Chapter 1: Happy Hour
The jukebox hissed and clicked, surrendering to the somber guitar riff of The Smiths.There Is a Light That Never Goes Out. It was the kind of song Connor, a ghost from Hinge past, had once drunkenly sworn they’d dance to if they ever actually met.They never did. Matthew traced the water ring on the table with his finger, the varnish sticky under his touch. His Negroni was already half-gone, the bitter-citrus bite doing nothing to cut through the taste of his own restlessness.
“So then,” Liana announced, leaning into the circle of dim neon light, “he says—get this—‘I just don’t feel a spark, but I’d love to keep hanging out as friends.’ After three dates. Three!”
Oliver let out a sharp, genuine bark of laughter that cut through the jangle of the music. He was perched on a stool next to Matthew, close enough that Matthew could smell his cedar-and-clean-linen cologne.“No. He did not.”
“He did!” Liana insisted, her eyes gleaming with the pleasure of a well-told tragedy. “Our Matthew here just blinked and said, ‘Oh.Okay. Cool.’ Like he’d just been told the specials were sold out.”
Matthew took a deliberate sip, the ice clinking a defensive punctuation.“It was a reasonable response. What else is there to say?”
“How about, ‘You suck and your beard is stupid’?” Dominic suggested, sliding onto the bench beside Matthew just as Morrissey began to moan about dying by your side. He smelled of turpentine and fresh rain. “Or a simple, elegantly thrown drink.”
“It was a very mainstream beard,” Matthew conceded, a weak smile touching his lips. “Very… discoverable by algorithm.”
This sent Oliver into another fit, laughing so hard he choked on his swallow of IPA, sputtering and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes watered, and he clapped Matthew on the shoulder, the warmth of his palm bleeding through the thin cotton of Matthew’s shirt. The contact lasted a beat longer than necessary.“You’re killing me, Collier.Honestly. A discoverable beard.”
The touch was a tiny sunburn, a sensation Matthew would feel for hours. He focused on the pilsner glass in Oliver’s other hand, the condensation making wet rings on the worn wood.A new presence loomed at the table’s edge. “Is this the wake for Matthew’s latest romantic casualty, or is there a joke I’m missing?” Toby’s British accent was like a blade through the murky air. He leaned down and planted a firm, possessive kiss on Oliver’s lips, his large hand cupping the back of Oliver’s neck.When he straightened, he nodded at the group.“Dominic.Liana. Matthew.” His gaze lingered on Matthew for a fractional second, a quick, unconscious assessment.
“Toby!” Oliver’s face lit up with a different, brighter kind of affection. “You escaped the savages.”
“Kitchen’s closed. The savages are all drunk on pilfered Calvados.” Toby squeezed Oliver’s shoulder, his knuckles brushing the spot he’d just kissed.His eyes, a cool Nordic blue, scanned the table. “I need a proper drink.Oliver, come help me navigate this American swill.”
Oliver got up, his chair scraping. He shot an easy, inclusive grin back at the table.“Be right back. Don’t let Liana eviscerate anyone else in my absence.”
Matthew watched them walk to the crowded bar. Toby’s arm slid around Oliver’s waist, his fingers tucking into the back pocket of Oliver’s jeans. Oliver leaned into him, saying something that made Toby throw his head back and laugh.It was a perfect, easy snapshot.It felt like a punch.
Liana was suddenly talking to Dominic about an upcoming gallery show, their voices a comfortable buzz. Matthew was alone in the middle of them. The song changed to something upbeat and eighties, a synth-pop beat thumping through the floorboards. The dance floor, a scuffed patch of concrete under a spinning disco ball, began to fill.Oliver and Toby returned with whiskeys.They didn’t sit back down. The synth-pop beat seemed to get into Oliver’s blood; he started moving almost imperceptibly, his hips shifting, his smile turning playful.He said something to Toby, who shook his head, laughing. Oliver persisted, tugging on his hand. Toby’s resistance was performative, a show of reluctance that lasted only ten seconds before he allowed himself to be pulled forward.
Matthew watched as they merged into the crowd. Oliver moved with a loose, natural grace, his hands on Toby’s hips. Toby, more rigid, eventually surrendered, his big hands settling on Oliver’s shoulders as they swayed.They fit together.Of course they did.They were a unit.A fact.
