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Ed glances around the small, dimly lit waiting room, and wonders whether it’s possible to die from an overload of warm, soft, neutral tones.
He knows he’s being ridiculous. He feels kind of like a whiny kid being dragged by a parent on a long but necessary shopping trip, except he’s both the kid and the parent, and he’s getting sick of his own shit. Even the quiet, reasonable voice in Ed’s brain that reminds him of his therapist is telling him to get over himself (though it’s being much kinder about it than Ed would be, and using words like ‘compassion’ and ‘self-care’).
Taking a deep breath, he forces himself to stop fidgeting with the zipper on his leather jacket. This is fine. It’s nothing. It’s whatever.
“How long has it been since someone touched you, Ed? I mean, really touched you?”
“I dunno, man. Got a right hand though, don’t I? And a left one, too, if I’m feeling adventurous.”
“You know that’s not what I’m asking.”
“Okay, fine. Yeah. A while, I guess? My friends aren’t all that touchy-feely, mostly, just like a slap on the back or whatever, and I haven’t seen mum since last Christmas. Then, well… You know how long it’s been since anything else, after the breakup.”
“So is it safe to say that it’s been at least six months, probably, since you’ve actually been held?”
“Held? Nah, longer than that. Jack wasn’t really one for holding, unless it was going somewhere more exciting.”
Ed’s therapist has a pretty good poker face—he assumes it’s something they teach you at therapist school—but Ed catches the look of pity that flashes lightning quick across her features.
And yeah, so what. Ed hasn’t been held in longer than he can remember. It’s not like it’s gonna kill him, right?
“It’s not going to kill you, no. But humans are social creatures, we’re not meant to go without loving touch for that long. It’s bad for our brains.”
“Okay, and? What am I supposed to do about that? Just scour the city until I find one of those ‘free hugs’ people and hope they’re not a complete weirdo?”
“No, but there are professional services you can go to, if you don’t feel comfortable initiating that kind of contact with people closer to you.”
“Professional—I thought you said that wasn’t what you meant? If I just want to bone down, I can find someone at a bar or whatever. No offence to the many sex workers who are providing an invaluable service to this city, obviously.”
“No, not that kind of professional.”
“Mr. Teach?” Ed jumps; he hadn’t even heard the receptionist come back.
“Yeah, that’s me. Edward Teach, born on a beach.” He winces the second the words are out of his mouth. What the fuck is wrong with him? “Sorry, guess I’m just nervous.”
The receptionist—a tallish Black guy with a soft, comforting expression and a worn-looking orange beanie on his head—smiles reassuringly.
“Don’t worry, Edward. It’s totally normal to be a bit nervous your first time.”
Ed bites back the innuendo that’s on the tip of his tongue—he really doesn’t want these people to think he’s some kind of weird pervert and run him out of the shop—and just gives a silent nod of thanks.
“This way, please.” The guy leads Ed down a narrow hallway that smells faintly but not overwhelmingly of orange. Some kind of essential oil, maybe, rather than something artificial. It’s actually pretty nice.
The room he gestures Ed into is awash with colour, from the embroidered tapestries on the walls to the royal blue sheets and floral blanket on the bed to the veritable rainbow of throw pillows and cushions scattered all around. It’s a little bit too much, but somehow in just the right way.
“Stede will be with you in a minute,” the receptionist says as he goes to close the door behind him, then pauses. “And Edward? It’ll feel way less weird than you think it will, I promise.”
Ed manages to wait until the door has been firmly shut for a full ten seconds before muttering “That’s what he said,” under his breath, because some days, restraint is the best you can hope for.
Unzipping his boots, he leaves them on the mat by the door. He takes off his jacket and hangs it on a hook, then immediately feels naked without it, so he puts it back on. He walks over and sits on the bed, trying and failing to find a position that’s both physically and emotionally comfortable. Both feet on the floor feels too stiff, his knee protests when he crosses his legs, and reclining is right the fuck out—doesn’t want to seem like he’s trying to seduce the guy.
