened a furnace.
There was no denying it, no running from it. The two of us had a raw chemistry that made my bones simmer with heat and my cock throb with need. Who gave a fuck about names?
“How far is your flat from here?” Jamison asked, breathless, lips lit up by the orange light from the lamppost above us.
“That building right there.”
“Why aren’t we running? You’re not even wearing heels.”
He was already speed-walking down the street toward the building I had pointed out.
I laughed, following behind him, my hand in my pocket holding down my stiffy so that I didn’t look like I was offering a home for any displaced gnomes.
We could barely climb the stairs up to my place. Our kisses and gropes and grinds made climbing stairs a difficult but quite enjoyable process.
By the time we had entered the living room, our shirts were already off and pants were beginning to get unzipped. I left my father’s letter on a table next to my door. I didn’t even have time to flick on the light, which was fine since the blinds were wide open and let in plenty of street light melded with moonlight.
The darkness also helped in keeping my affectionately dubbed “dad bod” a little more concealed. I wasn’t going to lie—plus there was zero way I could lie—but I didn’t really go to the gym that often. I was blessed with good genes and had stayed relatively fit throughout most of my life with minimum amount of effort. Age, though, had different plans. It was taking a little more work and a little more attention to what I ate so that I didn’t balloon, but I also wasn’t walking around with a washboard six-pack.