ConvenientStrangers by Cara McKenna Page A

Socially, you’re a
fourteen-year-old. That’s what it feels like, trying to be with you. Like I’m
holding the hand of a fourteen-year-old bloody boy, and I moved here expecting
to be with a man .” He glared at Ethan over the jeans he folded.
    “It’s different around here. You met me in London.”
    “And I was your dirty little secret there, too.”
    Ethan ignored the comment. “Being gay’s different here.”
    “I grew up in Manchester. You know what it’s like, growing
up there queer? You may as well walk around with a bloody crossbow target
painted on your back. You may as well hand lads a brick and invite them to bash
your skull in for you. There’s no worse thing you can possibly be there besides
gay.”
    Ethan sighed and threw his hands up. “Fine. You win. You win
the worst childhood trophy, if it makes you so fucking happy.”
    “I’d be happy if my boyfriend—who I moved to another hemisphere for—could find the knackers to acknowledge my existence.”
    “I’ve explained about my family.”
    “Fine. Not your family. How about a single mate of
yours? A coworker? A fucking barista from two towns over?”
    Nothing, just a wounded, martyred look that told Stephen
this man he’d rearranged his entire life for didn’t get it. Not that he didn’t
care, but he didn’t care enough to upend his own comfortable, cowardly
existence to make a real place for Stephen in it. Fuck this. Fuck the bloody
change of clothes, even. He shoved everything he’d gathered back into a drawer
and slammed it shut.
    He brushed past Ethan to the kitchen. Heading for the door,
he grabbed his wallet from the table by the coatrack. “I’m going out. Going out
alone.”
    “Yeah, I caught that.”
    “ Single. ”
    “Whatever. Fine, I get it.”
    “I’ll be by for my stuff tomorrow,” Stephen said, flipping
the deadbolt and pulling the door open, praying there’d be a neighbor in the
hall. A witness. “I’m going out,” he reiterated loudly, “and I’m going to snog
the holy hell out of some gorgeous man with the balls to admit who the fuck he
is.”
    Ethan’s darting eyes and rigid posture said he was dying of
embarrassment, but he kept his face straight, voice blasé. “Great. Good for
you.”
    Stephen turned, leaning in the open doorframe. “Some bloke
whose closet door’s flung so wide open, the knob punched a bloody hole in the
plaster, all right?”
    “Have a blast.”
    “Don’t think I won’t.” He yanked the door shut behind him,
not quite a slam, and jammed his hands in his pockets as he stalked down the
hall to the stairs. Every step felt like a sock in the gut, in the heart, but
fine. Whatever.
    Ten months was plenty to waste, holding someone’s hand. Ten
months was too long.
    He had some goddamn catching up to do.

Chapter Two
     
    Adam pushed in the door to Hadley’s, his hands shaking,
breath short.
    It was so stupid, feeling this nervous.
    He used to look forward to this moment, excited to have the
whole night spread out before him, full of possibilities. But this was his
first evening out since he’d been dumped, his first time back at Hadley’s for a
drink as a single guy since… Shit, since last November. Since the night he’d
met David at this very bar and they’d gotten attached at the hip in hours flat.
Then attached at the mouth and the crotch, and soon enough the heart.
Thankfully never by a lease or by joint pet ownership, but still. Very, very
attached. More attached than Adam knew you could get this quickly, but here he
was, finally understanding why people got so mopey and annoying after breakups.
    Screw it, though. Three weeks should be ample time to mourn
a relationship of eight months. Long enough for the scab to form, even if the
ache might stick around a while longer. It was time to get it together,
remember how to flirt. Remind himself he still liked flirting, or at the
very least still liked beer. And it was fast approaching July. No such thing as
summer in