Seated across from Bowie and Joseph, Jack sipped his coffee and watched the looks they kept sharing when they didn’t think he was watching. Something was definitely up. His thoughts were interrupted when their waiter showed up, setting plates in front of each of them and refilling mugs of coffee.

“How long are you in town for?” he asked Bowie, who had recently ended up making the move to Kentucky as he’d predicted.

“I’m back to Louisville on Wednesday.”

Joseph sliced into his omelet and took a bite, a blissful sounding sigh leaving his lips. He set his fork on the edge of his plate and looked straight at Bowie.

“This tastes like that little diner down the street from your new house,” he enthused, quickly covering his mouth with a hand and darting his attention toward Jack before focusing back on Bowie. The table fell silent while Bowie and Joseph regarded each other, then Joseph turned to Jack,

“Well, I guess we can tell him now.”

“I fucking knew it,” Jack said, clapping his hands together. “I can’t wait to tell Landon.”

“What?” Joseph asked, obviously trying to backtrack what he’d said. “Tell Landon what?”

“How long have you been fucking for? Come on, it’s in the open now. Tell me.”

“Who said we’re fucking?” Joseph countered.

Jack raised an incredulous eyebrow at him.

“Oh, so you just go to Kentucky for breakfast without telling anyone and there’s no sex involved?” Jack scoffed.

“We’re involved,” Bowie admitted.

“I know.” Jack laughed. “So when are you moving after him, Joseph?”

“We haven’t decided,” Bowie answered concisely while Joseph sat there with his mouth agape.

Joseph glanced at Bowie, snapped his mouth closed then looked at his omelet.

“Seize the day,” Jack suggested happily, the recommendation eating away at his heart even as the words left his mouth.

He was such a hypocrite.

But admitting as much would mean admitting he was scared to meet Callum. He’d said August, and it was getting closer to August, and Jack wasn’t any less nervous about the prospect of meeting face to face. What if their compatibility didn’t extend past the keyboard? They had both started looking for an online relationship because of their lack of interest in the commitment required for a real life partner, and now they were both talking about turning their relationship into that exact thing.

Jack would rather have what he had now then have nothing.

“What are you thinking about over there?” Bowie asked, circling his finger around the rim of his mimosa glass.

“Or who?” Joseph chimed in.

Jack shot him an accusatory glare.

“Don’t try to change the subject,” he chided.

“Looks like we’re not the only ones keeping relationship secrets,” Bowie said, taking a bite of Joseph’s omelet.

“That is good,” he told him before redirecting his attention back to Jack.

“I met someone,” Jack admitted. “Online.”

“Ohhhh,” Joseph said knowingly.

“Where does he live?”

“California.”

“Jesus. Could you have picked a state farther away?” Bowie laughed.

Jack rolled his eyes. “I didn’t pick him at all. It just…happened. It wasn’t supposed to turn into anything, but it kind of has.”

“Are you going to meet him?”

“He wants to.”

“Do you not?”

Jack scratched under his ear. “It’s not that I don’t. I just don’t want things to change.”

“Do you think if you meet him, then it’ll be harder to be apart?” Joseph asked, daring a glance at Bowie.

“That’s part of it.”

“The rest, then?”

“Fuck, I don’t know. What if being with me isn’t what he really wants? Like, he meets me in person and he doesn’t like the way my feet look or he thinks I breathe too loud or something?” Jack ran through a mental checklist in his head that was enough to want to send him running to the door on Callum’s behalf.

“You’re making excuses,” Bowie said, waving his fork in Jack’s direction. “You one-hundred percent cannot insinuate that Joseph should follow me to Kentucky when you won’t even meet your online boyfriend.”

“The two of you have probably been after each other since college. It’s a totally different situation,” Jack countered. “Just please don’t tell Landon. Or Verity.”

“Why not?” Bowie asked mischievously.

“Because they live in LA, and he lives in LA, and I don’t want them to push me to come out right now. I’m busy with work and there’s just shit I have to do here. I already told Callum August. I’ll tell Landon and Verity before then.”

“Callum?” Joseph asked.

Hearing Callum’s name on his friend’s lips left him feeling surprisingly warm inside. Like they had the potential to be friends with him and know him the way they knew each other. Well, not the way Bowie and Joseph knew each other, more like the way Landon and Jack knew each other.

“Callum,” Jack confirmed.

“And he’s into that shit you do?”

“He’s into that shit I do.” Jack laughed. “Anyway, Callum isn’t for public consumption yet, so let’s get back to the two of you and all the interstate penetration that’s been going on.”

Bowie groaned.

“Only since Bowie moved,” Joseph said.

Jack found that hard to believe, but he was happy to have the topic of conversation not be him, so he let them have it.

“Only since the move?” He couldn’t help but poke at it a little.

“The move,” Bowie confirmed.

Brunch went on, lighthearted as always, with Jack bidding Bowie a safe trip back to Kentucky and making Joseph swear to let him know when he decided about moving himself.

