“But yes, that’s one of my kinks. One of many.” He watches me out of the corner of his eyes. I copy him and face forward, leaning my head into the sofa. “What are the others?” I mimic him and study him out of the corner of mine. Noticing, he laughs. “You’ll have to find that out on your own.” I nod slowly, facing forward, I can feel him waiting for my reaction. I don’t give him the satisfaction of seeing how much he’s turned me on in the last 5 minutes.

When I finally focus on the TV, music plays and credits roll on the screen. “Aw, that was cute,” Leo says softly. 

I couldn’t tell you one thing that movie was about. A blonde girl trying to find love, I don’t fucking know. Even when we weren’t talking I wasn’t focused on the movie, way too distracted by his bare thighs rubbing up against my sweatpants underneath the blanket. I feel like a horny teenager, whose parents are in the room next door, waiting for them to go to sleep.

“Have you ever been in love?” Leo suddenly asks.

Honestly? I have no idea. 

How do you know when you’re in love? I asked Mason once because of how quickly he and Amber got together. 

I wanted to know how he knew he was in love and he told me, “It’s just a feeling. When you know you know.” Whatever that means. In the few relationships I’ve been in I’ve never felt that feeling. But I’ve also never been in a relationship with a guy even though I’ve known that I was bisexual since college. 

“I don’t think so, no,” I answer. “You?” 

Leo gives me an amused look. “You don’t think so?” 

“No,” I say firmly. “I’ve never been in love.” More satisfied with that answer he nods. I wait for him to answer my question but when he doesn’t I ask him again. He gets quiet and stares off into space for a few seconds. Then he just shrugs.

“Is that a yes, no, maybe?” The shrug was so casual it could either be Yeah I guess or No definitely not. He bites his lower lip trying to suppress a smile. “I mean, what is love anyway? What does love mean? What is-” 

I roll my eyes and cut him off. “Alright, Christofer Drew I get it.” His cheekbones lift and he lets out a loud laugh, understanding the reference. His laughter is so contagious, every time I hear him laugh, I feel my own heart soar. In between his laughs he offhandedly jokes that that song triggers his mommy issues.

 I instantly realize the lyrics he’s referring to. “Well, mama, I hope, I dream, that you won't leave.” We’ve talked about his mom before but not much. The night we first slept with each other he told me that that night was the first time he cried in front of someone in over 15 years. He used to cry when his mom left him alone at home until one day he woke up and just couldn’t cry anymore. 

He said he didn’t even cry when his grandma died. “I seriously thought I broke my tear ducts, I was scared something was wrong with me because I couldn’t cry.” It makes me sad to think about what he had to go through at that young of an age, but it makes me sadder that he just casually makes jokes out of it because I’m sure it still hurts him deep down.

When he finishes laughing, he leans his head against the couch again and answers my question. “I don’t know. I’d have to experience love again to know if I’ve been in love.” 

I nod, contemplating this. So that technically means yes, right? I try to keep a straight face, stopping myself from thinking about him being in love with another guy at one point. I can’t tell if he notices that those words just sent my brain into a spiral because he moves closer to me and gives me a tender kiss on my lips. 

Leo then stands, lifting the blanket with him and placing it on the couch. “C’mon Jordy, let’s go to bed.” He covers his mouth as he lets out a yawn and reaches his hand down for mine. I grab it and prop myself up with the other hand. Once standing I embrace him, wrapping my arms around his lower back. He does the same and in one shift move, jumps to straddle my waist. Our lips are two inches apart, I start to speak but he closes the gap and I start walking us toward my bedroom. 

———

“Let’s play truth or dare.” I move a couple of loose strands of hair that cover Leo’s eyes behind his ears. It’s midnight and we’re both in my bed. I only have sweatpants on and Leo wears my white t-shirt that’s way too big for him.

