Giovanni had a lot of feelings when he left Ashkii's place for his own. For one, he felt pissed off, but also slightly complimented. He was a bit worried about the situation with Ashkii, but he felt things would smoothen out with time. The worst that could happen is that they would stop talking to each other, and although sad, wasn't as confrontational or uncomfortable.

     Something Giovanni couldn't get out of his head was Ashkii saying he had feelings for him. What did he mean by feelings? Ashkii barely knew him outside of the bar. They hadn't talked too much about their personal lives, and Giovanni didn't count; I wish I should deep throat the shit out of you as feelings.

     Heck, if those were feelings, then every single person Giovanni had ever been with had 'feelings' for him. He supposed that Ashkii felt that way because he was fairly young, and didn't seem like the type to sleep around, which was confirmed when he'd admitted to only being with two women.

     Giovanni also started to wonder how long the younger man had felt that way. He tried to map out a timeline, wondering if there were small hints he might have missed, asides from the obvious one when the younger man had upped and disappeared the first time Nate had flirted with him at the bar. Giovanni had just thought it was embarrassing for Ashkii and that's why he'd left, but jealousy was starting to seem like a more appropriate answer. Maybe Nate was right, maybe it's been pretty much ever since they'd known each other, and Giovanni had just been oblivious all this while.

     "Holy shit," Giovanni whispered to himself, almost dropping a glass when it dawned on him that Ashkii had sat across from him at the bar every other evening just to go home and search up skinny twinks on porn hub sucking dick. It was partly hilarious and partly horrifying. Ashkii seemed too soft-spoken and innocent to be fantasizing about stuff like that.

     It's been about three days since the incident, and Ashkii hadn't called, or texted, or showed his face at the bar. Giovanni had sent a text on Wednesday asking if the man was okay. It had been read, and a little bubble had shown up saying Ashkii was typing a response back, but it had vanished almost as soon as it had appeared. Giovanni was starting to think that might be the sign that he wasn't willing to resolve things, and that maybe Giovanni had been a bit too harsh with his poking and teasing. Sure, he'd been shocked, but he hadn't been intending to embarrass Ashkii so much that the man refused to even talk to him.

     Giovanni sighed, shaking his head before putting the glass away. He was stress-cleaning, and it was a habit he had promised himself to keep an eye on because that meant wrinkly fingers and dry hands. He tucked his hands into his pocket, letting himself look around the bar. There wasn't anyone there but an older man who had other's a Guinness, and two younger men who seemed to be construction workers taking a break arguing something over hushed tones.

     It was a Thursday night at the bar, and pretty slow. Not too many people walked through the doors from Monday to Thursday. Giovanni didn't really see the place pack up until Friday night, and then they'd be a weekend-long pool contest with regulars. Giovanni smiled a bit. The pool table had been one of his best purchases, for sure.

     Giovanni blinked, looking down at the counter when he heard his phone buzz. The screen was flashing with a number with no caller ID. Giovanni wondered who it was. He wasn't expecting any calls, and he'd definitely blocked spam room reaching him. He picked up the phone before wandering to the back hallway that had the staircase that led to his apartment upstairs. He closed the door to the hallway behind him before pressing the answer button.

     "Hello, who is it?" he said into the receiver, looking up at the dangling lightbulb that lit up the small corridor.

     "Oh my God, Vanni, you finally picked up."

     Giovanni felt his blood run cold, and his mind buzz for a second. Why hadn't he guessed who would have been calling him with a new number? Of course, it was Leslie. Only one person called him Vanni, and he only knew one person with that business-like tone. He clenched his jaw, frowning at how stupid he'd been not to make the guess. The stupid nickname he had once adored upset him to no ends whenever he heard it now.

     "Vanni?"

     "Hello, Leslie," Giovanni finally answered. "What do you want?"

