Nearly three months into his move to Middlesbrough, and Vance is beginning to feel rather at home. He’d been a little uncertain at first – with Meredith and the girls moving up to York, he’d wanted to ensure he was working near enough to them without being right on top, and when the position had opened up at the Middlesbrough branch, it had rather seemed tailor-made.

He's even mostly getting used to all the accents, or at least, he understands people a lot better than he did – some are still difficult, but that’s to be expected, he thinks. He only wishes people would open their mouths more when they spoke, but that’s dangerous ground to be on: Prophet Shulman opens his mouth up quite often, showing a rows of uneven teeth and making the scars around his lips shine, snarls more than he speaks.

It would hardly be accurate, of course, to say that Vance wished he did it less – he’s come to have something of an affection for Prophet’s frank, blunt manner of communication, crass as it might be.

“Come on, Vance, you have to,” says Bridget, actually tugging on his sleeve as he locks the cabinet for the evening, making him sigh. “C’mon, you’re new in town, you just— You have to fucking socialise.”

“I’m social,” says Vance, pouting out his lips. “We’ve gone on little dos, haven’t we? And, you know, there was that coffee morning, and—”

“Mate,” says Nathan, crossing his arms over his chest and arching his eyebrows. He and Bridget are twins, and what with Bridget’s overwhelming butchness, one could almost mistake them for brothers, particularly with the way they both take on a cross-armed pose of expectation, raising their eyebrows in much the same manner. “Have you gone out without people from work?”

“Yes,” lies Vance.

“When?” demands Bridget.

“Often.”

“When?”

“Often!”

No, he hasn’t. He’s gone out a bit in York, met some of Meredith’s new friends, but honestly, that was a bit of a torture in itself – oh, they were all lovely people, quite well-to-do and charming and funny and all that, but there was a level of curiosity in “Meredith’s gay ex-husband” that had rather left him feeling like an exhibit on display, and he hadn’t been fond of the sensation. He’s come on in leaps and bounds the past few years, he thinks, and his therapist had just been saying how it was important to be aware of his progress, to realise how far he’d come on.

The divorce had been finalised two years ago, and while he’d started the process of coming out and finding himself a bit more a few months before that, it’s all felt strange, with lots of stops and starts, not knowing how to hold himself, not knowing what’s appropriate and what’s not – it’s not as if he’s a young buck, is it? He’s forty-eight years old, he’s got three young daughters!

It wasn’t as if he could waltz out from the closet and suddenly fuck about on the scene, go through a bunch of men at once and—

Well, granted, he had done that a bit, but he hadn’t partied, he hadn’t gone out all the evenings and danced on tabletops and joined in on the cornucopia of new chemical highs that had been released since he was a young man. He’d enjoyed an array of hook-ups having carefully followed the beginners’ guide in a men’s magazine, mostly in the afternoons, and he’s cruised a little bit despite it nowadays being a bit passé.

And now—

Well, look at him now. He keeps meaning to go on dates and then ghosting any of the pleasant gentleman who show an interest on dating apps, and for the past week he’s been frequently putting his hands all over the Administrative Secretary and feeling like he’s flying the whole time.

All these hook-ups he’s had, they’ve been with a variety of men – young men in their twenties and thirties who were excited to be with a daddy, men his own age who said offputting things about how he was a bit old for their tastes, equally men his own age or older who lusted over him so so—

Well. So openly. It had never really occurred to him how it might feel to be lusted over, to be so actively and openly desired and wanted, and that’s even without considering how it feels when Prophet Shulman gives him that particular scowling or smirking up and down look he’s been giving him recently, the one that says he rather hates everything about Vance’s working routine but likes other aspects of him.

“I fail to see how it makes a difference in any case,” says Vance, shrugging on his coat. It’s past six o’clock, and he can still see the light on in Prophet’s office. “You’re telling me I ought to go out without you from work, and you’re saying the solution is for me to go out with you now?”

“Look, we’ll get something to eat,” says Bridget, “and then after, instead of you running home to do yoga and watch Drag Race, you can come out with us, right? Just one drink in Jordan’s – you can even go home by nine if you’re that horrified at the prospect once we’re there.”

Vance sighs, reaching up and awkwardly touching at his hair – he’d been considering, in an idle, probably-wouldn’t-actually-do-it-way, about inviting Prophet home with him, or offering to give him a lift home, but the thought of Prophet’s cold and callous refusal has been putting him off actually doing so.

