Chapter 2

Durkeson?”

“You can call me Blake. I call you Jerome.

And let me assure you, your degree is a whole lot more impressive

than mine.” Blake was trying to stall before answering. Jerome

might not fully approve of his plans this evening.

“Okay, let me try this. So what are you doing

tonight, Blake?”

Blake didn’t know what to say. He was pretty

sure that Jerome knew he was gay, but they had never really had

that discussion. He figured Jerome was comfortable with it not

being said, so he had always kept it that way. He might someday

tell Jerome that he was gay, but he was definitely not going to

tell him that tonight he was going out with Darren Burlington.

Blake knew that Darren stressed out all of the administrative

assistants and even the guy who delivered the mail, but Blake

couldn’t imagine how Darren treated the custodians.

“I um…”

“You’ve got a date, don’t you Mr. Durkeson?

Nothing to worry about. You can tell Jerome anything. And you look

great, Blake. Someone’s going to be really glad to see you.”

Blake smiled. Tonight was the first time in

three years Jerome had taken him up on his offer to call him Blake,

and Blake liked it.

“Well, thanks Jerome. I guess I better get

going. My cab should be outside by now,” Blake said, moving closer

to the door.

“You’re leaving your car?”

“I’m probably going to have a few drinks.

I’ll pick it up later, or in the morning,” Blake said.

“Well then you should hurry. Somebody’s not

going to want to wait very long to see you.”

That was exactly what Blake feared as he

walked out the door of the gym, through the building lobby, and

outside to the waiting cab. He really needed someone to want to

wait to see him. It bothered him that even a straight guy like

Jerome thought he looked great. Blake sighed.

The problem was, he always looked great when

it came to this step in the relationship. The first part of the

evening was always perfect, and Darren had made reservations at

Carvaccio’s. It was a great place to take a date. It was a great

place to fall in love. And it was really a great place to seduce

someone. Blake knew that’s why Darren had picked it. But seduction

was exactly what Blake didn’t want to happen because he knew in a

few hours, he wouldn’t look so great.

Blake had met Darren at work, and instantly

pursued him. Being gay was hard enough, but meeting other nice gay

guys, sometimes that felt impossible. Blake had tried internet

dating a hundred times. He had actually counted the dates and given

up right after one hundred. Along the way he had met touchy

pastors, old men who lied about their age and sent twenty year old

pictures of when they were thirty-five (at twenty-eight he didn’t

usually date men older than that), and narcissistic jackasses who

couldn’t stop texting or looking in the mirror function of their

phones.

Gay bars were even worse. Some of those guys

turned out to be married, and a lot of the others were there for

one thing, and often times, that was just to get drunk. Meeting an

openly gay, single, attractive man outside of those venues had

never been a skill that Blake had mastered. That was why Darren was

so important.

Darren wasn’t bad. Well, except for that time

he got mad because there were a lot of loud kids in that pancake

house on a Saturday morning, but what exactly had he expected?

Okay, and maybe Jerome didn’t like him, but Blake wasn’t going to

be working for him. There were many attractive things about Darren.

Darren looked kind of like an older model, or a really hot bad guy

in a TV show. Darren had a good job; they worked together at Smythe

and Bleechum, and Darren had worked in the financial market for

quite some time. Darren would probably be respectful to Blake’s

parents, although Darren never really mentioned his own. Darren

said he may want kids, and God knows for a gay couple to be able

“He is what you need,” Blake said in the back

of the cab as they raced toward Carvaccio’s. He repeated the same

thing to himself five times before he reached the restaurant. When

he went to pay the cabbie, the cabbie looked at Blake.

“Maybe, he’s not,” the cabbie said.

Blake wanted to protest, but instead he

shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m just saying,” the cabbie said. “So just

take my card in case.”

Blake nodded and took the card.

He entered the restaurant at 7:02. Damn it!

Darren hated it when he was late, even by two minutes. He looked

around for Darren at a table; it wasn’t Darren’s style to wait for

him in the lobby. Darren was always seated by the time Blake made

it to the restaurant.