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Trent had gone beyond “pleasantly fizzy” a nebulous amount of time ago, but when another shot glass sloshed into his hand, he threw it back without a thought. Colin thumped his shoulder and shouted encouraging nonsense in his ear, and soon enough they were back to jumping up and down to the beat of the music. It had cycled from throbbing drum and bass to dance remixes of nostalgic stuff from Trent’s youth, Erasure and Soft Cell and Everything But the Girl. The alcohol burned down his throat and up his spine and set his scalp tingly. The room swayed and buzzed and Trent laughed. Colin slung an arm around his neck where he was hot and sweaty, and Colin’s head collided with Trent’s shoulder.
“You all right, mate?” Trent shouted.
Colin lifted his head, colored lights flashing over his face. He was dewy with sweat himself, eyes half-lidded, smile dazed.
“M’fine!” he said, too loud right into Trent’s ear. “It’s funny though—no one here can dance!”
“This is why we bounce!” Trent said.
Colin laughed again. He swayed backward just as a rather fit young man sidled up behind him and joined his rhythm. Colin’s eyes slid shut and he tipped his head back. A hand swept over his stomach and chest. Earlier, he’d told Trent he wanted to have a bit of fun but wasn’t looking to pull tonight. He was technically free to do as he pleased, he’d said in an undertone, as if confiding something shameful, but he really liked the fella he’d been seeing and wasn’t looking to be in the right on technicalities alone.
This wasn’t the first man Colin danced with tonight, and Trent doubted he would be the last. Trent hadn’t expected to be viewed as an attractive prospect himself, being as he was a solid twenty years older than most of the men in the crowd, but some of them were quite keen on him and he’d had to bounce his way out of a respectable number of embraces tonight. He supposed he could pull if he wanted, but he was content to dance by Colin, to be manhandled when Colin wanted to go this way or that, to be the excuse Colin gave when he declined invitations to the loo or the alley or someone’s flat. So, Trent let his mind rest and gave his body over to the music and the drink and the swirl of gay euphoria palpable in this place.
Eventually, Colin shouted in Trent’s ear that he needed the toilet and bobbed over to the edge of the crowd and disappeared. Trent, who was hot and flushed and probably just as sweaty as Colin and 100% less sexy about it, took the opportunity to have a breather by the bar and ask the bartender for four glasses of water. Maybe Colin was young and hale enough to be unbothered by hangovers, but Trent, for one, needed to get a head start on alleviating the inevitable.
He had downed his second glass and was eying the ones he was saving for Colin when something on the other end of the bar flashed in his peripheral vision. He stood up straight and craned his neck to see through the crush of bodies and there it was: Ted Lasso’s backpack, swung off his back and into his lap as he sat at the corner of the bar, running his hands over the surface and drawing them back up again sharply. He did it over and over, staring at his hands with his mouth hanging open as if whatever stickiness he was experiencing were of the utmost importance. In his khakis, beset on all sides by a veritable cornucopia of flamboyance, he looked like a rutabaga discarded in a bed of roses.
What the great fuck was Ted Lasso doing in a gay bar?
A pint of beer landed in front of Ted and he paid it, and the bartender, no heed. Not even a thank you kindly. His hair flopped over his forehead as if whatever product kept it in place had simply collapsed out of exhaustion, and he continued in his methodical molestation of the bar top.
Christ, the man was high.
There was no way Ted was here with intention. He might not even know he was in a gay meat market. Trent couldn’t imagine what brought him here, but it certainly couldn’t be his good sense and a latent desire for cock. The moment Trent thought it, a tall young man with a dramatic shoulder to waist ratio draped himself against the bar and Ted’s side, effectively blocking him from Trent’s view. Trent goggled as the young man drew his hand down Ted’s back and let it rest, easy as you please, on the generous curve of Ted’s arse. Trent could only see the back of him in profile, but Trent didn’t need the full picture to notice Ted’s jolt at the touch.
Suddenly it occurred to Trent that someone may have done this to Ted, drugged his drink or something. There was no deliberation, no conscious decision: I must rescue Ted Lasso.
Trent slid along the bar, dodging bodies and drinks, until his side was flush with the young man. He caught only a snippet of conversation—“Is it true American universities have rodeo teams?”—before he shoved himself between the stranger and the bar.
“Ted, darling, are you ready to go?” he said, and fuck that wasn’t the plan. Had he had a plan? No, he’d just slithered his way over and pitched the two of them into a bizarre pantomime he could only hope Ted would go along with.
“Trent Crimm!” Ted cried, and suddenly those hands—sticky, as suspected—reached up and clapped Trent on his cheeks. “You got any idea who this is, Hendrik? You’re in for a treat.”
