The door opened behind him. Jack kept his eyes closed. He heard the door swing shut again, and then he heard it lock.

“I suppose I should be gratified that it’s you having a meltdown this time, Gardner.”

Oh, fuck.

“Nothing to say?”

Jack turned around, fast enough to make him dizzy, and clenched his hands into fists.

“Hmm.” Theo looked unimpressed. “Going to hit me again?”

Theo stood there, calm, leaning against the wall. Hands in his pockets. Unthreatening.

He was stunning.

“Leave me alone, Th—Beau.”

He laughed, damn him. “I think I should be telling you to leave me alone. I don’t remember inviting you here.”

Jack’s hands were beginning to shake, he was holding those fists so hard. “I didn’t—”

Theo scoffed. “Did you really imagine that I didn’t spot you this morning?”

Jack felt his face grow hot. Theo smirked. “Your appalling hair is really hard to miss, you know.”

Jack flushed even more. “What are you doing here?”

Jack heard his own voice—too loud, rough. He meant—he didn’t know what he meant. Here, in Cork? In what seemed to be a gay bar? In the toilets, with him?

“You—” Theo’s eyes were wide. “What am I... Gardner, this is... Oh, honestly.” Then he rolled his eyes. “Hit me or don’t. Just—relax, for God’s sake, and figure out what to do with your hands.”

Jack had the sudden and utterly mortifying urge to laugh.

“Fine.” Theo removed his hands from his pockets, standing up straight. “I’ll make it easy for you.”

“Wha—”

“Maybe you want to see it better, hmm? Where to aim.”

It was like a dream—a nightmare.

Theo moved forward like something liquid and slippery, and he stopped just inches away from Jack—Jack could feel the heat of him, and his breath, and he clenched his fists again because he couldn’t let himself—and Theo leaned in and said:

“Look, Gardner. Look at what you did.”

Jack looked, really looked.

Theo’s lip—how had he never noticed—he was horrified.

He wanted to touch him.

Chapter Twelve

It had been eighteen years since he’d been in a gay bar, and Theo thought that they must have been a lot more enjoyable when he was nineteen.

Genni had declared him “far too desperate, sweetheart” as poker night drew to a close, and Phil had offered to take him down to Grand Central in Mount Vernon. Genni had picked out his clothes—it certainly had been a long time since he’d dressed to pull—and he felt beautiful and fashionable and unaccountably shy. His shirt was unbuttoned just enough to show the top of his chest, the hollow of his throat, and he felt, for some reason, entirely naked.