Hey everyone, I've a lot going on in the past little bit which is why I've been away and struggled to write. I wanted to write something fresh and a bit more upbeat. As always love the support that I get and hope that it continues here.
(Also apologies for the bad description, It's the one thing that I really fail at)
I take my shirt off and get into bed; what I need right now is a good long sleep but my phone won’t stop going off with Mum asking my advice on every little thing in her life right now which as much as it’s irritating, I can understand because I’m the only person she has to talk things through with.
I lay in bed and Mum’s still asking me questions and even though it’s annoying, I know that she appreciates it plus, I like to give her that support she needs even though her inability to put things concisely is annoying because there are four messages when it could be summed up in one with the point that she is trying to make.
“I guess all I can do is wait to see what they put me onto next year, I just didn’t know what to think…
Guess it’s late and you need to sleep, good night son xx”
I read the message and think, thank god, because it’s nearly 1 am, and I’m exhausted after a long day at work and have to get up at 5:30 to hit the gym before heading to work.
Turning off my light, I have my meditation music playing and start to drift off to sleep, needing the sleep because the day before was so long and exhausting. As I drift off, my phone buzzes on my nightstand next to me as I wake up.
“You said goodnight Mum, leave it until the morning”, I say because she has a habit of saying goodnight in messages and in-person but still going an hour later as I really need to sleep now.
Trying to go back to sleep, I keep telling myself to leave the message until morning, but the curiosity and intrigue of what the message could be overwhelm me as I sigh and reach over to grab my phone and read the message.
Picking up my phone, I see that the message isn’t from Mum but has a phone code that I don’t recognise. I just think it’s a spam message as I read the top and then the entire message.
"Hi Matt, it’s Hugo here!
Not sure if this is still your number, but I couldn’t find you on social media. Just wanted to let you know I’ll be in Sydney for two weeks starting Wednesday and would love to catch up if you’re around!"
Hearing from Hugo is a blast from the past because it’s been a few years since I had much contact with Hugo when he came to Australia for 12 months. Things were interesting. Hugo had rented a room and lived with my friend Alicia and me for that time, which was both fun and chaotic, and he managed to get on our nerves a bit.
Hugo was a nice guy at heart, and there wasn’t a mean bone in his body; he just brought chaos to our relative calm state. There was a tendency for Hugo to borrow stuff without asking because one night, I couldn’t find my favourite jacket to wear to Alicia’s theatre performance but found Hugo coming home from a night out with his work friends wearing it. That also went with his inability to keep things clean like we organised a roster of cleaning and Hugo would tend to forget to do his share which I knew wasn’t deliberate and he was just enjoying the Australian freedom a bit too much with some heavy drinking and bring people around that he didn’t really know so we’d wake up with random backpackers crashed on the floor of the living room with sometimes up to 5 people laying there.
Despite his chaos, Hugo was always apologetic and never missed a rent payment nor his share of the food and bills, and he had a fun side when, ironically, he got to show us a few places around Sydney that neither Alicia nor I had ever experienced so we met that delicate balance.
It does have to be said, though, that we did count down the days until we got our peace and quiet back once he went back to Belgium. Although it could’ve been to Thailand first, I don’t quite remember every plan that he had.
I put my phone back onto my wireless charger and head to sleep; I’m so tired that it doesn’t take me long to fall asleep, and what feels like just five minutes later, my alarm goes off as I see it says 5:30. I just wish I could turn the alarm off and go back to sleep, but I know that I don’t get any gains by just going back to bed and sleeping in.
Getting ready for the gym is slow, and it just feels pointless as I get ready, checking the time, knowing I’m going to be late. Thankfully, the gym is only a five-minute walk down the road.
I walk down the road and hit the gym, swiping my card and going into the locker room where I can see my workout bud and close friend Hayden sitting there arms folded, glaring at me as I put my bag into my locker and just look at him.
“What? You know you can start without me right” I say as he just rolls his eyes and I just smile trying to put on my charm with what I know is a cute smile because everyone tells me that I have one.
Hayden glares at me as I know that look is when he disapproves of the guy I’m talking to at the gym or at the bar, and the look that I know whatever I say he isn’t going to buy into.
“Don’t even try it, Matthew”, he says as I shrug because I know my charms have worked on him before because that’s how we became friends and workout buddies. “You know I get hit on every day, and if it doesn’t work for them, it definitely will not work for you, and because you're my friend, you definitely don’t get to pull the charm card because I’ve seen everything.
The two of us get ready to head out as I look at Hayden. “Don’t lie like you don’t love the attention, like I know you like everyone looking at you”.