He’s just standing up again to try various nonchalant poses by the wall when the door opens, and a blonde man enters. Ed immediately recognizes Stede from his picture on the website; he’d been drawn to him because they were the same age, when most of the rest of the staff seemed to be much younger. The fact that his profile said he was gay helped too. Ed has always had trouble really relaxing around most straight people.
But if Ed is being honest, he’d mostly chosen Stede for his face. Not in a weird, pervy way, he knows that’s not what this is about (though it wasn’t not a factor in his decision). He just seemed… familiar, somehow. Not like they’d met before, exactly, but Ed had felt more at ease just looking at his picture. His therapist had been encouraging him to trust his intuition more when it came to good feelings, not just bad ones, so he’d booked the session before he could second guess himself any more. Seeing Stede in person for the first time, he gives both his intuition and his therapist a mental pat on the back: this choice feels right .
“Hi there!” Stede says, giving Ed a bright smile, presumably entirely unaware of the internal self-congratulatory journey Ed is going on. “My name is Stede, and I’ll be your cuddler today.”
“Hey, Stede,” Ed replies, sticking out a hand that’s hopefully not too sweaty. “My name’s Ed.” He manages to resist repeating the stupid beach thing that he’s pretty sure has wormed its way into his brain to stay.
“Lovely to meet you, Ed.” The way he says it, Ed almost believes that it’s not just a professional talking to a client. “Now, I’ve got your intake form here…” Stede continues, and the illusion dissipates.
The conversation helps Ed’s nerves, though. He finds it grounding; a reminder that this is a transactional experience, that he’s paying Stede for a service that will (hopefully) help him feel better—or at least stop his therapist looking at him like he’s an abandoned puppy.
“Well, I think that’s it!” Stede says cheerfully, putting the folder with Ed’s form down on a table by the door. “Now then. Do you…” Stede pauses, looking Ed up and down. “Would you care to remove some of—I mean, if you’d like to leave your jacket by the door, at least? Not unless you’re comfortable with that, of course,” he hastens to add, flushing a little.
“Right, yeah. Of course.” Ed fumbles out of his jacket, returning it to the hook where it had rested earlier. He notices his bag where he left it by his shoes, and remembers that, at the suggestion of the booking email he’d received, he had brought a pair of sweatpants.
“Is there somewhere I can get changed?” he asks, holding up the threadbare joggers he’d dug out of the back of his closet that morning.
(Turns out he’s mostly been wearing leather pants or nothing at all for the last while. Maybe something for future Ed to unpack in future therapy.)
“Oh, yes! Of course.” Stede gestures towards a screen in the corner that Ed had assumed was just decorative. He ducks behind it and changes quickly, strangely self-conscious about the fact that the top of his head is visible, as if that’s somehow more naked than his briefly bare legs.
He emerges with an awkward little ta-da gesture, and is slightly horrified to notice the warm glow he feels at Stede’s pleased nod; apparently being approval-starved is also a thing. Not exactly the revelation he was hoping to have right before climbing into bed with a strange man to nonsexually cuddle for an hour.
“Lovely, very cozy,” Stede says with a smile. For the first time, Ed takes in what Stede is wearing: a soft-looking, lightweight cream-coloured sweater, and a pair of magenta lounge pants with some kind of intricate pattern on them that doesn’t exactly match the bedspread, but does compliment it very well.
“Nothing compared to yours, mate,” Ed mumbles, suddenly self-conscious again in his ratty grey sweats.
“Oh, this? It’s nothing.” Stede waves a dismissive hand. “...Actually,” he adds after a moment, with a sheepish grin, “I don’t know why I said that. I’m very fond of this outfit. I like to think of it as a uniform of sorts. Clothes befitting a professional cuddler. Speaking of which, shall we?”
He sits down and beckons Ed over, patting the bed beside him. Ed goes, feeling like he’s moving in slow motion. Why is he so fucking nervous about this? He doesn’t think he’s ever even felt this nervous about sex in his life, nevermind just… touching.
“Do you have a preference for position?”