Jack spent the next couple hours after brunch wandering aimlessly around the city, not quite ready to go home and be alone yet. The truth of Joseph’s question weighed heavy on his mind. Maybe this August trip was a bad idea. If things went the way he suspected they would with Callum, then he wouldn’t want to come back to New York alone. He’d do everything he could to pack his sweet little bartender up and shuttle him back to New York the first chance he had.

Walking into his empty apartment, he made a quick Skype call to Landon and Verity, of course, to tell them about Joseph and Bowie; then he called Callum on the phone.

“Daddy,” Callum yawned into the phone after answering on the fourth ring.

“Did I wake you?”

“Hmmn? Yeah, s’okay though. Hi.”

Callum grumbled himself awake while Jack listened, his heart tightening with every little purr and stretch he heard on the phone.

“Watch a movie with me,” Jack blurted.

“What?”

“I want to watch a movie with you.”

“How?” Callum asked, voice still sleepy.

“I can share my desktop or something. I’ll put one on. I just want to… do something with you.”

“You’re making me wish we could snuggle, Daddy.”

“Me too, kitten.”

“Okay, let me turn on my computer. Hold on.”

Jack opened his laptop and queued up a movie while he waited for Callum to come back on the line. The intensity with which Jack felt an ache to physically touch Callum was almost enough to send him straight to the airport this second, fears be damned.

“What are we gonna watch?”

“Something old,” Jack told him, sharing his screen with Callum then pressing play on his favorite Jimmy Stewart movie.

“I love this one,” Callum told him when the opening credits rolled.

They sat across the country in comfortable silence while the movie played, laughing together at parts they both found funny. Jack was worried his sleepy kitten would fall asleep in the middle, but he recognized the sound of the groan Callum made when he stretched his body at the end.

“That was nice,” Callum said, his voice a little sad.

“It’ll be nicer in August.”

Callum huffed out a small laugh, “That seems like a lifetime away.”

“I promise it’ll be here before you know it. Are you going to pick me up from the airport when I come?”

“I’ll even make you a sign.”

“Oh?”

“Definitely.”

“And what will the sign say?”

“Lost kitten searching for Daddy,” Callum teased.

“You think you’re so clever.”

“I am so clever.”

Silence.

“Are you sure we have to wait until August?” Callum finally asked.

Jack’s fears slammed into him like a freight train and he swallowed them down bitterly.

“August, kitten. Then you’ll never want to see me again.”

“Unlikely,” Callum scoffed. “Anyway. How was brunch? How was your weekend?”

“Brunch was good. I found out two of my friends are sleeping with each other, so that was pretty hilarious. I had lunch with Travis and Holly for the first time yesterday after I was done at the shelter. That was new.”

“I love that you love animals,” Callum told him.

“Not enough to own one.” Jack laughed.

“No?”

“They’re a lot of work. Pets require attention.”

“Mmmn,” Callum purred into the phone.

Jack chuckled. “Besides, I already have a kitten.”

“Oh?” Callum’s voice was raspy and low.

“He’s the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen,” Jack murmured. “He has the most mesmerizing eyes.”

“Daddy.”

“He makes the most beautiful sounds when he feels good. When I make him feel good.” Jack’s cock grew thick against his belly when he thought about the way Callum sounded when he came.

“So hard,” Callum whined.

“Are you hard, baby?”

Callum grunted. “This is hard.”

Jack closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I know, kitten.”

Silence stretched between them, and Callum sniffed.

“Let me give you what I can for now, okay?” Jack asked.

Another sniffle. “Okay.”

Jack turned the video chat option on and propped his phone on the arm of the couch before shifting his body so he faced the camera. He pulled his dick out of his pants and wrapped his hand around it, pressing down to angle his slick crown towards the screen.

“This is what you do to me.”

He slicked his thumb through the precum pooled in his slit and swirled it around the head of his cock.

“I think about the sounds you make when you come for me, and this is what happens to me.” Jack arched his hips up, pushing his cock through his fist. “You make me so hard, Callum. I want to bury myself so deep inside of you that you never feel the same again.”

Callum whimpered, eyes locked on Jack’s cock. He’d taken his own cock out and was stroking it slowly.

“August,” Jack grunted, his balls pulling high against his body in preparation for his orgasm. He’d embarrass himself the first time he got Callum into bed, he had no doubt. Just thinking of his sweet, little boy was enough to send him to the edge.

When he was finally able to feel the heat of Callum’s skin, taste the salt of his orgasm…

“I’m going to come so deep inside you, Callum.”

“Yes, please,” Callum cried out.

Jack came, his cum spurting onto the couch cushion just short of his phone. His entire body bucked and jerked with the force of his release, the delicate whimpers from the phone grounding him.

“Daddy…”

“Come for me, kitten. Show Daddy what you’ve made him.”

Callum came, a short burst of white cum landing on the top of his hand. He kept his eyes focused on the camera through the duration of his orgasm, eyes trained of Jack’s reciprocated hungry stare.

When the pleasure had worked his way through his bones, Jack picked the phone up and lay down on the couch, cradling the phone in his hands in front of him. Callum’s face stared back at him, bright eyes sated but sad.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked.

Callum’s lip ticked up in a pained smile. “August is just a long way away.”