Happy Monday, cutie.

Waking up to that notification on his phone made Falcon roll his eyes. Then he saw the Grindr profile name responsible for sending it, and his mind changed: Dates or more?

That was Blane.

He rolled over in bed and swiped to answer.

Happy Monday. Did you have a good weekend?

It took a few minutes to get an answer.

Can’t complain :) Saw friends, cleaned my house. Exciting life. You? How’d the wedding planning go?

Blane had actually paid attention to him? Falcon couldn’t remember the last time a guy had made conversation with him, remembered it, and referenced it again later. His smile widened.

Mom tried to take over, I saved my sister, and then she force-fed us little fancy cucumber sandwiches.

I’ve never had a cucumber sandwich. It sounds very British.

Mom and my sis like fancy parties and stuff. I like to hide in the corner and drink the free wine.

He pushed himself out of bed and headed for the coffee machine. By the time he put the pot on, he had an answer.

Sensible strategy. Coming to the zoo today?

I was gonna stay home and sketch, then come tomorrow. Hard decision if that’s an invitation though. ;)

What about my other invitation?

Falcon tilted his head, his coffee mug in one hand and phone in the other as he leaned on the little kitchen counter that stretched along one wall of his apartment. It was the tidiest spot in the place. He didn’t dare walk among his art supplies until he was fully awake.

What invitation is that?

The auction… with free wine.

Falcon hesitated, tapping his phone on his lips. He nearly drank the corner of his phone, then put it down to pick up his mug. Jesus, he needed caffeine to think about that.

Finally, he settled on, I didn’t realize that was a serious invitation.

It was a date, if you want.

Falcon’s heart raced. Yes. When is it?

Saturday, 6 to 8. But I hope I’ll see you again before then?

Oh yes. I hope so, too. Falcon licked his lips, processing the weird shiver of adrenaline that coursed through him.

He told himself it wasn’t nerves, but even as he tried, he knew it wasn’t true. Goddamn. Why did he let men get to him, worm their way into that vulnerable part of his heart, only to—inevitably, invariably—break it off, or drift away? Neither felt better than the other.

Falcon wasn’t just awake now, he was wide awake and restless. Anxious energy made him fidget with his coffee cup, turning it around and around in his hands as he sipped.

He wandered back and forth beside the countertop, eyeing the half-finished canvas he’d been putting off getting back to. Art supplies were expensive—thirty-inch canvas squares especially. He couldn’t just let it gather dust.

It was an energetic piece—a somewhat abstracted form of an animal, hardly recognizable as more than shapes of color, but hopefully with the burning energy of a lioness on the hunt. He’d painted the first layer in broad, fast strokes. Now he was going to add highlights and shadows.

Falcon shrugged on shorts and a t-shirt, his mind already caught up in planning today’s work. He’d been planning to do more computer art for his online print shop—one of those print-on-demand places that did graphic prints, t-shirts, mugs, stickers, and so on.

He had another artist persona of sorts online, starting from a blog he’d run years ago. He’d eventually almost stopped blogging, but people had continued to share and buy the cutesy cartoon style. It paid some of the bills, while his painting did the rest.

Until he had to replace his tablet or pen, the overhead costs were lower, and he could screw around with different styles a lot more easily. Now that he’d developed a style he was known for, it was much quicker than his experimental painting.

And honestly, it felt good to spend an afternoon doodling personified daisies saying motivational slogans.

One of them came to mind and made Falcon smile.

It’s hard to be patient, but you’ll bloom too!

Yeah, it was hard to be patient when he had a new potential something developing with anyone. Blane seemed so nice and caring, but so many guys did at first before turning out to be unwilling to give their heart to anyone, however gently he tried to treat it.

Maybe the answer was to take it slower, emotionally. But every time he tried, he wound up accidentally blurting out some sincere expression of his feelings, and then… the fade-out would begin.

Could he try it again? With Blane? The man clearly had walls, but was reaching out a hand of—friendship? Romantic interest? Sexual interest? Whatever it was, Falcon wanted it.

The emotions came easily to him as he worked: the huntress, caught mid-leap, dusky orange brown between dashes of green and the blockier reds of her body. The desperation to feed herself, her young, her mate. The skill and finesse. The raw, charged energies of love, sex, and death had much in common for the artist.

Falcon’s phone went off sometime before lunch, breaking the reverie of a couple hours’ work. The name made him smile: Oscar.

He hastily wiped his hands before answering on speakerphone, leaving it on the countertop.

“Hey,” he greeted his best friend—only real close friend, if he were honest with himself.

Oscar sounded tired. “Hey, darling. What’s up?”

They’d met and instantly clicked as friends when they first met at some fancy art shindig out here. Falcon had gone solo and Oscar’s date had taken him, but Oscar had wound up ditching the guy and hanging out with Falcon all night.

“Oof. I woke up and started painting. I don’t even know what day it is,” Falcon joked. “You? Where are you this week?”