The man is really quite infuriatingly attractive – on top of being just infuriating – and yet Vance suspects, somehow, that despite the various configurations of cock-to-mouth and cock-to-arse and cock-to-cock activities they’ve been engaging in within and around the office that he’ll still balk at the idea of doing so outside of it.

“Fine,” he says, and Nathan and Bridget grin, giving each other a high-five. He really wishes they didn’t have the same haircut – if it’s so important to Bridget’s butchness that she have the sort of ugly bowl thing going on, Nathan should at least have some taste and grow his out. “Let me just say cheerio to Mr Shulman.”

“Braver man than me,” says Bridget immediately, and Vance smiles slightly as he cuts across the corridor and raps his knuckles against the door.

“Go home,” calls Prophet instead of the customary “come in”, and Vance rolls his eyes before he does just that, opening the door and stepping inside.

“Hullo,” he says pleasantly. “Just called in to let you know we’re on our way out. Do you ever plan to make your way out yourself, hm?”

“Mm,” rumbles Prophet, not looking up from his trio of intimidating monitors, all of which are displaying frankly headache-inducing swathes of tiny text.

“We’re going to get dinner,” hazards Vance. “You might like to join us.”

“I might like to get castrated by a fucking combine harvester too,” replies Prophet evenly. The screen light is reflecting off his glasses as he scrolls, giving him a rather robotic appearance; the shine off the glass is similar to the shine off his lips,

“We’ll be getting drinks after, in Jordan’s,” Vance continues, his fingers sliding over the surface of the glass desk. He works very hard to make his voice sultry and sleek as he goes on, “I’ll buy you one if you drop in – I know your people so hate to turn down a free drink.”

He’s got him. He feels such a thrill when he manages to say things and Prophet actually engages with him, like now, with this slight smirk tugging at his scarred lips – there’s simply something so terribly enticing about seducing the man, something that makes Vance feel so young, so… so cool.

“I’m Jewish, so I must like free things?” asks Prophet, and Vance’s stomach suddenly drops.

“What?” he asks, feeling his cheeks burn, and he almost feels light-headed as he rushes to backtrack, “no, no, not because you’re a— because you’re… I meant, I meant, because you’re Scottish, you must like a free drink.”

Prophet glances his way, raising one eyebrow and looking expectant and oh, God, has Vance offended him that awfully? Has he really ruined everything between them? Prophet’s head has tilted back to take the screen reflections off the lenses, and suddenly his eyes are frighteningly blue.

“You know,” adds Vance stuntedly. “Because Scots are… are alcoholics.”

“You’re really fucking something, Vixen,” says Prophet, lips twitching, and he goes back to his work. “Can’t, have errands after work. See you tomorrow.”

“Right,” says Vance, feeling a sort of prickling over every inch of his skin. He doesn’t know that he’s made for this, a workplace romance, even if it isn’t a romance – he doesn’t know that he’s made for anything. “I— Sorry. That was too far, wasn’t it?”

“Grow a spine, you pathetic cunt,” says Prophet. “You want to banter with me, come in here with some fucking follow-through.”

“We’re not all like you, you know,” says Vance, and Prophet barks out a brittle laugh.

“Too fucking true,” says Prophet, and Vance takes a step forward, closer, into his space. Prophet stays sat back in his seat, his knees spread apart, and Vance almost runs back but he doesn’t steels himself and keeps coming forward, one step, another step, another. He stands between Vance’s spread legs for a moment, looks down at him slouching in his seat.

He's a little man, but he occupies a big space.

Prophet is short, compact – somehow he manages to present a stoutness of figure that doesn’t match up with how skinny he is, the hollow of his cheeks and the way his jowls show like he’s got too much skin for his bones. Vance hasn’t seen him naked, but he guesses that his shoulders are the same – broader at a glance than they are at a touch. Vance wants to see him naked. He’s seen glances and snippets of Prophet’s body, seen him abridged without being able to enjoy the whole text – he's seen Prophet’s chest, his neck; seen his hips, the underside of his belly; seen his cock, his arse.

What are his knees like? His calves, his feet? What about his back and shoulders, his chest? His arms?

Vance wants to see it all, to take in his body, has never felt a hunger like this – oh, yes, he’s enjoyed a lot of the hook-ups, meeting up with all manner of men, but a lot of it had been curiosity, and of the men he’d had sex with he’d been friendly with a lot of them but hadn’t seen the majority of them outside of meeting for sex or occasionally for coffee. None of them he’d seen every day.

