“I prefer brunets.”<br/><br/>James Wellfleet III also known as “Trip” in very many and high society circles and in a few very secret circles as “Radiant” cursed as he paced around Dr. Crenshaw’s office. Radiant’s buttoned up alter ego held the rolled-up Wired Exclusive and read in an enraged tone as he stopped passed the 13th floor windows of the chic NY high-rise which held the upscale clinic Dr. Crenshaw ran for his kind.<br/><br/>“<em>I only date dudes</em>?! He comes out, his stock skyrockets. A fucking triple digit explosion.” Trip waved around the magazine article as if it had personally offended him and been written to spite him.<br/><br/>“People can have preferences, Trip,” Esme Crenshaw said patiently as she tapped her fancy fountain pen on the organized blotter of her desk. They didn’t do the whole lie on the couch and talk thing. Trip in his business persona was much too wound up to relax that way. They did their sessions like this.<br/><br/>The 6’4 blond striding back and forth in some horrendously expensive English bespoke suit. Looking too hot for life really. Like a model. What was it about superheroes? The addition of powers seemed to work against even genetic flaws. Perfect face, perfect mouth. Lovely eyes. Specifically, Radiant seemed made from an otherworldly mold. Or perhaps it was just the New York royalty from whom he was descended - presidential stock on his father’s and pure old money class on his mother’s. Particular, well-bred and to be truthful, so, so heteronormative.<br/><br/>And, unfortunately, deep in the closet.<br/><br/>“It has nothing to do with his damn preferences, Esme. If I did this, Wellfleet would be selling in the basement. Not getting talked up on Investopedia like FlynT’s CEO is the second coming in clean living and honest love. It’s like the rules of nature don’t fucking apply to Flynn Corcoran. Everything he does. Youngest Nobel winner – physics at eighteen. Fortune 500 in three years. Bootstrapped. Bootstrapped! No one bootstraps these days! Spurned six billion dollars of investor money. Wrinkled his freckly-assed nose up like was used toilet paper not a check with exponentially more zeros than most people will ever see in their lives.”<br/><br/>Trip turned on his perfectly shined Oxford heels and paced, smacking his palm with the magazine like he’d have preferred it to be Flynn’s face. Esme nodded and jotted with a flick of her wrist.<br/><br/>“Yes, Mr. Corcoran is very successful, but why is this really bothering you so much, Trip?” Esme asked. The answer was obvious to most but Superheroes like Radiant weren’t creatures of subtlety. Especially when it came to their own motivations.<br/><br/>“You know why.”<br/><br/>“This is a safe space, Trip. I want you to say it.”<br/><br/>“Esme.”<br/><br/>“Out loud to someone at least once.”<br/><br/>“I c – can’t.”<br/><br/>“Trip, it’s not a death sentence. It’s not even anything these days. I think if you could say it, the whole thing would be so much less huge in your mind.”<br/><br/>Trip stopped in the middle of the very expensive Aubusson carpet and stared at the stately black woman seated behind the desk.<br/><br/>Esmerelda Crenshaw had dark natural kinks with a dusting of grey at her temples. He could never tell if she wore makeup or was just naturally ageless in skin and eye. Likely the later. Her psychic powers were legendary in their circles and after she stopped active duty within the IOMAP roster it seemed natural that she took up a business that helped her kind and human kind in general. She was of an older generation, his father’s generation really. So maybe she understood why it was so hard for him to say it, even to himself sometimes.<br/><br/>“I… It pisses me off that Flynn Corcoran can tell the world with zero consequences, and I can’t even say it to myself that…”<br/><br/>Even now Trip hesitated in this private place, warded magically, and swept for technology before every session. Trip took a seat on the plush chair in front of Esme’s desk with a defeated sigh rubbing his hands through the short cropped blond curls.<br/><br/>“I’m gay.”