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“I know I told you yesterday that you need to have some Christmas cheer, but I did not mean you should empty out the whole aisle of gingerbread-themed lotions from Bath and Body Works.”
Liam stumbles to a halt in the middle of the hallway, hands loose at his sides and mouth agape in offense at his sorry excuse of a best friend fixing him with a judgmental stare from the couch.
“I resent the implication that I shop at Bath and Body Works!” Liam splutters.
“No need to be shy about it. You came out of the closet to me, like, seventeen different times,” Mason hums with a smug flip through his National Geographic magazine of the month.
“First off, having a bisexual crisis is a multi-step process, so—rude,” Liam tells him. “Second of all, I resent the implication that I shop at the BBW because I do, contrary to popular belief, have more taste than that.”
Mason casts Liam a long, judgmental once-over from his off-brand trainers to his faded Notre Dame sweatshirt that he definitely didn’t pay for from the university bookstore but instead snagged from the abandoned box of lost and found in O’Shaughnessy Hall. He gives a loud—and likewise judgmental—suck to his top teeth.
“Where are you headed smelling like that, anyway? I thought you needed to catch that dentist appointment they were able to clear for you yesterday.”
“I am headed to the dentist,” Liam says, only mildly irritated, as he attempts and fails to smack Mase upside of the head as he passes behind the couch to root around for his keys in the dish on the console. “Ergo, eau de Christmas cheer.”
“Ah,” Mason says. And then again, with more salacious intonation: “Ahh.”
“What, ‘ahh’? Don’t ‘ahh’ me.”
“Ahh, as in, it’s a Tuesday afternoon so you’ll be able to see that cute young dentist they hired several months ago. Now I understand the eau de Santa’s vomit.”
“Shut up about my cologne already.”
“Will do. Your scent will introduce you loudly enough for you in any room, anyway.”
“You’re an asshole,” Liam whines. He could, objectively, just slap his palm over the knob of their front door and step out and be free of this nonsense, but there are unspoken rules to their dance. He simply must suffer on the threshold of their handkerchief-sized apartment, scuffing his feet in maidenly distress as he is beset from all sides with ridicule, until his best friend and (regrettably) only roommate releases him to the wild.
Mason is still snickering like a heathen on the couch. At the very least, he’s abandoned all pretenses of keeping up with the fascinating finds of Tutankhamun’s tomb. Liam really needs to swipe that copy of National Geographic from him later as revenge and keep it under his covers for his bedtime reading or something.
Mason twists around at an inhuman and unhealthy angle for his spine so he can rest his chin beatifically over his folded hands on the top of the couch. “Don’t forget to tell me all about how corded his hands are and how well-defined his arms look and how delicious his voice sounds,” he says, batting his lashes coquettishly.
“Devilish,” Liam grouses. “I said his voice sounds devilish.”
“Hey, you’re only reminding me how much you actually drooled over him last time you came home from a dentist’s appointment.”
“I don’t even know if it’s gonna be his shift today.”
“Uh-huh.” Mason scrunches up his nose at him condescendingly. “Keep telling yourself that.”
“Fine. Be that way,” Liam says, yanking open the front door in a show of crossness. “See if I tell you anything about his super cute and nerdy hygienist Corey when I come home today.”
Mason’s face freezes mid-snort. The transition from patronizing to mildly panicked is comical.
“I will recite ten Hail Mary’s before you get back and pray for your forgiveness,” he proclaims with affected remorse. “Oh, sweet messenger, have mercy on me, however shall I survive this winter without word of the spark in Corey Bryant’s smile or the wit in his every rejoinder?”
Liam stands in the doorway, deadpan. “He wears a mask when he cleans my teeth.”
“A wise man.”
“And the only time we ever interacted, he said I reminded him of a golden retriever.”
“What did I tell you? Wit.”
“Bye, Mase,” Liam talks over him with a good-natured roll of his eyes. Mason should be prostrated before him in gratitude that he didn’t decide to flip his best friend a jolly bird over his shoulder as he goes.
—
“You could use a bit more flossing,” is the single sentence Corey Bryant the terrible hygienist utters in his direction, aside from good afternoon.
“I buy floss,” Liam protests around the gargle of the plastic saliva ejector between his teeth.
“Clearly,” Corey says, followed by something muttered that suspiciously resembles someone needs to teach you to actually open the pack.
