Liam

I get Kayleigh settled in my bed where she drifts off to sleep almost instantly. I hate seeing her so poorly. I haven’t had to look after her when she’s been unwell before, her Mums have always been around to take care of her. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I could be there for my little girl when she needed me, but I’m also concerned that I still haven’t heard from either Emily or Sarah.

I close the bedroom door gently so that I didn’t disturb Kayleigh, and then try Emily’s mobile again. It rings and rings, and just when I think it’s about to go to voicemail yet again Emily finally picks up, “Hello, Liam?”

“Emily, finally, we’ve been trying to get hold of you for hours,”

“Hours? We, who’s we?”

“Me and the School, Kayleigh was sick, and they couldn’t get hold of either you or Sarah. So, they had to call me to come and get her,”

“Oh my god, is she ok,” I hear her rushing about, probably panicking to get to the car.

“She’s fine, she’s been sick a few times but now she’s asleep in my bed,” I try to reassure her.

“Your bed?”

“Yes, I couldn’t get hold of either of you, so I had to bring her to my place. It’s ok, she’s ok.”

“Wait, weren’t you supposed to be at work? I’m sorry I’ll be there as soon I can to pick her up,”

“It’s ok, I explained I had to pick up my poorly daughter and it was fine. Come when you can and don’t worry, ok”

“Ok, I’m sorry again,”

“Don’t apologise, I’ll see you when you get here,”

After a few more apologies, the call ends with Emily on her way over. I really don’t mind, she is my daughter too and I’ve always been happy to step up as and when Emily and Sarah have needed me to. Usually that has meant babysitting when they wanted some time alone as a couple, or helping out with little things like building a dolls house at my place so that she didn’t see it before her birthday. I’d also been a part of each Birthday and Christmas celebration when she was growing up, at Emily and Sarah’s insistence. I always worried I’d be stepping on their toes, but they have always encouraged me to be part of Kayleigh’s life if I wanted to and I was so happy they felt that way as she really is a special kid.

While I wait for Emily to arrive, I log on to my laptop and carry on with some work. It isn’t expected of me, they really were understanding that sometimes family needed to come first, but there isn’t much else to do while Kayleigh is sleeping. About an hour later, Emily is ringing the buzzer downstairs on the entry system. I buzz her up and open the door ready to greet her. When the lift down the hall opens and Emily appears, it’s clear she left in a rush. I can’t help, I start laughing, her hair is a mess, and her clothes are so out of place, it’s so unlike her. Normally every hair is perfectly in place, and she is immaculately dressed.

“What have you been up to?”, I ask with an obvious smirk as she walks inside. She blushes so deep, knowing I’ve caught her out.

“Well, me and Sarah both had a day off you see and…”

“That’s ok,” I quickly cut her off, “I definitely don’t need the details of what you and your wife get up to thank you very much, do you want to scar me for life.” That gets her laughing as we sit down on the sofa.

“How is she? Was she upset we weren’t there for her?”

“I think she’s fine now, I’ve checked on her a couple of times and she’s just been asleep since I got her here. She was just happy that I came to get her, I think she was feeling more sorry for herself rather than worrying who picked her up.”

“Typical isn’t it, the one day we get to spend together,” she is clearly still feeling guilty for missing all the calls from both me and the school.

“So, what’s with the vest, did you have a sexy time interrupted to?”, she asks half smirking and half curious. I’d forgotten I was still in my vest after Kayleigh’s earlier accident.

“No, you have our daughter to thank for that, as I was getting her out of the car my shirt was a victim of her poorly tummy.”

“Ah, sorry about that,” there’s her guilt again.

“It happens, it’ll come out in the wash.”

We go to check on Kayleigh together and she’s still fast asleep. Rather than disturb her, we return to the sofa where the topic inevitably turns to me and my non-existent love life.

“Soooo, are you seeing anyone yet?”

“No, I’m still depressingly single and boring,”

“What about that guy you told me about? The one who lives in the building?” I forgot I’d mentioned him to Emily. A few weeks ago, when I first saw him leaving as I was coming home from work, he was in a black button up shirt with the top couple of buttons undone and I remember at the time wishing I could just plant soft kisses against his neck. I’d met up with Emily and Sarah that evening, and I was so distracted, I couldn’t get thoughts of him out of my head the whole night. Knowing me as well as they both do, I’ve never been able to hide anything from them.

“I don’t even know if he’s gay, or if he would even be interested in me,”

“There you go again, putting yourself down before you even try. You are kind, caring, considerate, and not to mention sexy. Yet you always think no guy is going to be interested in you. You’ll never know unless you try Liam,”

She gives me the same speech every time I’ve liked a guy. I always talk myself out of trying to put myself out there for fear of being rejected or getting my heart broken. The last guy I was seeing was called Colin, we had great chemistry in bed, every time it was hot and horny. I really liked him, but while I saw a loving future for us together, it turned out he had other ideas. Sure, he had readily agreed that we wouldn’t see other people or sleep around, and although we weren’t at the stage to move in together, we were close enough that we’d swapped keys for each other’s places. I thought everything was going great, until one day I’d come home from work early and found Colin with not one, but two twinks in my bed. That was about 18 months ago, and although Emily had helped me come round to the idea that Colin’s actions were all his fault and not mine, there was still some doubt that crept into my mind whenever I considered trying to start anything with someone new.

Emily snapped her fingers in front of my face to get my attention, it seems I’d drifted off into memories of my disastrous time with Colin.

