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Scott was well aware he wasn’t Kip’s usual type.
He’d first gotten an idea of the guy Kip used to go for, when they bumped into one of his exes at an art show.
The guy was easily as tall as Scott but that was where their visual similarities ended. He was wearing jet black nail polish, at least 15 different rings, had a purple mohawk, a leather jacket and more face piercings than he could count.
He called Kip “babe” until Kip threatened to stab him in the dick and spent the rest of the evening nestling into Scott’s arms.
“Ignore Tommy, he’s still as much as an asshole as he was when we were 20”
Scott encountered several more Tommy’s over the following two years. Guys who either scoffed at Scott or looked terrified of him, depending on how ballsy and buff they were. Kip treated each one of them with equal levels of contempt and would kiss Scott a little harder that night.
One thing was becoming increasingly clear. Scott was the clear exception to a rule of guys who carried the communist manifesto in their battered messenger bags and smoked menthols around empty alleyways.
Nobody was about to call Scott a bad boy. He was the poster boy for the NHL, along with Shane Hollander. He didn’t smoke, he drank sparingly, he barely got into fights on the ice. That was usually something Scott took as a source of pride.
It was a bit harder to be proud of his squeaky clean track record when he was clearly the opposite of what usually got his boyfriend hot.
Clearly Kip loved him. Scott wasn’t insecure about that. Kip clearly found him sexy. That also wasn’t a concern.
It was that he could be better for his boyfriend. Look like the kind of guy who could really make Kip’s jaw drop.
And improving himself for others was a language Scott spoke fluently.
The idea began to fully take root the day Scott found Kip smoking behind the back of their building. Scott almost got distracted by the flex of Kip’s thighs before his heart sank at Kip continuing to destroy his lungs.
“I really wish you’d quit”
Kip paused, looking a little guilty, lit cigarette hanging out the corner of his mouth.
“I’m sorry baby, it’s an old habit. Picked it up from a boyfriend when I was 16. Maybe 15? Sometime in the mid noughties.”
Scott found himself with jealousy brewing in his gut at one of the rotating cast of Kip’s delinquent exes. A ridiculous thought considering he had the boy, for over five years now.
“He must really have been something for you to still be doing this now” a desperate plea for Kip to please quit smoking.
Kip let out a disbelieving puff of air. “Oh he was a small dicked nothing who happened to read theory and own a film camera. The toxic relationship I’m in with nicotine is a hell of a lot harder to break.” He reached up on his tiptoes slightly to run his hands through Scott’s hair. “I’m trying to quit, I promise sweetheart. Last thing I ever want is you worried about me.”
A small weight was lifted when Kip dropped the half smoked cigarette onto the ground and stubbed it out with a sneaker. He held Scott’s hand all the way back to their bedroom.
Kip, as usual, was out hard in about two minutes. Scott, as usual, lay awake thinking and only managed to sleep from 2 til 6, an hour before his morning run.
That just gave him more thinking time, which both Kip and his therapist would argue was a bad thing. Straw + Berry had long since gained new staff. The kids behind the counter at Scott’s brief stop to look inside were college age, if not high school. Not Kip, with his long line of bad news boyfriends, who’d decided to take a chance on Scott when he was at work of all places.
“Why’d you say yes?”
Kip, who appeared to have been eating marshmallows for breakfast in his Fall Out Boy sleep shirt, looked startled at Scott returning 30 minutes early. He made a valiant attempt to answer Scott’s question with his mouth full.
“Yeth to wha?”
“To me asking you to come to my game. I’m not exactly your usual type.”
Scott felt Kip rather than saw him when he ran over to wrap Scott into a hug. He could be fucking quick when he wanted to be.
“In case you haven’t noticed Scott, my type usually just fucked me up, used me for sex then left as soon as a new nïeve twink came along. You were so kind and spoke to me like an actual human when I was stuck in a minimum wage job. Plus the way you look after a run helps.”
He fished his hands under the waistband of Scott’s running shorts and that was the end of that conversation.
It should have been the end of Scott’s anxieties too but that really wasn’t how his brain was wired. Instead, he called Carter.
“Dude, I need you to dye my hair. Not like blonde. A weird colour. Probably green. I’ll be over in an hour.”
He had a moment of consideration at the memory of pictures of Kip, junior year of college.
“Oh! I also need a crazy piercing.”
Carter was delighted at the thought of bonding through hair dye and brought over six colour options. Scott went for a forest green that meant he could skip the bleach.
He looked a little more like the type of guy Kip would go for after kneeling over a bathtub. But not close enough.
Eyebrow stud was too far, though it would definitely add to the look.
Ear stud on the other hand……..
One desperate phone call to Elena later, he had a stud through his left ear and had his eyes rimmed with carefully applied eyeliner. The New York Admirals hoodie and sweatpants detracted from the look a little but it was the most bad boy he’d ever felt.
Elena stared at him in despair and asked Scott why the hell he was doing this. Scott couldn’t quite find an answer good enough to satisfy her.
Kip had a late meeting with his Phd supervisor that day so Scott had several hours to stew in how horrible of a decision he’d just made.
A key finally turned the lock at 7:30pm and Kip was clearly prepared to launch into a tirade about the subway before stopping in his tracks.
He looked……..maybe a little pink behind his glasses. Blinking and briefly speechless, which was an achievement for Kip.
“You have green hair. When did that happen?” Kip’s voice had gone up several octaves and he was shifting awkwardly on his feet. Still staring at Scott’s face as he approached, entranced.
“Is that an earring Scott? Are you wearing eyeliner?”
Scott could feel his neck getting hot and reached back to rub it. “A little bit. Is it………good?”
The sound of Kip clearing his throat was deafening. “Good is certainly a word you could use.” Scott was about to take that as a green light and pull Kip in, before he backed away swiftly, standing on the other side of the room and staring resolutely at the ceiling.
“There’s a reason for the image change. Explain.” If Scott hadn’t been so worried, he’d have sworn it looked like Kip had a semi.
“You like bad boys. I wanted to be like the kind of guys you’re into.” Scott’s voice had also gone up at least a pitch.
“I like the visual of a bad boy. I’m so in love with you I’d consider rethinking my anti marriage stance. And just to be so clear, I’m so into you it’s physically painful Scott.” Kip stared forward and hooked his hands around Scott’s waist. “You’re the sexiest man to exist in my own humble opinion.” He paused to run his fingers through Scott’s hair. “ I do like the green hair though. If you’re planning on keeping it.”
Actually Scott surprised himself by how much he liked the green hair, so he kept it. The 12 hour sex marathon it prompted was an added bonus.