Passing Time by Ash Penn

album sandwiched between the romance books. He joined Carter on the couch and flipped open the first page. A black-and-white shot of a baby lying on a rug. Like a thousand other babies lying on a thousand other rugs. He’d seen this photo before. Not in an album, but tucked away in a drawer.
     
    “What am I supposed to be looking at?”
     
    “Turn over.” Carter urged him on with a twirl of his hand.
     
    Over the page, a slightly older Louis grinned at the camera. He wore shorts and a T-shirt. His father stood behind, touching Louis’s shoulder, looking ridiculously young and with hair. They were on a beach. His mother had taken the photo back in the days when she could still hold a camera steady.
     
    “Turn again.”
     
    Louis sighed. He flipped the page, and there it was. The photo his mother had shown Mrs. Banks of her son and his lover. Carter looking elegantly suave in a sand-colored linen suit. Louis in jeans and a T-shirt, a few pounds overweight, his hair curling to his shoulders. The both of them grinning like loons. He’d slung a casual arm around his lover’s shoulders. They were in Venice, on one of the tiny bridges crossing the smaller canals. Carter had asked a good-looking local to take the picture. The guy had been happy to oblige. He’d been happy to oblige them in their hotel room all afternoon too, but that was another story.
     
    Louis glanced at the illusion sitting beside him. He studied Carter’s profile, his straight nose, the arrogant tilt to his chin. He wanted to reach out and touch his fingers to the light trace of stubble and press his lips to that long, thin mouth. His groin stirred, and he shut the book.
     
    “You two still not made up yet?” Carter asked with a little smile that told Louis he knew exactly what was going on beneath the photo album.
     
    Louis adjusted his swollen dick. “I’ve had other things on my mind.”
     
    “You’ve done nothing?”
     
    “Not nothing. I did take your advice. I bought him something. Something he can wear. A thank-you gift. Or a good-bye gift. Call it what you will.”
     
    Carter raised an eyebrow. “Can I call it a cock ring?”
     
    “No. Although it was sickeningly expensive.”
     
    “How—” Carter’s attention drifted somewhere over Louis’s left shoulder.
     
    “Carter?” Louis frowned. “What is it?”
     
    “Who’s Carter?”
     
    Louis spun round on the couch. Jake stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame. He looked as though he’d been there awhile.
     
    “I…uh…I didn’t see you.” How much had he overheard this time?
     
    “I got that. You going to tell me who this Carter guy is, or what?”
     
    Louis wondered what the “or what” option involved, but perhaps now wasn’t the time to ask, only to answer.
     
    “Who is he? The Invisible Man?” He gave a snort of laughter. Louis lifted his gaze, and the laughter stopped. “Who’s Carter?”
     
    “My partner.” The words tripped off his tongue far more easily than he’d expected.
     
    Jake frowned. “Business partner?”
     
    “No, not business.”
     
    “Right.” Jake stuck out his bottom lip as he pondered. “So can this partner of yours hear you talking to him all the way from New York?”
     
    “I doubt it.”
     
    “No? Well, maybe he’s not listening anymore. Maybe he’s heard about you fucking another man and decided you aren’t worth the bother. Am I the only one?”
     
    “The only what?”
     
    “The only guy you fuck behind your boyfriend’s back.”
     
    Is that all ? Didn’t he want to know why? Why Louis’s sat on the couch talking away to himself like it was the most natural thing in the world? All he wanted to know about was if there was anyone else?
     
    “This isn’t what you think,” he began. “I—”
     
    “I thought you were someone special, Louis. And now I know the only thing special about you is you talk to your absent boyfriend like he’s right here in the room. That’s not even so