The wine was a 2015 Barolo, and Steven had decanted it himself, watching the sediment spiral in the glass vessel like silt stirred from a riverbed. Julio’s favorite. Julio, who was now laughing at something across the table, his teeth a perfect white slash in his tan face, his hand resting on the tablecloth inches from Steven’s own.
“—and then the entire Frankfurt office had to be reorganized,” Julio was saying, his voice warm with the pleasure of his own story. “Three months of work, gone. But it gave me leverage for the promotion.”
Steven smiled. He’d heard this story before. Twice. His gaze drifted past his husband’s shoulder to the man Julio had brought home.
Mehdi.
The name tasted foreign on Steven’s tongue. He hadn’t spoken it aloud yet. He’d only murmured “nice to meet you” when Julio had ushered his new colleague through the front door an hour ago, and since then, Steven had been mostly silent.
Mehdi sat with his back to the dining room window, the evening light catching the green of his eyes. Green like sea glass. Green like absinthe before the sugar hits. They were set deep in a face that seemed carved rather than grown—brow heavy, jaw squared, the kind of masculine architecture that made Steven’s breath catch in the hinge of his throat. A beard, close-cropped, traced the line of that jaw and disappeared into the shadow beneath it.
“And what do you do, Steven?” Mehdi asked.
His voice. Low, unhurried. Each syllable seemed to have weight. The question hung in the air longer than it should have, and Steven realized he’d been staring at the man’s mouth as he’d formed the words.
“I teach,” Steven said. His own voice sounded thready. “Literature. At the community college.”
“Literature.” Mehdi set down his fork. The movement was precise. Deliberate. “What are you teaching right now?”
“The Great Gatsby.”
Mehdi’s mouth curved. Not quite a smile. “The American dream and its discontents.”
“You’ve read it.”
“I read everything.”
Julio laughed, a bright, oblivious sound. “Mehdi here is the most well-read man in the mergers department. You two should talk books. I have to—” He stood, patting his pockets for his phone. “I have to take this. Frankfurt, always Frankfurt.”
He left the room, phone already pressed to his ear, and the dining room fell into a hush.
Steven reached for his wine glass. His fingers trembled, just slightly, and he saw Mehdi’s eyes track the movement. Those green eyes moved from Steven’s hand to his wrist to the pale inside of his forearm, and Steven felt the gaze like a physical touch, like fingertips brushing the fine hairs there.
“How long have you and Julio been together?” Mehdi asked.
“Married three years. Together five.”
“Five years.” Mehdi leaned back in his chair. The motion pulled his shirt taut across his chest. The fabric strained. Steven could see the contour of pectoral muscle, the shadow of a clavicle. “He’s a lucky man.”
The way he said it made the statement mean something else entirely.
Heat rose up Steven’s neck. He took a sip of wine and the Barolo was tannic and dry and did nothing to cool the flush spreading across his throat. “We’re both lucky.”
“Are you?”
The question landed in Steven’s stomach like a stone dropped into still water. He opened his mouth to respond, but Julio’s voice carried from the hallway—something about quarterly projections, a bark of laughter—and the moment fractured.
Mehdi did not look away.
Steven felt the weight of that green stare as he rose to clear the plates. He stood at the kitchen island, his back to the dining room, scraping the remains of osso buco into the trash. The sauce had reduced beautifully. He’d been proud of it. Now he could barely remember what it tasted like.
“You have a beautiful home.”
Mehdi’s voice came from directly behind him.
Steven turned. The man was standing in the kitchen doorway, one shoulder propped against the jamb, his hands in the pockets of his trousers. The posture was casual, but nothing about him felt casual. He filled the doorframe. Six-foot-three, Steven guessed. Maybe two-forty. The suit he wore was clearly tailored—no off-the-rack garment could accommodate shoulders like that, the taper from chest to waist, the thick column of his thighs.
“Thank you,” Steven managed.
“The kitchen,” Mehdi said. “The garden I saw through the window. The way you’ve arranged things.” He took a step forward. “It’s very cared for.”
Another step.
“Julio doesn’t seem like the type to arrange flowers.”
Steven looked at the vase on the island—white peonies, three stems, arranged in a low ceramic bowl. He’d clipped them from the garden that morning. Julio hadn’t noticed.
“He’s busy,” Steven said.
“Yes,” Mehdi said. “He seems very busy.”
Another step. Now he was close enough that Steven could smell him. Cedar and something darker. Sandalwood, maybe. The scent reached into Steven’s brain and did something chemical, something limbic.
“Your husband,” Mehdi said, and the word ‘husband’ came out almost like a challenge, “spent the entire drive here telling me how happy you’ve made him. How grateful he is for you.”
Steven’s throat tightened. “That’s sweet.”
“It is. But I wonder.” Mehdi’s head tilted. Those green eyes moved from Steven’s face down the length of his body and back up. “Does he tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“That you have the most extraordinary ass I’ve ever seen.”
The word landed in the quiet kitchen like a slap. Steven’s mouth opened. No sound came out. His pulse had become a heavy, insistent thing, beating in his throat, his wrists, the pit of his stomach.
Mehdi’s expression did not change. He was not smiling. He was not leering. He was watching Steven with the focused attention of someone reading a complex and satisfying book.
