- Intoxicating love - (Jesse Klaver x Rob Jetten)

9- a little harmless stalking

Robs lips are snuck on the edge of the slender wine glass, purple and red and plumb. The couch cushions support his exhausted frame, so soft and yet unfulfilling. Loneliness so apparent as he wishes the cushions could be something else, someone else.

He didn't prepare for that. He didn't prepare for the lonely nights where he would crave someones touch and grip, where he would just start to shake from the thought of someone drawing circles on his scalp. He had all of it, all the love and attention, and he let it go for another man that would never be what he wants him to be.

Robs mind, clouded from the half bottle of wine he just killed, wanders to the scene in the elevator. The memory seems so intense now that he looks back at it. He remembers each outline of Jesses side profile, each sensation on his skin.

He also remembers the debate after. Jesses harsh stance against FvDs motion, and how strongly the words came out of his mouth. Rob's been watching his every move, begging for just one look in his direction, but none of his needs were filled. Ignored, rejected, left behind like a used toy.

The wine glass lands on the coffee table, next to the bottle and newspaper. A bit of it spills, the red liquid soaked in by the paper. Is this where his life is going now? Slowly decomposing on the couch, feeling lonely and touch starved?

He could go out, pick up guys, download Tinder, but how will a random pick up fix the hole that lies in his stomach? He doesn't just want anyone, he wants him. Not even a lookalike would be enough. A lookalike isn't Jesse, he isn't the man Rob's been crushing on.

Just another scroll through the abandoned chat between them, just another memory revisited. Rob unsends all the messages he sent, making it impossible to ever use it against him. Still, it doesn't erase what happened, and it doesn't erase Jesses texts. Of course he could delete it, only that he can't. What else will he stare at during lonely evenings like these? It's like a validation of Jesses interest, a hint at a shared future.

Once again Rob scrolls through Jesses pictures. The political posts, the selfies, the pictures taken while working out. He zooms in on all of them, making up scenarios of how and when these pictures were taken, and why. The longer he stares at them, the deeper he falls.

Jealousy in every vein. Jesses life seems so interesting and exciting, almost as if every day he's the main character in his own universe, making Rob only a tiny insignificant side role. He's the colleague that shows up once in a while, so unimportant no one would even care to remember his name.

Jesse seems to like shoes, he has a bright variety of colorful nikes. He cooks, he bakes, he enjoys walks on the beach and football. Secretly, Rob would love to join him on any of these things. Images of them swimming, making brownies or going shoe shopping pop up, and burst with the realization that they're only that: wishful thinking. These scenarios only exist in his head, never to be executed in reality.

If only he could be part of the fantasy. Just for one moment, be more than the guy watching through a phone, unable to reach inside it.

Robs eyes stop at one particular picture: Jesse wearing a green football shirt, looking down at a ball he kicked. He looks so good on there, the hair lying just the way Rob prefers it. If Jesse would like him more when he gets involved in the sport too?

Fueled by the wines clouding judgement effects, Rob hurries to the wardrobe, where he fishes out a soccer jersey. He's almost forgotten about it, rather pushed away as soccer was always Sjoerds favorite sport, and not his, but now he remembers. If that shirt would still fit him?

His black shirt replaced by the jersey, the hair made: time to launch the first attack. He would never do something so desperate while sober, but luckily the wine works its magic.