I walked out of my hotel room and hesitated a moment, wondering if I should knock on Nathan's door to see if he was up for breakfast. I then thought better of it since I was still feeling a little hinky about the night before. I went down to the lobby, made my way to the dining room, ordered a croissant and cup of yogurt to go, and walked across the street to the convention center. As I walked through the heavy glass doors, people were clustered about chattering like a bathroom full of teenage girls. I pulled out my brochure and ran my finger down the list of seminars until I came to the one titled 20 Ways to Get the Most From Your Service Staff. It started in twenty minutes. I checked the room number, made my way up two floors, and walked down the corridor.
I peered into the empty room, made a quick scan of the seats, and did as I had always done in college. I went straight to the seat closest to the door. While I'm not completely sure why I always did it, I assumed it was due to some deep-seated fear that the room might erupt in flames and I'd be that person who'd knock over women and children to get to the door. I never could stand the thought of intentionally being mean or selfish. It had always been my thing. I couldn't help myself. When people had described my personality to others, I heard one of two things: "He is the nicest person you will ever meet," or "He is so nice it's disgusting." I'm terrified one day I'll crack and release the serial killer that's been lurking inside me somewhere.
I took my seat, laid my leather briefcase flat on my lap, set my food on top of it, and began to inhale my croissant. I looked around, shook my head, and smiled, knowing that Finn would take one look at the room and scream, "Beige invasion!"
Everything in the room was some form of the color beige with the exception of the wood stage and a black curtain hanging behind the podium on the stage. I began imagining that I was in the audience of Bravo's Inside the Actors Studio, pretending that James Lipton was sitting on the stage across from Julia Roberts when I heard, "Excuse me," startling me out of my daydream. I turned to my left to see Mr. Chiseled Jaw from the restaurant the night before, standing beside me sporting an award-winning Jack Nicholson smile.
"H-hi," I fumbled out while scooting back in my chair. I shoved my legs under the seat, allowing him enough room to shimmy by. He slid by me with his perfectly formed ass, which was deliciously wrapped in jeans, right in line with my face. I felt a stir in my pants and thought, Hot damn ... this is hands down the best fucking seminar ever!
Aside from me, the room was still empty, so when he took the seat right next to me I immediately felt my face flush and the moisture begin to collect under my arms. He placed his arm on the armrest of his chair, and chills ran up my arm as his brushed against mine. I looked down to see the soft blond hair on his arm tangling and intertwining with the dark hair on my arm. Feeling my cock begin to strain against the fabric of my jeans, I recrossed my legs, attempting to adjust myself. I peeked over at him to see that he was looking at me, and we both burst out laughing due to a mix of both nervousness and excitement.
"Logan Price." He offered his hand while making direct eye contact.
I reciprocated with my hand and name. His hands were large with long fingers, and I got an instant mental picture of how they'd look between my legs. I marveled at the way his smile gave me a feeling of warmth and anticipation. I found it was suddenly difficult to catch my breath. I felt a slight panic as I tried to remember the last time a man had made me feel like that. "Are you from Atlanta?" I asked.
"Originally, yes, but now I live in Los Angeles. I own a restaurant there, but I still come back here every year for the trade show. It's an excuse to see my family. You?"
"My partner and I own a restaurant in Missouri. I'm from Missouri; that's where I went to school ... lived in the state all my life."
His smile faded slightly as he rubbed his hand over his leg. "Oh ... that was your partner you were at dinner with last night?"
"Yeah, Nathan." I was ecstatic that he remembered me as well. "He's a fantastic chef."
"How long have the two of you been together?"
"Oh, oh," I said, eyes widening, "we aren't that kind of partners, just in business together."
He nodded with a smile. "Good to know."
He had the sexiest full lips, and I immediately began to think about the way they'd feel pressed against mine.
