A/N Thanks to everyone who read the first chapter, and your reviews mean a lot!
This is Ste's POV
"Dinner?"
"Huh?" Ste looked up from where he was flicking mindlessly through the new store catalogue. His mouth immediately cracked into the widest of smiles. There standing looking nonchalant in front of him was his very own tall dark smouldering Irishman.
"I'm asking if you would like to have dinner with me?"
Ste internally shivered at the dark look Brendan was giving him. "Erm sure, tonight?" Ste tried to appear to cool, then immediately cursed himself for sounding so keen.
"Sure tonight if you like," Brendan tried to suppress a smile at the eagerness that was rolling in waves off the boy, despite his obvious attempts to sound casual.
"Cool," Ste smiled again, this time berating himself for sounding so young.
Brendan leant over the checkout point and whispered into Ste's ear, "looking forward to it," placed a chaste kiss on Ste's lips, then put his sunglasses on and sauntered out of the store.
Ste let out a low sigh as he watched Brendan go. He was startled from his daydreaming by a voice in his ear, "he gives me the creeps." It was Sally one of his fellow shop assistants. Ste turned and scowled at her, "well no one was asking you, were they?"
"Sorry Ste, but seriously the moustache?"
"I think it's sexy." I think everything about Brendan is sexy, thought Ste, he's perfect. He subconsciously raised a finger to his lips remembering the tickle and scratch of the moustache.
Sally just looked at him and hummed disapprovingly. Ste huffed and ran a hand through his hair agitatedly, "are you trying to kill my buzz?" he glared at her, then stalked off to the solitude of the stockroom.
The stockroom was now one of his most favourite places in the world. He smiled at the memories of a fortnight previously, when Brendan had barged in raging and fiery, and then told Ste he liked him. The echoes of those words filled Ste with a warm glow and he hugged himself with glee. Brendan Brady liked him.
Ste supposed he shouldn't blame Sally for being worried about him and Brendan. He remembered the first time he had met him, how he was struck by a sense of raw power and masculinity that both intoxicated and acted as a warning in equal measures. He remembered that first interaction where all he could feel was the prickle of tiny goosebumbs dancing on his skin as he sensed Brendan's eyes roaming all over his body looking like he wanted to devour him. It had both excited and scared him at the same time. It was only a secondary thought that shouldn't he be perturbed by the effect this man was having on him?
Ste thought back to an earlier time, back in the previous summer, nearly a year ago. There had been another lad working at the shop, a temporary summer worker. Callum. Ste remembered the jokes, the teasing, the drunken nights outs, sometimes the feel of electricity humming in the air when they worked alone in the stockroom, the feeling when his eyes caught Callum's across the shop floor, but always accompanied by the doubt that he was imagining things, that the looks and the slight touches and Callum subconsciously chewing on his lip when he was near was all in Ste's head.
In the end Ste had buried it all. Callum had headed off to university and Ste hadn't really heard much from him since. Ste had carried on with life as he knew it. Until Brendan had walked into the shop.
Ste found himself pining for the days that Brendan would pop in, every time wondering whether this would be the last time he saw him, being equally amazed every time he came back. When he saw him coming he would imagine what it would be like to kiss him, somebody who was so much a man. Ste imagined the moustache must be uncomfortable, he knew how girls always complained if he let what stubble he did have grow. He found himself memorised by the triangle of flesh that Brendan always had exposed by buttoning his shirt low. The glimpse of muscle and skin and hair. The way Brendan called him Steven, almost as if claiming him for his own made Ste feel special in a way he had never experienced before, or even knew he wanted. Ste knew there was no way of denying it to himself this man, in every sense of the word, was turning him on. The only thought that scared him though was what if he was totally misreading the signals. He couldn't imagine Brendan was the type of man to suffer fools.
Then Brendan had kissed him. Ste had helped him carry yet another purchase back to the car, as he always did just to prolong the time he got to spend with him. As he had turned to leave and walk back to the shop Brendan had grabbed his wrist tightly and pushed him back against the blistering heat of the car. Ste's immediate thought had been that he'd crossed some line. Perhaps Brendan wasn't gay and had cottoned onto all the fantasies Ste had been having and was now going to beat them out of him. He wasn't that well clued up on his own sexuality, let alone that of another man's, though the feeling that Brendan's heavy body trapping him to the car was producing left Ste in very little doubt of what he wanted.
Brendan didn't hit him though, he was shoving some money inside his shirt, the feel of Brendan's fingers sending fiery sparks through him. And then Brendan kissed him, Just for the shortest second. But the sweetest second Ste had ever known. In that second his world was turned upside down. Before Ste even had chance to properly respond Brendan had pulled away, but those tiny sparks that his touch had created were now going off in little fireworks all around Ste.
Ste had walked back to the shop in a daze, the most ridiculous smile plastered onto his face.
"You look like the cat that the cream," Sally had commented as he entered through the door.
"What?" Ste had asked confused, being awoken from his dream-like state.
"You look happy," Sally clarified.
"Yeah, well I guess I am." There was only one thing niggling at Ste, when would he see Brendan again.
He made the bold decision to take the bull by the horns, he was going to seize the initiative.
"You look nice," Amy commented as he picked up his keys from the kitchen table.
"Just going to watch the footie with some of the lads."
"Is that right?" Amy cocked an eyebrow disbelievingly, "aren't you a bit overdressed for watching the football?"
Ste glanced down at himself, he had put one of his best shirts on, blue because Amy had once said the colour complemented his eyes. His hair carefully styled back away from his face. "Do you think it's too much?" he asked.