“San Diego.”

“Jeez. Your feet still attached?”

“I think so.” Oscar’s dance company toured a lot, which was great for his career but not for his health. Falcon worried about him a little more than he seemed to worry about himself. “I’ll get back to you on that. So what’s the latest?”

“My sister’s wedding,” Falcon groaned. “Mom’s trying to take charge. They want me to go help set up and whatever, which I said yes to, of course. And… there’s a catch.”

“Yeah?” Oscar wasn’t good at being patient. “What is it?”

“Spencer will be there.”

It took Oscar a second. “Your… Wait. That shitty ex? What? Why would they invite him?”

“Remember I said he was a secret ex?” Falcon sighed. “Came back to bite me in the ass, didn’t it? Again.”

“Hon, just tell them. I’m sure they’ll uninvite him.”

“And start asking questions about why a nineteen-year-old guy was fucking around with a sixteen-year-old.”

“It’s not illegal,” Oscar reminded him. “And he’d be in trouble, not you. They wouldn’t blame you anyway.”

“Maybe they should.” Silence hung between them for a few seconds before Falcon breathed out. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Good,” Oscar breathed out. “Don’t make me fly there and kick your ass. And his. When’s the wedding?”

Falcon laughed faintly. “Yeah, I won’t. Next month.”

“Fuck. While I’m on my Australia/New Zealand tour. Or I’d come scare Spencer off for you. Fucker. Don’t you dare sleep with him.”

“It’s okay. I’ll resist the temptation,” Falcon answered dryly. “I’ve met broken clocks with better rhythm than him.”

Truth be told, the sex had been great for a closeted teen just discovering that dicks were where it was at, but since then? Even the assholes out there who ghosted him after a fuck were better in bed than Spencer had been.

And then there was the refusal to come out to anyone, and dumping Falcon when he put his foot down and said it had to go one way or the other. It was fair enough—he was entitled to make his own choices about being miserably closeted—but Falcon couldn’t let himself get dragged into that place. It might have felt good for Spencer to pretend his other football buddies didn’t know he sucked dick on the weekends, but Falcon wasn’t going to hide himself.

The weird hot-and-cold treatment, the refusal to talk about anything in the future, the weird chill that came over him after sex… all of that stemmed from Spencer’s fears. And Falcon was way, way past that stage of his life.

He’d finally realized he was waiting for someone to rescue him, and he’d screwed up his courage and rescued his own damn self.

“And now he’s back,” he mumbled, half to himself.

Oscar clicked his tongue. “I don’t like it. Walking in there with nobody knowing? No. Can you tell your sister?”

“I don’t want to tell anyone about us. We broke up. That’s in the past. Am I gonna come out to them? Yeah. I’d like to.”

“At the wedding?” Oscar gasped.

“Maybe. If I bring a male date. They kept bugging me, asking which it would be. They know. We all know. It’s, like, the worst-kept secret since the case of the vanishing cucumber, in oh-nine.”

“What—no, actually,” Oscar cut himself off. “Beside the point.”

“It was definitely me that took it.”

“Didn’t need to know that. The point is, at your sister’s wedding?”

“Oh, god, yes. She’s even more… er… melodramatic than me. She’ll love it. She keeps trying to, like, drop hints that I can bring whoever I want, even ‘just a friend’.”

“Even if she weren’t a lesbian, I’d already be questioning why the hell you haven’t just told them.”

“Because then it becomes a thing,” Falcon sighed. “And in my family, a thing is open for public input and help. They’ll find nice boys to set me up with, and give me the gay safe sex talk, and Mom will want to do a it’s a gay party. En-gay-gement. I bet you twenty bucks she’ll do it.”

Oscar was laughing. “Man, your family.”

“Is a little weird,” Falcon admitted. “But yeah. I’ve been thinking, just grab some random guy, bring him as a date, get it out of the way with, and then tell them I’m dating someone… and avoid family functions where they’ll expect him to be there… for a while… maybe forever…”

“I see the holes.”

“Stop spying on my bedroom, then.”

“Jesus. Falcon. You’re gross,” Oscar laughed.

“No, you.” Falcon paused. “Miss you. Do you get to come home before Australia?”

“Yeah, we get a couple days off.”

“Awesome. Tell me ASAP when they are so I can frontload work and be free.” Falcon’s gaze wandered across his studio to his desktop computer. He was out of the zone to work on the painting now. He might as well spend the afternoon on digital art.

“Okay. Love you, babe. Don’t fuck your ex,” Oscar bade.

“You too. Don’t fuck your feet. Unless you’re into that—” The phone line clicked and Falcon laughed, pushing himself away from the counter to wash his hands more thoroughly.

Blane. It made sense. But how the hell was he gonna bring it up without sounding totally weird? That was a problem for a bowl of instant chicken and rice and a bottle of wine tonight.