We spent the remaining ten minutes prior to the seminar talking about our restaurants, and his sounded unbelievable. Serving mainly Mediterranean food, it was set on a hill overlooking the ocean. He described it as intimate outdoor dining with several levels looking down on the other. There were a lot of little coves and nooks that gave it a very romantic "private" dining atmosphere. As other people began filing in the door, I started to feel slightly irritated, as if they were uninvited guests crashing our party for two.
"So"--I was nervously twisting the brass notch that closed the flap on my briefcase--"do, uh, do you have a partner?"
He turned to look at me. "No, in neither a business nor personal sense, but I'm always looking."
I picked up the spoon I'd used to eat my yogurt and began twisting it in my hands. "Good to know."
The speaker began testing his microphone, and I jumped slightly as the plastic spoon flipped out of my hands. It sailed through the air, landing about six feet down the aisle. I sank down in my seat a little as the blood rushed to my cheeks, thankful I hadn't hit anyone with it. I closed my eyes and prayed Logan hadn't seen that. I glanced over, and he had his hand in a fist over his mouth trying to keep himself from laughing out loud.
Closing my eyes again I heard a voice in my head scream, Loser!
The attendees began to settle down, ready to absorb what would hopefully be some new infinite wisdom that would make running their businesses a little easier. I placed my half-eaten croissant and empty yogurt container back into the paper bag and placed it on the floor next to my feet. I glanced over at Logan and caught him looking back at me, smiling. I wondered if my breath would stink by the end of the lecture as I heard that pesky voice nagging in the back of my mind.
You just had to stuff your face, didn't ya, little piggy!
I opened my briefcase, pulled out a yellow legal pad, and readied myself for the seminar. Logan did the same, and every couple of minutes one of us would be caught looking at the other, causing us both to laugh. The speaker began talking. I was trying to force myself to pay attention to what he was saying, but my brain continually ran amok with thoughts about the man sitting next to me. What was he like? Did he like me? What kind of a couple would we make? Was he interested in me, or just interested in fucking me? Then there would be the killjoy evil thoughts: Of course he only wants to fuck you. He lives in California, and you live in Missouri, you fucking idiot. Well, Mr. Ego, aren't you full of yourself? What in hell makes you think he's even attracted to you?
I was startled out of my inner ravings when Logan slid a folded piece of paper on top of my legal pad, which, after fifteen minutes of the lecture, was still blank. I looked at him. He winked at me, smiled, and nudged his head as if to say, read the damn thing already. I unfolded the piece of paper and looked down and read:
Will you spend the rest of the day with me? Circle Yes or No.
I smiled, feeling like a teenager again passing notes in church. I laughed at the sweet cheesiness of it, circled Yes, and folded the paper before passing it back to him. Without even opening the note, he looked at me and whispered, "Good."
My head began to swim with a druglike euphoria. My vision seemed keener as well as a little fuzzy, and it once again became more difficult to breathe. I tensed when he began to caress my hand with his pinky. An electric shock ran straight up my arm and worked its way through my body to my cock. Not wanting him to think I was uninterested, I hooked my pinky around his, hoping the lecture didn't end until my hard-on subsided.
Finally free of the lecture, we opted to head for the trade floors as opposed to wasting any more time in seminars, which wouldn't hold our attention. I felt slightly drunk and was hoping it was mutual. As we walked through the showrooms, Logan gave me personal demonstrations of kitchen equipment, something I'd never given two shits about in the past. I was now completely enthralled despite the fact that I had the culinary aptitude of a toddler. We talked about ourselves, unable to learn about the other fast enough. We asked each other questions and kept looking at one another and smiling.
Logan was thirty-two, which shocked the hell out of me because he looked no older than twenty-five. In retrospect, I should have realized the improbability of a twenty-five-year-old owning and running a restaurant, but when your senses are running wild, you tend to not have much sense.
Logan seemed to be about six feet tall, I guessed, since he stood slightly over my five feet nine inches and had that beefy build that made my knees weak. He had on a short-sleeve button-up blue shirt that made his blue eyes pop. The top few buttons were undone, revealing a smooth chest, and the shirt was just tight enough to give me a mouthwatering visual image of what lay beneath.