“Excuse me, I do open the pack of floss,” is what Liam attempts to say, but just then Corey adjusts the saliva ejector to the other side and goes to town with the scaler on his upper molars, and the rest of Liam’s protest is drowned out by the soundtrack of his dental travails.
A shuffle at the doorway of the room alerts them both to the arrival of a newcomer.
“Just another quick polish, and he’s all yours, Dr. Raeken,” Corey says without looking up.
Liam has little chance to process the name before the delicious—the devilish—voice of the young dentist fills the room, and all coherent thought processes deflate in Liam’s brain.
“Oh, no rush, Corey. I was double-checking to see if the rumors were true.”
“What rumors?”
“That our last patient for the day brought in Christmas cookies and gingerbread.”
Liam makes an inquisitive sound at that and attempts to shift his head upwards to look at Dr. Raeken from where he’s supine on the patient chair. The sudden movement has liquid sliding down the back of his throat and he’s lost to a round of hacking coughs the next moment.
“Oh, no, oh, no, there, there, you’re fine,” Dr. Raeken softly cackles, definitely doing little to hide his amusement at Liam’s suffering. He lays a single hand—a firm, muscled, large, and very warm hand—on Liam’s shoulder and runs the pads of his fingers back and forth soothingly. Liam’s very hairs stand on end and it’s all he can do to suppress the embarrassing shudder that thrills up his spine at the touch.
Liam waits the last ten seconds necessary for Corey to finally wrap up the polishing on his teeth, and then snatches the gargling saliva ejector from his own mouth himself so he can demand, “What cookies? Which patient?”
Dr. Raeken laughs again. “Someone’s got a sweet tooth.”
“He means you,” says Corey from behind him, not laughing.
“I’m—” Liam pauses. Come to think of it, he is the last patient. He’d begged to be squeezed in today, so that he could actually have his teeth cleaned before having to head home for Christmas break, and not—he insists to himself—so that he could be seen on a Tuesday when he’s very sure that a certain Dr. Theo Raeken is on shift at the dental clinic.
And then the rest of Liam’s brain cells catch up and he catches on to the unspoken joke going around the office.
“I do not smell like gingerbread,” he protests, not for the first time that day.
“Never said I thought you do. Sharon and the ladies up front did,” Theo tells him in what must be his approximation of a placating tone.
Liam is not at all placated.
“I took a shower. With shower gel. I like to stay clean,” he says.
Theo fixes him with a look as he rolls closer on his padded seat and snaps his gloves into place over his hands. “I’m glad to hear it,” he says.
“I don’t even eat gingerbread.”
“Okay.”
“Eating gingerbread is weird. It’s, like, tapping into this deeply primal instinct for cannibalism, and I’m not about to trigger a crisis about my humanity over whether I want to devour someone’s leg or arm or put their head in my mouth instead.”
Theo is silent for a stretch of uneven heartbeats as he holds the mouth mirror poised in the air. Liam evidently takes his speechlessness for shock at the accidental innuendo.
“I mean—not that kind of head! Gross. I mean—not gross. I’m not homophobic. I’m—not straight. Gay. Me—gay. Head is fine. It is A-okay, just not…”
Liam trails off, fully aware of how crimson his cheeks have grown in the last several seconds.
“Just not in the context of gingerbread?” Theo finishes for him with a small but shit-eating grin.
Liam lets his skull fall back against the headrest of the patient chair with a thunk and drags his palms down the front of his face. “Kill me now.”
“Now why would I do that?” Theo says mildly, coaxing first one of Liam’s hands away from his face and then the other so he can access his mouth.
“I’m serious. Defenestrate me, Dr. Raeken,” Liam moans, just as Theo tells him say ahh and starts rooting around his teeth to inspect them.
“If I defenestrated you, I’d be robbing the world of its eighth wonder,” Theo muses, “your scintillating commentary on the homosexuality of baked goods.”
And, really, Liam is justified for calling Theo a dick (or attempting to call him one around the spread of his mouth), because how dare he fling such accusations at his patient while he’s lying inert and defenseless under the ministrations of the dentist’s tools around his teeth.
“You need to floss more,” Theo remarks offhandedly, once he’s withdrawn most of his tools from Liam’s mouth.
“So I’ve heard,” says Liam.
