The Gay Gh0stwriter - Thirst Trap Season 2 - Chapter 9

All characters engaged in sexual activity are 18 or older.

Quinn

Jude was already in the kitchen when I got home from work.

He was standing at the counter scrolling through his phone, still in sweats and a t-shirt, hair messy like he hadn't bothered to fix it all day. He looked up when he heard the door.

"Hey. How was the office?"

"Long. Boring. Glenn cornered me for twenty minutes about some Star Trek theory."

"Oh shit, which one? Was it the Sisko thing again?"

"Yes... are you snooping on our Slack messages?"

"Maybe. I love Glenn." He smiled and set down his phone. "I didn't leave the apartment today."

I dropped my bag by the door and walked toward him. "I figured."

"You figured?"

"The city's new. It makes sense you'd want to ease into it."

He looked at me for a second, like he was trying to decide if I was judging him. I wasn't. I understood. Seattle could be overwhelming even for people who'd grown up in cities. For someone who'd spent his whole life in the same Houston apartment, the idea of navigating a new place alone was probably terrifying.

"I made a bunch of videos. Content for the next few days. Figured I'd stockpile while I have the time."

"Smart."

"Yeah, well." He shrugged. "Gotta stay on the grind or whatever."

I moved past him to the fridge, pulling out ingredients. Chicken, vegetables, a bottle of stir fry sauce. I felt like making something quick and easy.

"You hungry?"

"Starving. I had string cheese for lunch."

"Jude."

"What? I got distracted filming."

I shook my head, but I was smiling. "Help me with dinner?"

His face lit up. "Yeah. Okay. What are we making?"

"Stir fry. You're on vegetable duty."

I handed him a bell pepper and a knife. He took them both with a look of concentration that was probably more intense than bell pepper slicing required. I grabbed another cutting board and started on the chicken.

We worked side by side. I showed him how to slice the pepper into strips, then moved on to the broccoli and snap peas while he handled the onion. He swore under his breath when his eyes started watering.

"Why does this happen?" He was blinking rapidly. "What the fuck did I do to this onion to piss it off so much."

"It's a chemical reaction. The onion releases a gas that—"

"I don't want the science, I want it to stop."

"Breathe through your mouth."

"I am breathing through my mouth. It's not helping."

I reached over and took the knife from his hand. "Go stir the chicken. I'll finish this."

He moved to the stove, wiping his eyes with the back of his wrist. I watched him pick up the spatula and poke at the chicken with the kind of caution usually reserved for bomb disposal.

"It's not going to bite you."

"You don't know that."

"Jude."

"Fine, fine." He started stirring with more confidence. "How do I know when it's done?"

"When it's not pink anymore."

"Helpful Quinn."

But he was smiling. And so was I.

This was easy. Moving around each other in the kitchen, handing off tasks, falling into a rhythm. Like we'd been doing this for years instead of two days. Every time I turned around, he was there. Reaching past me for a bowl, bumping my hip as he moved to the sink, close enough that I could smell his deodorant.

I tried not to think about how natural it felt. How much I'd wanted this. Someone to share the mundane parts of life with. Cooking dinner. Doing dishes. Existing in the same space without it feeling forced.

Jude added the vegetables to the wok when I told him to. I poured in the sauce and let everything simmer while he found plates.

"This smells amazing." He sounded genuinely excited as he set the plates on the counter and looked at me. "We're a good team."

"Yeah." I smiled. "We are."

We ate at the table again. It was becoming a habit. No TV, no phones, just the two of us talking.

"I need to start making content outside the apartment. The stuff I filmed today is fine but I can only do so many outfit videos before people get bored."

"What are you thinking?"

"I don't know. Seattle stuff. Tourist shit. But like, make it interesting." He gestured toward the windows with his chopsticks. "What's even here?"

"Pike Place Market. You've been there, but you could go back. Film the fish throwing, the gum wall."

"You think my gum's still there?"

"Probably. That thing's been accumulating since the nineties."

"Fair. What else?"

"Space Needle, obviously. The waterfront."

He stabbed a piece of broccoli. "What about like, hidden gem type stuff? Stuff tourists don't know about?"

"Gas Works Park. Old industrial site turned into a park. Great views of the skyline."

"That sounds cool."

"There's also the Ballard Locks. You can watch boats go through, and there's a fish ladder where salmon swim upstream."

"A fish ladder? Like, stairs for fish?"

"Sort of. It's weird. You'd love it."

"See, this is why I need you." He pointed at me with his chopsticks. "You actually know things."

"I've lived here for seven months. I should know some things."

"Yeah, but you actually go places. I would've just stayed in my apartment and Googled 'Seattle attractions' and ended up at some shitty gift shop."

I laughed. "I can take you to the shitty gift shops too, if you want."

"Hard pass."

We kept brainstorming through the rest of dinner. I threw out ideas. Capitol Hill for the queer neighborhood angle, the Ballard Locks to watch boats go through, a day trip to Snoqualmie Falls if he wanted something more dramatic. He shot some down, latched onto others, started building a mental content calendar.

I liked watching him think. The way his brain worked, always considering angles and hooks and what would grab his audience. He was smart about this stuff. Smarter than I think he gave himself credit for.

When the food was gone, we did the dishes together. I washed, he dried. Another daily task together, another easy back-and-forth. Our elbows kept brushing. At one point he hip-checked me out of the way to grab a towel and didn't apologize.

I didn't mind.

Movie night. His choice this time.

He picked something I'd never heard of. Some horror comedy about a haunted house that was apparently very popular on TikTok. I didn't ask questions. Just settled onto the couch and waited for him to sit down.

