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Laurent arrived at the reception slightly more than fashionably late. He’d always planned on skipping the ceremony (no need to take attention away from the bride with the arrival of a minor television personality, and he didn’t know Lykaios well enough to find her exchanging vows with a stranger all that interesting). But then he’d dithered about leaving for long enough to get here later than he planned, and by the time he walked into the reception, the party had already started without him, the dj playing some kind of folk music he didn’t recognize. A majority of the guests were gathered in a circle doing some sort of traditional dance, Lykaios radiant in her gown and her happiness, Damianos separated from her by several people, sandwiched between a bridesmaid who was leaning towards him in quiet desperation and someone’s triumphant looking grandmother. He was still wearing the waistcoat and trousers of his groomsman’s tux, but the jacket had already been discarded and he’d unbuttoned the top of his shirt, undone bowtie hanging loose around his open collar. His sleeves were rolled up too, exposing his forearms to the elbow. Even with the aid of the pictures, Laurent had managed to forget somehow just how much man Damianos was. And with the emphasis of him standing between two small women, the modest areas of skin exposed where layers had been removed, the hints of more tempting expanses tantalizing beneath the thin shirt, body moving fluidly through steps that seemed familiar but not yet practiced, graceful even when he stumbled, the hair already tousled out by the exertion, good-natured face grinning openly, the bright eyes, the one dimple … There was a lot of him. It was a lot.
Laurent found himself spinning on his heel and retreating back the way he’d come, seeking a quiet space and a moment to gather his courage.
“My new brother-in-law shelled out for quite a comprehensive liquor selection for his guests,” said a voice from behind him, “What brings you all the way out to the cash bar?”
Laurent looked up from his seat at the bar on the other side of the extremely elegant hotel lobby, one of the places not rented out for the reception, where he had hoped to escape scrutiny for a few minutes.
“I’m very particular about my wines,” he lied confidently, as he picked something white at random off the wine list, “Yourself?”
“Particular about my whiskey. Glendronach fifteen, neat,” Jokaste told the bartender, “The gentleman will pay.”
Laurent raised an eyebrow but did not dispute it.
“You want to talk to me,” she informed him, as she hopped on the barstool, the deep purple evening dress rustling as she arranged it elegantly.
“I do?” He glanced at her dismissively.
“We’ve received the advance copy of Lykaios’s episode.” Jokaste gave him a knowing look. “You want to know about Damen.”
Laurent leaned nonchalantly against the bar as the bartender arrived with both their drinks. He nodded thanks. “I already know more than you think. There are more cameras in the salon than our guests are aware of - by design. I’ve seen the dailies of conversations that were meant to be private.”
The motion of Jokaste’s hand bringing her glass to her lips halted, and then continued.
“Then I imagine we have you to thank for that not making it into the show?”
“Hardly. Damianos never gave you an answer while you were in the salon, and what good is airing the beginning of a story if you can’t bring it to a satisfying conclusion?”
“Kastor is my escort tonight, if that conclusion satisfies you.” She took a sip of her scotch, slow and savoring.
“He turned you down.”
Jokaste raised an eyebrow. “If you have a question, ask it.”
Laurent looked at her, taking in the implacable features. “I’d wager that Damianos does not even remember what you two were fighting about that day. But you do.” Jokaste made a move of agreement that was not quite a nod. “Does it matter?”
She inclined her head slightly, as if acknowledging a hit, a touch. “No,” she said, “We were never fighting about whatever we were fighting about.”
“Well?”
Jokaste leaned her elbow on the bar, twisting sideways to face him more directly. “Are you serious about him?”
“We’ve had one conversation.”
“But could you be?”
Saying yes would be absurd, with how little they know each other. Surely she did not expect him to say it. And yet, he remembered how sharp Damen was during their argument in the hallway, how soft he had been with Lykaios. How easily he could interact with Jokaste after what had apparently happened between them, which said something about him that was either very good or very bad.
“If he’s the man I think he is, then yes, I think I could.”
