Chapter Ten
The summer run of Bite Me! wrapped up after Labour Day. Michael didn’t invite Darcy to the wrap party because he didn’t want Darcy to feel obligated to come. It was his experience that non-cast members tended to congregate together out of being ignored by their significant others.
He had only just admitted to himself that Dave was right and he was bi, or at least not nearly as straight as he’d always believed when it came to Darcy.
It was ridiculous to pretend he was just “hanging out” with Darcy when he knew they were dating. He was pretty sure that at least on a subconscious level Darcy also knew. Dave had ensured Michael knew the difference between asexual and aromantic and a host of other terms he’d never known existed, sorting sexuality and emotional attraction into different categories. Bisexual seemed too broad to mean “I’m attracted to women and Darcy,” but as much as he looked at other men to gauge his reactions to them, he just didn’t feel it.
“You’ve got to stop thinking of it as gay being one thing and straight being another and bi being exactly in the middle. Bisexual doesn’t mean you’re equally attracted to both genders, for a couple of reasons,” Dave had explained impatiently. “For one, gender is as much on a spectrum as sexuality. So yeah, you can be bi and not feel a strong attraction to as many male types as you do female types.”
“Not types. Just Darcy.”
“Probably not. Maybe men with an androgynous vibe to them. Like, here—” Dave typed in something else in an open tab on the laptop he was using for visual aids to teach Michael about the whole wide non-straight world. A website came up with a familiar logo and images of beautiful clothes. Dave clicked through to a photo of a model, long hair, makeup, filmy pants. Bare chest a lot like Darcy’s—slender, lightly muscled, hairless. Hot. “What do you think of this guy?”
“Okay, maybe I have a type,” Michael grudgingly conceded, though he couldn’t help but compare the model to Darcy, in Darcy’s favour.
“Not a lot of guys like this, especially around here. So not surprising you never noticed you weren’t exactly straight.”
Michael opened his mouth to argue and found he couldn’t. But he’d determined to do some private experiments before conceding that Dave was absolutely correct.
It was during one of these mental experiments that he’d realized his feelings for Darcy were a lot more complex than sexual. He was testing his sexual attraction to every beautiful person in the rehearsal hall and there was one woman who caught his attention. His thought had been, “If I were single, I’d ask her out.”
Michael couldn’t stuff that thought back wherever it came from. He was not single. He was dating Darcy. What he didn’t know was what Darcy thought of their relationship, or even how to bring it up. All he knew for certain was that Darcy liked spending time with him, and he liked kissing Michael.
I probably should have invited him to the wrap party, since I can’t seem to stop thinking about him. But Michael deflected passes from drunk people, male and female, the words, “Sorry, I’m seeing someone,” coming effortlessly from his mouth.
Once more episodes of Shelter Cove aired, Darcy was likely going to be at least semifamous, which would make Michael “Darcy Mancini’s boyfriend”—at least he was hoping, even if Dave warned him that sex might not ever happen. After Darcy’s admission that he was ace, Dave had sent Michael numerous links that he’d read until he felt he understood.
Michael hugged people he was genuinely going to miss. Others he’d be working with on the Mermaid Theatre’s big winter production, The Gaiety Girls. It was a tribute to early twentieth-century British musicals, and he’d heard a rumour he might actually be assisting the great Randy North himself, though that wouldn’t be confirmed until rehearsals actually started.
Before the booze made him too sloppy, Michael sent a quick text to Darcy, We still on for tomorrow night?
Yes. Meet me at CAD, art night, room 231.
Where Darcy posed. Naked. Michael thought he might have moaned out loud, but thankfully, it was too noisy for anyone to notice.
Sunday evening at the college of art and design was quiet. The life-drawing class and other art classes were part of an adult education program, non-credit courses designed primarily for seniors, or so it appeared to Michael as he peered through the narrow window of the classroom door.
Darcy had his long hair loose and over his shoulders, and his back was to the door. He was sitting on a raised plinth, one leg stretched before him. All that beautiful, smooth bare skin was exquisite. It was a treat to see one of the pair of sexy legs he’d not seen since the Plan Chromatic music video. Hmm, a swim date at the gym might be something worth proposing. His mouth watered a bit at the idea of Darcy in swim trunks.
So intent on staring at Darcy, Michael was surprised when the door suddenly opened and a woman in her mid-forties, hair pulled up in a messy bun and dressed in a paint-spattered smock, scowled at him.
“Can I help you?” Her voice was cold, and Michael guessed she’d caught a number of perverts trying to catch a glimpse of the nude models.
He wasn’t sure he didn’t fall under that category, but he smiled and said, “I’m just waiting for Darcy.”
“Why?”
“I’m, um, his…” Would friend be enough to get him off the hook?
Before he could decide, she opened the door wide and gestured him in. “Darcy didn’t mention he had a boyfriend,” she said quietly.
Wow. “Y-yeah, it’s, uh…new.”
“We’ll be done shortly. Just keep quiet and stay out of the way.”
“Right.” Michael swallowed and sidled around the room until he could see Darcy. All of Darcy. His dick didn’t hesitate to spring to appreciative attention even as Michael faltered over the hows of same sex…sex. Then Darcy caught his eye and his face lit up with a smile.
How could he be so completely unselfconscious? It was amazing. It softened the sharp edge of his lust, sweetened it like a coating of milk chocolate.
The class instructor clapped her hands and said, “That’s it for today, people. Pack up your sketchbooks until next week. Thank you to our model for his patience.”
Darcy reached back for a robe Michael hadn’t noticed and pulled it around himself before leaving the posing plinth. Several of the students seemed to be trying for his attention, but he walked straight over to Michael and smiled.