“I was talking to him,” said the young man, accent light but enunciation sloppy with drink.
“I don’t think he wants to talk to you,” Trent said, each word crisp as bite of fresh romaine. Trent felt an unreasonable amount of pride in his own articulacy.
“Woo wee, Hendrick, you feel that heat? You just got Trent Crimmed! Can I touch your hair, Trent?”
Sticky fingers fiddled with the ends of Trent’s hair before he could respond. Trent closed his hands around both of Ted’s and pulled them away from his hair, but then Ted wouldn’t let go of him. His gaze was soft on Trent’s face.
“Ted, love, I think it’s time to go.”
“Are you two together?” Hendrick asked.
“Do you mind?” Trent said. “I’m trying to have a conversation.”
“You’re well fit too,” Hendrick said. “You want to join? We can all have fun.”
He finally spared Hendrick a glance—not quite young enough to be his son, smooth and blond and Nordic, possessed of an enviable pair of shoulders, yes, but as blandly good-looking as an airbrushed underwear model. He was probably not used to rejection.
“What I want is for you to bugger off and find someone more your speed.”
Hendrick rolled his eyes, reached over Trent, and shoved something into Ted’s pocket.
“Call me if you get a moment free of this nag.”
He made a show of kissing Ted on the cheek while maintaining eye contact with Trent before breaking away and being swallowed up by the churning mass of Thunderdong.
Trent was suddenly hyperaware of Ted’s hands on his, stroking over his skin, light but intent.
“Ted,” he said. “Are you all right? Let’s get you back to the hotel.”
“Your skin’s real soft, you know that?”
“I think you were dosed with something,” Trent said. “Best get going.”
“Yeah, Beard’s special mushroom tea,” Ted said. “Hoo boy, you would not believe the funk of that stuff, it’s worse than the boot room in the heat of July.”
“You did it on purpose?”
“When in Rome, darlin’,” Ted said with a sloppy wink that had Trent’s heart stumbling on itself.
“Is Beard here?” Trent caught himself before he could ask if Ted was supposed to have a minder.
“Nah, you know him.” Ted made a vague twirling gesture in the air before his hand landed in Trent’s hair again. He blinked unevenly and contentment suffused his face. “You got no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this. Why’s it so soft?”
Trent swallowed, feeling simultaneously too drunk and not drunk enough for whatever was happening.
“I’ll tell you what, Ted,” he said. “How about we get you back to your room, you wash your hands, and I promise you can touch—” whatever you damn well please “—my hair to your heart’s content.”
“Golly, now that’s an offer,” Ted said. He slapped his thighs and stood up only to fold himself around Trent and hold him tight, nose in hair. Trent didn’t care how high Ted was, his hair was not fit for admirers right now, but there Ted was, huffing him like paint, with no apparent plans to stop. Trent closed his arms around Ted’s back and held on.
Presently Colin appeared behind Ted, palms up, face plastered with exaggerated surprise. Trent flipped his own hand out and approximated a shrug without any shoulders to work with as if to say he had no idea what was happening, because he didn’t. Colin shook his head and shrugged with shoulders.
Are you okay? Trent mouthed.
Colin nodded.
I have to take care of him.
Colin’s big-eyed incredulity transformed into a smirk.
Really!
“Sure, boyo,” Colin said. He made a shooing gesture.
You’ll be alright?
Colin grinned, winked, and pogoed back onto the dance floor.
“Come on, Ted,” Trent said, pulling out of Ted’s grip. “Time to go.”
“You should call me ‘daaahling’ more, sport,” Ted said. “No, no, that ain’t it, is it? I think I’ll call you…sunshine.”
Trent barked out a laugh.
“Can’t say I’ve ever been accused of brightening someone’s day.”
“Mmm no, you look just like a sunflower. Yep.”
A big hand landed in his hair again. Trent tugged it away and used it to lead Ted through the crowd and out the door.
“Oh fuck,” Trent said on the curb outside. He was swaying and had to link arms with Ted to keep upright.
“What’s up, buttercup?”
“I have no idea how to get back to the hotel.”
Ted giggled and looked around—all around, including up in the sky and down at his feet. He bent down and plucked something from the pavement and held it out for Trent to look at as if it were a precious quail chick.
It was a small rock. Gray and unremarkable, shot through with tendrils of smooth orange.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Ted asked.
“Yes,” Trent said.
Ted brought it up to his mouth. Trent pushed his hand down.
“You can’t eat the rock, Ted.”
“But it looks delicious.”
“I’ll get you those sweeties that look like rocks tomorrow, how about that?”
Ted giggled again and slung an arm around Trent’s neck.