     "Vanni, you promised that we'd still keep in touch. You weren't picking your calls, and I didn't know what to do, so I—"

     "Why can't you take a hint?" Giovanni asked, chuckling a bit. "Yes, of course, I said we'd keep in touch, but I didn't expect you to try and call me every other day."

"I just miss you, and I want to hear your voice. I have a lot of anxiety about you just blocking and deleting me from social media in the future. I guess that's why I call you often, just to check in, you know..." The man at the other end trailed. Giovanni didn't say anything in response, and things were quiet for a bit.

     "Vanni, I'm going to be in Massachusetts next month—"

     "No," Giovanni said, cutting the man off. "Don't come here."

     "I'm just going to be in town for work, but if you don't want me to see you, I won't come over to your place," Leslie said from the other end. "But I miss you, and I hope you can reconsider things."

     "How about your wife?" Giovanni asked, putting the man on the spot.

     The other end was quiet for a bit, and then there was a sigh. "Don't bring her into this, Vanni."

     "Well, why not? You promised her you'd leave me alone. You said the bar/apartment was a compensation and farewell gift. I'm not supposed to say anything about you ever dating men, and you're not supposed to still be trying to reach out to me three years later—"

     Leslie sighed. "I just want to see your face."

     "Bullshit."

     There was a pause at the other end of the line. "Okay, maybe I want to see you for not-so-innocent reasons. Is that so bad? I really miss you. We don't have to do anything. I'd love to just see you and have dinner together—"

     "Leslie, if you talk to me like this again, I'm going to tell your wife," Giovanni said, threatening the man. There was only deep breathing at the other end of the line before consecutive beeping that told Giovanni that the man had hung up.

     "Fuck," the bartender said under his breath, covering his face with a hand before tucking his phone into a back pocket with the other. Three years ago, after the two had been dating for about a year, Leslie had basically come out of left field saying he was going to get married to a daughter of his mother's friend. Giovanni had been shocked, even though he'd been expecting something like that, eventually. The two had been in a secret relationship that had developed from Leslie confessing interest after months of the man showing up at a small cafe Giovanni used to work at. The man had always brought up how Giovanni was the first man he had been with—the only man he found attractive and had dragged that around as the reason they couldn't be public with their relationship.

     Leslie's parents, being deep in the real estate business, had cut Giovanni a deal. They'd offered him this property—his house, his bar—all the way in Massachusetts, to leave their son alone, and speak nothing about their then ending relationship. Basically, he signed a non-disclosure agreement. It had been embarrassing that the first time he was ever introduced to Leslie's parents was for that reason. It was heartbreaking to see the woman Leslie was supposed to marry watch the deal and agreement being signed in the office. The whole ordeal had been uncomfortable, but he finally got a ticket out of texas to a blue state, close to New York and all the other liberal havens. He finally didn't have to shrink himself or think too hard about where his next meal would come from.

     Giovanni let out a sigh, resting his back in the corridor wall as he thought of the past. He'd really been struggling when he met Leslie. The man was the one good thing about his job at the cafe then, and he had been one of the few people he could talk to about his complicated relationship with his parents. His dad was had died maybe a few months before he'd met Leslie, and Leslie had been his biggest comfort through that period in his life.

     Giovanni stood up straight, shaking his head before heading back into the bar. He had been gone for a while, and people were probably waiting for him. He stepped out to catch sight of three customers waiting for him on the high bar stools.

     "Where were you? Can I have a Martini?" one of the men asked, as Giovanni put his phone away, and grabbed a glass cup and shaker.

     "Sure," Giovanni said with a nod, smiling, as he quickly transitioned back into his work persona. "Sorry, I was just answering a call. What about you guys? What would you like?"

     "I'll have a cosmopolitan."

     "I'll just have a beer. It doesn't matter what type."

     Giovanni went to work, and soon enough, the mechanical movements of making drinks and taking orders replaced the distress he'd felt from the sudden call from Leslie and the stress from not having heard back from Ashkii.