Double Date
"Last order! Let's get it done and then we can get off home!" Ste shouted through the fog of cooking smells and steam to his small team of cooks, glancing at the clock. The small hand edged closer to three and he knew, with a bounce in his soles, in a few hours he'd be lolled on crisp white sheets of a hotel bed, mouth agape and ankle somewhere up by his head.
He had his focus centred on the spooning of a buerre blanc sauce and neglected to hear the kitchen door swing open with a squeak and a thud.
"Concentrating," he said when the shadow over his work was all too familiar. "What do you want?"
"Pour it all over," Brendan said, "I like it all over."
Ste tutted. "This is for you?"
Brendan dodged the saucepan hanging by his head. He swerved closer to Ste, hands behind his back and inspecting. He knew the penalty if he dared touch anything in Ste's kitchen. The whole joint, even Brendan's own adjoined bar included, was after all called Steven's. "Who else orders a steak with extra blood?"
"I would have spat on it if I'd known," Ste said and then rested his pan down, grinned at Brendan and reached up for a quick kiss. "The boys still with ya?"
"Yeah. You gonna come out and say hi?"
Ste pressed his palm to his warm forehead after calling for service. "I'll be out in five, go eat your lunch, will ya? Me blood sweat and tears went into it!"
Brendan clicked his fingers at one of the new work experience kids. "Minny, Jimmy, Thingy – whatever your name is - make Steven something good and bring it out for us, yeah?"
Mickey – his actual name - took at an uneasy look at Ste (he hadn't been introduced to the big, bad, moustachioed boss of the adjoining bar since being recruited) and when Ste nodded kindly, heading to the doorway to unbutton his uniform, Mickey got on with the thankless task.
Just like his dad, Declan had mouth stuffed to the teeth with a burger – meat free unlike his father's preference – when Ste approached the table, and it looked as if he might cough it over the table when he tried calling out in greeting. Paddy looked up from his scientific extraction of mushrooms from his bowl of pasta and smiled.
Ste wrangled his leg over the timber bench beside Brendan. They were terrible seats for the back, but they looked good; Ste never had any problems eating in his own restaurant, he felt at home and although he prided himself on the quality of the food, it never felt stuffy and the place was always buzzing. Steven's Bar was the same at night; cocktail booths and a neon glow, the place was regularly rammed. It even satisfied Brendan that those who flocked to the guest DJ nights were above the age of intolerable students and would fork out for the steeply priced drinks.
There had barely been a month since opening that they hadn't both made a profit. And the thriving nature of Steven's meant taking time off wasn't much of a problem, the staff were grounded and loyal and on the most part, female. It wasn't a trust thing, it was all taken in good humour, but there was a strict, unwritten 'no twinks' rule on the barmen. Ste made it clear that with Brendan hovering, even though he didn't manage the restaurant – Ste did -, there was no chance of any waiters cracking onto him. Brendan still attempted to veto on looks alone.
"Pad, you should have asked for no mushrooms. If I'd known it was your order I would've left them out!" Ste said. Even though he'd known Declan the longest and thought of more of a friend than anything else, Padraic was a sparky eleven year old, full of cheek. And despite it paining him to think it, he looked at Paddy and saw Brendan in his eyes, before the horror came and poured darkness into him.
Brendan ruffled Pad's hair, like fathers do when they forget their little ones are wanting to keep their cool, and turned his head to Ste. He smiled at him like he'd been waiting hours to do it.
"What'd you get up to today then?" Ste asked feeling his stomach sound the alarm of his hunger. He hoped Mickey had picked something more substantial than a salad from the menu.
"This and that," Declan answered. He was stooped low and shovelling in his food, mirroring his dad. He was almost as tall as him now, turning eighteen next year and if Brendan had his way, staying out of any trouble. "Went to the cinema, saw that new Spiderman one."
"Oh yeah? Any good?" Ste said, a fond glance to Brendan, knowing he'd been itching to see it. Since the events of the past being laid to rest, the ongoing exorcism of Seamus out of his life and head, Brendan's affection for superheroes had been creeping back into his life. Ste had noticed it in the presents Brendan bought for Lucas, on the frequent weekend visits when they'd fly back to England to see him and Leah. "Men in tights," he'd teased, until Brendan pinned him with an intense stare and realised it was not something to mock.
"I'm not really into them movies, me," Ste said, pinching a vine tomato from Brendan's plate that he obviously wasn't touching.
Paddy shrugged, "Me either." Brendan had learned earlier that he wasn't all that bothered about the cinema, he just liked the sweets and being allowed into an older certificate film because the ushers were too intimidated by his dad.
"I'm into all the action, gangster ones," Ste said, face lighting up when Mickey rushed out with a chicken club sandwich for him.
Declan scoffed a little. "It figures," he said signalling to Brendan.
"Quit the yapping and finish up your bean crap, boy,"
Brendan grinned toothily, knowing full well what Ste's next response would be.
"Oi, that bean crap is my recipe, ya git!"
"Ladies, ladies," Declan said. "Best bean burger in Dublin anyway, da." Ste took that as a victory.
X
Ste rolled out his body in a stretch and yawned.