Logan was from a rather well-to-do family in Atlanta. He'd spent several years in Europe, where he'd trained in a couple of culinary institutes. His father died several years ago, leaving both him and his younger sister a substantial amount of money. His mother still lived in Atlanta in the house he'd grown up in. He described her as being a sweet, gentle soul. His sister, whom he loved dearly, also lived in Atlanta and was a wild child. She always had to be the center of attention wherever she went, which sounded suspiciously close to the way I'd describe Finn.
Neither his mother nor his sister had flinched when he told them he was gay, and had both been very supportive. He didn't tell them until after his father had died. He felt a little sad about that, like he never gave his father the chance to know him completely as an individual, and often wondered how his father would have handled it.
He'd worked really hard while living in Europe to lose the Southern accent, which I told him was a shame, since I had a thing for accents.
He immediately looked at me. "Well, it's not completely gone; I'm able to kind of snap back and forth. If you're good," he added, raising one eyebrow and flashing a devilish little smile, "I might be inclined to dredge it up for you."
As goose pimples ran over my body, I smiled uncontrollably. I told Logan that I was from Cape Girardeau, the oldest of three, and the only boy. With the exception of my sisters, I had never told my family that I was gay. Where my parents were concerned, it was pretty much understood but completely ignored. Cape was a fairly small city where everyone sort of knew everyone else through either personal contact or acquaintances. My parents had wanted me to go to the university in Cape, but I refused. I wanted to get the hell out of there so I could feel free to be more open without having to worry about people talking about it. Logan and I were both raised Southern Baptist and could certainly relate to one another on the horrors of growing up gay in that mess. While he had pretty much become a Buddhist, into yoga, eastern philosophy, and all that stuff, I was what he called "riding the fence," referring to myself as agnostic.
He was envious of my partnership with Nathan and told me how nice it would be if he could spend all his time in the kitchen without having to worry about the front of the house. He'd been living in Los Angeles for about a year and a half, working in a couple of different restaurants out there before his father died. He was basically doing the "watch and learn" bit, picking up tips here and there about the business end of running a restaurant. He purchased his restaurant with the money his father had left him, and spent about eight months revamping the place, which had been there since the 1930s. It was kind of a landmark from old Hollywood. He'd been able to obtain a historical grant that helped fund the restoration, which in turn garnered him substantial media attention and ended up being fantastic free advertising.
"I'm getting kind of hungry." Logan looked at his watch. "Good Lord, it's almost three thirty. We yapped our way right through lunch."
I stopped in my tracks, feeling completely wretched. "Oh my hell, I was supposed to meet Nathan for lunch at noon."
"Oops," he said, with a half-guilty, half-pleased expression. "Well, why don't you let me take the two of you to dinner tonight to make up for me depriving him of his lunch companion? I'd really love to see some more of you."
"Um, well..." I wondered how Nathan would feel after the sexual walk down memory lane we'd taken the night before. "That would probably be fine, but I should talk to him first." Hell, he may have other plans at this point ... Wishful thinking, you big ho. That would make things entirely too easy. "Why don't you call me at the hotel later on, and I'll see what I can work out?"
"Great ... I'll go ahead and make reservations for the three of us, just in case."
"Okay, that's great." I was wringing my hands, not wanting him to go. "Well, I guess we part here?"
"Until later then." Logan leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on my lips right there in front of God and everybody.
"Damn," I said in a soft whisper as he pulled away, causing my face to flush realizing I'd spoken aloud. That's good, Aden, way to be subtle. "I'll wait to hear from you then."
I smiled, waved good-bye, and hoped like hell he was watching me walk away. I'd been told on more than one occasion I have a great ass, and I'd been Vicky Vain about it ever since. When I glanced back to see him watching me leave, I smiled and waved, feeling a mild sense of gratification.
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