“Why do I feel like I just got mothered by Trent Crimm?”
Ted wheeled them around to the left and started walking. For his own part, Trent shambled along, leaning against Ted when his feet didn’t want to cooperate with his brain, which was always.
“Are you sure this is the right way?” Trent asked.
“Could always use your GPS to see,” Ted said.
The thought of looking at his phone right now made Trent’s stomach roil.
“Urgh.”
“Guess you’ll just have to trust me.” Ted paired a bounce of his eyebrows with a bounce onto his toes and on they went.
Ted bumped into and apologized to a street lamp. He petted the pole like an errant kitten.
“Come feel this,” he said.
It was metal, plastered with paper adverts and guerrilla art. It was entirely unremarkable to the touch.
Ted handed Trent several coins and pebbles and bottle caps. He at least refrained from picking up discarded food, but Trent realized quickly that he to be vigilant about Ted putting things in his mouth, especially if they were shiny, or smooth, or otherwise “sooo pretty.”
When they reached a place that gave them better access, Ted squatted on the embankment to dip his hands in the Amstel.
“Ooo, it’s cold,” he said, shimmying his shoulders and making a face like Trent’s great-aunt who thought having a second scone was naughty and thrilling. He leaned forward, stretching to reach something that could only matter to someone in an altered state. Despite Trent’s copious imbibement of vanilla vodka, he was still the father of a tiny disaster toddler, and so he darted forward. He managed to grab a fistful of Ted’s puffer coat and haul him back before he could topple headfirst into the river, but the result was that Ted toppled into him, and the two of them sprawled out on the pavement in a heap. Trent couldn’t even enjoy Ted’s solid weight pressing into him; he’d taken an elbow to the bladder and was seconds away from an emergency.
“Ted, Ted, I need a piss, get off,” he said.
Ted giggled some more and slid off him.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” Trent chanted, buzzing his way to a reasonably sequestered bush.
“I’ll keep lookout for ya!” Ted shouted.
“Jesus fuck,” Trent said. He got his prick out before he made a mess of himself, and the relief of letting go nearly made him weep. Hazily, a bit of trivia floated past his mind’s eye: public urination carried a €150 fine. Worth it, he thought as the stream slowed. He shook off and tucked himself back into his trousers. No one accosted him with a ticket and he staggered away from the scene of the crime.
When he found Ted again he was squatted before a lovely row of tulips alternating between orange and pink and purple. Ted’s face was fully planted in them. He was rubbing the petals against his cheek, his temple, the bony orbit of his eye.
“Trent you gotta try this,” he said. “They feel like velvet, Trent, do you think you could get sheets made outta this stuff?”
“Surely the Dutch are on the vanguard of this technology,” Trent said.
“Ohh,” Ted said. “Ohhhh.”
Christ, he was moaning. It was obscene. Trent focused on the tulips and not Ted Lasso’s arse bobbing about as he knelt before them.
“Hoi!” someone shouted.
Trent startled and whipped his head around too fast. The world spun. Someone was shouting at them in Dutch. Trent nearly tripped himself hauling Ted up. Half-running, he dragged Ted down the road. Mournfully, Ted cried, “My tulips!”
When they finally made it back to the hotel, Ted headed directly for the en suite, where he washed his hands for far too long.
“Ted? Are you alright in there?”
The door swung open.
“Trent, hey Trent, c’mere. You gotta try this.”
Trent hovered in the doorway to the en suite. Under the harsh fluorescent lighting, he could see Ted was flushed, his eyes glassy, one side of his mustache askew as if he’d been sleeping on it. Trent caught sight of himself in the mirror and cringed. He was drunk and sweaty and probably smelled rank; there was no hiding a bit of it.
“C’mere,” Ted said, and grabbed Trent by the wrist. He pulled his hand under the flow of the faucet. The water was just shy of too hot. Trent watched Ted’s face in the mirror; Ted watched the water pour over their tangled hands, mesmerized. “D’you feel that?”
“Feel what?” Trent asked.
“Water’s in everything, you know? In you and me and the earth and the frogs and the moss and the strawberries and the wind. Connected, like we’re all one thing, together. Do you feel it?”
Ted’s eyes were bleary, but when Trent met them in the mirror, they felt as sharp as the beat of Trent’s heart. There, he felt his daughter, his sister, his mother and father and grandfather. He felt Colin across the city, Shakeeba, Imran, and Alasdair back in London, Ted right here in this hotel room. He even felt the boy he was once, before he learned to transmute his hurt, his fear, and his howling loneliness into armor. Would that he could fold time and send that boy this feeling now.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I feel it.”