“And as I told him,” Corey’s muffled voice rejoins from the hallway just outside the doorway.
“Thank you, Corey,” says Theo dismissively. He reaches over for the little plastic bag of goodies for Liam to take home. “I am gifting you extra floss. There are videos on YouTube that can give you tips on how best to use it on those back teeth.”
“Why would I look it up on YouTube when you’re here? That’s the sort of knowledge I’m paying you for.”
“Sorry,” Theo says with a straight face, “wasn’t sure if I should get into it, or if I was going to trigger another lecture on anatomy and homosexual nuance.”
This time Liam flexes his jaw and takes the liberty of enunciating clearly, “You’re a dick,” and good G-d, the sound of Theo’s gravelly voice barking out a laugh is the best new drug for Liam’s heart.
“I do really love our little talks,” Theo tells him. “You’re very entertaining, Liam.”
That has Liam’s shoulders slumping as he pauses in the middle of straightening up from his chair. “Yeah, about that…”
“Hm?”
“My employer, the university, switched insurance providers to someone cheaper for next year, and open enrollment ended yesterday.” Liam’s hands twitch anxiously around the handles of his plastic baggie. “Your clinic isn’t on the list of PPO providers.”
“Oh,” Theo says.
G-ddammit, he doesn’t sound nearly as disappointed as Liam had been secretly wondering—hoping—yearning for him to sound upon hearing the news. His heart lurches with an entirely different sort of disappointment, that perhaps all this time, the flirtatious little exchanges between him and Theo have been just that—flirtation without a promise of anything more.
Still—“Oh?” Liam parrots.
“Yeah, oh. That’s odd. We work with a very wide range of insurance providers.”
Just for shits and giggles, Liam gives him the name of his new provider.
Theo shakes his head. “Not that one, though.”
“Huh. Well, I s’pose that means I’ll have to go across town to Deaton & McCall, because they take my new insurance there.”
“I suppose you will,” Theo says thoughtfully. There’s something tugging at the corner of his lips as he rolls his gloves off and pops them in the disposal bin in the corner.
Liam clutches his plastic baggie to his chest more tightly. His eyes narrow in suspicion. “You seem a bit too delighted about this.”
“I don’t think ‘delighted’ is the right word,” Theo hedges. He casts about for a better alternative, seeking inspiration briefly in the ceiling. “Probably more like ‘ecstatic’.”
Now Liam’s mouth simply drops open in offense.
Theo’s tiny smile has broadened into a grin. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s been fun getting acquainted with you.”
“You mean with my mouth,” says Liam.
Theo’s eyes sparkle maddeningly. “Yes, with your mouth. But…with you no longer being my patient, I’ll finally be able to get acquainted with your mouth in a whole other way.”
The poor plastic baggie of toothbrushes and floss in Liam's hands plummets to the floor.
“Fuck,” he pronounces.
“I prefer to go on a date first,” Theo shares conspiratorially.
“I hate you,” says Liam.
“That's great. They do say hate is the other side of love.”
“I need—like—emergency services in here or something,” Liam whimpers. Theo rolls closer to bend down and pick up his plastic bag for him, and as he does, the rear hem of his scrubs top rides up to reveal a strip of delectable skin over a waistband that just barely contains a criminally bodacious swell of ass.
Liam whimpers again.
“Good thing I'm a doctor?” Theo says cheekily, handing him back the bag.
“Not that kind of doctor,” Liam says.
“And definitely no longer your doctor,” says Theo. “Hey, you got the time?”
Liam's brow furrows as he glances about, finally remembering he has his phone with him and pulling it out to check the clock on his screen. “Five thirty-seven, why?”
“Just wondering,” Theo says with an innocent shrug and a flicker of his gaze to the curve of Liam's lips, “since technically I get off at five thirty and that means I am allowed to ask you what the rest of your evening looks like.”
For you? Forever free, Liam's horndog brain screams and (hopefully) does not articulate aloud.
“You seem real eager to get…reacquainted…with my mouth,” Liam says faintly.
Theo full-on grins, all pearly and seductive and downright irritatingly charming. “I should warn you,” he says cheerily as the two of them slowly get to their feet, “In appropriate contexts, I'm also a real fan of teeth.”
Liam, quite frankly, wants to scream.
(Which is to say that maybe, possibly, he gets the chance to do so much later that evening. And perhaps multiple times.)