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“Really handsome, huh?”
Ryan appears, hip propped against the counter just inside the door of Oliver’s trailer, like he’s been invited.
Which- he has, really: Oliver’s door open but, even if it wasn’t, Ryan’s always-welcome status implicit anyway.
Oliver rolls his eyes from his position on the couch, script for the episode they’re filming today in hand. “Yeah,” he says, unselfconscious, and aiming to stay that way, “Like you didn’t already know.”
Ryan shrugs, shoulders shifting against the tight fit of his LAFD tee. “Still nice to hear it. Especially from you.” A smile plays in the corner of his mouth, turning up one side of his lips, the bare space above the upper one the reason Oliver’s admiration has been immortalised in print. It’s fine, but sometimes he wishes he knew how to keep his mouth shut.
Oliver snots, looks back to the scene they’re going to be shooting after lunch, pretends at checking over his lines, though he knows he already has them memorised. “Like you need me stroking your ego,” he teases.
Ryan comes over then, all smooth motion, which Oliver keeps his eyes averted from. He drops onto the scant space left on the entirely too small couch, his knee jostling Oliver’s. “It’s going to be great when I need a confidence boost,” he says, voice equally teasing. He shifts one leg out, so he can shove his hand into the pocket of his shorts, digs out his wallet. “I’ll keep a little print out of the article right here, so I can look at it whenever I feel bad.” He flips open his wallet and points to the plastic window where an ID would usually be.
But when Oliver looks, it’s not Ryan’s driver’s licence there. It is, just as Ryan has said, a tiny, business card-sized copy of the section of the article containing Oliver’s quote.
Shocked laughter bursts from Oliver’s chest, while Ryan grins broadly.
“What–” Oliver chokes on the word as more laughter overtakes him. “Why– where–” he splutters out. And then it dawns on him. “Kenny,” he states, looking to Ryan’s sparkling eyes for a confirmation he doesn’t really need.
Ryan nods. “Kenny.” He slides the little piece of paper out of his wallet, passes it over to Oliver. “Gave it to me just now.”
Oliver sets his script aside, takes hold of it, fingers registering smooth, thin plastic. “He had it laminated?” he asks, also redundant.
Again Ryan nods.
“God, he really commits to the bit,” Oliver chuckles. Ryan does too, Oliver feeling the shake of it passing from Ryan’s body to his via their thighs, pressed together. And then they’re both laughing, heads tipped to the side against the back of couch, smiling at each other, Oliver almost through tears with the force of his giggles.
When they’ve recovered their breath, and Oliver is knuckling moisture out the corner of his eye, Ryan extends a hand for the card, says, smirking, “Give me that back. I’m serious about keeping it to look at when I’m sad.”
Oliver doesn’t hand it over. Instead, he stuffs it into his own pocket.
“Hey, I need that,” Ryan protests, trying to look stern, serious, but the effect is ruined given he has to bite his lip to kill his grin and it’s still there clear as day, bright as the sun, in his eyes.
“Nah, you don’t,” Oliver tells him. “Anytime you’re down — hell, anytime you’re not, anytime you want — you can come hear it straight from the source.”
Ryan raises his eyebrows, “Yeah? What about now?”
Oliver curses his complexion for how easily the flush overtaking him is going to show, as he’s trying to play at cool and collected. “Sure.”
Ryan tilts his head, pointed, challenging.
Oliver huffs a laugh, glances away from Ryan. Then he forces his gaze back to the man opposite him, runs his eyes over him, from his gorgeous face — moustached or not — down his shapely shoulders, past the six-pack hidden by the fabric of his shirt, skipping not quite quickly enough over the front of his soft, grey shorts — which leave little to the imagination — down to his muscular thighs, calves, and then back up, till he meets his big brown eyes. “You’re very handsome,” he tells him, voice as steady, unaffected, as he can make it.
Ryan’s tongue peeks out, a pink flash between his lips, leaving them shiny in its wake. But he doesn’t ask for more, doesn’t say that all?
So, it’s unprompted when Oliver tilts towards him, goes on, voice dropped a little quieter. “Like, super handsome. And you’re hot, so hot. You’re the– the most beautiful thing I’ve even seen.”
Ryan’s face goes slack, surprise wiping it clean of sly bravado. He stares, lips parted, for a long moment, as though waiting for Oliver to take it back — maybe to go so far as to contact the magazine, make them issue a retraction.
But, as much as Oliver is decidedly not embodying unbothered now — cheeks and the back of his neck hot — his words aren’t ones he wants to take back, they aren’t something he wishes he hadn’t said.
When Oliver doesn’t brush away, play off, what he’s said, Ryan’s stare breaks and his eyes skip all over Oliver, cataloguing him. When he meets his eyes, there’s again a small smile curling the side of his lips, though this time it’s less teasing and more pleased. He shifts forwards slightly, moving further into Oliver’s space, murmurs, “I could say the same about you.”
Oliver feels the flush reach his ears. “Could say?” He leans in even closer, closer than he was, which was already so close, the distance between them so small.
Ryan swallows, throat bobbing. “Do say. I do say the same. You’re gorgeous.”
When he also leans in more, the distance between them is reduced to nothing at all.