Matthew’s smile, the one he’d kept plastered on since Toby’s arrival, finally cracked and fell off. He stared down at his phone, the black screen reflecting the distorted, colorful flashes of the disco ball.The Negroni was gone.The laughter around him was a foreign language. The sight of Oliver’s fingers now threading through Toby’s blonde hair, tugging him down for a kiss amidst the dancing bodies, was a precise, expert-level kind of torture.
His thumb moved on its own. He opened Grindr, the grid of torso shots and smirkless faces a familiar digital purgatory.He didn’t scroll. He went straight to his messages, to the familiar, unadorned profile: Jake.30.Just a dude. Their last exchange was from two nights ago, a terse here followed by Matthew’s omw.He typed under the shelter of the table, his knees forming a dark tent.
>Matthew: Hey.You around?He hit send. The whoosh sound was inaudible over the music but vibrated in his bones.
When he looked up, Dominic was watching him, one eyebrow arched high above the rim of his pint glass.He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. The disappointment was a physical thing, a slight pressure change in the air between them.Matthew’s phone buzzed, a sharp tt-t-t against the wooden table. He flipped it over.>Jake: Yeah.Just finished a shift.Wanna come over?
Relief, hot and shameful, flooded him.It was an escape hatch. A confirmation that he was wanted, even if it was just for an hour, in a dark room with a man who would ask him nothing about his day.>Matthew: Yeah.Give me 20.
He stood up abruptly, the bench screeching. “I’m gonna head out,” he said, too loudly.Liana’s face fell.“Already? It’s early!”
“Turpentine headache,” Dominic said flatly, not looking at Matthew. “The fumes.”
“Something like that,” Matthew mumbled, avoiding Dominic’s eyes.He threw a glance towards the dance floor. Oliver had his back to Toby, grinding against him, both of them laughing, lost in their own private, sweaty world.They hadn’t even noticed he’d stood up. “Tell them I said bye.”
He didn’t wait for a response. He wove through the crowd, the bassline thudding in his chest, the flickering Open sign casting his elongated, fleeing shadow against the exposed brick wall.
He wove through the crowd, the bassline thudding in his chest, the flickering Open sign casting his elongated, fleeing shadow against the exposed brick wall. The Mission night air hit him like a slap—cold and smelling of damp concrete, street food, and weed. He tugged his jacket tighter, the bravado of the text already curdling into a familiar, anxious anticipation. Twenty-nine felt less like an age and more like a shaky platform over a void, every weekend a failed attempt to bridge it.
Jake’s building was a faceless stucco box on a loud, neon-cut street. The buzzer emitted a raw, electric screech, and the door clunked open without a word.The stairwell smelled of cat piss and new paint. Matthew’s heart hammered, a stupid, hopeful rhythm he tried to quiet.
The door on the third landing was already ajar.He pushed it open.
Jake’s apartment was what you’d expect: a couch draped with a Mexican blanket, a TV on a milk crate, bike parts leaning against a wall. Jake stood in the middle of the living room, still in his black work t-shirt and jeans, a can of PBR in hand. He was exactly his profile: fit, tattooed, a dense carpet of chest hair visible at the V-neck. He didn’t smile.“Hey,” Matthew said, the word sounding absurdly formal in the stifling quiet.
Jake just nodded, put his beer down, and crossed the space in three strides. He didn’t kiss Matthew so much as claim his mouth, a hard, silencing press of lips, his hands immediately gripping Matthew’s hips and shoving him back against the wall. The impact knocked the air from Matthew’s lungs.A thrill, sharp and hollow, shot through him. This was it.No pretense.
Matthew gasped into the kiss, his hands coming up to fist in Jake’s shirt. He yanked it up, breaking the kiss for a second to pull it over Jake’s head, letting it drop to the floor. His palms swept over Jake’s shoulders, the hard planes of his pecs, the coarse, dark hair that covered his torso, tracing the defined lines of his abs.It was a body built for utility, for strain.It was perfect. Matthew’s own need was a raw, yawning thing.
Jake grabbed his wrist, a firm, unambiguous grasp, and turned, leading him wordlessly toward the bedroom. The room was spare: a low platform bed with rumpled grey sheets, a single lamp casting a weak pool of light.
There, it was all efficiency. Jake undressed him first, pulling his shirt off, unbuckling his belt with a sharp tug, letting Matthew’s pants and briefs pool at his feet. He pushed Matthew back onto the bed. Matthew watched, his mouth dry, as Jake stripped off his own jeans and briefs, his erection springing free, thick and already flushed. He was fully hard, and the sight made Matthew’s stomach clutch.