Ed almost chokes on his own spit for a second, before remembering that Stede can’t read his mind, so he’s probably talking about the cuddling. Maybe he needs to unpack why he’s having so much trouble thinking about physical intimacy without it being about sex. He can already see his therapist’s self-satisfied smile when Ed shares that little insight with her.
Right now, though, Stede is waiting for an answer. Ed thinks a little frantically. It’s been a long time since he was with anyone who was really that into cuddling. And even when he has been, well… he’s got the whole ‘bad boy’ thing going on, right? And apparently, people expect the tall, beardy, leather-clad guy to be the big spoon.
Trust your intuition .
“Little spoon,” he blurts out, before he can overthink it.
“Can do!” Stede nods, with an encouraging smile. “If you’ll just lie down however you’re most comfortable—I noticed your knee brace there, so let me know if you need anything else to support that—then I can join you when you’re ready.”
Right. Lying down. That’s a thing Ed can do. That’s a thing he’s been doing his entire life.
He positions himself gingerly on the bed, tucking one of the many throw pillows between his knees for extra support. “‘m ready,” he mutters, and feels the mattress shift behind him. This is fine. Nothing to it. He just has to lay here for fifty minutes, and then if it doesn’t help, he can go tell his therapist he tried. It probably won’t have much of an impact at all, but that’s fine. He can just have a relaxing lie-down for a bit, and then—
And then Stede’s body presses up against Ed’s back, warm and solid and almost impossibly real. He smells incredible; floral, but not cloying, and with a hint of sweet beeswax that reminds Ed of the hardwood polish his mum always used when he was a kid. Then, before he has time to adjust to that whole emotional sucker punch, Stede’s arm wraps around him from behind, hand resting gently but firmly on Ed’s chest, as if he’s doing his best to press Ed’s flyaway soul back into his body. Ed takes a shaky breath in, letting it out slowly.
Then, unexpectedly, mortifyingly … he bursts into tears.
For a second, he thinks that maybe he can hide it. Deep breaths, don’t turn around, don’t talk. Muscle through the remaining… what, forty-seven minutes of this? But apparently whatever miserable, spiteful god decided he deserved this saw fit to make sure that these weren’t just those nice, silent tears that you can pretend aren’t happening, no. Because on his next inhale, Ed’s breath catches in his throat, then wrenches itself free in a loud, ugly sob.
“Edward, are you—oh!” Stede pulls back, his voice sharp with alarm. “Did I hurt you? Did I do something wrong? If I’ve done anything to make you uncomfortable I’m terribly sorry, you’ll get a full refund, of course. Oh god, is there anything I can—No, I’m sure I’ve done enough, whatever it is. I—”
Ed tries to pull himself the fuck together, because he needs Stede to know that this isn’t his fault, that this is just Ed’s stupid broken brain and stupid broken body causing problems again. But it’s too late, and now Stede is upset, and it’s Ed’s fault. Because he can’t just be normal touch-starved, no, he has to be crying in a stranger’s arms touch-starved, and that’s got to be super fucking weird, right? If it happened all the time, obviously Stede wouldn’t be freaking out about it, which means—
Ed hears Stede take a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and mutter something that sounds like get it together, Bonnet . When he speaks again, his voice is still a little high, but his tone is soothing. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—I mean, it’s fine. Don’t worry. You’re going to be fine.” Ed manages to make it through a few full (if very shaky) breaths, but then Stede rests a reassuring hand on his back, rubbing small circles between his shoulder blades, and he’s gone again.
It probably takes Ed a full ten minutes to pull himself back together enough that he can talk with real words and full sentences, rather than his several failed attempts at coherent speech in between wracking sobs. Through it all, Stede just… holds him. Doesn’t try to get him to talk, doesn’t ask what’s wrong again. Just stays close, his hand stroking comfortingly up and down Ed’s arm, and his nose buried in the hair at the base of Ed’s neck.
“It’s okay,” Ed hears him murmur once or twice, voice a little muffled. “You’re going to be okay.”
Finally, when it seems like Ed has finally cried himself out, Stede pulls back a bit, propping himself up on one elbow.