He sat close.

Not touching. But close enough that I could feel the warmth of him. Close enough that if either of us shifted an inch, our shoulders would brush. He tucked his legs up under him and leaned slightly in my direction, like he was being pulled by gravity he didn't want to acknowledge.

I stared at the TV and tried to focus on the movie.

The movie was fine. Funny in parts, scary in others. People kept dying in creative ways and Jude kept making commentary under his breath.

"Oh this bitch is so fucking dead"

"Don't go in the fucking basement, are you stupid?"

"Called it, what did I say? I knew she was next."

At one point the main character tripped over nothing while running from the ghost and Jude threw his hands up. "How are you this bad at running? Just run! It's not hard!" I laughed at him but not the movie. I wasn't paying attention to the movie.

I was paying attention to him. To the way his shoulder was almost against mine. To the way his breathing had settled into something slow and even. To the way this felt like something I'd been wanting for as long as I could remember.

He lived here now. This wasn't a three-day visit. This was real. He was going to be on this couch, in this apartment, in my life, for the foreseeable future.

And I wanted more than I was allowed to want.

That was the problem, wasn't it? I'd offered him a place to stay because he needed one. Because he was about to be homeless, because his mother had abandoned him, because the alternative was OnlyFans or worse. I'd done the right thing. The decent thing. What anyone would do for someone they cared about.

But I hadn't done it selflessly. I'd done it because I wanted him here. Because talking to him every night for a month had made me realize how empty my life was without him in it. Because the thought of him being in Houston while I was in Seattle had become unbearable.

I'd told myself it wasn't about that. That I was just helping a friend. That the feelings I had were irrelevant to the situation. But they weren't irrelevant. They were the whole point. I wanted him here because I wanted him, and that made everything fucking complicated.

He was younger than me. He was straight, or thought he was, or was figuring things out, I didn't know. He'd just escaped a terrible situation and needed stability, not me making things weird. The power dynamic was already fucked. I had money, an apartment, a career. He had two suitcases and a duffel bag and a TikTok account.

I couldn't make this about what I wanted. I had to make it about what he needed.

And what he needed was to feel like this was his home. Not my home that he was crashing in. Not a space where he had to tiptoe around my feelings. His home, where he could do whatever he wanted, be whoever he was, live his life without worrying about me.

"Hey." I cleared my throat somewhat awkwardly.

He looked over at me. "Yeah?"

"I've been thinking."

"Uh oh."

"Shut up." I smiled, took a breath. "I want you to know that this place is yours now. Not mine. Ours."

"I know. You literally wrote that in the card."

"I know, but..." I paused, trying to find the right words. "I want you to actually feel it. Like, if you need to rearrange furniture for videos, do it. Don't ask. Just do it."

"Okay."

"And if you want to have friends over... I know you don't really know anyone here yet, but when you do you can. Anytime. You don't need my permission."

He was watching me with an expression I couldn't read. "Where is this coming from?"

I couldn't tell him the truth. Couldn't say I'm trying to be a good person instead of a selfish one. Couldn't say I'm giving you an out because I don't trust myself.

"I just want you to be comfortable. This is your life too. You should be able to live it."

"I am comfortable."

"Good. That's good." I swallowed. Forced myself to say the next part. "And if you... if you meet someone. A girl. Or whatever. You can bring her here. To stay the night. If you want."

Jude went very still.

For a long moment, neither of us said anything. On the screen, someone was running and screaming.

"I'm not..." Jude started, then stopped. His eyes kept darting from me to his hands. "I'm not gonna be bringing girls home, Quinn."

"You might. You're young, you're in a new city..."

"I'm not." His voice was firmer now. "That's not." He let out a frustrated sigh. "I'm not interested in that right now."

"Okay, but if you were.."

"I'm not."

"I just want you to know you could. If you wanted to. I wouldn't be weird about it."

He stared at me for a second. His jaw tightened. He looked like he wanted to say more but didn't know how.

"Okay. Thanks. I guess."

The conversation was over. He turned back to the movie. I turned back to the movie. But the easy atmosphere from earlier was gone.

I'd done the right thing. I'd given him permission to live his life, to be with whoever he wanted, to not feel trapped by my presence. That was good. That was healthy. That was what a responsible person would do.

So why did it feel like I'd just made everything worse?

The rest of the movie passed in silence. Not uncomfortable, exactly, but not like it was before I opened my mouth. When the credits rolled, Jude stretched and yawned.

"I'm beat. Gonna crash."

"Yeah. Me too."

We walked down the hall together. Paused outside our separate doors.

"Night, Quinn."

"Night."

He disappeared into his room. I went into mine and closed the door behind me.

I stood there for a minute, staring at nothing. Going over the conversation in my head. Wondering if I should have said something different, or nothing at all.

I changed into sweats and got into bed. Grabbed my phone to set an alarm.

Notification. Jude had posted a video.

I shouldn't watch it. I should put my phone down and go to sleep and stop torturing myself. But I was already opening TikTok, already navigating to his page, already hitting play.

The video was him doing his skincare routine in the bathroom. My bathroom. Our bathroom. He was shirtless, rubbing something into his face, talking to the camera about his nighttime routine. Relaxed, easy, comfortable. Like he belonged there.

Because he did. He did belong there.

The comments were loading. I scrolled.

wait is this the seattle guys bathroom

HE MOVED IN WITH HIM

omg are they official yet or what

i need to know if theyre together this is killing me

Someone had asked directly. so are you and your boyfriend official now or??

Jude had replied.

not official yet. gotta give it some time.

I stared at the screen. Read the words again.

Not official yet.

Yet.

I put my phone down.