“I’m sorry,” Steven whispered. “I’m married.”
“I know.”
“To Julio.”
“I know.”
Footsteps in the hallway. Julio’s voice, finishing the call. “Yes, Monday. Monday. Goodbye.”
Mehdi stepped back. The motion was smooth, unhurried. By the time Julio walked into the kitchen, his phone sliding into his pocket and his smile wide and unsuspecting, Mehdi was standing four feet away, hands still in his pockets, expression placid.
“Sorry about that,” Julio said. He came to Steven and pressed a kiss to his temple. “Work never sleeps.”
“So I’ve heard,” Mehdi said.
Julio laughed, his hand warm and heavy on Steven’s shoulder. “Brandy? I’ve got a bottle of Cognac I’ve been saving.” He was already moving toward the sideboard in the dining room, his footsteps confident, untroubled.
Mehdi’s mouth curved into a smile that had too much edge to be casual. “I was going to say I should go. But I suppose I can stay for one glass.”
Steven’s breath caught in his chest. He stood frozen by the kitchen island, the empty plates still in his hands, the porcelain cold against his clammy palms. Recompose. He had to recompose. His face felt hot, his pulse unsteady, and the weight of Mehdi’s words still pressed against his skin like a brand.
“Dessert is in the fridge,” Steven said, and his voice sounded almost normal. Almost. “Panna cotta with a berry compote.”
“Wonderful.” Julio emerged from the dining room with three crystal tumblers and the bottle of Cognac. “Steven is a genius in the kitchen. I’m so spoiled.”
“You are,” Mehdi said, and his gaze slipped to Steven as if he were the one pouring the words. Spoiled.
Steven moved. The motion helped. He opened the refrigerator and took out the cold ramekins, the glass bowl of dark berry compote. Behind him, Julio was speaking to Mehdi—something about the branding strategy for the Milan account, a laugh, the clink of a decanter—and Steven listened to the sound of his husband’s voice like it was an anchor thrown into deep water.
He placed the ramekins on the dining table. Three of them. He poured the compote in a careful swirl over the creamy white surface. The berries bled red into the cream, and Steven stared at the pattern, watched the way it spread, let the simple act of attention quiet the tremble in his hands.
“This looks incredible,” Mehdi said, settling back into his chair.
Steven sat down. He took a sip of the Cognac Julio had poured him. It burned, warm and expensive, and he let the heat spread through his chest.
Julio was smiling, his face open and easy. “Tell him about that essay you mentioned at dinner. The one on narrative theory.”
Mehdi’s eyes met Steven’s across the table. “I was reading a piece in The Yale Review last month. On the unreliability of desire. It argued that the most honest narrators are those who cannot be trusted.”
Steven gripped his spoon. “I know that essay.”
“Do you agree with it?”
The question was layered. Steven felt it land like a stone dropped into still water.
Julio is right here. Julio is watching. Julio has no idea.
“I think,” Steven said slowly, “that we are all unreliable narrators of our own lives.”
Mehdi’s smile deepened. His eyes did not leave Steven’s. “I suspected you would say that.”
Julio laughed, oblivious, and reached over to squeeze Steven’s hand. “See? I told you you’d like him. You two have such a similar way of thinking.”
The panna cotta was smooth on Steven’s tongue. He tasted the vanilla, the tart bite of berries, and beneath it all the lingering memory of cedar and sandalwood. He did not look at Mehdi again. Not directly.
But he felt the weight of that green gaze, sliding over him every time Julio turned to speak. And when Steven’s eyes flicked up, unbidden, from his half-eaten dessert, Mehdi was watching him.
Waiting.
And Julio, warm and trusting and utterly unaware, was refilling their glasses.
Steven walked to the door on legs that felt hollow. Mehdi took Julio’s hand first—a firm professional shake—and then turned to Steven. His grip was warm and dry and lasted exactly two seconds longer than necessary. During those two seconds, Mehdi’s thumb moved. A slow, deliberate stroke across Steven’s knuckles.
“Thank you for dinner,” Mehdi said.
“You’re welcome.”
“I’ll see you again.”
It was not a question.
Mehdi released his hand and walked out into the evening, and Julio closed the door behind him and turned to Steven with a satisfied sigh. “He’s great, isn’t he? Rising star at the firm. They say he’ll make partner before forty.”
Steven looked at the closed door. His hand was still warm where Mehdi had touched him. The skin of his knuckles tingled.
“He’s something,” Steven said.
Later, alone in the bathroom while Julio watched television in the bedroom, Steven stood in front of the mirror. He turned. Looked over his shoulder at his own reflection, at the swell of his ass in his tailored trousers.
He’d never thought about it before. Not really. Julio had called it cute, once. Maybe twice.
Mehdi hadn’t called it cute.
Steven pressed his palm to his stomach, felt the heat still coiling there, and when he climbed into bed beside his sleeping husband an hour later, he was still thinking about green eyes and the word ‘extraordinary’ spoken in a voice like slow-poured honey. Somewhere across the city, in a high-rise apartment he couldn’t picture, a man with a predator’s patience was thinking about him. Steven didn’t know that yet. But he would.
