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Matt
Matt left before they spoke the next morning. Maybe he’d feel better after a hard day’s work, letting the frustration of yesterday’s argument wear off through sheer tiredness. Until then, however, he had no interest in letting up. He supposed he should have known that Chris would be stubborn. He just hadn’t expected that stubbornness to present itself in a situation where Chris had explicitly asked for Matt’s advice and his help.
As soon as he arrived at his desk, though, it seemed he wasn’t done with confrontation yet. There was a message from Mr. Boseman’s secretary on his answering machine, asking for confirmation that he’d gotten Chris to agree to this boudoir shoot that they’d spoken about the day before.
Of course, Matt hadn’t spoken to Chris about it, and nor did he intend to – especially today, of all days. The hockey player probably wasn’t going to take the request well at the best of times. Right now, he might really freak out.
Instead of dealing with that, Matt moved straight on to checking his inbox. Boseman’s secretary had emailed the request over too, apparently intending on catching him wherever he first looked – but thankfully, there was another request to occupy his attention right below it. This wasn’t from Sports Illustrated, but as a freelancer, he had the freedom to work on whichever project he saw fit. So long as he made his deadlines, nothing really mattered.
He doubted that the commissioning editor would appreciate being left hanging, but it wasn’t as though he had an answer to give anyway – least of all the ‘yes’ that Boseman was hoping for.
This new project was exciting, too. It had been a while since he’d done any live TV work, and yet here he was being invited to interview famous gay Olympian Alex Lourdes. Alex was handsome and well-celebrated as both a member of the LGBT community and as an American gold medalist. Usually, Matt preferred team sports, and Alex was a gymnast – but since Matt was in New York and one of the country’s premier sports journalists, apparently this news channel figured he would do the trick.
This would be a nice distraction from both his life and his other work, frankly. They’d gotten far too intertwined over the past few days; having something different to do would be like taking a mini-vacation.
He shot off a confirmation email, and started packing up his desk. Sure, he’d only been in the office five minutes, but if he didn’t set off now then he’d never make it to the filming location to get mic’d up in time.
Matt considered sending Chris a text to encourage him to watch the news, but thought better of it. There were healthy ways to make up after an argument – and ignoring the argument to talk about something else entirely wasn’t one of them. Instead, he just hoped Chris wouldn’t feel deliberately excluded if he missed it.
He could always claim he’d been too busy to get in touch, he supposed.
That said, it didn’t feel good to be making these ‘white lie’ decisions so early in the relationship. Maybe he’d better focus on his interview with Alex Lourdes instead.
When he arrived at the TV studio, it was all hustle and bustle – as these places usually were. Honestly, Matt really liked this kind of environment. It stripped away your ability to procrastinate; you had to have a productive day, because you simply didn’t have a choice. Anybody standing still or being lazy was probably getting in the way of everyone else on set. That kind of bad behavior was more than Matt could handle.
Before he could even introduce himself to the producer, she made a beeline for him to hastily shake his hand. Her smile was warm and welcoming, but she clearly had a lot on her plate.
“Mr. Tucker!” she said. “It’s lovely to meet you. Great to have you on board this morning. I was so excited when I heard you were in New York.”
“It’s great to be here,” he assured her, feeling a little intimidated by the speed at which she spoke. He certainly couldn’t keep up with that. “Is Alex around yet?”
“Not quite,” she said, glancing down at her clipboard, “but it won’t be long. Can we get you all set up? Rachel will get you a tea or a coffee – or some water, whatever you’d like – and you can run over the prep notes.”
“Very kind,” he said, speaking into the tiny gap she left him before she continued.
“This is Rachel right here,” she said, turning him by the shoulder to point out a harassed-looking intern. “Rachel, Mr. Tucker needs liquids and information.”
“Understood, Gem.”
“I’ll see you after,” said the producer – Gem, was it? – as she scurried away.
He gave intern Rachel a small smile. “Lots to do, huh?”
“Oh, you have no idea.”
Before long, at least, he was sitting down out of harm’s way with a coffee in one hand, and notes in the other. Alex was here to discuss a new charity initiative he was spearheading, so most of the talking points were about that. Frankly, they could have gotten any up-and-coming journalist in to take care of this. It made him feel almost guilty for taking the exposure from them.
Then again, he’d worked damn hard to get where he was, and he was looking forward to this job. Maybe he deserved to have a little fun every once in a while.
Granted, most people wouldn’t consider work ‘fun’, even if it was work like this, but Matt had always been a motivated person. He got bored sitting around for too long when he knew there were things out there to do, and people out there to meet.
Wasn’t that partially why he had agreed to profiling Chris Knoll in the first place?