Hayden just winks as we head out. “You ready for leg day?” he says as I throw my head back because I hate leg day where, as Hayden has an absolutely unnatural love for leg day, which is a huge contrast to me. Hayden’s love for leg day is a good thing because he has the most amazing legs that, for some reason, I’ve always just wanted to run my tongue up his smooth muscled thighs and just lick them, taking in his musk.
I get myself back into the zone, but when it comes to leg day with Hayden, it’s not just a workout but always a full-on punishment as I groan as he starts to set up, and he looks at me, “Pain means Progress” as I just roll my eyes.
The warm-up that Hayden starts with is more like a regular routine for everyone else as I roll my eyes and he cranks the treadmill up to an incline that is absolutely insane for the first stages of the workout, and even though my legs are looking good these days, they just are never ready for this sort of workout.
All the way through, I’m thinking to myself that I’ll need them to call the ambulance in quick time as I just look across at Hayden, who is taking this all in his stride like the annoying prick that he can be. I stop for a moment as he looks at me. “You know we haven’t even hit halfway yet” I sigh and know that we are only halfway through this, and as much as it hurts, I tell myself that it’s all worth it because if I want to get the guys, then I’ve got to look as hot as possible and this is every step of that.
The punishment doesn’t stop as Hayden seems to take join like some sort of sadist, which I know I have enjoyed some “mild” torture in sex; this feels worse than anything as Hayden seems to be taking this in as some sort of calm afternoon of fun.
It feels like about 6 hours of torture as Hayden keeps barking orders at me to work my legs, but I know it’s only fair because when it comes to abs day, I get to torture him, but it’s annoying because, for him, it’s all a fun game. We finish up, and it’s only been 90 minutes as I fall back onto the mat covered in sweat, legs in absolute burning pain like jelly, and I want to pass out, but as Hayden sits next to me, I realise why I do it.
Hayden pats on my chest “You’re a machine, you know that, only very few people can get through a leg workout like that”, he says as I nod my head as I’m still trying to grasp for air, taking deep breaths. “I barely got through it, so not sure if I’m a machine”, I say, still trying to just get myself into normality.
“You did and always do so you’re the definition of a machine” he says as I smile and he pulls me up. “Do you want to hit the showers or you just gonna head home and do it there” Hayden asks as I tell him that I’ll just walk home as we head to the locker room and I grab my bag.
Hayden looks around. “Sweet, well I’ll just shower at yours”, he says, grabbing his stuff out of his locker as I look at him, just shrugging because he does this quite often. “Not keen on the showers here?” he says as he looks around.
“I mean I don’t mind it but not really in the mood to show off this morning”, he says as I look at him rolling my eyes. “Not in the mood to show off? You posted yourself to Instagram already this morning,” I say as he smirks, and we grab something to drink on the way out of the gym.
The walk is slower than usual because my legs are just trying to adjust to the effort, and then I’ve still got to walk to the bus stop and then walk to the office, which thankfully means I can sit down for a few hours without having to move.
My phone buzzes, and it’s just Mum asking for advice again because she’d been thinking about it all night, which is annoying because she said that she didn’t want to think things through and just see what happens before making a decision.
I get my phone out and reply:
“Mum, just let it go and don’t let it consume your thinking; Wait and see what happens then make a decision”
As I send the message back to Mum, I realise that I still have the message from Hugo still there waiting to reply. “Shit, I forgot to reply,” I say as Hayden looks at me as we get to my front door.
“What’s the matter?” he says as I unlock the door and let him in he walks straight into my kitchen and grabs a protein shake as I put my bag down into his spot on my shelf near my front door, taking my shoes off as I shake my head.
Hayden makes himself a shake “Did you leave your shaker here?” I ask as he nods his head and offers to make me one which I accept. “Yeah, I’ve kept it here for a while and just leave it here because it’s easier”, he says as he knows the layout of my kitchen like the back of his hand.
“You can shower first,” he says as I look at him with a smirk. “Oh, I’m so glad that I have your permission to use the shower in my house” he just winks with the charm that he can turn on and off like a tap which I just ignore and head upstairs.
My body is absolutely aching as the water hits my sore muscles, and it does the trick as I start to feel more relaxed, just letting it do its job before starting to wash my body. I put the tropical-smelling body wash on, and even though it’s more expensive than anything from the supermarket, it just felt so good when I first got it as a Christmas present from Hayden in a pack of stuff and have been using it ever since.