Ted’s eyes slid shut and he sagged against Trent’s back, chin propped on Trent’s shoulder. Trent’s breath caught. He didn’t dare move, but Ted squeezed his hand, and Trent squeezed back.
Trent let it go on for interminable minutes before he extricated himself, turned off the faucet, and led Ted out of the en suite and deposited him on the edge of his bed. Trent liberated two bottles of still water from Ted’s mini fridge, cracked them both open, and handed one to Ted.
“Here,” he said. “Drink that whole thing for me.”
“And then I can touch your hair as long as I want?”
Trent’s stomach flipped over and turned inside out. He drained half the bottle in one draw.
“A promise is a promise,” he said. “Perhaps you’ll let me wash my hair first.”
“What? Why? Looks good to me.”
“It’s filthy. I sweated a lot.”
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with a little honest sweat, sunshine. Better, even.”
An incredulous little laugh escaped Trent’s throat.
“Right. So. How do you want to do this?”
Ted cast about looking for something as if the room, airy and generous but fairly empty, had secret hair-touching nooks it had yet to reveal to him.
“Let’s sit on the couch,” Ted said, and lurched over to it.
Trepidation and anticipation licked up Trent’s belly in equal parts. It was a confusing muddle he didn’t know what to do with. Ted was patting the space beside himself eagerly. Trent sat and congratulated himself on not even doing so gingerly.
Ted’s thigh was pressed into Trent’s. It was warm and solid and Trent tried to modulate his breathing to calm the racing of his heart. Ted reached up with one hand and touched the ends of his hair. Trent leaned into it, eyes falling shut. Ted’s touch became less tentative. He passed that hand over Trent’s hair until he fell into a rhythm of long, slow strokes. Trent’s heart would not be calmed. All he had to do was not look at Ted, and he wouldn’t fly apart.
“This is a prize head of hair you got here, Trent,” Ted said. His voice was soft, pitched low, but it rumbled through Trent’s body sure as a roll of distant thunder. “You should be a shampoo model. They should model wigs after you. They should do studies on how your hair got this way so other people can share in the bounty.”
Trent hummed out another laugh.
“I think hair just comes out how it’s going to come out,” he said. “Yours is rather lovely as well, you know.”
“Now I know we ain’t pretendin’ I got anything on you in this department.”
“I got lucky, I suppose, getting my mother’s hair,” Trent said. “All she does is put argan oil in it once a week.”
“You’re telling me Mama Crimm’s out there wielding this kinda power, too? Breakin’ hearts and takin’ names?”
“Ha, well. She’s always inspired a certain level of admiration, but I never thought to attribute it to her hair before.”
“What would you attribute it to?” Ted said.
“She’s a lecturer of world literature at University of Southampton. Charismatic professors have a tendency to cultivate dedicated acolytes. I always fancied they looked like a pack of ducklings trailing after her.”
“Ah, brains and beauty, kryptonite. Who could blame them?”
“I didn’t say she was beautiful.”
The quality of Ted’s touch changed, and suddenly he was not simply caressing the contours of Trent’s head but burying his fingers in the thick of his hair at the base of his skull. Trent’s breath caught. Ted didn’t grip his hair, didn’t pull at it or get rough, but the touch was firm and intent. Intimate. His fingertips rooted through Trent’s hair as though testing the quality of each strand, the result of which was a very thorough scalp massage that had Trent shuddering under his hand. The whole situation threatened to rouse his vodka-soaked prick back to life. Trent squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath.
“Call it a hunch,” Ted said. “You all right there, Trent?”
“M’fine,” Trent said, voice tight. “Continue.”
“You know, if you sat on the floor in front’a me here, I could use both hands.”
Trent managed to suppress the moan before it bubbled out of his throat like an unwelcome houseguest. He slid gracelessly to the floor, and Ted shifted so his legs bracketed Trent’s body. Trent laid his head back and Ted sank both hands—big American football hands with their long articulate fingers—back into Trent’s hair.
“I seen it, you know,” Ted said.
“Seen what?”
“How people react to you. You literally turn heads in the street.”
“It’s just unusual, is all,” Trent said. “A man my age with long hair. People don’t expect it.”
“How long’s it been since you had it short?”
Trent snorted.
“Not since sixth form,” he said. “It got a bit shaggy and gave my father conniptions, so I just…kept growing it. Then I decided it looked better that way, so.” He shrugged.
Ted hummed.
“He ever threaten to shave it all off?”
“Every bloody day,” Trent said. It had the cadence of a joke, but the memory was a bitter one: his father coming at him with fabric shears, the cacophonous screaming, his mother roused from her study only long enough to tell them both to shut the fuck up. Rinse and repeat. Once, the blade nicked his ear, and the brandishing of weapons stopped but his father’s sneering complaints never did.
