Justin’s hand fell away as we made it to our desks. “That’s good to hear. I was worried about you. Those pretty brown eyes of yours looked so sleepy last night.” He bumped into me when I stopped suddenly, shocked by his words.

“Did you just say my brown eyes were pretty?” I asked, incredulous. There was no way he meant it.

“Come on,” he replied, rolling his eyes. “Haven’t you heard the chatter around here from the gossip vine? All the women want to ask you out, but they know it won’t go anywhere ‘cause you’re gay. The guys who are interested don’t even try ‘cause they think they’ll get shot down. You’re just too ‘hot’ for words, apparently. Doesn’t stop any of them from wishing and hoping over the water cooler, though.” He winked at me and went to sit at his desk.

Putting my coffee near my keyboard, I got ready for the day. “No, I hadn’t heard that. Or I guess I’m just oblivious. I don’t take myself that seriously, I guess. As far as I’m concerned, I look average. Especially when compared to you,” I mumbled, or so I thought.

I heard Justin’s chair roll back and turned to see him staring at me in shock.

“What?” I asked.

“Did you just compare yourself to me?”

I closed my eyes, filled with horror. Goddamn, my mouth. Thankfully, a call was coming in, so I was able to ignore his question in favor of work. I could feel him staring at me, though. Hopefully, he would think I was just joking around.

The rest of the day was stressful. And it didn’t help that every time I turned around, I caught Justin looking at me, like he was trying to solve a puzzle. I hoped I hadn’t ruined our work relationship with my big mouth. At six o’clock, I left the office and headed for the gym.

Half an hour seemed to be taking even longer to get through this evening, for some reason. Probably because I was operating on too much coffee and too little sleep. I looked at the time and saw I still had fifteen minutes of running to go. Christ.

I was about to give up when I heard a familiar voice somewhere to my right. Oh no. It can’t be. I’d never seen him at the gym before. That’s just great. He can’t see me here. I gotta leave -- now.

Unfortunately, in my haste, I somehow tripped over my shoelaces and landed face down, wouldn’t ya know it? right at Justin’s feet. Tyson to Earth: please swallow me whole.

A hand reached down to help me up -- Justin’s, of course. I could hear some snickers in the small crowd that had gathered around us, but no one said anything.

“Tyson?” Letting go of my hand, Justin brushed me off a little. “Say something, dude.”

Too embarrassed to do more than mumble, “Thank you,” I pushed through the crowd and headed for the showers. I packed my stuff quickly and ran out of the gym. I thought I heard Justin’s voice calling me, but I couldn’t stop, I just couldn’t. Good thing the race was in two days. I’m never going back to that gym–ever. I had a month-to-month membership, so I'll just let it lapse.

What was I thinking? I’m going to make a fool of myself on Saturday, I just know it. And worse, he’ll know it. Fuck, fuck, fuck.