Working Men 2 Box Set

Blurring the Lines-5

Ryan orders two steaks, medium-rare, with fresh steamed vegetables and something called potato straws on the side. We split bruschetta as an appetizer and a bottle of wine. The moment our waiter leaves, Ryan leans across the table with a gleam in his eye. “So, tell me. Why does a straight guy get into the gay for pay business, anyway?”

“Money,” I admit with a shrug. Really, is there any more to it than that?

But he wants specifics, so I tell him. “When I was in school, me and a buddy used to…you know, fool around a bit. Just to get off. It wasn’t gay or anything.”

“Hmm.” Ryan nods as he sips his wine. I don’t know if he’s trying to be encouraging, or if he doesn’t believe me.

“I’m not into guys,” I assure him. “We just screwed around, there was nothing else to it. I mean, I had a girlfriend at the time. I date girls. I’m not—”

“Gay, I know.” Ryan sort of swirls his wine glass in one hand, as if telling me to continue. Before I can, he asks, “Wait, so your girlfriend’s okay with you doing what you do?”

Just then, the waiter returns with our appetizer, and I concentrate on spreading antipasto onto the toast to avoid meeting Ryan’s stare across the table. “I don’t have a girlfriend at the moment.”

“Married?” he asks.

I shake my head.

He doesn’t say anything else for a long moment. When I have the piece of toast liberally coated with the tomatoes, I take a bite and look up to find him staring at me again. His eyes are so pale, they make even the most cursory glance seem intense. I feel as if he’s somehow looking through me into my very soul. See? Nothing gay in here, I want to say, but the bread in my mouth keeps me quiet.

Finally, he sort of smiles. “I used to date girls, too. Back in high school. Even went to prom. I thought I just hadn’t found the one, if you catch my drift. I mean, the girls were nice and all, but it was never anything special. Nothing earth-shaking. Nothing great.”

I could interrupt here and tell him the same thing about me. None of the girls I dated in high school were worth remembering; if they had been, I wouldn’t be unable to name them now. I could picture them clearly enough, but mostly it was the fashionable, teen-sexy clothing and high hair I saw in my mind’s eye. Their faces were blurred, almost not there. Gone. But I’m pretty sure we’d had fun at the time.

“When did you start liking guys?” I asked.

Ryan laughed. “I’ve always liked them. I just didn’t let myself admit it until college. That’s why it’s still a little hard for me to meet anyone worth a second look. It isn’t exactly a gay mecca out there. That’s when I started looking online.”

I thought I knew the rest of the story. He was tired of online dating sites and decided what he really wanted was just someone to get a little freaky with, and my ad caught his eye. But there’s a twist that surprises me—taking another sip of wine, he admits, “Meeting you was actually my sister’s idea.”

I almost choke on my bread. “What? How so?”

“I was complaining about my lack of dates,” Ryan says, helping himself to a piece of bread, “and she says, you know you can meet people online, right? And I’d done that already. I’d joined Match.com and all those other sites, and I’d gotten a ton of hits, but they were mostly from women. I wasn’t interested. The few guys who replied just reamed me out for using what they said obviously had to be a fake profile pic.”

I can see where that would happen. Ryan’s hot, more so than any normal guy has a right to be. Of course anyone seeing his photo would think he’d ripped it off somewhere.

Now he sighs, a sound so dejected, I reach across the table to cover his hand in mine. He’s buying me dinner, right? I might as well play my part to earn it. Quietly, he says, “I don’t know what it is about me that seems to scare people away. I guess I just look…”

He trails off, so I smile and suggest, “Too damn sexy to be real?”

His smile is back with a laugh. “Yeah, no. I was going to say unapproachable.”

“Same thing,” I say, shrugging. “So how’d your sister find me?”

“She didn’t really,” Ryan admits. “I told her the dating sites were crap, and she said well, look at personal ads. You know, Craigslist and the like. I didn’t think they’d be any better—”

I interrupt him. “They’re worse.”

“They really are!” He swigs back the wine mulling in the bottom of his glass and pours another drink. “But I saw the Pay to Play section, and I thought you know, what the hell, right? I mean, let’s be honest. If I couldn’t find forever, I’d settle for right now.”

“And you saw my ad,” I joke, tapping my glass against his in a toast, “and the rest, as they say, is history.”

Ryan grins. “I thought hey, a straight guy. No pressure there, right? He isn’t going to be interested in anything but s*x. He isn’t going to call me up, pester me for another date, trying to weasel his way into my life…”

“I’ll only give you what you pay for,” I assure him.

“I have to admit, though,” he says softly, “I’m a bit surprised how much we hit it off. I almost didn’t call you tonight because…well, I didn’t want you to think I was desperate or anything, but I really just wanted to see you again.”