Admittedly, as time wore on, Matt couldn’t help but start to feel the nerves creep in. Live TV was a completely different animal to every other type of work you could do, and having been out of the game for so long, it was much harder than usual to convince himself that he’d be polished and professional.
Only when Alex Lourdes himself arrived could Matt distract himself enough to function.
Unsurprisingly, Alex was maddeningly handsome. He had Greek, French and Egyptian heritage, and his face had angles of each culture in it; his eyes were a heated dark brown, and his skin a warm caramel that looked permanently tanned. His hair, a neatly-styled nut-brown, looked somehow both soft and tightly lacquered into place. He was even more attractive in person than he ever had been on TV.
Admittedly, Matt was used to seeing more of his skin than was currently on show. His gymnast’s uniform was worlds away from the checked shirt he wore today, somehow both perfectly suitable and the most basic fashion item Matt had ever seen. He knew it was stereotypical to care about that kind of thing, but he couldn’t help but cast an eye over people’s clothes all the same.
Even people as pretty as Alex.
The Olympian extended a hand out to shake Matt’s, a warm and friendly smile already crinkling up his face. He was one of those people who seemed to move in slow motion – the built-by-angels, could-model-in-his-sleep type.
If Matt hadn’t just fallen for Chris, he might have been tempted. Might have been more than tempted, in fact. As things stood, he saw the empty flirtation in the once-over Alex gave him, and he had no interest in pursuing it outside of a professional environment.
“The man of the hour,” said Alex, squeezing his hand before he released it. “Your name is all over Twitter – and his.”
“Mostly his, I’m sure,” said Matt. Clearly, neither of them needed to elaborate on what they were talking about. “Pleasure to meet you. I suppose we don’t need to introduce ourselves.”
“We certainly don’t,” said Alex. “Though I’m hoping you’ll do a kind job of introducing me when the cameras are on.”
“Of course.”
“You’re more than welcome to be kind once they’re off, too.”
Matt gave him a look, trying to measure what he meant – or rather, how much he really meant it. Hadn’t he just acknowledged that Matt and Chris were a thing now? Surely he wasn’t actually trying to muscle in on it.
“I’m sure,” he said, for lack of anything better to say. “I’ve been reading about your charity initiative, though. The notes didn’t specify where your interest in clean drinking water stems from; it is okay to ask you about that...?”
“All business, huh?”
Matt’s smile felt a little fixed. “Sorry. Do I seem unfriendly...?”
“I was just hoping you’d be – well. You know,” said Alex, reclining back into his chair. “A little bit friendlier. You were with Knoll.”
“Am,” Matt corrected. He hoped he didn’t sound blunt; he just wanted to be clear about this. Frankly, if Alex was implying what Matt thought he was, then this whole situation would benefit from that clarity. “That’s still ongoing.”
“It is?” said Alex. It only barely sounded like a question. “I figured you just had a thing for interview subjects, maybe.”
Matt blinked, surprised that he was being so upfront about it. This was a consequence of falling for Chris that Matt hadn’t anticipated. Did people really think that about him – that he just fucked his way through the whole list of gay athletes that he worked with? He wasn’t sure he liked that.
In fact, he knew he didn’t.
Alex shrugged, the same playful smile on his face. It did stretch to his eyes; at least, Matt supposed, this was a sincere flirtation and not a malicious tease. Alex was still being rude, but it was better that he wasn’t really trying to be.
It meant Matt could probably still have a career.
“Well,” he said, after a long pause. “Sorry to disappoint. I’m sure there’s no shortage of people looking to find out exactly how flexible you are, though.”
“Oh, trust me,” said Alex. “There isn’t. I never had trouble before the gold medal, but now?” He tipped his head back, closing his eyes against the studio lights. “It’s like picking from the crowd at a Roman slave auction.”
Did he really just say that?
Matt gave a thin smile, turning back to his notes. He didn’t dislike Alex yet, but he just might if the conversation kept going in that problematic direction. “Well,” he said, in an attempt not to be impolite, “Good for you.”
“Got my own dressing room,” said Alex, eyes still closed. “If you change your mind.”
I wouldn’t hold your breath.
But Matt knew he couldn’t really say that without causing some kind of diplomatic issue, so he kept his mouth shut. He only had to endure Alex for the length of one interview, and then he could go home to Chris.
He looked up, realizing the implication of that. He didn’t want to go back to the office and write; that wasn’t his first instinct, as it once might have been. Even though they’d argued, he wanted to go back and spend time with his boyfriend.
With only thirty seconds left to broadcast, he slipped his phone out of his pocket and shot off a quick text.
I’m on the news in 2 minutes. Channel 332. :)
It wasn’t much of an olive branch, and they would still have to address the argument later as Matt had thought earlier – but maybe something was better than nothing.