Jokaste nodded, then she turned her face away from him, gazing into the distance for a moment. “Mom didn’t appear to best advantage on the show.” She took a drink. “But she did the best she could on her own. She used to say to us, ‘Girls, get both if you can, but if you have to choose between love and security, go for security. Love fades, and you need to be safe when it does.’ A lot of people would judge her for that, but she was right. She is right.” She absently twisted her glass around on the bar. “She meant money of course, but she started telling us that a little too young to understand how the world really works. Lykaios - Lykaios found her security in an excess of love, in being so self-effacing and so generous that she’d never have to rely on one person because she’s, well -”
“The kind of person who can get ex-boyfriends to take her wedding dress shopping.”
“Exactly. People don’t really leave Lykaios - their relationships may take different forms, but once she has them, they stay.” Another slow drink. “I found my security in control.” She looked at Laurent directly. “I can make men do what I want them to, without them even being aware that I’m doing it.”
“Of all the things you could have said to me, that surprises me the least.”
“For a while, that seemed like it would work with Damen. He wasn’t kidding when he said that he likes it when his partners try to push him around. But when he doesn’t want to go where you push him - he doesn’t move. I never learned how to handle that well. I don’t think he ever knew that that’s where the problems came from.
“When he left me at that party, I wasn’t just angry about being left. It was that I didn’t anticipate it - he wasn’t reacting in the way that I thought he would. It scared me, so much that I let Kastor drive me home. I let Kastor do a lot of things.” She drained what was left in her glass; Laurent signalled for another before she closed off again. “I had so many plans, so many contingencies, about what I was going to do when he called - how I would explain and show remorse, how differently I would play it if he was conciliatory or uncertain or still angry. But I knew however it went, I was going to win. I knew I could get him to forgive me. And then he didn’t call.”
The weaker part of Laurent, the part that sounded like Auguste, urged him to say something, to give her an ‘I’m sorry’ or a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. The more ruthless part of him, the part he had learned from watching his uncle, from seeing how he manipulated everyone in the room until Auguste learned enough to take him out of that house, told him to keep still and silent. He did.
Beside him, Jokaste shrugged. “On paper, Kastor and I are a better match than Damianos and I ever were. We share an intrinsic self-motivation, we both appreciate the money and power that Damen has always taken for granted. And he’s no Damianos, but Kastor is certainly not bad in bed. They even look quite a lot a like.” She turned. “Did you know that Kastor used to compete in the decathlon?”
“No.”
“There’s a home movie that was shown in one of the Olympics spotlights - one of Kastor’s high school track meets, an eight-year-old Damen jumping up and down on the sidelines, shouting ‘That’s my brother!’ and telling anyone who would listen that he was going to be just like that someday. You can imagine how it made Kastor feel, when his younger brother not only followed in his footsteps but surpassed him.”
“He was proud.” Laurent was thinking of Auguste.
Jokaste blinked in surprise. “No, he resented it. Bitterly resented it. And deeply jealous people are -”
“Easily manipulated,” Laurent finished.
She nodded. “There’s always a button to push.”
Laurent could imagine. With the shadow of that past relationship hanging over them, Jokaste probably only had to offer a shrugging, ‘Damen used to …’ and Kastor would jump when she said how high.
“So really, I have everything that I ever wanted. It’s just that -” her eyes were suddenly wet, “I think I might have missed my chance, to learn to be someone different.”
Laurent handed her a handkerchief. “I know my role on the show rather encourages this impression, but I’m not actually a therapist,” he said dryly, “I recommend that you see one.”
She laughed into her second glass. “Ah, but the lightbulb has to want to change,” she said, a comment that would have been unintelligible to him had he not also heard the old joke: ‘How many psychologists does it take to change a lightbulb? Just one, but … ‘
“Oh, I’m going to be more than fine,” she assured him, “I’m only telling you this because - well, probably because I’ve had too many of these, but - he’s a good man, in the end. And he’ll give anything you ask for to people who look like us.”
Laurent inclined his head.
“So I want you to promise me something.” She leaned closer, eyes intent. “Whatever you ask him for, make sure it’s precisely what you want. Not more, not less.”
“And in exchange for this promise?”
She let the silence hang, as if she already knew he’d do it.
“I’ll be honest with Damen about what I want from him.”