 “Truth or dare?” I repeat more curious than confused and he nods. The last time I played truth or dare was in college and it was a game that got out of hand quickly. We were all pretty drunk, and the dares were getting more and more outrageous. One of my friends was dared to streak across campus, and before we knew it, he was running down the street, completely naked. We were all cracking up and cheering him on, but looking back now, it was a pretty risky stunt that could have gotten all of us expelled.

 “Anything you want to ask me, you can just ask. I’ll answer truthfully.” 

He pouts at me. “Damn, I thought I was being sly.” 

I’m not going to lie, part of me wants to know the type of dares he’d give me, but I’d rather just skip all of that to get to the questions he actually wants to ask me. 

I stay on my side as he props himself up on his elbows and gives me a serious look. I’m trying to brace myself for what he’s about to ask because it could be anything. After a couple of seconds that felt like minutes, he finally speaks.“How many models have you slept with?” 

That’s not so bad. 

“Zero,” I respond with no hesitation. He starts doing the thing with his lips where he bites it and says nothing. When I brought it up before I called it his thinking face and he told me he had no idea that he does it. 

“You don’t believe me?” His silence gives me a knot in the pit of my stomach. He quickly blinks as if he’s taken aback. “No, it’s not that I don’t believe you because I know you wouldn't lie.” When we started seeing each other more, Leo told me that lying is one of the 3 cardinal sins he’ll never forgive. I told him he has nothing to worry about because I’m horrendously terrible at lying. 

When I was in middle school, me and my friends ditched class to go to a gas station and then a park a couple blocks over. We all agreed that if we got caught we’d say that we had a half day at school. Later that night when my mom came home from work and asked me how school was I just cracked. She wasn’t even suspicious, she just asked me a question she’d asked a million times. But guilt ate at me and I told her I ditched school. Her first reaction was shock but it dissipated quickly and she patted me on my head and told me, ‘Thank you for being honest with me Jordan. But never do that again.” I was so worried about disappointing my mom that I never missed a day of school after that. 

“How many of your male models have you been attracted to?” I lay on my back to rest one arm under my head and look up at the ceiling. 

How many models have I been attracted to? I’ve taken pictures of thousands of models. If we narrow that down to men, it’s in the hundreds. If we narrow it down to models signed to my agency that I’ve repeatedly shot, it’s about 12. 

“2, off the top of my head.” I turn my head towards him as I answer, omitting to tell him the calculations I just made in my head. He slowly nods, his eyes focused on my chest but I can tell he’s far away in his thoughts. I shift and interlace our fingers. “But it’s nothing like the attraction I feel for you.” He looks down at our connected hands as I rub my thumb against the back of his hand. “Pfft. Okay, Romeo.” He playfully remarks, rolling his eyes. 

“But soft-” I start to say but Leo laughs and cuts me off  and makes an attempt to cover my mouth. “Stop it.”

I’m now grinning and continue anyway.  “What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Leo is the sun.”

He drops his head trying to hide his laughter. “You’re so…” I watch him and after a few moments he looks up at me again. This is something that has happened a lot lately. We look into each other's eyes like some sappy couple that’s in love. Except we’re not a couple. I want to so desperately ask him what this is that we have but part of me feels like it might scare him away.

After a couple of seconds, Leo breaks the silence. “Okay so,” he sits up in a criss-cross position and puts a pillow in his lap and his arms on top, our fingers still interlaced. “Let’s just get this stuff out of the way.” He looks down at me with another serious expression. “How many relationships have you been in?” This question isn’t all that surprising because I figured this conversation would eventually happen. We haven’t actually talked about any of our past relationships other than that one time in London and a mention I made about an ex of mine. Leo was perusing the giant bookshelf in my living room and among the 100 books he picked one out I forgot I had: BDSM 101: 90 ways to spice things up in bed. I could tell he didn’t believe me when I said it was a gag gift from a friend because he was laughing his ass off and giving me an okay suuure look. 

“Four,” I answer, keeping my eyes fixed on him to gauge his reaction. 

