[Featured in FreetheLGBT: Diverse Literature reading list and Humor: Young. Dumb. Full of Fun list]
Colin Mitchell, a photographer at a well-known store, Snapshot, is openly gay--mostly. His ideal experiences are sexcapades that are always subtle, n...
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The sign which hung behind the glass door to Snapshot read "Closed" but to Colin, the store had never looked more inviting in all his years of working there.
His hand wrapped around the handle and he pushed it lightly, wishing with all his might that the door wouldn't budge, wouldn't let him in. It fell wide open. Invite me to my doom, why don't you.
Colin's sneakers squeaked against the polished floors as he steadily walked forward, heading directly to his boss' office.
His knuckle hit the door once, and he groaned at the pain that came. Quickly, he strutted into the office to take his mind off the heat that spread in his hand. It worked. His attention was now fully on the man who sat with his head in both his hands.
"Hey, Leo."
Leo looked up at him behind glazed eyes as he brushed away the greeting, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk. "Take a seat."
Colin took a seat.
"I don't want to drag this anymore than I have to."
"That's fine." Colin nodded despite the dread that was filling him. Leo's tone was usually loud and forceful, never as mellow as it was today. It told him there was something definitely wrong.
"Have you, I dunno, gone on the internet today?" Leo lifted an eyebrow, eyes trained on Colin's expressionless face. "Twitter? Instagram? Perhaps, you opened Google to see what's trending in the Discover section, Mitchell?"
The brunet didn't know what to make of the situation. In his head, he had been going through several options he suspected was the reason his boss decided to call him in. Out of all those, his hope had been on anything unrelated to Marcus Hall. He didn't care if Leo found the broken equipment he and Austin had replaced and stashed in the storeroom. As long as it wasn't a Marcus-influenced reason, he could deal with a little chastising and a temporal drop in the figures on his paycheck.
Unfortunately, it didn't seem like the equipment was going to be his problem... for now. No, what was coming was much, much worse.
His ears were ringing loudly as Leo's gaze remained on him, eliciting the rate of his heartbeat to triple. Beneath the desk, Colin clasped both his hands and took a deep breath to calm his raging nerves.
"N-no, I was a little busy."
"Busy, huh?" Leo sucked his teeth, leaning back in his chair. He rubbed at his bushy eyebrows which furrowed, pushing the space between them closer.
It was the way Leo seemed eerily calm, the way he lay in wait for Colin to make the wrong move, say the wrong thing, that unnerved him. The brunet swallowed, this time making the decision to pick his words with caution.
"Yes. Busy."
"Well, it seems like you have been real busy lately," he started, sitting up straighter. That small move intimidated Colin even more when Leo's fingers which began to glide on his laptop's touchpad. "Recognise this?"