“Hey, you’re early. Sorry I’m not ready. I’m surprised Amanda let you in.”
“I um, may have given her the impression I’m your boyfriend,” Michael said, trying to keep his eyes on Darcy’s face.
“Oh.” For a second, Darcy’s expression was utterly blank, but then he was smiling again. “That’s probably not a bad thing.”
Michael glanced around the room and grinned at Darcy. “The senior set flirting with you?”
Darcy chuckled. “That, I can handle. They’re not serious. It’s when they start talking about the nice grandsons or granddaughters they have that I get nervous.” He reached into a pocket in the robe and pulled out a hair scrunchie.
Every movement as he pulled his hair back into a queue at the base of his neck was mesmerizing to Michael.
He blinked and reached for Darcy’s hand as he lowered it. “Want me to do something boyfriend-y to tell them you’re taken?”
Darcy’s eyes widened. “You don’t have to. I wouldn’t ask. I—”
“I could kiss you. It’s no big deal. I kiss you all the time, right?” Michael had no idea what his mouth was saying, but until it looked like he was making Darcy uncomfortable, he let it keep running.
“Yeah, but that’s, you know. Private. I couldn’t ask you to—”
“You’re not asking. I’m offering. Friends, right?”
“R-right.”
Michael grinned. “So? C’mere.” He tugged gently on Darcy’s hand but resisted the temptation to close the space between them. The last thing he wanted at this point was for Darcy to know how turned on he was. Besides, pulling Darcy tight against him was only half the temptation. The other half was to open that robe and stare his fill of Darcy’s slender body.
Instead, he just relished the sight of Darcy tilting his head for a kiss.
“You really are gorgeous,” Michael said, touching his lips to Darcy’s. He didn’t expect Darcy to kiss him back. The soft pressure of Darcy’s mouth against his started a melt in his brain. The temptation to pull him close was so strong. Instead, he raised his head when Darcy broke the kiss. “That’ll convince ’em,” he said, hopefully not sounding as shaken as he felt.
Darcy’s smile struck him as a frustrating combination of oblivious gratitude. He didn’t seem to have any idea what he did to Michael.
“Come on. My clothes are in the bathroom.” Darcy grabbed Michael’s hand and pulled him along through the classroom.
He didn’t expect to be dragged inside the bathroom with Darcy, and Michael’s face burned hot as he realized Darcy was going to dress in front of him.
He cleared his throat, turned to face the door, and the first words he could think of came out of his mouth. “You’re probably gonna have to give this up, you know.”
“Oh? Why?”
Michael ignored the rustle of clothing and his own hard cock. “It seems like you’ve already got peeper problems. Once people figure out you’re the guy from Shelter Cove, you’re gonna have fans wanting to see your dick.”
“Is that why you came early?” Darcy’s voice was rich with amusement. “To see my dick?”
Michael turned to grin at him, confident Darcy was mostly dressed. “Yeah. We straight guys are all about dick.”
Darcy was in faded jeans and a thin grey T-shirt that fit him like paint. He pulled on a white button shirt with the sleeves already rolled up and left it hanging open.
Looking in the mirror, he pulled his hair out from inside the shirt. “Ugh. My hair. I should have brought a brush.”
“You look perfect.”
“You have to admit you’re bi now,” Dave insisted, apropos of nothing.
“What? Why?” Michael knew his protest was token now, though. He needed Dave’s advice more than he needed his denial.
“Because you’re working on a follies-type show with the Randy North, something you hadn’t even dreamed of six months ago, and every second word out of your mouth is Darcy.” Dave leaned back in the sofa and popped a potato chip into his mouth.
“Yeah,” Michael admitted. “I thought spending time with him would…get me over this idea that Darcy is my One True Love, but it totally backfired. Or not.” He frowned. “Maybe it was meant—oh hell, no, I don’t believe in soul mates and all that crap.”
“Not gonna argue with you about that. You do understand that depending where on the ace spectrum he is, sex may never happen?”
Michael’s exhale was a sigh of relief. Now that he was giving up denial, he could ask for some advice. “Yeah, I’m not entirely comfortable with the idea of sex with a guy, yet. I mean, don’t get me wrong, sometimes I’m so hot for him, I can almost believe in ‘the uncontrollable lust’ myth,” he said with air quotes. “But then he smiles at me, and it doesn’t make it go away, exactly, it just…makes me feel…mushy.”
Dave laughed.
“It’s not funny.”
“No. I mean yeah, it is, but I think I understand. What’s funny is you.”
“Dave, seriously. How do I talk to him? I don’t know what he thinks about all this or if he thinks about it at all. What if he just likes me as a friend?” Michael threw himself back on the sofa. “Stop hogging the chip bowl.”
Dave obligingly passed it over. “Dude, you said he likes kissing you, that he happily bought your lame-ass excuse as to why you both should practice kissing.”
“Yeah,” Michael agreed. There was that. He frowned. “Isn’t kissing sexual, though?”
“Is it?”
Michael had always thought that love and sex were intertwined, in spite of the fact that he’d had many sexual relationships but very few girlfriends. Sex without love was one thing, but love without sex? If one was possible, the other had to be too. That didn’t really help him figure out where kissing fell. Darcy liked it and didn’t seem any more inclined sexually to him than before.
“I guess not. This is so complicated.”
“Yeah. But you’re not in any hurry, are you? You clearly still have things to figure out yourself. You don’t need to pressure Darcy into the ‘where is this relationship going’ talk right away, right?”
Michael chuckled, because he hadn’t recognized that’s what he was leading up to. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”
“I usually am,” Dave said smugly. “Now hand over the chips.”