His expression stays the same. “Were any of them serious?” 

I shake my head. “Nah, the longest relationship I was in was 6 months.” 

He scrunches his eyebrows at me. “6 months? Half a year is not serious?” 

I debate this for a moment. “I think I just dated her out of convenience? She’s Mason’s girlfriend's cousin so we were always around each other.” 

I pause when I realize how that sounds. “Is that fucked up? Saying I dated someone out of convenience?” I mean it’s just the truth. Me and Jasmine had nothing in common other than having someone who was always around the other person's someone. 

Leo tries to stay deadpan but his slight smile gives him away. “Yeah, that is fucked up.” He looks down at my thumb that's stroking the back of his hand in small circular motions. 

“Anything else you want to know?” I ask. 

He looks back at me and tilts his head to the side. “You can ask me anything too and I’ll answer.” 

Anything? There are a million things I want to ask, I don’t even know where to start. Before he changes his mind, and not wanting to take too long, I just reciprocate his question. 

“One.” He answers with no emotion in his voice. “I’ve been in one relationship.” I blink a few times. It’s hard for me to imagine that someone so beautiful has only dated one person. 

“There are guys I’d see for a week or two but it never goes anywhere because once they get feelings for me,” He motions, slicing his neck. 

He cuts them off. 

This both confuses but relieves me. Confuses me because he knows I have feelings for him, it’s more than obvious. And he has feelings for me too. I’m relieved because he knows that and we’ve been seeing each other for a few weeks now. Obviously, he could still cut me off any day, but a part of me is confident that he won’t. 

“Was your relationship serious?” If he’s only ever been in one I’m assuming it was. 

“Yeah, I guess.” He replies. I nod slowly and swallow the lump in my throat. 

This must be the guy he was thinking about when he said he doesn’t know if he’s been in love. 

“How long were you together?” I’m basically torturing myself at this point. 

“Umm,” He starts counting off months on his fingers, trying to calculate. The more fingers go up the more my stomach drops.  “10 months.” 

That is all he says. 10 months, almost an entire year. Not wanting to pry and also wanting to save my stomach from falling out of my ass, I don’t ask anything else. 

“I just,” he starts, his eyes traveling to the undulating curtains behind me. A cool breeze wafts throughout the warm room. I’m failing to decipher the expression on his face. The next thing he says could be anything, good, bad, terrible, amazing. 

“You travel the world and take pictures of these supermodels and you’re around beautiful people all the time. Like, Roman is so hot and you’ve done so many shots with him and he’s so good at this stuff.”

 I have no idea where this is going. Why is he bringing up Roman? Roman is one of the first models who signed with my agency and a lot of my portfolio when I began professional photography was of him. He’s one of the few models I’ve shot a lot that never came onto me, which I’m so glad about because I honestly owe a lot of my career to him. We don’t see each other as often but we still keep in touch. He’s the same age as Leo and right now he’s in Canada for half a year filming a web series. 

But I don’t understand why he’s bringing him up. 

“You’ve been around all these cool and amazing people so I just don’t understand why you’d want to be with me.” 

Ah. So that’s it. 

“Okay wait,” I swiftly sit up and place both of my hands on the sides of his shoulders. “First, Roman isn’t one of the two models I said I’ve been attracted to. Both of those models, I’ve only photographed them less than 5 times and aren’t signed to me. Second, Roman is not my type. And he has a boyfriend. And I’m attracted to you.” 

He doesn’t say anything for a minute. I cup his face in my hands and kiss his nose and then forehead. “I so look forward to the day when you realize how fucking special you are to me. But until then if I have to keep reminding you every day then I will. Okay?”

Another couple of seconds of silence goes by before he nods. “Okay.” 

“Good.” I kiss his forehead again before getting up to use the bathroom. Taking one last peak over my shoulder, I see Leo’s face smushed into the pillow and I can see an ever-so-slight smile on his lips.