“Do you feel better?” he asks, his voice painfully—almost humiliatingly —soft, as if he’s worried Ed will break if he speaks too loud.
“Yeah,” Ed replies gruffly, his throat rough and raspy. How long has it been since he cried so hard his goddamn throat hurt? Long fucking time, for sure.
(How long has it been since he’s cried at all? Now that he thinks about it, he can’t remember.)
“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry about that. Fucking embarrassing.” Ed remains staring fixedly at the wall, not willing to turn and meet Stede’s gaze, to see whatever pity or discomfort or judgement might be there.
“No! Please, don’t be embarrassed. There’s nothing wrong with letting out some pent up feelings, I promise.”
“I guess,” Ed mutters, feeling only slightly reassured, despite the earnest affirmation he can hear in Stede’s voice.
“Do… do you want to talk about it?” Stede asks hesitantly. “You don’t have to, obviously, but I find it sometimes helps to talk things through with someone. We have a saying here: ‘Talk it through, as a crew.’” He pauses. “Or at least, I say that. The others are a little less keen, but we’ll get there some day.”
Ed can’t help it, he rolls over to look at Stede, because he’s not sure he believes that anyone can be quite that sincere with a straight face. Stede smiles at him, his expression bright with optimism, and against all odds, Ed feels himself smiling back.
“Alright,” he says after a moment, wiping his eyes on the back of his hand. “Yeah, I guess it couldn’t hurt.”
And it turns out it really doesn’t hurt, not even a little bit. Ed’s always had a hard time opening up to people; he’s spent too much of his life learning that vulnerability is weakness, and that weakness will almost always be met with derision at best and violence at worst.
But with Stede? With Stede, it’s easy.
He almost wants to be suspicious of how easy it is to talk to Stede. Before he even realizes it, he’s telling Stede all about breaking up with Jack—
(“Charming…” Stede says, wrinkling his nose in distaste as Ed tells him about all the reasons Jack gave him to leave.)
—and then about breaking up with Jack again, and again, and again—
(“What a complete asshole,” Stede says, a sharp edge of anger in his voice as Ed tells him about all the ways Jack convinced him to stay, every time he thought he’d had enough.)
—and about how one morning he’d woken up chasing the remnants of a tune from his dreams, and realized that he hadn’t composed anything new in almost a year. That he hadn’t really created anything in all that time. Then, when Jack had dragged himself out to the living room where Ed was trying to noodle it out on his keyboard to complain about ‘all that fucking racket,’ Ed had kicked him to the curb and thrown his entire collection of American Dad DVD box sets out after him.
“And… yeah. When I called my mum up to tell her, she was all ‘I’m proud of you honey, but please tell me you’re finally going to go back to therapy?’” Ed laughs a little at the memory. “She’d been on my ass about it for years; she had me in with a counsellor once my dad was out of the picture, but then I went off to school and she couldn’t make me keep going. Then I dropped out of school and moved across the country, and she really couldn’t make me keep going.”
He realizes that Stede hasn’t said anything for a while, and lifts his head—because somewhere along the way, they’ve shifted position, and now he’s lying on Stede’s deceptively broad and extremely comfortable chest—to look at him.
Stede is gazing down at him, his expression a mix of sympathy and what looks almost like… amusement?
“Something funny?” Ed asks, a little more sharply than he means to, as a spark of anger flares up inside him. His therapist would remind him that it’s an ingrained coping mechanism; a trauma response. Get angry so you don’t get hurt. Get them before they get you. Sometimes the things that helped us stay alive in the past can keep us from really living now . He forces himself to take a deep breath.
“What?” Stede startles, blinking at Ed. “God, no. I mean, yes. Sorry. I was just thinking how much that sounds like something my ex-wife said to me.”
“Oh?” Certainly not what Ed had expected to hear (suck on that , ingrained coping mechanisms). Stede’s profile on the website had said he was gay, and while he’s met a good handful of gay men who had been married to women, the look on Stede’s face tells him that there’s a story there.
