I liked Morgan just the way he was, too.
In fact, I was pretty sure that I liked him more than anyone I’d ever met.
11
Morgan
“Lucky, we’ve talked about this. You need to finish the food in your bowl before you come around begging for treats,” I said as I looked down at Lucky’s face.
She was giving me those sad eyes of hers, the ones I’d become accustomed to whenever she was in the mood for a snack. I struggled to harden my resolve as I shook my head down at her.
“Lucky. No.”
Lucky kept the same expression on her face as she moved a little closer to me. She whined and pressed her head against my hand, begging me to put a treat in my palm.
And that was all it took for me to cave. I sighed and reached for the container of dog biscuits that I kept on the far end of the kitchen counter. I offered one to Lucky, and she excitedly took the biscuit before she ran back towards my bedroom.
“Aren’t you at least going to say thank you?” I feigned being offended as I closed the treat container, placing it back down on the counter. I smiled to myself as I heard the happy munching and crunching of a dog who’d gotten exactly what she wanted.
Even though Lucky and I had crossed paths in the worst of ways, I was glad that she’d come into my life. The apartment was a lot brighter with Lucky in it, her joyful energy always radiating throughout the place.
Lucky also served as a stark reminder of the reality of my current situation with Harrison. Her very existence kept me grounded in the fact that Harrison was a temporary visitor in my life, and that she was going to be there for much, much longer.
Still, I wanted to enjoy the time we had left together, even if I knew Harrison and I were just running out the minutes on a doomsday clock. Besides, I’d seen the way other guys looked at Harrison, even when he wasn’t looking at them. For all I knew, Harrison was going to get bored of me, even before he left town, and would be hanging out with some other guy by the time the wedding rolled around.
It was a hard pill to swallow, but I was painfully aware of the fact that neither Harrison nor I had ever discussed being exclusive with each other, and a part of me never wanted to. I didn’t want to know if Harrison was talking to other girls or other guys. I didn’t want to know if Harrison dropped me off after our dates and then visited someone else in the middle of the night.
I just wanted to exist in the bubble we’d created for ourselves, the one where Harrison looked at me like I was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in the world, the one where I would sometimes watch Harrison from the other side of the room, my heart swelling at the thought of him coming home with me.
I was being an idiot.
Letting my imagination run away from me. Getting so caught up in the fantasy of Harrison and I being the only ones for each other, maybe even being something more. But it was like I couldn’t help myself.
I just wanted it to be true, even if I knew it was a lie.
I wanted Harrison to think about me the same way I thought about him.
I wanted to be his first thought in the morning.
As I stood in my kitchen, my mind focused on memories of Harrison, I heard someone knocking on my door. I went to answer it, my brain still stuck on the way Harrison liked to smile at me.
And I couldn’t help but chuckle a little when I pulled my door open, and there stood Harrison, smiling like always.
“What’s so funny?” He smirked.
“Nothing… just…” I replied. “I was just thinking about you, and here you are.”
“And here I am,” Harrison said as he brought his hand up towards my line of vision with what looked like two tickets tightly gripped in his palm. “And look what I got.”
“What are those for?” I nodded toward the tickets.
“These are for a special encore performance of Llamas, Goats, Bears, and Tigers,” Harrison answered, with a cheerful tone. “I know you didn’t want to see it twice, but this time, the director is going to be there after the show to answer questions from the audience—”
“Harrison, the only question I have for that director is why he thought writing that musical was a good idea.”
“What?”
Shit.
Had I said that out loud? I hadn’t intended to let the truth slip about how I felt about that awful musical, but apparently, it’d managed to get past my lips. “I mean, uh, you know. Like I said, there’s no point in seeing it twice—”
“Did you not like the musical, Morgan?”
“I…” I tried to come up with another vague statement that could’ve been taken as a compliment, but I just couldn’t make it work this time. It was like the more time I spent with Harrison, the more I wanted to be honest with him about everything.
“Harrison, that musical was awful,” I admitted. “Honestly? It was probably one of the worst things I’ve ever seen in my life and I personally believe that the director should be run out of the city with pitchforks and then subsequently banned from ever putting anything on stage ever again.”
“Oh.” Harrison seemed amused by my response. “Wait. Then, why did you tell me you liked the show?”
“Because you were talking about tickets being hard to get, and after the show, when we were in your car, I could tell that you really wanted me to like it,” I explained. “And I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“So, you’re saying you don’t care about hurting my feelings anymore?” Harrison grinned.
“No. I’m saying that if you try to take me to that musical again, I’m going to call the cops.”
Harrison laughed as he stuffed the tickets into his jacket pocket. “Message received, Morgan. Although, that does kind of kill our plans for tonight.”
“Did you want to come inside?” I offered. “And maybe brainstorm some different, much better plans?”
“Sure.” Harrison grinned, stepping inside my apartment. “How do you feel about going to a burlesque show?”
“What? Do you mean a strip club?” I asked as I closed the door behind him.
“No. I meant a burlesque show.”
“Straight guys don’t go to burlesque shows,” I said with a puzzled expression on my face. “I mean, sometimes they do, but if you want to see a girl take off all her clothes, that’s not really the point of a burlesque show—”
“I don’t care about a girl taking off all her clothes.”
“Sorry,” I apologized before I went on. “I kind of assumed that’s what all straight guys care about.”
“It’s not about me being straight, it’s about you being…” Harrison stopped himself, letting his words trail off.
“It’s about me being gay?” I asked. “Wait. Oh my God. That awful musical. Drag Bingo. That queer-friendly ice cream social where that one guy kept hitting on you—”
“I didn’t know you saw that guy.”
“Are you kidding? I saw that guy coming from a million miles away,” I joked. “But Harrison, please tell me that you haven’t been planning our dates based on things you thought I might like just because I’m gay.”