Page 3 of Read My Lips

“Give me the phone,” I mouthed, inching sideways to snatch a pillow up off the bed. But Luke shook his head, holding it selfie-style, like the total boundary-lacking shit I had failed to clock him as. Hitting him grew more appealing.

“...Ben, turn on another light please? I can’t see a thing.” Distracted-sounding, Simon’s vowel-thick voice croaked in above a rumble of traffic. Too loud, mildly garbled. And now was really not the time for it to crackle goosebumps all along me.

“Give me my sodding phone Luke.”

Surprisingly, Luke gave me my sodding phone.

Then he clapped his hands, and every light in the building turned on. Because he lived in a spaceship from the future. Apparently.

On screen, an image of the pair of us topless and rumpled flash-bulbed into life as the phone’s camera adjusted to the thousand-watt daylight brightness. And I died. Half mast. Basically naked. Next to a guy who was so very new to twenties he thought I was geriatric. In front of my boss.

“Oh.” Simon peered into his phone on an evident double take. “Hello Ben.”

His lips did that thing they always did at the edges when he was pretending not to smile. Through the laugh clearly lodging at the back of his throat, his voice bled through even more thickly and less precise.

I sat down sharply, tackling Luke onto the bed next to me with a firm grip on his wrist.

“Hi.” There I was, pasty as all get-out, skin fluorescing white – because when had I last seen the sun? Boring brown buzz-cut, as usual. Next to Luke, exuding boy band hair, trust funds, and manscaping. With an Oxford pillow shoved into my lap. Excellent.

“Oh my god. And I thought you were all masc4masc. Is this your boyfriend?” Luke bubbled with pure deluded optimism. “Were you going to film us?”

Grin stuck on, I hissed at him through gritted teeth. “What’s wrong with you?” He did not seem to be interpreting my glare correctly.

Simon’s deep brown eyes flashed with laughter. “Glad to see I didn’t wake you up.”

My spine tingled. Like it always bloody did whenever he spoke. Defensively, I folded my arms tight across my bare chest. Then unfolded them again. In case it looked like I was flexing. Fuck. Everything.

Simon looked like he’d fallen out of an alternative old Hollywood movie that hadn’t been whitewashed: all technicolor glamour and detail, cheekbones and tailoring and class. Effortlessly, disgustingly perfect, in his vintage, high-waisted suit and his cufflinks and tie clip and braces, rocking all these sartorial choices I never knew existed before I met him, because I hadn’t even known sartorial was a word. Did he sleep in a suit, or never sleep at all?

“Simon.” My foot vibrated against the anti-shagpile carpet. “Why the—” I did not swear at him. That would not have been professional. “Why are you calling?”

If I stayed exactly in this spot, he probably couldn’t tell I was naked.

“Hi.” Luke leaned closer, jostling for screen space. ​“We can ignore Ben if you⁠—”

“Excuse me, no we canno⁠—”

“—I’m Luke.”

Amusement lifted the corner of Simon’s mouth. Fan-bloody-tastic.

Next to either of them, I was wallpaper. Always would be. Actually, scratch that; I was paint. Solid, matt emulsion. In greige.

“Simon, right? You should absolutely talk me into a phone-cam threesome.”

Simon was the wallpaper. The fancy high-end stuff someone had hand drawn, or hand painted, or dusted with legitimate gold leaf.

“I’m doing this whole piece on tech in the bedroom.” Wincing softly at me, Luke’s voice dropped to a whisper, talking from behind his hand. “And wannabe straight guys in sexuality crises.”

How bloody dare he? “Actually, I’m bi⁠—”

“Come over”—no one cared what I was—“I’ll do an in-depth threeway interview. It’s the Rubicon Building. Limehouse.”

I spluttered a choke, grabbing for my phone again as Simon raised his voice.

“Ben, what did your friend just say?”

Oh, I bet he never dicked about with dubious randoms, did he? He was too classy to do anything other than go on proper, real-life dates with blokes he met on WeAreIntellectualCreatives.com, and have lots of spectacular, deeply fulfilling sex afterwards that had everything to do with cataclysmic orgasms and choirs of angels, and nothing to do with whisky-dick and mutual disappointment.