The hands in his hair stilled.
“Sorry to hear your dad has no taste,” Ted said. “If it were me, I’d…”
“You’d what.”
Ted chuckled and resumed running his fingers through Trent’s hair.
“I just imagined Henry with all that Rapunzel hair. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?”
“You’d let your son have long hair?”
“Let him? Well heck, Trent, as long as he looks clean he can do whatever he wants with his hair or clothes. I’m not real interested in imposin’ on him that way.”
Trent couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to be raised by a man who didn’t force his fantasies of masculinity on him through means both overt and passive aggressive. What would his life have been like with a gentler father at his back? It didn’t compute. Whoever that version of him was, he was entirely inconceivable to Trent.
“Our kids won’t be raised the way we were,” Ted said softly.
Trent laid his head against Ted’s thigh.
“Shiny,” Ted murmured.
“Hmm?”
Trent felt Ted pick up a lock of hair and hold it aloft.
“It’s soft, but it sparkles like silver in the sun. You know I used to be afraid of going grey til I met you?”
“I dyed it once,” Trent said.
“Ha! Why?”
“Vanity, I suppose. I thought I’d look less worn out or something. Instead I looked positively ludicrous. An old man pretending the color of his hair erased his wrinkles.”
“Now that can’t be true.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I know Trent Crimm, independent, never looked less than stunning a day in his life.”
Trent certainly couldn’t look that in the face. Ted was high, he reminded himself. He had no idea what he was saying. Trent dodged that conversational landmine neatly.
“You must be buttering me up for something.”
“Now you’re making me hungry.”
“Are you? There’s a vending machine down the hall.”
“Okay but I can’t move.”
“Are you ill? I’ll get you another water.”
Ted set a heavy hand on Trent’s shoulder to keep him from moving.
“I like it right where I am,” Ted said. “If your butt is fallin’ asleep or something, you say the word, but don’t go worryin’ about little old me.”
As his fingers sifted through Trent’s hair, Ted talked about Kansas and sunflowers and the great city of Chicago and triangular defenses in basketball and Michael Jordan’s stint in baseball and his little league coach and a close friend he had growing up, a boy who distanced himself after Ted’s father died and strained Ted’s already broken heart. Trent made all the appropriate sounds at the appropriate points in Ted’s monologue, asked the occasional clarifying question, but he was content to drift on the current of Ted’s voice, which was deep and rhythmic and soothing. The fizziness of inebriation was fading, fatigue settling into its place. He found himself dozing, losing time and the thread of conversation. One thing he didn’t lose was the rancid film of grime over his teeth.
“Ted,” he said.
“Mm.”
“What time is it?”
Tragically, Ted left off Trent’s hair and groped for his phone.
“Shoot, it’s almost 4am,” he said. “Ah hell, Trent, I took over your whole night. I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t apologize, Ted. I wanted to—” He swallowed down take care of you. “—make sure you got back safe.”
“That’s mighty thoughtful of you, Trent. I sure do feel bad about interruptin’ your evening, though.”
Trent waved a hand.
“Happy to do it,” Trent said. “I wouldn’t have lasted much longer at the club anyway. My liver thanks you.”
Trent stood and stretched. Ted watched him with eyes clear of whatever was in Beard’s tea.
“I’d better get going,” Trent said.
“Oh. Yeah, I guess it’s about that time.”
Neither of them moved. Ted’s stubble had grown in. He was unfairly gorgeous like this: rumpled and relaxed, hair flopping over his forehead.
“Or,” Ted said.
“Or?”
“I mean, you’re tired. We’re both tired. God only knows where your room is, anything could happen to you. Hotel corridors in the middle of the night aren’t real, everyone knows that. What if you get sucked into a portal? You could just crash here, it’s no big deal. That’s a king size bed I got over there. We could both starfish out and never touch.”
“Oh. I.” Trent swallowed. He was thirsty and needed a piss. “I need to brush my teeth.”
“There’s a complimentary toothbrush in the bathroom. I got some floss you can borrow, too.”
Trent snorted.
“I’ll be sure to return my used floss to you promptly.”
Ted’s face broke into a grin and he hit Trent with some finger guns.
“Sleepover!” Ted said. “This is gonna be fun. No, it’s going to be restful. Because it’s 4am, and we’re tired. If we fall asleep right now we can get almost five and half hours.”
“I see you’re familiar with toddler parent math,” Trent said.
“Otherwise known as negotiatin’ with terrorists, yeah,” Ted said. “I remember those days with fear and awe in my heart. Come on, lights out in ten.”
