It is gone midnight and the house has gone quiet the way it only does after a long day on the tools. Phone face down on the arm of the sofa. Shirt open because I could not be bothered doing it back up after the shower. Cap still on. And you, somewhere out there, awake at the same hour, for the same reason I am.
You have got my number now. That was not an accident and it was not me being friendly. I gave it to you because I wanted to see what you would do with it, and because I already had a fair idea.
Why I only hand my number out late at night
Daytime me is on a job with a van full of gear and a client who wants the quote by four. I am my own boss, which sounds relaxed until you work out that it means every hour belongs to somebody who is paying for it. There is nothing left of me at two in the afternoon. Nothing you would want, anyway.
Late is different. Late is when the noise stops and the only thing still running is the low steady hum of me being bored of my own patience. That is the version of me you get. Slower. Blunter. A lot less interested in being polite about what I want.
So no, you did not catch me at a weak moment. You caught me at the only honest one.
What your first message actually tells me
Everyone thinks the first text is about being clever. It is not. I can read the whole of you off three lines and you will not even notice me doing it.
Send me something long and carefully built and I know the app has been open for an hour, deleting and starting again, working out how to sound casual. Send me one word at half two in the morning and I know you gave up trying to sound casual, which I like considerably more.
Either way you have told me the same thing. You are the one who reached out. You went first because you could not sit with the not knowing any longer. Hold on to that, because later on you are going to want to pretend it was mutual.
The gym lad you are texting is never in a rush
I train six days out of seven and I have done for years. Nothing about that is fast. You do not build a back like mine by wanting it badly on a Tuesday, you build it by turning up when it is dull and cold and nobody is watching. That patience does not switch itself off the second I pick up a phone.
So if you send something at midnight and the reply lands at ten past one, that gap was not me being busy. I saw it. I read it twice. I put the phone face down and let you sit in it.
You will tell yourself you are not checking. You will check.
What being made to wait is supposed to do to you
Here is the part people get wrong about me. Making you wait is not a game and it is not me being hard to get, because I am not hard to get. I am just particular about the order things happen in.
Waiting is the only thing that turns wanting into needing. Anybody can want something they are allowed to have straight away. What interests me is the state you get into around minute forty, when you have reread your own message and decided it was too much, then decided it was not enough, then shoved the phone under a cushion as though that helps.
By the time I answer you are not casual any more. You are starving. That is the point. That was always the point.
What lands when I finally decide to answer
When it comes it will be short. I do not do paragraphs at this hour. Two lines and something small for you to do, and it will be small enough that you can tell yourself it is nothing.
Stay up. Do not reply for ten minutes. Tell me where you are and be honest about it.
You will do it. Not because I made you, but because doing it feels better than the alternative, and because somewhere in the last hour you worked out that you like being told. Good lad. That was the bit you were most nervous about admitting and you managed it inside one night.
Leave me on read and see what it costs you
You can, obviously. You are a grown man with a phone and a will of your own, and I am not going to chase you. I have never chased anyone in my life and I am not about to start at twenty nine.
But be clear about what you would be doing. I would put the phone down, sleep fine, and be up at six with the van loaded. You would lie there running it back, wondering whether the silence was you or me, wondering whether I even noticed. I noticed. I notice everything about you, which is exactly why that silence would be so loud at your end and so quiet at mine.
Come back three days later and I will still be here. I will simply be a lot less inclined to take my time with you.
So it is your move now
That is where we are. It is late, I am sat here with the shirt open and the cap still on because I could not be bothered, and there is nothing left for me to do. I have given you the number. I have told you exactly what I am like. I have even told you what the waiting is for, which is more than you will get from most men.
The rest of it is on you. Type it, delete it, type it again, I do not mind. I am not going anywhere for another hour and I am in a generous enough mood that I might even answer quickly. Might.
This is the polite version of me, the one that goes on a website with my name on it. The version that comes out when nobody has to be careful is somewhere else entirely, and there is a great deal more of him. Photos, video, my actual voice at this hour, and a message box where I am the one answering. If you want that, you already know where I am, and you already know I like it when you go first. Go on then.