“Yes, when—” Stede stops. “No, I don’t want to take up your time talking about myself, that’s not what you’re here for.”
“No, no, no.” Ed rolls over, crossing his forearms on Stede’s stomach and resting his chin on them. “You’ve listened to my whole sob story. It’s your turn, let’s hear it.”
“Well…” Stede pauses, and Ed is about to tell him he doesn’t actually have to say anything if he doesn’t want to, but then he plunges on.
“So, the first thing I should explain is that Mary—that’s my ex-wife—and my union was… more of an arranged marriage, than anything else.”
Ed raises his eyebrows. “Didn’t know those were still a thing.”
Stede gives a humourless little laugh. “Yes, well… when it comes to ‘old money,’ the sensibilities are often just as archaic as the wealth. There was never anything on paper, of course. But her parents and mine had an ‘understanding,’ you see…”
Ed listens as Stede tells him about a childhood so far removed from Ed’s own that he wouldn’t have been able to see it with a telescope. Having a shit dad and being picked on for being different, though, those he can relate to. At least his father had been considerate enough to kick the bucket when Ed was in his teens. It sounds like Stede’s had been pulling his fucking strings right up until the day he disowned him, including forcing him into an entirely loveless marriage.
And speaking of the marriage…
“—right there on the hood of my car, if you can believe it! And she looks me dead in the eye, and says—”
Ed listens with charmed bemusement as Stede tells him, with a wide grin on his face, about walking on his wife with her painting instructor. He recounts the story like it’s a humorous dinner party anecdote, with none of the sense of bitterness that Ed would expect to hear from a man who had caught his partner in an affair, closeted homosexuality notwithstanding.
“...All that to say, once I’d taken a few weeks to ‘cool off,’ as it were, I came back and we talked things through properly. Actually had a real, honest conversation, maybe for the first time in our entire relationship.”
Stede’s smile softens as he recounts the memory, and Ed can hear the genuine affection in his voice. “That was when I told her I was gay. She was the first person I ever actually said the words out loud to, and she was wonderful about it. Hugged me, congratulated me.” He chuckles. “Then, when all the tears were dry, she sat me down and said, ‘I’m happy you’ve figured out what we’ve all known for years, but please promise me that you’re going to see a therapist about all of this.’”
Ed barks out a surprised laugh. He can definitely understand Stede’s amusement at Ed’s own story, now. “Well, I’m glad we both have people we can trust to talk some sense into us.”
Stede answers Ed’s smile with one of his own, and Ed allows himself to linger on the single dimple he sees for just a moment longer than he knows he should.
“As am I. It’s actually thanks to Mary that I got into this whole cuddling business!”
“Oh? Like, she told you that you were a good cuddler, or…?”
“Oh, no. Quite the opposite, in fact!”
Ed almost chokes on his own spit. He’s sensed plenty of insecurities simmering under the surface as Stede has been talking, but he seems fascinatingly unbothered by how miserable his marriage had been, or how much he and his ex-wife both seem to have disliked the whole experience. Fucking mental.
“Mary and I never really touched at all, except when it was strictly necessary.” He pauses. “And when we were conceiving the children, I sup—oh dear, are you alright?”
Ed actually does choke that time. Stede helps him sit up, patting his back until the coughing subsides.
“Anyway,” Stede continues, as they settle back on the bed, this time face-to-face, “it was Mary who first suggested I see a professional cuddler myself. I did start seeing a therapist, of course, after the divorce…”
Ed is drifting slightly as Stede talks. He’s still listening, of course. He wants to hear anything and everything that Stede wants to tell him. But there’s so many different sensations to focus on, now, and he’s finding it a little overwhelming. The brush of Stede’s foot against Ed’s as he shifts, the grounding weight of his arm over Ed’s waist, the steady beat of Stede’s heart that Ed can feel where his hands are pressed against Stede’s chest. There’s even the occasional warm puff of air as Stede speaks, their faces inches apart.
“...But it wasn’t until my therapist asked me outright that I realized just how long it had been since I’d actually touched another person,” Stede is saying, and Ed snaps back into focus. “Not meaningfully, at least. Not with any kind of affection, or desire for prolonged contact. ‘Touch starved,’ he called it.”