The only time he’s ever desired men as he desires Prophet now, looking at him every day and just wanting to peel his clothes off, wanting to tear off everything to get his eyes, his mouth, on all that’s underneath, has been with men before he was fully aware of what he was, and looking back on that desire now it feels half-formed and confused. He remembers wanting to be with men in the office or at the gym, wanting to work alongside them, even occasionally awkwardly trying to touch them or get them to touch him, in the showers or playing about in the street, but he’s not exactly a rough-and-tumble man, and he hadn’t been able to reckon that skin-hunger with what it was, a want for sex, a want for men’s sex, to desire them, be desired.

It's as if he’s seeing his life in a new light now, and the world around him too, and he feels in many ways like a teenager again, suddenly hungry and lustful and desperate and needy – and how unfair that is, when he’s got so much to do, appointments to keep, paperwork to get on top of, that he can’t wipe clean his whole day to spend it peeling the layers off of Prophet Shulman and tasting every inch of him with his tongue.

“What do you want, Vixen?” rumbles Prophet, his lips shifted into a smirk, his eyes half-lidded. Who knew a fifty-year-old Scotsman with tattoos on his knuckles could be so very sultry? “A goodnight kiss?”

“That would be nice,” says Vance.

He’s getting better at judging Prophet’s expressions. It’s not always easy – the man wears a scowl the way most people wear skin, the frown and furrowed brow just a natural part of his features, his expression – but he’s getting better at it now, and this is a negative one, he thinks. The snarl loses its curve up at the very edge and curls down instead, and this snarl isn’t an angry one, but has a different taste to it, a different feeling.

Disgust. Contempt.

It makes Vance’s skin feel too tight and his belly feel empty and churning and he feels unwell, feels upset about it, almost wants to wail right here, wants to cry or something else.

“I’m not fucking doing that, Vixen,” says Prophet coldly, and he scoots his chair back, turns away from him, goes back to work. “See you tomorrow.”

Vance swallows and clenches his teeth to stop himself from saying anything else, and he just walks out of the place, slams the door shut behind him to the extent that it rattles in the frame.

Nate and Bridget are looking at him owlishly, their eyebrows raised, and Vance reaches up and touches the side of his own cheek, trying to feel if it’s warm, but it isn’t, he doesn’t think. He’s not flushed or blushing, probably because he’s feeling less embarrassment and more overwhelming shame.

“He say something shitty to you?” asks Bridget, putting her hand on one hip. “Don’t take anything seriously, man, Prophet’s a— Well, you know.”

“A cunt,” says Nathan.

“A cunt,” agrees Bridget.

“I just, you know. Invited him out with us.”

“He doesn’t come out with us,” says Nathan, and he says it in that gentle, like-he’s-stupid way that a lot of people say these things to Vance, and Vance really doesn’t care for it. What he particularly doesn’t care for is the fact that he’s fairly certain people have been talking like that to him for his entire life, and it’s only recently beginning to bother him – or perhaps he’s only recently beginning to notice it.

They go out.

He keeps bouncing his knee all through their leisurely dinner – the two of them, and then a few of the others from on the office floor. Vance knows all of their names, of course, but doesn’t necessarily know all their personalities, and he expects he will do as time goes by, or know them better, at least.

They’re trying to include him in the banter, some of them making occasional shots about his being from further south or about London, some of the others making comments about his long hair, his skincare routine, the fabrics he wears, his suits. He doesn’t know how he’s meant to respond to some of it in kind, is still getting a hang of the rhythm to it all.

He's always out of step, out of rhythm.

“Maybe I should just go home,” he says as they step out from the restaurant – it’s obviously still very light even though it’s nearly eight o’clock, what with the heat and light from the summer. His skin feels sticky, and he wants to go home and run a bath and stew in it for a time, put something on the television, slide into bed by nine-thirty and wake at six to commence his workout.

“No,” says Bridget, and tugs him by the arm down the street.

Jordan’s is a place on the corner and it’s dark and warm inside, the lights with a warm, red tint to them – it’s got plush, leather benches that are worn and well-used, and there are a…

There are a lot of men here.

