Neon Rush {M/M} ❀

Ch.19.2 Electricity Between Light Filaments

A stir of feeling comes over him. It's the first time a stranger has hit on him. Or rather, an openly gay stranger. And though he's disguised, though it probably would never happen to denim-clad dirtbag Zef, it's a first. Cosmically unimportant, remarkable only because it makes him feel loudly, comfortably and clock-ably gay.

Pocketing the napkin, he searches for Gray on his way to the bathroom, keen to catch his eye and let him know Katarina's voice sample is in the bag. But he's nowhere to be seen, and Zef gets the niggling worry the dancing became too much for him.

He follows the signs for the gents down a hall with eclectic art pieces housed in glass alcoves. The bathroom looks like a midnight Louvre, real orchids accompanying the hand soap and lotion bottles. Zef pretends to fix his hair while firing off a text.

>>Got the sample. Need a hand?

The bathroom door bursts open. Zef startles, but it's only Gray. He doesn't speak, passing Zef to check the two stalls aren't occupied.

"No one else is in here. Are you all right?" Zef asks.

Gray shushes him and heads into a stall, waving Zef with him. He shuts the door, locking them in. Luckily, the rich keep their toilets clean, and this one blissfully wads of paper or urine smells.

"We can't have this conversation out there?" Zef says.

"Tch. Keep your voice down. Don't want no one seeing us chatty together. Plus, never know where hidden cameras could be hiding. "

"In a rich person's bathroom?"

"You get the voice sample?" Gray says, changing the subject.

"Yeah, just finished. You?"

"Almost. Not particularly talkative, more...grabby," Gray mutters.

Zef's stomach twists. He can tell it pains Gray more than he lets on. "I could take over for you if it's too much."

"What's that?"

"Huh?" Zef follows Gray's line of sight to his pocket, where the corner of a napkin peeks out. Zef takes it out. "Nothing. Barman just gave me his number."

"You gonna call him?"

Zef gapes. Gray stares him down, a forced expression of nonchalance tilting his mouth. Electricity crackles between them like they're two filaments in a lightbulb.

A gleam of warmth effuses Zef's cheeks. "You're jealous."

"Just don't want you blowing our cover by blowing the barman." The foundation might have disguised his blush if it hadn't reached his ears. They glow pink like the lips of seashells.

Slow and deliberate, Zef drops the napkin into the toilet bowl and gives the flush censor a kick. The barman's number gets sucked into the sewer.

Zef says, "I'm here for you, aren't I?"

Gray holds himself too tightly. In the cramped stall, with so little room between them, he stands awkwardly apart to avoid touch. It makes the subtle tip forward all the more obvious. Expending so much effort to fight something inevitable as gravity.

A public toilet wouldn't make a romantic place for a kiss, even clean and ritzy as this one, but Zef thinks about their flight on a stolen bike and the itchy scab of a tattoo on his wrist.

Maybe romance looks different for the rejects of society, 'cause he'd let Gray do more than kiss him. Even in a public toilet.

Gray doesn't kiss him. "Should have kept it and called him when this is over."