He paid for their drinks, and Jokaste hopped down from the barstool and accepted his elbow as he escorted her back to the reception room.
One of the things Jokaste had told Damen both before and after the break-up was that he always wears his heart on his sleeve. It must be true, because not only did Lykaios know to seat Laurent deVere next to him at the bridal party table, but when he finally showed up just before the best man’s toast, Kastor’s eyes had lit up like a shark scenting blood and he’d somehow found a way to bring up every one of Damen’s exes as well as working into the conversation “all those rumors about wild sex in the Olympic village” and was it true that Damen had had an orgy with the entire Vaskian women’s volleyball team?
“If it were, I wouldn’t kiss and tell,” Damen had said, glaring daggers that his brother had cheerfully ignored.
But as the party was winding down, Damen was feeling good. Despite Kastor’s crassness and the frequent interruptions for toasts, new courses, visits from the bride and groom, bouquet tossing, cake cutting, and frequent urges for everyone to get out on the dance floor, they’d managed to have an impressive amount of conversation, where Laurent had showcased his biting wit and Damen thought that he hadn’t come off that badly. (The only thing he hadn’t managed to do was get Laurent’s number, as every time he worked his way up to it, Kastor had started clinking his glass in a quickly spreading demand for the bride and groom to kiss.)
But Damen had managed to get Laurent out on the floor with him in the medley of slow songs that followed the cake cutting, and they were swaying together gently in an odd give-and-take they’d worked out after each of them struggled to lead. Laurent felt good in his arms, and he could tell from the way he moved that underneath those sharply fitted suits was a body surprisingly toned by exercise; one that Damen was eager to explore.
He’d just opened his mouth to try again to ask if Laurent would be interested in getting together later when Atkis took the microphone from the DJ.
“Attention! Can I have your attention everyone?” He was grinning, as he had been throughout this whole six hour party, and Damen stilled watching him, grinning back to see him so happy. “We want to thank all of you for coming out today. It’s meant so much for us to have you all here celebrating our joy with us, and helping us make this the best. fucking. wedding!” An off-key cheer went up from some of the drunker groomsmen. Damen probably would have been among them if he hadn’t been sprinting back to the table between dance songs, too preoccupied in trying to make time with an intriguing stranger to participate in the celebratory rounds of shots. “This has been the best day of my life and I hope all our friends and family and loved ones have had half the fun that I have. And it’s not over yet! We have the dance floor for another hour, and the best man and maid of honor have planned an awesome afterparty at the hotel bar for anybody still ready to throw it down. But I have to tell you, I’m already pretty beat, and I can only imagine how it must feel for my wife -” a general commotion of cooing and applause. Atkis smiled. “- Just so you know, I am going to be saying that as often as possible the next few days, it’s going to be obnoxious - anyway, my wife has been up since dawn for hair and make-up, and uh, we are gonna call it a night.” A chorus of cheers and wolf-whistles and someone in the back shouted, “Start the honeymoon early!”, earning a booming laugh from Uncle Makedon. “All right, simmer down over there. Anyway, we just wanted to say good night, thank you for being here, please enjoy the rest of the party in our absence - anything else, Baby?”
Lykaios leaned forward into the microphone that Atkis was still holding. “Nope, just good night, we love you all, hope to see you at breakfast tomorrow morning.”
Atkis handed the microphone back to the dj and escorted Lykaios out of the reception hall. She had been dancing barefoot since mid-way through the reception and at the doorway she stopped and bent to put her shoes back on. Atkis swept her off her feet before she could manage it and carried her away bridal style, with her heels cradled in the folds of her skirt and her arms around him, laughing.
Around them, some of the older people were grumbling about them not staying long enough for endless rounds of individual goodbyes, but Damen thought it was nice. A lot of couples stayed celebrating with their families until they were too exhausted to enjoy any private time with each other, and he liked that they were ducking out early enough to keep their wedding night - well, a wedding night.
“Does he really intend to carry her all the was to the bridal suite?” Laurent asked skeptically, drawing Damen’s attention back to the man in his arms.
Damen shrugged. “I lift with him, he’ll be fine.”