Ed’s breath catches momentarily in his throat, because fuck if that doesn’t ring uncomfortably true to his ears, practically an echo of his own conversation with his therapist last week.
It seems bizarre to him, though. Sure, Stede has told Ed a little about his marriage and his childhood, but it’s still hard to comprehend that anyone could get close to this warm, welcoming golden retriever of a man and not want to be even closer.
“Yeah,” Ed says with a half-hearted chuckle, because he’s not sure how to say all of that without almost certainly crossing some kind of professional boundary. “Mine too.”
“Really?” Stede seems pleased, but genuinely surprised. “I wouldn’t have thought that you—well, that you would have any difficulty—” He stops talking abruptly, going a little pink, then clears his throat. “I suppose that’s neither here nor there, just goes to show you that you never know what’s going on in someone else’s life. But that’s why what we’re doing here is so important to me! I want to give people like you and me somewhere that they can go to just… relax, and let themselves be held.”
The closeness—both physical and emotional—is excruciatingly intimate, and Ed can feel himself trying to retreat to what’s comfortable. To reshape this in his head into something familiar. He imagines—can’t help but imagine—leaning forward to close the distance and kiss Stede. It’s not like he doesn’t find Stede attractive; far from it, in fact. And he’s pretty sure that Stede feels the same way about him, even if he’s being entirely professional about it. But not only would that be wildly inappropriate, he realizes, it’s also not what he actually wants.
Yes, Ed is attracted to Stede. Yes, he might not pay Stede to cuddle him again, if only because of how attracted he is to him. But he’s not actually aroused right now. He’s not hard, doesn’t feel that molten heat pooling inside him. What he does feel…
What he does feel, is scared.
He’s scared because this is new and unknown. He’s scared because when someone is just trying to fuck him, he knows what to do, how to make them—and himself—feel good. But he doesn’t know how to just… be in his body, like this, with someone else. And he hasn’t had to in a long fucking time.
He wonders if therapy school teaches you not to say “I told you so” to your patients. He supposes he’ll find out at his next appointment.
“But I’m getting ahead of myself,” Stede continues, seemingly blissfully unaware of Ed’s intense psychological breakthrough. “After that conversation with my therapist, I mentioned the whole “touch starved” thing to Mary when we had coffee a few days later, and she told me about this place. I have to admit, it sounded a little sordid to me at first, like those massage parlours that everyone knows don’t give real massages. But when I told my therapist, he said he thought it was a good idea.”
Ed snorts. “Yeah, not gonna lie, mate. I kinda thought the same thing when mine told me about it.”
“Anyway, long story short, I came in here rather skeptical, but I left a changed, if somewhat tearstained, man.”
“Tearstained—are you telling me that you also cried in your first session?” Ed pulls back in surprise.
“I… Well, yes. I don’t like to talk about it, but I suppose it would be a little silly to be self-conscious about that with you, wouldn’t it?”
“Then why did you get so freaked out? I was over here thinking I was some kind of giant, fucked up weirdo for getting so emotional about it!”
“If you must know, I… Well, I didn’t think anyone would be quite as bad off as I was!” Stede says a little hotly, then immediately looks horrified. “I mean—wait, no. Sorry, that came out wrong! You’re not bad off at all, you’re, uh…”
“It’s fine,” Ed says with a laugh, interjecting quickly before Stede makes a mortified dash for the window or something. “I was pretty bad off, you’re right. Proper pair, the two of us. Still, I’m surprised. You’ve really never had another client cry?”
“Ah, well.” If anything, Stede blushes even more brightly. “You’re actually… You’reactuallymyfirstclient,” he says, so quickly and quietly that Ed can barely make out the words.
“What, really? Your first client ever? Jesus, sorry for the trial by fire, mate.”
“No, no. Not at all. I’m… I’m glad I got to share this with you. Really.”