As I’m rubbing my body down with the body wash, taking extra time on my legs, I hear the bathroom door open and Hayden walking in and sitting down on the closed toilet. “You know there is a bathroom downstairs,” I say as he just tells me he knows.
“Don’t worry, Matty, you don’t have anything I haven’t seen before… on you” I laugh and know that it’s true that we’ve seen each other naked plenty of times but strangely, we’ve never actually fucked each other, yet. It’s something that always has made me curious why we’ve never had sex together, but at the same time, I’m far from upset about it because Hayden is like the brother that I never had.
I turn around in the shower as Hayden lets out a whistle as he can see my bum as I turn around and let the water run down the front of my body to clear everything “Shut up” I say as I’m still washing the body wash off my body as he looks.
“Fine I won’t compliment how good that bum looks these days because from when we started to work out together to now, it’s so fucking firm and muscled”, he says as I laugh and open the door to throw the scrubber at him which he catches and throws straight back at me.
As I go through my routine, Hayden just chats to me about anything, and it probably should be awkward that he’s sitting in my bathroom while I’m naked in the shower, but it really isn’t that awkward except when he wants to make comments about my body which feel good but still given how close Matt and I are especially not having sex together which I mean isn’t weird but for some reason it is.
“Do you have a set routine or something?” Hayden says as I grab my shampoo and start washing my hair with a more cost-effective shampoo as he laughs as I massage my scalp. “Of course I do, this is about looking and feeling good… do you think someone can just throw some water on themselves then throw on a shirt and pants and look amazing?”
I know what Hayden is about to say “I do”, he says as I laugh and roll my eyes as I wash the shampoo out of my hair. “Ok, in fairness, you can, but at the same time, I’ve seen you of a morning with bed hair and after a night of vomiting as well,” I say as I offer him to get in the shower as we do a straight swap.
Hayden’s body is always a thing of beauty to look at, his ordinarily smooth body temporarily covered in some hair on his chest and stubble on his thighs, which accentuates the positive of how hot his body is and how his muscles stand out.
I wrap my towel around myself pretty quickly to hide my growing erection as he smirks and knows why I put it on so quickly as he turns around and gives me a show as his cock flops down between his legs with some hardness but just a natural healthy size.
Getting out of the shower and standing in front of the mirror, I can see Hayden’s body in entire focus, and I know that if he wasn’t one of my closest friends that, I would be propositioning for some morning fun and even though I know Hayden probably wouldn’t ever say no, I respect our friendship too much to get to that level.
Putting on my moisturiser, I keep glancing at Hayden through the mirror as his body is just a thing of beauty as I just keep glancing at him. Heading into the bedroom, which really isn’t a room as such but more an open loft-style space, I start to decide what to put on.
Standing there in the towel, I put on a pair of Blue Nike Briefs and then try to decide what to wear as Hayden comes behind me and, puts his arms over my shoulders and looks in my wardrobe and grabs out a Purple paisley shirt that looks good and then grabs out black pants.
“Won’t that look too casual?” I ask as he shakes his head and puts it down on my bed before going to a draw and looking for a black belt to match. “Not at all, put that on with your pants and a belt and it looks absolutely phenomenal and stand out in the crowd because you don’t want to look like every other office drone,” he says as I nod my head and agree that I’d rather stand out than blend in which was always my modus operandi for everything before the last couple of years.
I get dressed as Hayden just in the towel watches and smiles “Damn yeah, if I saw you walking down George Street I’d be looking at Grindr to see if you’re there” he says as I smile and blush before realising what is he going to wear.
“Umm, the next question has to be what you are going to wear because you didn’t bring anything did you?” he smirks as he asks that and goes to what I thought was an empty space in my wardrobe and he pulls out a pair of boxer briefs and a T-shirt and shorts.
I look at him curiously, “WAIT WAIT WAIT… when did you put clothes into my wardrobe?” he laughs and just shrugs. “I just left some stuff here when you went away because, I mean, I’m consistently showering and getting changed here”, he says as I shake my head.
“I should start charging you rent” Hayden shrugs and smirks. “Then I’d have to move in if I was paying rent”, he says before whispering into my ear “And you only have one bed so you know what that’ll mean”, he says as I shake my head and leave him to get dressed.
Making myself a quick breakfast, I sit and wait for Hayden to be dressed to see if he wants anything, which he tells me he’s fine with and will get before his first client of the morning.