In the dark, they did not starfish across the bed. They lay on their backs staring up at the ceiling. Trent could see Ted blinking in his peripheral vision. Hotel rooms were never dark enough.
“Ted?”
“What do you need, Johnny Appleseed?”
“Why did you drink Beard’s tea?”
“He’s spent the last—” Ted held up his wrist as if to consult a watch that wasn’t there. “—twenty-eight years trying to get some magic mushrooms in me. I figured why not, now that I’m in a place it’s legal. I like opening myself up to new experiences.”
“Mushrooms aren’t legal in the Netherlands.”
“What!”
Ted flipped onto his side. Trent turned toward him. He was making an exaggerated surprise face. Trent rolled his eyes.
“So, Beard gives you this tea and then, what, he just leaves you to your own devices?”
“Well, no,” Ted said. “He drank his and I was dithering, you know, I didn’t know if I was gonna do it. I only took it after he left. But really, Trent, I’m a big boy, I can take care of myself. And look! Here I am, snug as a bug in a rug.”
“Ted, you wandered into a gay club called Prik having an event called Thunderdong.”
“Uh huh.”
“You were getting hit on.”
“Sure was.”
“By a man, Ted.”
“I think I liked it better when you called me darlin’.”
“Ted.”
‘Trent.”
The moment stretched. All Trent could hear was the sound of their breathing. That, and the rush of his own blood in his ears. The back of his neck heated as the truth—so obvious as to be embarrassing—dawned on him.
“No,” he said. “You? No.”
“Just think, you saved me from a very different kind of nice time.”
“Oh my God!” Trent turned abruptly onto his back and covered his eyes. “Oh my God, I cockblocked you. Oh fuck, Ted, I’m so, so sorry.”
Ted’s laugh was low and gentle and rolled through Trent’s body. Ted’s forehead came to rest on Trent’s shoulder before he could spring out of bed and flee back to his own room, never to be seen again.
“You were pretty drunk,” Ted said. “I figured I should look after you a bit, you know, make sure you didn’t get yourself in trouble.”
“Jesus Christ, the pair of us.”
“Besides,” Ted said, close enough now that his voice vibrated down Trent’s spine. “He wasn’t my type.”
“Oh, are tall blond Norse gods with 4% body fat and cut crystal jawlines not your type? Heaven forfend.”
Trent had met, briefly, Ted’s ex-wife. He knew exactly what Ted’s type was. He told himself, over and over, that he was imagining that the way Ted looked at him, the way Ted spoke to him, meant anything more than the friendly overtures of a man from middle America. He knew it was all wishful thinking. Because he wasn’t Ted’s type.
“Are they yours?” Ted asked.
“…no.”
“I’ve thought a lot about what your type might be, you know,” Ted said. A finger twirled into the ends of Trent’s hair. Trent’s breath turned ragged. “I figured it had to be someone real smart with a buncha degrees on the mantle. Handsome and well-read, a snappy dresser with the right accent. Someone you could talk to all night and never get tired of. So I told myself to keep dreamin’ and go find someone else to hang those dreams on.”
“Ted. We just talked all night. We are still talking.”
“Wouldja look at that.”
Trent turned over and forced himself to meet Ted’s eyes. Ted drew his hand back to himself, but Trent missed it. He caught Ted’s hand and placed it on the back of his own head. Ted’s breath shuddered out of him. He pushed his fingers into Trent’s hair and cradled his head. Trent slid closer. Their noses touched.
“Were you really going to sleep with whomever you picked up at Thunderdong?” Trent asked.
“Looks like I am.”
“You know what I mean.”
“To quote the great Meg Ryan—or Nora Ephron—or whoever wrote that movie: I wanted it to be you.”
“But you would have settled for Hendrick the cheekbone model.”
Ted’s smile was so curly, and it lodged itself right in Trent’s heart. He cupped Trent’s jaw and traced the crest of his cheekbone with his thumb.
“Guess we’ll never know. Now are you gonna kiss me or what, sunshine?”
Trent tilted his head up, nudged Ted’s nose, and slotted their mouths together. Sparks lit him up from the inside at the touch of Ted’s tongue. When Trent moaned, Ted pressed closer, swept inside his mouth and plundered him like a man starved. He held Trent’s face in both hands like a precious thing, and Trent answered in kind, surging up to meet him, bunching the back of his shirt in his hands.
Ted yielded, melting against him. They broke apart just long enough to yank each other’s shirts off, and then Trent was on top of him, chest to chest, belly to belly, cock to cock. Ted was beautifully soft all over—soft hair and soft skin, soft flesh over solid, strong muscle. He smelled intoxicating. Trent never wanted to stop touching him.
