The Sensible One (boyxboy) ✓

Chapter Two

I felt better when I woke up. My lids were heavy and the two person sofa felt a little too cosy to leave. My temperature had gone down but there still existed an odd heat in me that was oddly comforting.

For a long time I laid there under my blankets, my face buried against the sofa pillows, I felt relaxed and antsy at the same time, a strange need vibrating somewhere inside me like an itch that needed scratching.

By the time I was awake once more it was the following day, I had been sweating the night previous and throughout the day and was in dire need of new clothes.

This was when I realised that the shirt I was wearing was not my own.

My swelling embarrassment at what I had just done sat with me as I finally pulled of the shirt and folded it slowly on my lap.

I covered my face with my hands.

The best night of my life.

Rough, dangerous, unplanned and completely unlike me.

I was twenty-nine with a steady job and my own house, a library and an office and a vegetable garden.

Oh good lord. What was his age? I hadn't questioned it at the time I'd left with him because he had been so ridiculously muscular in such an attractive way, my brain had devolved to that of a prepubescent version of myself with that poster of Freddie Mercury in white spandex hanging in front of my bed. But looking back I couldn't help but realise that going through puberty didn't make him old enough.

Being good in bed didn't make him old enough either. I had realised it on my way out as I panicked. I could hardly imagine his reaction when his stupid little beer goggles were forgotten and he saw me for the first time.

I could only be relieved I had left without him seeing what I looked like the following morning.

I drew the material up to my nose and inhaled. An amazing smell was buried in that shirt, maybe a cologne, something expensive, I didn't want to wash it at all.

"Oh for goodness sake." I hissed, flinging the shirt to the side, feeling a little chilly. "Ridiculous..." I admonished myself.

But I didn't wash the shirt, and eventually, under the excuse of being too dirty to wear a fresh shirt and too cold to wear no shirt at all, I put it back on, and immediately felt better, warmer and safer.

As though I'd ever needed to feel those things before.

When I finally left the house in an muddled hurry to attend a date with my friends I had arranged prior I threw a cashmere jumper on top of it and tried to pretend it simply felt nice and fit me well.

It did not fit well, it was too large for me, and I was conscious of the fact that my friends might notice the wonderful scent coming from it and wonder if I was beginning to douse myself in cologne these days.

For good measure I pulled the shirt up to my nose and inhaled just before closing the door and locking up, to make sure it wasn't too obvious...

[Lowell's POV]

I knew the moment our eyes met across the room, I could tell. Every atom in my being wanted to move over to him and grab at him like an idiot. The most attractive man I'd ever met, just his eyes took my breath away.

There was something so soft and dignified about him. Older, perhaps approaching his thirties, cleanshaven wearing a smart clothes to a bar and nestled between his friends, also dignified looking gentlemen sitting in front of glasses of wine and whiskey and positioned in a booth away from people and the bright lights and loud music of the centre of the club.