I walked past this construction site early this morning, watching the guys bend over, flashing their butt cracks, sweaty men carrying heavy shit, while one particular guy, composed and cool like he was on holiday, directed them all. Minutes later, I got home, sat down and wrote this story.
If only that guy knew what I wrote about him.
The heat had been building since seven. By ten the sixth floor smelled of wet concrete and the sound of someone cutting rebar two levels below.
I took the stairs because the elevator was dead again.
Six flights through a raw concrete shell with temporary lighting hanging crooked from extension cables. By the third-floor landing my shirt was sticking between my shoulder blades.
I arrived, slightly out of breath to find Vance stood over the blueprints with two bricks pinning the corners against the breeze coming through the open side of the building.
He looked the way he always did, dark blond hair shoved back badly with one hand at some point that morning, shorter at the sides, messy on top again already. A few days without shaving had left rough blond shadows along his jaw and around his mouth that somehow suited him in the heat, making him look rougher, more solid.
I’d worked with him for months through site visits, delays, safety meetings and coffee from paper cups strong enough to strip paint. None of this was new.
So I couldn’t explain why, standing there sweating through my shirt while his radio crackled against his shoulder, I suddenly noticed the shape of his mouth when he concentrated. Or the slight tilt at the end of his nose like it had been broken years ago and never properly fixed.
Or why watching him drag his thumb absently across his bottom lip, clearing away concrete dust, made something shift low in my stomach hard enough to unsettle me.
Worn work boots. Navy site trousers hanging low on his hips. Black t-shirt darkened with sweat beneath an open hi-vis vest, dust caught in the dark hair along his forearms and the old scars across his hands.
He barely looked up when I walked over.
“Hey, Glenn,” he said, the words coming rough, like he hadn’t used his voice much yet that morning.
“Hey, Vance. How’s it going? Winning? Making lots of friends?”
That got a faint smile out of him, gone almost immediately.
I leaned across the plans to grab the pen and my hand landed over his by accident. His hand flexed once beneath mine and something low in my stomach tightened hard enough to knock the breath out of me. I felt him pause too, just for a second, the air between us suddenly charged in a way I couldn’t explain.
But neither of us pulled away.
Somewhere below us rebar screamed against a cutting wheel while wind moved through the unfinished frame of the building, radios crackling every few seconds from different floors, but at the table it felt like everything had stalled around the simple fact of his hand beneath mine.
Vance cleared his throat once and looked back down at the plans, though his attention didn’t seem fully on them anymore.
“Contractors on the west side have gone off spec again,” he said slowly, like he was forcing the words out in the right order. “Steel placement’s out by at least…”
He stopped.
For the first time since I’d known him, Vance looked uncertain.
It wasn’t Vance being uncharacteristically nervous, it was more like he was confused. His eyes flicked downward briefly before returning to mine and a knot tightened in my chest.
I followed the movement without thinking.
The outline beneath his site trousers was impossible to miss now. A bulge that moments earlier wasn’t even noticeable. For a second my brain tried explaining it away. Heat, bad angle perhaps, or just the fabric bunching.
That was not it. There was nothing ambiguous about it.
The realisation hit me so fast I nearly stepped back from the table.
Vance had a hard-on.
My pulse kicked once, heavy enough that I suddenly became aware of my own body, the pressure trapped uncomfortably behind my fly after weeks of stress, heat and absolutely nothing remotely like this ever happening before.
Fuck.
I shifted instinctively, subtle enough that I thought I’d hidden it, angling away from him and pulling the jeans material away from my trapped boner, but Vance’s eyes dropped immediately.
Straight to my crotch.
The radio clipped to his shoulder crackled again with somebody asking about concrete delivery on level three.
Vance adjusted himself once through the fabric of his trousers, turning slightly, like I had done, trying to hide it, then turning to throw me a look that said he regretted even needing to do it.
His eyes went from my eyes down to my bulge, then back up again.
He swallowed. I could almost hear it.
We stood there staring at each other across the blueprints while the entire building carried on around us, both of us trying to understand the same impossible thing at the same time.
Vance opened his mouth like he was about to continue talking about the plans, but nothing came out.
His jaw worked once. The tip of his tongue dragged briefly across his dry lower lip before disappearing again.
Then he turned away abruptly, one hand bracing against the edge of the table.
The movement pulled the fabric of his t-shirt tight across his back and for the first time I noticed the shape of him properly beneath the site clothes, the hard line of muscle through his waist and ass from years of hauling materials up unfinished staircases.
Jesus Christ.
He turned back toward me too quickly and caught me looking.
The longer we went without speaking, the more awkward it became.
His eyes dropped again before he could stop them, straight to the front of my jeans this time, and I felt heat climb hard into my face.
I cleared my throat.
“Vance…”
But he looked wrecked suddenly. Sweat running from his temples now despite the breeze moving through the floor, chest rising deeper beneath the darkened t-shirt.
“Glenn, I…” He stopped and dragged a hand over the back of his neck. “Fuck, man. I don’t know what…”
I stepped closer before my brain caught up with me, following some kind of instinct that I rarely listened to.
I honestly don’t think I meant to touch him.
Maybe I only meant to shove him jokingly, maybe break the tension somehow, make this normal again.
But my hand closed over him through the fabric of his trousers instead.
Vance jerked sideways sharply, swearing under his breath, but not before I felt the full hard thickness of his cock in my hand.
The shock of it went through both of us. I yanked my hand back like it had been burned.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, breathing hard now. “This fucking heat’s making us crazy.”
My mouth had gone completely dry.
I stepped back immediately, pulse hammering, every instinct in my body suddenly screaming at me to move before I did something worse.
“Yeah,” I said quickly. “Yeah…I need water or something.”
Then I turned and headed fast toward the portable site bathrooms before he could see how badly my hands were shaking.
Inside the portable unit the air was surprisingly cooler, though trapped and stale beneath the plastic roof. I planted both hands against the wall above the urinal and tried breathing through whatever the hell had just happened.
This was insane.
It was also stupid dangerous and made no sense.
I unzipped mechanically, more to relieve pressure than anything else, staring at the scratched plastic wall in front of me while my heartbeat refused to settle, letting my cock lean out, no longer constrained. I figured once I regained composure, I’d pee and get on with my day. Maybe even laugh it off later.
Then the door opened behind me.
Heavy boots stepped onto the floor beside mine.
I looked sideways.
Dropping my pants feels pointless when I barely wear pants anyway, so instead I’ve briefly discounted yearly subscription prices.
Real talk: I’m struggling right now. The last year has absolutely kicked my ass financially, and while I hate doing the whole “please subscribe” thing, I also like eating and paying bills.
This weekend, my subscription prices are going up, but yearly subscriptions are 20% off for the next 48 hours only.
Also, locking the rest of the Vance bathroom scene behind the paywall might be the most evil thing I’ve done this month, but hey, even villains have rent to pay. We live in a cruel world, landlords refuse sexual favors as rent payment, and apparently “but the foreman was really hot” still isn’t recognised by most banks as a valid financial strategy.
Share my stories with someone. A subscription to my stories is basically the modern version of buying someone a drink and seeing where it goes.
Some people say that right after they subscribed to Fox Emerson, Pedro Pascal crawled into bed with them, slightly sweaty, completely naked. He’d just come off set and hadn’t nutted in like, weeks.
Allegedly. I believe everything people say on the internet.