Ted spread his thighs and Trent slotted into place between them. They were still in their pants, but Trent was more than half hard already and Ted bucked up against him gracelessly. Trent trailed sucking kissing down Ted’s body, paying special attention to the space behind his ear, the lovely line of his collarbone, each rosy nipple eager for play. Ted’s hands landed in Trent’s hair and Trent was content to leave them there.
“God, Trent, you feel so good,” Ted babbled. “I didn’t let myself think too much on it because it doesn’t do to get too attached to a thing that’ll never happen but I admit I thought about it a little bit, I did, I couldn’t help it, I had a lot of scenarios going on in my head and now that you’re here I gotta tell you I got no idea what I’m doing but I sure would like to continue doing it, Trent, God, please.”
Trent stopped short of liberating Ted’s cock from his boxer briefs and propped himself up over him. Ted’s hands landed on Trent’s hips.
“You’ve never been with a man,” Trent said.
Ted’s eyelids fluttered as he focused on Trent. He shook his head.
“No sir, but I promise I’m a quick study.”
Trent forced himself to temper his breathing. He stroked over Ted’s hair and the side of his face.
“Tell me what you want for tonight and that’s what we’ll do.”
“But more later.” Half a question, tone hopeful.
Trent smiled down at him, traced his swollen bottom lip with a thumb.
“More later.” For as long as Ted would have him, there would be more. There was a well of tenderness inside Trent that only this man had been able to unlock; he wanted to pour it all into him. It was his by rights.
Ted grasped Trent’s wrist and pressed his face more firmly into Trent’s palm. Trent’s heart stumbled.
“There are certain things I’ve wanted for a long time,” Ted said. “My heart, sure, but also my body. My body wants so damn bad, Trent. Tonight, with the tea and all, it was like I couldn’t stand it anymore, I had to have it. And sure I was gonna take what I could get in there but then there you were, like I’d dreamed you up from all the wanting. Galatea as a boy.”
Christ, this man was devastating.
“We can do anything you want, darling.”
“But you—I have to make it good for you.”
Trent laughed, shaking his head. As if getting to touch Ted would ever be anything but a privilege and a joy.
“Ted, rest assured I don’t do a thing I don’t want to in bed. It would make me immensely happy to make you feel as good as it is possible to feel.”
Ted was staring up at him with awe written across his face.
“Now tell me, love, what it is you want so damn bad,” Trent said.
“I—maybe I drank the tea to muster up the courage to walk into a place called Prik and leave with what I want. Maybe I wanted to make sure I really felt it when it happened.”
“Ted.”
“Could you—with your fingers. Inside. Please, Trent.”
Trent leaned down and kissed him, soft and thorough and filthy. He settled against Ted’s side and stroked down all his lovely softness, until he reached a cock of prodigious proportions and no softness to speak of. He squeezed it through the damp cotton and swallowed Ted’s resultant gasp.
“You’re so gorgeous, you know that?” Trent murmured. “So lovely for me, just like this.”
Ted made a strangled sound that might have been Trent’s name. Trent eased the elastic over Ted’s cock and swelled even further himself at the sight of it popping free with a wet slap against Ted’s belly. With some shifting they both kicked off their underwear.
“May I suck you, Ted?”
“God, yes.”
Ted’s cock was thick and long, circumcised. What should have been brutish due to size was instead elegant, with a gentle upward curve, flushed such a pretty pink. His bollocks were heavy and full, already pulled up tight against his body. Trent’s mouth watered, suddenly ravenous. He fed himself Ted’s cock, moaning in relief at the way it throbbed against his palate, proof of Ted’s hunger. Ted gave a shout, hands tightening in Trent’s hair. He was so hard he was leaking, squirming, sobbing. And Trent got to be the instrument of his bliss.
It had been so long since Trent had been touched in honest desire, since he’d touched anyone else with honest desire in turn. He gave himself over to the rhythm of Ted’s pleasure, the bob and the suck, the ache in his jaw and the battering of his throat. He wanted to open his entire being to Ted like this, to swallow his pleasure, to take him apart and put him back together as a lighter thing, less burdened, more loved. The way he deserved.
Ted was squirming and babbling under the onslaught, pulling his knees up, opening his thighs, tilting that beautiful arse of his upward. Trent took pity on him and slid a finger up his crevice, which had gone sloppy with Trent’s own spit. With the pad of his middle finger, he found the furl of heat at Ted’s center and swirled its rim with the lightest touch. Ted shouted and spasmed, only to push into the contact and collapse into the bed with a moan.
“God, please, Trent, that’s it, yes, yes, please, yes.” And so on.
