Sword Stone Table by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2021-07-13T00:00:00+00:00

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The night’s performance began with a Broadway actor Jack had never heard of singing a couple of songs Jack didn’t recognize. He sat next to Brad in the small semicircle of chairs that had been gathered, rubbing Brad’s back. Jack struggled to quiet his mind as it darted around in the wake of what had just happened. He studied Brad’s face; based on his grin, he seemed enraptured by the performance. Brad had always been a musical theater fan and got extra excited every time his firm asked him to do PR work for a Broadway show.

Jack had mostly enjoyed attending the few Broadway opening nights he’d gone to with Brad, although he also felt somewhat invisible at the after-parties, like he was a vestigial appendage following his boyfriend around. Brad was so much more outgoing than Jack, and Jack would come home from these events feeling drained and needing intense periods of quiet to even himself out afterward.

They were different in all sorts of ways; Brad was a huge science fiction and fantasy nerd, and a voracious reader, with an ever-expanding pile of books he was always trying to get through, while the only reading Jack did was related to his job. Brad had a lightness about him, and Jack felt distinctly earthbound and serious. And yet they had managed to complement each other; Brad often expressed heartfelt appreciation to Jack for his grounded, organized, disciplined approach to making their daily lives work well, and Jack enjoyed Brad’s adventurous energy, his playfulness, and his easy warmth. After an entire adulthood of being single—dotted with very rare, random, desultory sexual encounters and a few unfulfilling dates—Jack had, from the moment they met, found himself surprisingly willing to be swept away by Brad’s eager courtship of him.

Eager but slow. While there had been a couple of pleasant, relatively chaste kisses at the end of their first two dates, it was highly unusual, in Jack’s admittedly limited experience, for gay men to wait so long to make more aggressive moves. It wasn’t until their third date that they wound up in Brad’s studio apartment in the West Village for after-dinner drinks. There, while sitting together on Brad’s couch, they had their first really intense makeout session.

Jack was thrilled that it was finally happening with this vibrant, joyful, surprisingly sexy young man. It had been so long since he had allowed himself the opportunity to feel another man’s body against his, and this one…he could tell this one was worth the wait.

But the moment he grabbed at Brad’s belt to begin unbuckling it, Brad had pulled away from him. He’d sat frozen at the opposite end of the couch, his head in his hands.

“I…I have to tell you something…” Brad said at last, his voice barely above a murmur. Jack swallowed. He didn’t yet know Brad well enough to understand how best to respond; whether he should touch him, say anything. Long moments of silence passed. Finally, Jack reached a hand to Brad’s and held it.

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