Prompt Me Hard - 10. Prompt 238 - The Date

“Sorry?” I stared at Gareth, “You want me to come a date with you and do… what?”

I hadn’t been on a date in years, not since the six month wrecking ball that had been me and Jeremy, up and down the entire time until we were dizzy and depressed. Jeremy had ended up in rehab on suicide watch and I had ended up drinking my way through two bottles of whiskey and getting my stomach pumped. At least I hadn’t jumped off a bridge.

Since then, work had consumed everything. I had always loved working at the magazine, but after everything that had happened, I allowed myself to be the guy who got called on. Late night – early morning edits of The Book when the editor in chief changed her mind at the last possible moment. I was the man who came in when it was still dark and slept on the sofa in his office when the printers were jammed. By the time I’d been throwing myself into work for three years, I had a bigger office, the run of the layout department, two assistants and an intern. And Gareth.

Gareth was in the art department too. I’d sort of noticed him in between weeks where I hadn’t slept and lived on coffee. He was shorter than me, cute is a sort of bookish manner, with wire framed glasses and short hair. You wouldn’t peg him as an artist. Hell, I hadn’t even pegged him as gay, and I’d seen the man pretty much day in and day out for two years. Now this.

“Model for me,” Gareth repeated. His eyes were smiling behind his glasses, and I’d never noticed before how brown they were, how delightfully chocolate coloured against his mocha skin. “Please. I’ll buy you dinner and everything.”

“Erm…” I hadn’t even thought about having a date with someone. I was basically living like a teenager again, working hard and spending an amount of less than quality time with my right hand and my imagination.

“Please Ethan.”

The way he said my name did me in. no one had said my name like that in years. He spoke the two syallables like he cared about me. Really cared. The interns and other staff said my name as a shout of panic, a rush of frustration, panic, anger. My name was a firm symbol in meetings, something with authority, people always asking what did Ethan think, what decision did Ethan want to make. Now Gareth said my name like he cared about my happiness.

“Sure,” Why not? “Where are we gonna do this? I mean…”

“Oh god!” Gareth threw up his hands, “Not in my apartment! It’s too small. My friend is the curator at the City Gallery, I thought we could go there.”

“OK.”

“I’ll pick you up at eight?”

And there I was, agreeing to go on a date with a guy I barely knew to an empty art gallery to model for him. As Gareth smiled and turned to go, I realised that I didn’t even know where my non-work clothes were, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d shaped and trimmed up down there and I hadn’t even asked him what sort of modelling or what sort of media he was going to be working in.

It was a weird offer, but what could possibly go wrong?