Jake retrieved a condom and a small bottle of lube from the nightstand. He rolled the condom on with practiced ease, slicked himself, and then moved between Matthew’s legs.He didn’t ask. He just hooked Matthew’s legs over his shoulders, pressed the head of his cock against him, and pushed in.
It burned, a sharp, stretching ache. Matthew let out a choked sound, his head falling back against the pillow.Jake didn’t pause, didn’t gentle. He fucked him with a steady, deep, punishing rhythm, his body a machine of muscle and sweat above him. Each thrust jarred through Matthew, a physical punctuation to the silence. He stared at the water stain on the ceiling, Jake’s grunts hot in his ear, the bedframe knocking a dull tattoo against the wall.He could feel every inch of him, a brutal, filling presence. It was exactly what he’d wanted—to be taken, to be used, to feel so completely occupied that his own thoughts dissolved.But they didn’t dissolve.They narrowed, sharpened. The sight of Oliver’s hand on Toby’s waist.The sound of Oliver’s laugh. The easy way they fit together.This, here, was the opposite of that.This was collision, not connection. A sob welled up in his chest, and he clenched his jaw, forcing it down, transforming it into a moan he hoped sounded like pleasure.
Jake’s pace increased, becoming rougher, more erratic.His breathing hitched. With a final, deep groan, he shoved in hard and held there, his body shuddering.Matthew felt the pulsing through the latex. Then, it was over.Jake pulled out, the condom coming off with a soft snap. He disposed of it, walked to the bathroom, and Matthew heard the shower turn on for a brief moment.
By the time Jake returned, damp and smelling of soap, Matthew was still lying there, feeling exposed and hollowed out. Jake pulled on a pair of dark blue boxer-briefs and his jeans, buckling the belt with a decisive click.The silence stretched, now awkward. Matthew cleared his throat, the sound loud in the room.“So,” he began, his voice strangely small. “You wanna maybe… go get a beer somewhere?Not here, I mean. Like, out.”
Jake glanced at him from where he was pulling a t-shirt over his head. His expression was blank, impassive.“Nah.I’m tired.Just worked a double.”
“Right. Sure.” Matthew sat up, the sheets sticking to his back. He swung his legs off the bed, feeling the cold floor under his feet. He gathered his clothes, dressing quickly, each article feeling like a layer of shame reassumed.
As he was tying his shoes, Jake sat on the edge of the bed and lit a joint.The sweet, skunky smell filled the room. He took a long pull, held it, exhaled a plume of smoke toward the ceiling.
“It was fun,” Jake said, his voice flat, the words landing not as a compliment but as a period at the end of a sentence.Matthew nodded, not looking at him.“Yeah. Fun.”
He saw himself out, pulling the apartment door shut behind him with a quiet click. In the fluorescent glare of the stairwell, he leaned against the wall, the vibrations from Jake’s final thrusts still echoing in his bones. The hollowness had expanded, now filled with a bitter, metallic taste. He felt scraped clean and utterly filthy. Worse, so much worse, than when he’d walked in.
Worse, so much worse, than when he’d walked in.
He walked home.It was the only thing he could make his body do. The city sounds—a distant siren, the clatter of a late-night bus, snippets of drunken conversation from a passing group—felt like they were coming through a thick layer of glass. His own skin felt like a borrowed suit, ill-fitting and vaguely unclean.
The key turned in the lock of their apartment with a sound that was too loud in the silent hallway. He pushed the door open to find Dominic already there, toeing off his sneakers by the entryway mat.
“Hey,” Dominic said, not looking up.He walked into the open-plan living room, the floorboards creaking under his weight. Matthew hovered in the doorway, an interloper in his own life.
Wordlessly, Dominic opened the fridge, pulled out two IPAs, and handed one to Matthew. The bottle was cold and wet.Matthew took it, the condensation feeling like an acknowledgment of his own clammy palms.
Dominic flopped onto the worn leather sofa, thumbing the remote. The bright, sequined glow of RuPaul’s Drag Race filled the screen, the exaggerated applause a jarring contrast to the quiet room.“So,” Dominic said, his eyes fixed on a queen explaining her runway concept. “You had fun?”
Matthew sank into the opposite corner of the couch, putting as much furniture between them as possible.He took a long pull of the beer. “It was fine.”
“Mhm.” Dominic took a sip. “You know, for a smart guy, you have a real knack for seeking out the emotional equivalent of a dumpster fire.”
