My mind was still reeling from that mind-blowing orgasm.

What was happening to me? I wasn’t… gay… or was I? I’d never felt a connection with any of my previous lovers, all of which had been women. But what had just happened with Sam made me feel so… so… connected. Emotionally, and physically.

The last person I’d been with, the sex had been good, but then again, sex was never really bad. It had just felt one-dimensional. Nothing about it had made me want to tear all of her clothes off and dive into that body, like this feeling I got with Sam.

It was as if, all my life, I had been living with a barrier between me in the world made of wax. And something about Sam made that melt away, and allowed me to see, to touch, to hear and feel clearly.

This felt good. This felt right.

As we took the shower together, I moved my hands up and down Sam’s perfect linebacker body. Though in the back of my mind I could feel some questions swirling beneath the surface, all I needed was this. This moment, right here, right now. This private moment where I could be… where I could just be.

This was me. There was something so right about being here with this person, and not having to put on a show for anyone else.

Though I still thought Sam was full of himself, I could sense that there were a few layers underneath. Despite what I thought I knew about him, I trusted him. At least enough to not tell anyone about this until I figured out what the hell was going on with me.

“Actually, I need a break from the studio,” I said. “Can we do something else?”

“Yes, of course,” He said.

I could tell he was nervous.

“How about some coffee?” He asked as he bustled around his huge sleek kitchen.

“Coffee sounds wonderful,” I said. After an intense workout, plus that mind-blowing blowjob, I was spent. Nothing sounded better than to get some of that warm, magical bean juice that made everything better.

Sam reached up into one of his cabinets and got out a green package. “This is from Costa Rica. Sound good?”

“Sounds great!” I replied, “Have you ever been to Costa Rica?” I asked, needing to know anything and everything about this man.

“Once.” He said, and a shadow of sadness crossed his face.

I made a mental note to figure out what that meant. But for now, this beautiful stranger was sharing his space with me, and I had to be respectful of any territory in his mind that was off-limits.

“When did you go there?” I asked, tiptoeing around it.

He began heating up the coffee machine, and pulled out two hearty-looking mugs from a different cabinet. “About two years ago.”

“Oh? So that coffee is two years old?” I teased.

His eyebrows came together, then he relaxed. “No, of course not. I just tried this kind of coffee there, and fell in love with it, and I’ve been unable to stop ordering it since.” He said, flashing a smile of bright white teeth at me.

I melted as I nodded.

“What was Costa Rica like?” I asked, as a last-ditch effort to tease out the meaning of the shadow that had crossed over his face.

I had to know what it meant. I had to know everything about this man.

“It was… a different world.” He muttered, a tight smile pulling at the corners of his mouth as the coffee machine whirred.

He continued, “I went there with someone, to close a business deal.” He offered, and I was on the edge of my seat, hungry for any scraps of information about Sam.

“A business deal?” I asked, curious, “About what?”

He chuckled, a low, hearty sound that filled the kitchen with warmth.

“Evan… do you even know what I do for a living?” He asked, raising a beautiful, sculpted eyebrow at me.

“Um… no.” I admitted. Truly, I’d wondered about it, but I wasn’t sure how to ask. I just assumed that if he had a house like this near downtown Ann Arbor, and he was an art student, he must be a drug dealer or something.

“I had an e-commerce business a while back; I started it with a partner,” He began, his eyebrows coming together again.

By the way he said “partner,” I couldn’t tell if he meant a romantic partner or a bona fide business partner.

He noticed my puzzlement, and explained. “My parents pushed me to get a business degree, so I went to the best business school I could. Even though I really wanted to become an artist, the pressure to make something of myself was too heavy. And the way that my parents put it, they wanted me to do art as a hobby, because they didn’t think I would make it.” He explained.

This was the most I’d ever heard this guy talk. I had one elbow on the counter, resting my head on it, hungry to know more.

“When I was in college, I met my… business partner.” He mumbled, lost in thought. It was at that point that I knew he was talking about his ex.

“We started an online business, and it took off faster than I’d ever thought possible.” He said. “A few years later, we sold the business. But at that point we had… creative differences that drove us apart. We made great business partners, but we had different ways of seeing things.”

He paused, the silence hanging in the room.

“Costa Rica was a last-ditch effort to make it work.”

He finished speaking and the coffee at the same time. He plopped one of the hearty mugs filled with the steaming dark liquid in front of me.

“Spoiler alert, it didn’t work out.” He finished with a weak smile. “The plus side is, due to the nature of our deal when we sold, I still get payouts. I’m financially set, which leaves me to spend my time doing whatever I like.”

His eyes fixed me with that penetrating gaze again, “…including you.”

I chuckled as I took a sip of my coffee. Though, a part of me felt a little uncomfortable at his gaze. I wasn’t ready to open up completely. At least, not yet.

“So, that’s about me.” He said, looking away. “How about you tell me about you while I make us another lunch?” He asked, retreating back into his shell.

My stomach growled and I took a long sip of coffee, not knowing what to share with this person that was still a stranger to me. Would he run if I told him that my life was riddled with problems? That I was working hard to keep the image of myself online likable, that it took too much effort? That I was hard up for money and didn’t know if I could finish my degree? That my statistics class was pulling my GPA down the drain? Did he need to know about my estrangement from my family?

No. He didn’t need to know all of that. But there was something about him that made me want to tell him all of that; to unload onto him. It seemed fair to tell him a truncated, heavily edited snippet.

As Sam reached into his industrial-sized fridge and got some eggs out, I began.

“Well, I’m close to losing my swimming scholarship, for one.” I admitted.