"Well that depends, is it too impress a girl? Because I'm impressed," Amy smiled.
Ste took a deep breath. He supposed it was now or never. "It'saguy." He rushed out in a whisper.
"What?" Amy asked not quite catching what Ste has said.
Ste took another deep breath, then looking at the floor he repeated himself a little slower, "it's a guy" then continued as if to clarify when he saw Amy looking puzzled "not a girl."
Amy's mouth fell open, "Oh."
There was silence for a moment as Amy digested what Ste said, and Ste braced himself for Amy's reaction. Eventually Amy just smiled at him, pulled him into a hug and then said "as long as you're happy." Ste squeezed her back tighter in thanks.
As Ste entered the club the confidence that had carried him there started to ebb away. What was he doing? He had no idea. What if Brendan had decided the kiss was a mistake. It had been so quick. Perhaps it had been rubbish, maybe that was why Brendan had driven away without so much as a word to him. Before he could completely change his mind and run-away he saw Brendan stalking through the crowded club towards him. Brendan stopped when he caught Ste's eye and indicated that he should follow him through a door behind him.
Ste nervously stepped into the small room, which looked like being Brendan's office. He heard the click of the door behind him and the noise from outside became muffled and distant, it was just him and Brendan. Alone. Fear and anticipation began to battle for control of his emotions. Then Brendan was talking to him, flirting with him, his head didn't seem to be registering the words, but his mouth seemed to be responding automatically.
"Do I make you nervous Steven?" Brendan smirked beginning to close the distance between them.
Yes Ste screamed internally. "Err no."
"Are you sure?" Brendan whispered into the side of his neck, the warmth of his breath tickling along the surface of his skin causing Ste to gulp loudly. Brendan moved his head so his lips grazed Ste's with the lightest of touches. "Don't worry I won't hurt you," Brendan murmured causing vibrations to ripple outwards from Ste's lips. Then Brendan crashed their mouths together. No more hesitation or teasing or feather light caresses. Ste felt like he was being utterly possessed. If felt amazing.
He allowed his body to meld with Brendan's, feeling the unyielding firmness of the muscles beneath the sharp suit. Ste pressed closer at he felt the deep white heat within start to travel lower, stirred up by the feeling of Brendan's tongue invading his mouth with confident force. Ste groaned into Brendan's mouth as somewhere in his sub-conscious he became away of Brendan's hands moving over his body, tracing lines through his shirt, reaching lower and lower.
Ste flinched back like he had been electrocuted. What was he doing. He was so hard it literally hurt. But he had no idea what he was doing. "I'm sorry" he breathed heavily, "I don't think I can do this." I don't even know what this is, Ste was desperately trying to scramble his thoughts together. He stared at Brendan for a second. The man in front of him, eyes blazing, mouth parted, lips glistening. Then he ran. Ste threw open the office door and stumbled down the stairs and out of the club into the fresh night air. He slid into the dark alleyway and rested back against the brick walls there. He listened for a moment. There was no sound of Brendan chasing after him. He's going to think I'm just a little kid now. Who runs away scared like that. Ste kicked the wall behind him in frustration. He'd blown it.
To his amazement the next morning his phone started buzzing on the bedside table. It was Brendan calling. Ste's hand hovered over the phone, but by the time it had made a decision about whether to answer it, and what he would say if he did answer it, it had rung-out to voicemail.
After Ste stepped out of the shower that morning dressed for work Amy cornered him in the kitchen. "So how did it go last night?"
"I don't want to talk about," Ste grumbled at her, in no hurry to relive the events of the previous evening.
"That bad huh?" she asked sympathetically.
"You have no idea," Ste groaned running a hand messily through his hair.
"If that's the case why has," Amy picked up Ste's mobile, "Brendan called five times already today?"
"He has?"
"So what's up, don't you like him?"
"What no," Ste exclaimed, "he's amazing. So strong, and manly… and what would he want with me?" Ste shrugged.
Amy flushed a little to hear Ste talk to blatantly about his attraction to a man, she shook off the unfamiliarity of though. He was her best friend and she would help him through this. "You'll never know if you don't return his calls!" she emphasised waving his phone in the air.
Later as he was stacking boxes in the stockroom he considered Amy's words. He resolved to pick up the phone next time Brendan called, though a dull ache inside informed him that Brendan hadn't rang for a couple of hours now. He was interrupted from his thoughts by the sound of the heavy stockroom door being flung open and then slammed behind whoever had entered. Somebody's in a bad mood he thought looking up to see who it was.
It was Brendan, face like thunder. He was yelling at him but Ste wasn't really hearing him, he was too busy looking at him, mesmerised like he always was in Brendan's presence. Ste tried to shake himself mentally he should probably pay attention to what Brendan was saying because it just sounded a lot like Brendan had said 'I like you Steven.'
Ste performed a little internal dance. He likes me! I think he just said he likes me. Ste didn't know it was possible to feel this way. He threw himself at Brendan who embraced it with strong arms, covering Ste's lips with his own. Ste giggled as the force of Brendan slamming him backwards caused a shower of laptops to clatter down off the shelving around them.
"Are you laughing at me Steven?" Brendan growled at him.
"No," the huskiness of Brendan's voice sending frisson of excitement through Ste, causing him to stretch up to reclaim Brendan's mouth for his own.
I hope you don't mind if I leave the story like this. I might come back to it, but it's nice to leave it with the idea of what could be, plus I have now mapped out the the rest of 'Birthday Treat' so I can get that written up, again big apologies and big thanks for your patience with me!