Laurent didn’t dignify that with a response, but his eyes dropped to Damen’s biceps for a moment before drifting back up, and Damen didn’t think anyone could blame him if he flexed a little. Laurent’s mouth turned wry to show that he’d noticed, but other than the slightly mocking look, he didn’t call him on it, nor did he make any noises about leaving now that the bride he’d come to see had departed. Kastor was distracted twirling Jokaste around the floor, the mandatory wedding rituals were over, Laurent seemed content to be dancing with him, and they had one, maybe two more slow songs they could talk during before Atkis’s brother got the DJ to bring the energy back up to hype everyone for the afterparty. It was time for Damen to make a move.
“Will I see you at breakfast tomorrow?”
“I didn’t plan for an overnight stay.”
“I booked a room for the night,” Damen offered.
“Good for you.”
“It seems very comfortable. Private.” He pulled Laurent closer, tangling their legs together so their hips had to sway in tandem as they moved. “If you’re interested, we could spend the night together.”
“That’s it?” Laurent’s voice was coldly dismissive. “I don’t even merit a line?”
But he still wasn’t moving away. If anything, he was pushing closer, trying to wrest control of the dance completely to himself again, making Damen follow his lead.
“I consider it more respectful of my partners to be straightforward about what I want,” said Damen, who found that a simple invitation usually worked. Or it didn’t, and he respected that and asked upfront for a number and a date instead. These games about clever lines and pickup strategies, as if sex could be tricked out of someone who didn’t want it with just the right approach, only complicated things in a way that irritated him. “But I can certainly offer a pickup line if that’s your request.”
“Going to invite me upstairs to see your Olympic medals?”
“I didn’t bring them.”
Laurent stepped forward with his right foot, and instead of following Damen turned with the motion completely, using it to twist them both and drop Laurent into a dip. He went willingly. Damen lingered just a second in the drop, gazing into Laurent’s face as his hair hung down behind him and Damen’s arms supported his weight, before raising them both back up. Laurent looked him over appraisingly.
“All right,” he said, drawling his words in a manner so unimpressed that it almost ruined the effect by trying too hard, “Give me your best shot. I want to see how badly you embarrass yourself.”
Damen looked him over and smiled slowly. “If I didn’t already know, I wouldn’t be surprised that you work in fashion. The style of your suit speaks to that, and the way you’ve accessorized it. All your choices only heighten how gorgeous you are, but I especially admire the bold choice to go with a cravat instead of the usual tie. It looks particularly handsome on you.” His grin broadened. “But it would look even better on my hotel room floor.”
Laurent snorted a laugh.
“A whole ensemble to choose from and the item you want to imagine me removing is the cravat?”
He leaned in, letting his voice go deeper, more promising. “I like to start at the top and work my way down.”
Laurent’s cheeks and the tips of his ears went pink. “Surprisingly adequate,” he managed, but he could make his voice crisp as cut glass all he wanted - Damen knew when he had gotten to someone.
“All promises. But can you put your money where your mouth is?” Laurent went on.
“I’d rather put my mouth where my mouth is. Care to try me?”
“Hmm. Alright.” And then Laurent had backed away and was leaving the reception so quickly that Damen was left chasing after him, dodging friends trying to coax him into drinks, and Atkis’s mom, whom he couldn’t avoid thanking for the planning and saying good-bye to. He found Laurent leaning against the wall by the elevators, looking bored and playing on his phone.
“Took you long enough,” he commented, as he stepped inside the elevator which had opened immediately when Damen pressed the call button.
Damen selected his floor, and as soon as the elevator doors were closed, Laurent was all over him, plunging his tongue into Damen’s mouth as his hands roamed over his torso and made a mess of his hair. It was the wildest thing he had ever experienced, made more so from coming from this man who was so closed off and distant, and Damen had barely gathered his wits about him enough to start reciprocating when he was violently being shoved back, ears still ringing with the ding signalling a stop.