It took me almost 12 months of knowing Hayden before I actually knew what he did for work because he is the kinda guy who always loves to be mysterious and get people thinking about him. Whenever the question of work did come up, he’d always give just enough information to keep people intrigued without ever actually answering the question, and he has the personality to make you believe anything he says like you could be standing in the pouring rain, but he could convince you that it was not a cloud in the sky and 30 degrees when you knew it was 15 degrees and raining on a typical Sydney winter’s day.
Hayden would always tell people that he “Worked with some very exclusive clients” that he wanted to keep secret, and he would always say it in a way that made it sound exotic and even mischievous, like being an exclusive like a Personal Trainer given his body and gym skills or even to something a bit more erotic like being a stripper, massage therapist or even an escort. The key was letting people have their imaginations run wild, which he still does, but it was only by accident that I figured out the truth was pretty much a boring one.
Not only wasn’t it anything too exclusive, but it wasn’t criminal or sexual at all. Hayden is just a freelance physiotherapist working with some of the major sporting teams in Sydney and then some regular clients. The enigma, though, is a lot hotter to think about, and Hayden embraces it, which is his style.
It gets to about 8:30 before we both head off; Hayden offers to drive me into the city, but where my office is a nightmare to drive to, and I can get the bus straight to Barangaroo. We head our separate ways as I’m standing on the bus because, like always, it’s full as my phone goes off, and Alicia wants to go out to dinner sometime over the weekend.
Her message reminds me that I still have to get back to Hugo about his message but I don’t know what I really want to say to him because he’s not exactly someone that I had maintained contact with and really wanted to because we didn’t have too much in common.
Alicia: “Hey, do you want to get dinner on Saturday night before I head to Brissie”
I send her back a thumbs-up
Me: “BTW, guess who reached out to me last night?”
I get off the bus and, get into work and go straight to my desk to go through the list of emails, which are all things that nothing needs to be done with, and it’s surprising with how sophisticated our anti-spam filter supposedly is that we get so many spam emails as I just spend nearly 40 minutes deleting them.
Alicia finally gets a chance to reply to my message
Alicia: “Please tell me it was Hayden finally admitting you two needed to get together”
Me: 😠🙄
Me: “Not going to happen, we’re just best mates like when everyone tries to say we’re a couple”
Alicia: “Ugh…
Alicia: “Fine, who?”
I roll my eyes as she sends that message, she complains about when people say that me and her would make a perfect couple or when they ask whether we are dating when the last thing would be us dating because Alicia is like my sister and has been for a long time and the fact I’m gay rules out us dating and just personality-wise we wouldn’t click to be a full-time couple.
Me: “Hugo did”
Alicia: “Hugo? Wow that’s a blast from the past, what’d he want money?”
I laugh at her response because it’s probably accurate that reaching out after that long would be for something like that, mainly as we haven’t spoken for quite a while.
Me: “Nah, he said he was going to be in Sydney for a couple of weeks from next week and wanted to know if I wanted to catch up”
Alicia: “What did you say?”
A few work things crop up quickly, so I don’t get a chance to reply to Alicia, but thinking about Hugo's message about wanting to catch up, I don’t really know what to say. I mean, it’s been a while, and things have changed, but neither of us had much in common. he got on my nerves a bit, but at the same time, I never want to be rude and say that I can’t catch up because he took the time to reach out to me.
Heading out to get some lunch, I decide to text back to both Alicia and Hugo because if I don’t reply to Hugo now then I’ll feel rude even though he wasn’t sure if I still had the same number.
I write the text back to Alicia:
“I didn’t say anything, I don’t know what to say and wanted to know whether you’d heard from him at all”
Eating lunch, I don’t even know what to say to Hugo because part of me doesn’t even know what I want to say in the message about catching up like this and am I sort of opening up to the last situation where he just invites himself in.
After running down to the café downstairs, I head back to my desk to work on a project, and Alicia replies a bit later, which is understandable given that she only gets to respond at certain times with her job as a teacher.
Alicia: “Nah he never reached out to me, but then I think he hated me by the end”
I laugh and believe it because if you get on her bad side, then you really will cop it because she doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and even though it does take a lot for her to get upset, if she gets a bee in her bonnet then you know it will be a big deal and take a lot for her to calm down and actually forgive you.
Me: “Why am I not surprised”
Alicia sends back a laughing emoji and tells me that she’ll set out the plans for going out to dinner later in the week.
Eventually, after a few drafts I just decide to go off instinct and text Hugo.
“Hey Hugo! Yeah I still got the same number and yeah would love to catch-up, just let me know when and where and I can see how my schedule looks”
The text message goes off, and I don’t know what to expect when he actually does reply and give me the details, but it’s just a case of waiting and seeing.