Brendan released the handbrake of the car. "Tired already, Steven? That doesn't bode well,"
Ste's smile distorted his yawn and he tapped his hand on Brendan's chest in a half-slap. "Some of us have been working all day,"
"Yeah and I've been entertaining a stroppy teenager and a child all day. What's ya point?" Brendan dropped the boys off to Eileen's mother after their lunch together. More accurately he'd dropped them a few streets away. Despite being his ex-mother in law, all Eileen's fire came from her and she hadn't quite grasped the Catholic concept of forgiveness. He didn't expect a warm invitation and Eileen told him over the phone that her mother didn't approve of Brendan's reintroduction into the boys' lives. She claimed to have told Eileen that she could smell there was something queer about him, long before anyone else had figured it out. Declan had told him on the journey there, in no uncertain terms, that their granny was losing it and hadn't bothered with her anti-Brendan preaching since Declan had given her "lip" (in her words). When Paddy piped up too that he liked Ste, their granny had had little choice but to back down and keep her thoughts to herself.
Brendan was taken by Ste's naughty smile that had struck him as he spoke. "You've taken me to an 'otel, a whole building of beds. Nothing wrong with a little nap, is there?"
"Didn't bring you here to sleep,"
"Oh yeah?" Ste said. He had this way about him when he was horny. His eyes seemed darker and his tongue peeked out through his teeth. "What you gonna do with me, then?"
Brendan hooked two fingers into Ste's collar and drew him forward, sucking his top lip into his mouth, then parted away, nudging his head to the right and opening his mouth against Ste's, letting his tongue edge in, sliding hotly against his. Ste pulled at Brendan's shirt, fingers clawing into the cotton and dragged his hand up his body until his fingers pulled his hair between his palm. He opened deeper into Brendan's kiss and then breathless, moved away teasingly.
"You wanna take this out of the car park?"
The hotel was out of the city, walled by a forest. It was, how Ste would describe it, "dead fancy". Once it had been a manor estate, bought buy a man with too much to spend and a lady to impress, but now stretched to a few hundred rooms, a golf course and a spa. To visit for a dirty weekend had begun as an offhand comment, a date in December called into question, one which was always remembered and an unspoken commitment to their history, one that was usually celebrated in a clash of bodies, a hot mess in a bed away from home.
The lobby was sprinkled with Christmas. The air clung heavy with artificial pine and cinnamon, ivy and lights looped over fixtures and fittings. It was the week before and the rooms were uncomfortably warm, preparing for the artic conditions which hadn't quite arrived.
Ste bounded into their room first, taking a good nose around, leaving Brendan to close the door behind them. He walked into the room, swinging his hands together impatiently as Ste buzzed around.
"The room's mint," Ste said, rushing to check out the bathroom. Brendan sighed, unbuttoning his shirt sleeves. It was a suite, he'd seen the photos online, he'd no interest in the colour of the tiles or the size of the pillows. He threw their holdall onto a chair and unzipped.
When Ste showed his face again, beaming, Brendan stood, lube already in hand.
"Are we going to have to go through this charade every year? Just take off your clothes."
It was all part of the game and they both knew it. And then came the time where Ste would let Brendan undress him, taking as little time and humanly possible, all the while feasting his hands on every inch of exposed skin. Then it was nails and mouth and tongue on him.
Tonight Ste had other ideas and he reached up, folded his grip around the open neck of Brendan's shirt, the warm pulse of his heart and the thick swell of muscle and hair at his fingertips, and pulled, ripping the material open and not caring about buttons or cost. He unlaced Brendan's belt fast, his speed and ferocity silencing Brendan's obvious complaints about his shirt.
Ste pushed Brendan's shirt off his shoulders, taking stock of the feel of his arms under his slight hands. He looked up at him through his dark lashes and gave him a look which made Brendan's lower lip droop through his increasing panting. Ste sunk to his knees.
Brendan groaned, the satisfaction of foresight. His knuckles were white as he gripped Ste's hair. It gave him immeasurable pleasure to see Ste so submissive. The memories it evoked overwhelmed him; their affair in its infancy, with Steven inexperienced and learning, but excruciatingly curious and receptive to the extent that his discovery was additive to be involved with. He was a master of control and expertise now, he knew the buttons to press and tease and Brendan was just as smitten as the day when Ste had first swallowed a mouthful of cum.
There were no lessons or instructions to be taught any longer. Ste read Brendan's body like it was his own. He knew how to start and to end, the pressure and the technique and speed. He knew when to open his eyes and when Brendan liked to watch him get lost in the moment with his eyes closed.
He rested his hands on Brendan's hips and began; a light stroke of his balls and down his shaft. He ran his lips of the head of Brendan's cock, pressing them against its swollen heat. He nuzzled, lips and tongue. When at last he took Brendan into his mouth, he built a steady pace, a tight seal around his dick, sliding him in and out and grazing his tongue under the head.
Brendan's hand pressed between Ste's forehead and then at the back, easing the push and pull. He grunted and jerked, body creasing and stiffening as though stuck with fever. He pulled at Ste's hair and then stilled, feeling Ste shift and taken Brendan right to the back of his throat. Ste opened his eyes and dazed, Brendan fought his reflex to close his and came. His hips shuddered into spasm, and he released his grip on Ste's head, stroking his cheek blindly. Ste's lips glistened and he wiped them with the back of his hand, going then to finish licking Brendan clean.
Ste rested back on his calves and palms.
"Now what?" He grinned.
He was fucked, long and hard into the early hours. Positions and sweat and semen and volume of cries that were made for anonymous hotel room stays. When sleep came it was soundless and sprawled.