“Do I need to tell you again that not every guy is like Colin?”, of course she knows that’s what I was thinking.

“I saw him again today,”

“Who, Colin?” her face turns angry at the thought I might have been anywhere near Colin again, I love my friend so much.

I raise my hands to calm her, “No, don’t panic. I saw the cute guy who lives here again,” she calms and gets her expression switches to intrigued.

“When I came home with Kayleigh, I saw someone stepping out of the lift, so I called to get him to hold the doors as I was carrying Kayleigh. When he turned, I saw it was him and I don’t know why I just felt suddenly so shy in front of him,” I look down at my lap, not wanting to see the pity on Emily’s face.

“Then I couldn’t reach the buttons as I was worried about dropping Kayleigh, and when I tried to ask him to press it for me, it sounded like I was an awkward teenager again,” there was no point trying to hide things from Emily, she’d get it out of me in the end anyway.

“Aww, that’s so cute,” Emily cooed making me blush, “Wait, is that how you were dressed then,” she said looking me up and down causing me to blush further.

“Erm, yeah,” God this was embarrassing.

“And was he checking you out?”

“I don’t know,” exasperated by her question. I try to think back to just a short while ago. Was he checking me out? I don’t know, why am I so bad at this?

When Kayleigh wakes up a little while later, feeling a little better after her nap, Emily takes her back to their home. Although she was sick, it was nice to be able to be there for Kayleigh, just like any other dad.

Adam

Wednesdays are always quiet at the restaurant, but that means I get a chance to catch up with my best friend Abi without her boyfriend being around. She may, technically, be my boss as she is the senior host, but we’ve never let that get in the way of our friendship. It probably isn’t the right thing for us to do, but whenever it’s quiet, we sit in an empty booth and chat. We always put the customers first, and can always see if someone needs us, but somehow Wednesdays have become our regular catch-up night when we’re between tables.

“What’s new with you then?” I ask Abi as we both sip our cokes in a booth nearest the door.

“Not much really, did I tell you Steven’s starting a new job? It’s still the same 9 – 5 hours so we won’t get any more time together, but it’s better money so maybe we’ll finally be able to get a bigger place.”

“That’s amazing, I know you two have wanted to move for so long, I’m so pleased for you Abi.”

“How about you, any hot new men ravaging you at night?” I almost spit out my coke with her directness, I should be used to it by now, but she always finds a different way to surprise me. It’s become our running joke each week of how and when she’s going to make me choke.

“HA! Definitely no ravaging going on,”

“What about that guy in your building, the one you can’t keep your eyes off?” she teases, I knew I should never have told her about him.

I paused, thinking back to seeing him in the lift earlier today. “I think, he may be straight,” I sighed.

“Oh, how come?”

“Well, most guys with kids are straight,” I sound like a petulant child, as if she should have known that he had a kid.

“Wait, kid? What actually happened?”

I explain about seeing him getting into the lift with the little girl, I somehow manage to leave out that part about him looking like a god with his biceps on show.

“Is that all?” she scoffs at me, “Honey, do you even know if the girl was his? It could have been his niece, or he could have been doing a favour for a friend.”

I shrug before she continues, “and, even if she was his daughter that doesn’t automatically mean he’s straight or that he’s not single. This is 2023 not 1923.”

“Erm…”, I didn’t think of that.

“See, you always think the worst, now have you tried to actually have a conversation with him?”

“I couldn’t do that, he’s all…” I make an exaggerated muscle pose which elicits a slight chuckle from Abi, “while I’m all, this,” I gestured to myself.

“Well, they do say opposites attract, look at Me and Steven,” when I first met Abi’s boyfriend Steven, I thought he was quite stuck-up, nothing like Abi who has always been much more relaxed and easy going but as I’ve got to know him he’s not quite as bad as I first thought.

“Hmm,” I tease her earning me a slap to my shoulder causing us both to laugh.

She turns the subject back to me, “You should try to talk to him Adam, what’s the worst that can happen?”, apart from him punching me in the face, oh no what could possibly go wrong.

Liam

I work from home for a couple more hours after Emily and Kayleigh go home, thoughts of our conversation very much whirring around my head and making concentrating so difficult. By the time I finish working it’s 8pm but my mind it’s still lost in thoughts of him. I decide I need a distraction to clear my head, so I grab my workout bag and head to the gym. I try to work out 2 or 3 times a week depending on my schedule.

I work out for one reason only, to try and stay healthy, my job consists of hours of sitting down at a desk so before I joined the gym there wasn’t many opportunities to stay active. I didn’t use to care what I looked like but one of my former boyfriends kindly pointed out to me that I was starting to get a bit ‘podgy’ around the middle. So, I decided to join a gym to get back in shape. But it wasn’t long after that conversation that he left me for a 19 year old hunk with more muscles than brain cells. Emily and Sarah as always were there for me after that break-up, but I found the gym was a great way to quiet my mind after a tough day, so I kept it up.

Now I’m not trying to become one of those gays that barely eats and has muscles you could bounce a coin off, but it does feel quite nice that the little definition I have built up since I started going seems to attract attention. I just wish I had the confidence to actually speak to any of the guys that I catch looking though, and now I’m thinking of him again, the mystery man from my building.

I arrive at the gym, change into my kit and head for the treadmills. I set my music playing, to avoid the awful music that’s playing through their sound-system and focus on my 60 minute routine.