Trent left off Ted’s cock so he could settle on his side beside him and watch his face while he took Ted where he wanted to be. Ted’s legs were spread wide, the right one slung over Trent’s hip. Trent spent a luxuriant amount of time simply rubbing his fingertip back and forth over Ted’s hole. He could feel it give, could feel it attempting to clutch at him. Ted was begging and rocking into the touch, and at last Trent took pity on him, eased his middle finger into the tight clasp of Ted’s body. He slid in without resistance and Ted bellowed. He gripped his cock and lolled his head against the pillows. Pressed his forehead into Trent’s face. Trent told him he was being so good for him, so perfect, and kissed him for his troubles.
He stroked Ted gently from the inside, pressing along the sleeve of his arse to stretch him. When his hole slackened enough, Trent lapped at Ted’s cock again, gathering a mouthful of saliva and precome to spit onto his hole. He added another finger and Ted’s eyes, his mouth, went wide as his body gave around the intrusion. He scrabbled at Trent’s shoulders with his free hand, and Trent was caught in that gaze, connected. Was that Ted’s heartbeat in his hand, or his own?
“Oh God, oh fuck,” Ted said, and Trent’s own prick jerked to hear the curse trip off Ted’s tongue. Ted groped for Trent’s wrist and held him in place, fucked back onto his fingers. “Trent, you’re inside me, Trent, Trent.”
“Yes, darling, you’re taking me so well. You’re so good, love. You feel like a dream.”
Trent rocked his fingers in and out until Ted loosened further and Ted began to wank himself in earnest, balls slapping lightly into Trent’s palm. Trent watched his face—damp, red, pinched into an agonized rapture—and curled his fingers against Ted’s prostate.
Ted shouted, eyes flying open only to roll back, arse clamping down on Trent.
“Oh God, oh please, oh God yes, Trent,” he said, over and over.
With that, Trent shifted, braced himself against the mattress for best leverage, and began to fuck Ted’s arse in earnest. He set a swift rhythm that reduced Ted to shouts and moans and sobs, hooking his fingers into Ted’s prostate with each thrust. It didn’t take long for Ted to start quivering, arse strangling Trent’s fingers. Trent’s arm burned with the effort but he went faster, harder, until Ted seized up and went still, insides throbbing. Trent pushed the pads of his fingers into Ted’s prostate firmly, and with a half-choked, punched-out shout, Ted came in four powerful jets, splattering his chest, his stomach, his face. Some landed on Trent and he growled, his own cock screaming for attention.
Ted wound an elbow around Trent’s neck and dragged him down, clamped him to his chest. He closed his other arm around him and held him tight as he shook through the aftershocks. He kissed Trent desperate and sloppy, and Trent eventually became aware that he was saying actual words.
“In my mouth, Trent, please, please.”
“Fuck, Ted, you’re killing me.”
Trent sat up, back against the headboard, and Ted flopped headfirst into his lap, mouth closing around Trent’s cock as if it were a sweet he’d been craving for months. Years. Trent’s eyes fluttered shut and his head thudded against the headboard. He wove a hand into Ted’s hair and was rewarded with an appreciative moan around his cock.
In cocksucking, Ted had no finesse, no rhythm, no sense of how much he could take and or how to keep breathing through it, but he kept his teeth clear and brought as much enthusiasm to the task as he did coaching. Trent couldn’t help but think it was the best goddamn blowjob he’d ever received. He was too wound up to make it last.
“Ted, I’m—I’m gonna—”
He tried to take himself out of Ted’s mouth, but Ted squeezed his hip and shoved his face into Trent’s pubes.
“Oh God,” Trent choked out, breath suspended, and then he was coming, coming, coming, galaxies bursting into existence and cascading into nothingness behind his eyes.
When he came back to himself, Ted’s head was on his belly and he was combing lazily through the hair on Trent’s thigh. Trent stroked through the hair on Ted’s head.
“Next time, I’ll eat you out,” Trent said.
A puff of air across Trent’s spent prick betrayed Ted’s laugh.
“Next time, I’m getting this dick in me,” he said.
The first hint of dawn was seeping into the room.
“We should get cleaned up,” Trent said.
“If we go to sleep right this second, we can get almost four hours.”
“There’s always the bus,” Trent said.
“Someone should invent a bus seat it’s possible to catch some real shut-eye in.”
“Mm, you’ll just have to settle for a seat mate with a comfortable shoulder.”
Ted gave no response, but a hand inched up and slotted into Trent’s like a puzzle piece.
There would be time enough later for questions, and discussion, and worry. For now, they had four hours in the closed universe of this hotel room, where anything was possible. Where Trent Crimm was allowed to love Ted Lasso, and Ted Lasso might just love him back.
End