Ed feels his own face get warm under the heat of Stede’s sincerity, and casts around for a new topic of conversation before he says something he’ll regret. “How did you get into doing this at—”
“At my age?” Stede asks with a raised eyebrow, and a look of faux indignation on his face.
“At our age, I think,” Ed replies, and Stede relaxes with an easy smile.
“Well, the old owner was my cuddler, and when he told me…”
They settle back down easily, as if they’ve done this a million times. Ed repositions back onto Stede’s (still extremely, attractively broad) chest, and Stede wraps his arms around Ed’s shoulders.
Stede is halfway through telling Ed the story of how he bought the failing business, when there’s a knock at the door.
“Hey, uh… Stede? Sorry to interrupt your session, but it’s about five past and your next client will be here soon.”
Ed almost jumps out of his skin at the intrusion, and he feels Stede startle underneath him too. He’d almost forgotten what this was, and feels a pang of loss at the reminder that this was a business transaction.
“Yes, Oluwande. Thank you. I’ll be out momentarily,” Stede calls, his voice sharp with annoyance.
He turns to Ed, who’s pushing himself up off Stede’s chest, his expression regretful. “I’m so sorry to have to end so abruptly, I had hoped to do some kind of wind down discussion, to ease you back into the real world, but I completely lost track of time. Deeply unprofessional of me, I apologize. I’m afraid I just got so carried away with talking to you, and…” he trails off, and Ed thinks he sees another tinge of pink on his cheeks. “Anyway, I’ll just let you…” he passes Ed his bag, gesturing towards the screen, and Ed goes to get changed.
When he comes out, he’s positive he sees Stede’s eyes dart down to the leather pants, the look far more obvious than the one when he had arrived.
“Would you like to book a follow up appointment?” Stede asks, and amazingly, Ed doesn’t think it’s a pickup line. He’s like, ninety-eight percent sure Stede’s into him, but he’s also somehow certain that if he did book another appointment, Stede would be the picture of caring professionalism.
Ed’s not sure he could stand it, though.
“Nah,” he replies, “I don’t think so.”
Stede’s face falls, and Ed can only leave him hanging for a second before he continues.
“But… Okay, listen. I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, or like… I dunno, think I’m some kind of weird pervert who was secretly getting off on this entire interaction or anything. Because that’s definitely not the case.”
Stede has a look of confusion on his face, like every word Ed is saying isn’t the one he was expecting to come next, and Ed really can’t blame him. He’s started now, though, so the only way out is through.
“I wasn’t expecting to get much out of this, honestly. I was kind of just doing it because my therapist said I should, and I was fully prepared to go back and tell her it didn’t work. But it did work. It worked so much better than I thought I would, because she was right. And also you were right; people like us need places like this to go and let themselves be close to someone.”
“Okay, and… that’s why you don’t want to book a follow up appointment?” Stede looks like he’s still trying to figure out where Ed’s going with all this, and Ed knows it’s now or never.
“No, the reason I don’t want to book a follow up appointment is that… Look, like I said, this has been super affirming and eye-opening and life-changing and everything. And I think I’d probably benefit from more of this kind of service from a paid professional.” He takes a deep breath. “But also I think you’re smart and nice and funny and attractive, and I’d really like to maybe grab dinner and get to know you better. If that’s something you’d be interested in.”
If Ed had thought Stede’s smile was bright before, it’s nothing compared to the expression on his face now.
“You know, I think I’d like that,” he replies, and Ed feels a big, dumb grin spread across his own face. “How about tonight at seven? There’s a great Chinese place down the street.”
“Chinese at seven sounds great.” Ed heads towards the door before he does something stupid like trying to kiss Stede in his place of work, but he can’t resist a look back over his shoulder. “It’s a date?”
“It’s a date.” Stede gives him a wink.
“ Stede —”
“ Yes , Oluwande! I’m quite aware of the time, thank you!”
Ed beats a hasty retreat, sidling past the harried-looking receptionist with an apologetic smile.
It’s a date , he thinks to himself, as he arrives out on the street.
Either his therapist is going to be really proud of him, or incredibly disappointed, and honestly, he can’t wait to find out which.