The doors opened and a middle-aged woman got on, giving Damen a look of surprised disapproval before turning around and pointedly ignoring each of them. Damen suddenly realized what she must be seeing: Damen still panting from the assault on his senses, hair in shambles and shirt untucked where Laurent had pulled it up - and Laurent, immaculate, leaning against the opposite wall and looking at his phone again as if nothing at all had occurred. He gave one amused glance up in response to Damen’s stare, and then went back to pretending that he had no idea who Damen was or why fate had decreed that he must share elevator space with this rumpled oaf. As the elevator moved again and Damen was left staring at Laurent’s impeccable form, he felt a revelation building within him, a conviction that felt less like making a decision than discovering a primal truth: he was going to absolutely wreck this man.
Sunlight streamed through the flimsy hotel curtains, warm on Damen’s face and making him aware of the absence of body heat beside him, where the bed suddenly lay empty.
“Not joining us at the family breakfast?”
Laurent was sitting at the desk, already dressed again in last night’s suit. Looking at him, starched and pressed, it was difficult to believe that he had been stretched out beneath Damen what couldn’t be more than two hours earlier, hair splayed out on the pillow beneath him and red splotching down his chest as he arched into Damen’s touch, both of them greeting the dawn by chasing their third orgasms of the night. Damen wondered if he had gotten up after the first time, while Damen slept, and folded his clothes into a neat pile out of a discarded rumple.
“I said my good-byes to Lykaios last night,” said Laurent, who had had a lengthy conversation with the bride when she and Atkis had visited their table, clasping her hand in a way that was strangely touching, “And I’d rather duck out before the speculation as to what I’m still doing here in the morning wearing last night’s clothes.”
Damen could understand that. He stretched out luxuriously, arms over his head, letting the sheets fall down to his waist.
“If you left me your number before you go, we could see each other again.”
“Ah, I see.” Laurent smiled sharply. “I merit a repeat booty call then.”
“Not that,” Damen said, “Or not just that.” Because last night had been amazing and sleeping with Laurent again was not something he was going to say no to. “I want to get to know you.”
“Do you indeed?”
“Of course, why wouldn’t I?”
“People often think they want to get to know me, based on what little I allow them to see,” Laurent said, “They generally change their minds once they learn what that would entail. Before this goes any further, you should know what you’re getting into, so that you don’t waste both of our time.”
Damen made a “go on” type gesture.
“The Laurent who appears before the cameras is warm and supportive and generously caring. He is also a false construction fabricated specifically to appeal to the viewers. The real me is hard and cold and unforgiving - not easily impressed and with little patience for inadequacies and flaws. A bulk of my time and energy goes into doing my actual job and performing the persona required for the more lucrative side position of reality show mascot, and while I am there for the people in my life outside of those hours, my schedule allows for very little in the way of flexibility to accommodate a partner’s needs. Thanks to the popularity of that damn show, I’m likely to be recognized and while paparazzi are not an issue, whenever we are in public together, you should expect interruptions from fans and the possibility that we are being surreptitiously photographed for someone’s instagram. I hold myself to a very high standard and have correspondingly high expectations of the people around me, and it is nearly impossible to come back with me once I’ve been disappointed. I like being in control, and have no qualms about managing circumstances and people to my own ends. I am a difficult person to be around and even more difficult to be with, and I don’t intend on changing my personality in any way to make it easier. Anyone who wants a relationship with me needs to understand and accept that, and if that’s not a possibility for you, than I need to know before we start the whole song and dance of meeting for coffee and pretending to be interested in each other’s favorite books and movies.”
“Are you done?”
Laurent looked at him.
“If we’re trading lists of flaws, you’ll be glad to know that I’ve had them all flung in my face during a not-so-distant breakup, so they’re fresh in my mind.” Damen rolled onto his side, propped up on his elbow to look at Laurent more easily. He could feel the sheet sliding even lower on his hip. “Luckily, I’m one of those rich brats who can afford not to work for a living and to devote all my time to training, but that still takes up a lot of time and while on most days I’ll have the flexibility to work around your schedule, I won’t have unlimited free time to work with. I have a diet plan that’s both restrictive and abundant, and that contradiction is going to occasionally limit where we can go on dates. Competing also requires me to travel a lot, so I’ll be away much of the time, and in addition to what’s strictly necessary to stay in form and keep sponsorships, I also devote a lot of hours to a charity that supplements the incomes of working athletes to try to make individual sports less of a rich dude club, and I’m not willing to cut down on that time.”