There are women, of course, but it’s not the women that fill his nostrils when he steps toward the bar and walks past a trio of big, bulking men thick with hair who smell of salt and musk and mechanical oil; it’s not the women that catch his eye and make him scan over their bodies, little hints of belly or chest hair under v-necks and shirts and leather jackets; it’s not two women who are standing against one window, breathing into one another’s mouths and silhouetted by the grey-red light from the tinted glass behind them, lending a dreamlike quality to their movements into each other, the way they touch each other’s wrists.

“Oh,” says Vance softly, and Bridget laughs beside him.

“Yeah, old man,” she says, waving to the bartender, a woman in a white tank top with a great many pieces of metal through her lips and ears. “Exactly.”

“Look at you,” says a man at the bar beside them, and Vance’s mouth goes dry at the way his eyes rove over him. They’re beautiful eyes, a sort of golden honey-brown, and he’s got a big, square body, fat and with an overwhelming aura of strength and command. His hair is cropped short and it’s brown, too, beginning to lose a bit of its colour and turn a steely grey. “Nice suit.”

“It is nice, isn’t it?” asks Vance, raising his chin and not flinching away, and for a second he’s sixteen again and playing his hand with sailors at the docks, having no idea what he’s selling or what he’s buying but loving every moment of it before his father comes to haul him home by the scruff of his neck. “Would you like to feel?”

The man blinks at him, blinks those lovely eyes of his, and glances down at Vance’s forearm as he raises it up, showing his sleeve, but he does touch it. He takes a bit of the linen and rubs it between his thumb and forefinger.

It’s a big thumb and a big forefinger, attached to a big hand – he’s a big and bulking man, covered with tattoos, and Vance inhales as his fingers move from his linen fabric of his sleeve to Vance’s skin, his fingertips touching against the back of Vance’s wrist before it slides to touch the inside curve of his palm.

His skin is warm, and Vance sighs out a pleasured noise without bothering to stop himself.

“It’s the summer,” he says. “Time to wear linen. More breathable, you know.”

“Right,” says the man at the bar, raising his squared eyebrows, his lips shifting up into a smile. He’s Scottish, Vance thinks – not from Glasgow like Prophet, or maybe he is, maybe it’s simply a different Glaswegian, or just milder, less angry. “I don’t wear suits much.”

He’s wearing a faded black t-shirt for what Vance assumes is a heavy metal band underneath a battered and brutalised denim vest; the shirt is just a little too small, showing a tantalising strip of belly that’s covered in curling chestnut hairs, overhanging his jeans.

“What’s your name?” asks Vance.

“Gideon,” he says quietly, his eyes crinkling at the corners this time when he smiles, and he puts out his hand to grip at Vance’s – he’s not got the sturdiest of handshakes, but his palm feels nice against Vance’s, feels good, strong. “What about you?”

“Vance,” he says. “Vance Vixen.”

Gideon laughs, and Vance blinks at him.

“Oh,” he says. “Oh, right, you’re fucking serious, shit. Okay, Vance Vixen. What’s your poison?”

“Oh, I can’t abide poison,” says Vance. “I’d like a cocktail, please. A chocolate martini.”

“This is Jordan’s, sweetheart, you’re not gonna get a chocolate martini,” says Gideon. “You might get a fucking regular martini.”

“Oh,” says Vance, and pouts out his lips. “No, I don’t think that’ll do then. I’ll take my leave.” He makes to jokingly flounce away, but not jokingly at all Gideon has his hand under his elbow, squeezes it and makes him shudder at the strength and warmth of his palm, the way every fibre of his being aches to lean into it, to cram his body against this man’s and breathe him in, taste him, feel him.

“How about a real fruity cider, huh?” asks Gideon, raising his eyebrows, tilting his head to the side. “There’s this one on the end, comes in a bottle. Really appley, really sweet – has just this hint of cinnamon.”

“How sweet?” asks Vance.

“Not as sweet as you,” says Gideon, and Vance is surprised by the laugh that tumbles out of his mouth, the warmth that runs into his cheeks, his lips. He looks away because he simply can’t stand the way Gideon is looking at him, feels as though he’s imploding under that honeyed gaze. “Gonna try it?”

“Yes,” murmurs Vance. “Yes, I think I’m in the mood for a bit of sweetness.”

“Good news for me,” says Gideon.

He buys the drink for him, and Vance feels wooed, head spinning, even before he glances back to his coworkers and they, laughing with each other, give him resounding thumbs up and gesture for him to get back to it.

He and Gideon, after twenty more minutes, get a table together in the corner, and they end up there until after closing.