<br/><br/><hr/>Flynn Corcoran sat in the last row of chairs on the listening to Kehlani on his laptop. He’d been told once that he could be unapproachable. This mien didn’t seem to extend to the VIP at Momiji. He’d been approached twice at the bleeding edge bookstore -slash- art gallery- slash- roofbar. Had he not owned part of the bar and club he’d have left but for the place to be successful it required the kind of high-profile clientele he seemed to attract these days. Flynn wondered how attracted the old money set and the pop taste makers would be if they knew how when this place had just been his favorite bookstore hide away he’d spent many an hour crying in the stacks nursing his bruises from whatever punishment’s Trip though of that day.<br/><br/>Punishments, it seemed, for just living.<br/><br/>Flynn snorted shaking his head as the waiter approached with another martini and suspicious flap of paper under one arm.<br/><br/>That damn Wired cover.<br/><br/>All part of his fucking publicist’s plan to make him a pop-icon god on top of being filthy stinking rich. All to cover up his less savory activities. Adulation to temper the IOMAP’s complaints and the many many lawsuits his lawyers spent his hard-earned money making sure never saw the light of day or line of newsprint. Lawyers, insurance, publicists, all to pursue his first simple love, science, pure investigational science. Creating a portable, unending source of power to run the world forever. To run the spaceship that would take him away from this damn planet. So he could finally draw a clean slow breath, by himself.<br/><br/>Flynn looked up at the expanse of black, starless due to the city’s lights and though soon soon soon. But now, Flynn smiled and took the drink then the magazine and scrawled his signature over the cover, answered a couple of cheeky questions about the interview that “outed him” and gently declined the waiter’s thinly veiled proposition. His publicist, a little spit fire known as Audax Chu, asked if he had someone special to make the jump with. It would have been easier. Temper the furor a bit. Flynn refused to drag anyone who hadn’t signed up for the mess into it, but the side eyes and the veiled comments were getting a bit overwhelming. Plus a whole host of choices had opened up for him now, it was possibly a good time to take someone up on the offer.<br/><br/>Work still ruled his world but work now included museum galas, building openings and business dinners. Someone that looked good in Savile Row finest. Flynn blinked and cursed. That’s twice Trip Wellfleet managed to make it to his forebrain. Twice in an hour. It was a bad day.<br/><br/>Flynn brought up the specs for his latest toy and smirked to himself in anticipation of the first prototypes due from the machine shop this week. Oh, the places we’ll go, my little friend. Flynn stroked the curve of the mech’s blast shielding lovingly and adjusted the power matrix in accordance with the latest test results. Fiddling with the mech occupied Flynn until his watch gave a gentle pulse, the buzz was specific. Energy changes proximal to a Magical, Altered or Powered being. Flynn looked up and around the softly lit bar and found him.<br/><br/>Milo Motega, recently employed by The Wellfleet Corporation. Sexy dark tousled curls, lickable caramel skin, drowning dark eyes. Willowy swimmer’s body. Everything hulking Radiant was not except in one thing. They were both do-gooding busybodies with a penchant for getting into Flynn’s way. Trip’s new Boy Friday and honestly the kind of person that checked all kinds of boxes for Flynn, not least among them was:<ul class="bbc_list"><li type="square"> make Trip insane, </li><li type="square"> harm Wellfleet in any way possible, </li><li type="square"> look great while doing it.</li></ul><br/><br/>Flynn got up, straightened the clingy grey sweater and dusted off the hunter green and gold pinstriped pants he slipped his feet back into a pair of well-worn oxfords and his drink. He approached Milo with a smile happy that the bit of stalking he’d been doing paid off.<br/><br/>“Is this your first time at Momiji, Milo? I’m used to seeing you at Bauman’s uptown.” Flynn referred to the used bookstore where he’d engineered their first couple of meetings. Flynn let his gaze warm and settle on Milo taking him in slowly. Stimulating was the word certainly, for the eye, conversationally. Quite stimulating.