Damen was firm on that last part, but to his surprise, Laurent smirked.
“One of Jokaste’s regular complaints?”
“Yes.” Damen frowned. “She’s not anti-charity - her company always sells one item where the profits are donated and she’s given both money and product to fundraisers and charity auctions I’ve been involved with. It wasn’t unreasonable of her to find it irritating that we had to schedule our already busy lives around extra work that I didn’t need to be doing.”
She had also found it annoying to watch him eat an entire rotisserie chicken and three baked potatoes while she was on a diet and then have him tell her to order the cheesecake on her own because he couldn’t have dessert when she wasn’t, but Laurent didn’t need to know that. He suspected that more of his girlfriends had been bothered by that than had actually said so out loud.
“I think I can manage to accommodate your dedication to checking your privilege,” Laurent said, “Let’s hear about the downsides that aren’t humble-brags.”
“Alright.” Damen thought back to what she had thrown at him in the worst of their fights. “I’m confident to the point of arrogance, and direct to the point of confrontational. I’m quick to anger when I see something I don’t like, and based on my track record, that will probably get us into at least a few fights that seem completely unnecessary in retrospect. Arguments shouldn’t last too long, because unlike you, I am very forgiving - but that has its own downside. I believe that people can change and become their better selves, and you may have to stand back and watch me give third and fourth chances to people who’ve let me down before, and have to decide whether to suffer in silence or to hurt me more by saying, ‘I told you so,’ when it comes back to bite me in the ass. I don’t hide my feelings and I can be embarrassingly sentimental. But when I’m going through something, I tend to shut down to keep from dealing with it, and that includes closing out the people close to me. I also have a bad habit of willfully ignoring inconvenient truths when facing them would keep me from something I want.” He grinned sheepishly. “I am working on those last two, but I can’t promise that you won’t still have to call me out about it, or that calling me out about it will always be effective. There. You’ve shown me yours, I’ve shown you mine.”
Laurent picked an imaginary piece of lint off his immaculate suit.
“With all that standing between us, one wonders why either one of us would want to see if we should go any further. Shouldn’t we cut our losses now, before we waste time and effort?”
“Relationships are hard,” Damen said, “But I found something last night that’s worth trying for, and I can only hope that you did too.” He remembered the soft, almost surprised sound Laurent had made the second time he came, the vulnerability he had glimpsed in that moment and that Laurent had already drawn out of him more than once that night. “And just now we gave each other only the bad parts, the things about ourselves that the people we want to be close to us will have to challenge and struggle with. But even though I don’t know you well yet, I’ve seen enough of what’s good in you to know that you’re worth putting in the work to get to know.”
Laurent raised an eyebrow. “Such as?”
“Just now you told me that the Laurent deVere you are on the show is a lie. But that’s not completely true. The way you care about the brides you help, the way you want them to find the confidence to assert themselves and to protect them from the loved ones who want to make the day all about them - that’s real.” He thought about the way Laurent had been with Lykaios, taking the time to figure out what she really wanted under all the layers of eager-to-please, as so few people did, and how genuinely pleased he’d been when she found something that made her happy. “A man who cares like that is worth putting up with a little prickliness for. And I hope what you’ve seen of me has given you reason to say the same.”
At first, Damen wasn’t worried. They’d barely met, but Laurent deVere didn’t strike him as the sort of man who would casually tumble into bed with someone he didn’t already have some reason to like. But Laurent sat stoically, not giving anything away, and silence stretched out between them. Just as he was starting to fear that he’d misjudged something about their encounter, that this beautiful, intriguing, infuriating man was about to walk out of his life forever, leaving him naked and longing, Laurent grabbed a sheet of paper from the desk that he’d been sitting at.
“I wrote down my number for you before you woke up this morning,” he said, tossing it to Damen still lying on the bed, “But I wanted to see what you’d come up with if you thought I was going to just leave.”
He walked out through the door to the sound of Damen’s startled laughter.
Damen ignored everything he’d ever been told about playing it cool and not seeming desperate and texted him while he was still in the elevator.