“It’s not that—”
“Matt.Come on. You fled a perfectly good bar where your friends were, where the guy you’re actually into was—though, for the record, that’s its own dumpster fire—and you ran straight to a man who treats you like a convenience store burrito. Hot, quick, disposable.”
Matthew flinched.The accuracy was a small, precise cut. “He’s not that bad.”
“He’s not anything, Matt.That’s the point. He’s a blank space. You’re the one writing a whole tragic novel onto him.” Dominic finally looked at him.“You’re looking for something.I get it. Thirty’s staring you down, the job feels like static, everyone’s pairing off. But you aren’t going to find it in Jake’ bed. And you’re damn sure not going to find it with Oliver.”
“Oliver’s happy.With Toby.”
“Exactly.” Dominic’s voice softened. “He’s happy.And he’s also a flirt.It’s his oxygen. You’re a data analyst—run the numbers. The likelihood of him blowing up a two-year relationship for a work crush? Especially when that work crush is you, a man who texts his booty call the second he feels lonely? It’s not a winning bet.”
Matthew stared at the TV, where a queen in a magnificent feather headdress was laughing. He felt the sharp edges of the night—the sting of watching Oliver, the hollow mechanical grind with Jake—soften into a dull, universal ache.Dominic was right.It was so painfully, annoyingly obvious.
“I know,” he sighed, the words a release of pressure. “God, I know.”
They sat in silence for a while, the cartoonish drama on screen a welcome distraction. When his beer was empty, Matthew stood up. “I’m gonna crash.”
“Night,” Dominic said, not taking his eyes off the television.“Don’t swipe on anything.”
Sleep was a shallow, fitful lake. Images blurred together: Oliver’s laughing mouth, Toby’s possessive hand, Jake’s impersonal thrusts, the judgmental arch of Dominic’s eyebrow. He was a ghost haunting his own future, untethered and watching everyone else’s lives solidify without him.
Gray morning light filtered through his inadequate blinds.He reached for his phone on instinct, a digital pacifier. The usual notifications littered the screen—a work email, a news alert.And then, Tinder. A new match.A message.He tapped it open.Conrad.34. The photos were clean, not overly staged. One of him hiking in what looked like the Marin headlands, a genuine smile crinkling the corners of his eyes.One at a museum, standing beside a massive canvas. Another, a silly one with a friend’s gigantic dog. He was handsome in a steady, grounded way: short black hair, blue-gray eyes that held a direct gaze, a sharp jawline.His profile was sparse but confident: Corporate lawyer who misses being a person. Love film, terrible wines, and asking too many questions.Let’s skip the small talk.
His message from last night read: Saw you liked The Third Man.Good taste. Orson Welles’ cuckoo clock speech is the best cinematic rant ever.Prove me wrong.
A real opener.Not a “hey.”
Matthew felt a flicker, small but distinct. He typed back: Can’t prove you wrong.Only a monster would try. But I’d argue his entrance is better.Shadows and a cat.Iconic.
He put the phone down, started making coffee.It buzzed almost immediately.Okay, you have a point. The cat sets the tone.So, film bro debate settled.Next question: what’s your favorite bad movie?
Matthew leaned against the kitchen counter, a slight smile on his face.Showgirls. Unironically.It’s a masterpiece of American ambition and terrible fringe.Bold. I respect that.Conrad replied moments later.I’m a Road House man myself. Philosophical bouncier.They volleyed like that for twenty minutes, easy and quick. It wasn’t performative or heavy.It was just a conversation. Conrad was clever, asking follow-up questions, actually reading his answers.Then: This is nice. But I’d rather do it in person.Would you like to get a drink?Friday?Matthew stared at the words. It was simple.A direct ask from a seemingly normal, attractive man who had actually read his profile. No game, no subtext, just an invitation.He took a breath. The memory of last night’s hollowness was still a fresh bruise.But this felt different. This felt like a door, cracked open, with sunlight on the other side.
Yeah, he typed, his thumb hovering for a second before hitting send.Friday sounds great.
Perfect, Conrad wrote back instantly.I know a place.Quiet, dark, excellent negronis. I’ll send you the details.Matthew placed his phone on the counter. He looked out the window at the San Francisco morning, the fog burning off to reveal a clear, pale blue sky. A cautious, fragile optimism unfolded within him, delicate as a new leaf.It wasn’t a solution. But it was a step. Forward.