Nate was so nervous that it was all he could do to keep his concentration on the road. Maybe he should have asked Bailey to drive for once. One of his instructors from when he got his welder's certificate put him in contact with a guy who owned a business down near Bailey's school. It had only been phone conversations so far, but he said he would be ready to bring Nate on whenever he was ready to start, preferably in the next month or so, because he was starting a new contract.

He'd also given Nate some pointers on what neighborhoods to look for a place to rent in, and he'd found not an apartment, but a whole-ass townhome in the budget he'd made based on the offered wage. He'd called the realtor and set up a date at the end of the week to go down and take a look at the place. That same day, he'd probably go and set things up with the construction company.

But before applying for the lease or signing any employment contracts, he had to talk to Bailey about all this. Because if Bailey wanted to go their separate ways come fall, Nate wasn't sure he'd like to move to the same city as him. Or maybe he should be mature about it, not worry about how the two of them turned out, and move for the opportunity anyway.

"Is everything ok?" Bailey asked.

Nate dragged himself out of his imagined scenario of moving to the city for Bailey, not getting to have him, and then looking for people to help him forget how lonely he was because he was in a new place all by himself. He wondered if there was more than one BDSM community or if he would have to chance running into Bailey if he wanted to continue exploring kinkier sex. There he was, spiraling off again.

He tried to piece together a response and came up with, "Hmm?"

"You seem upset. Is...are you okay?"

Bailey seemed like the one who was upset, uncharacteristically hesitant, the way he got sometimes when they were talking about kink or after a scene when he was coming back into himself. Out of the corner of his eye, Nate could see that his fingers were twisting together in his lap. He didn't look over and draw attention to Bailey's anxiety; instead, he just smiled in a way that was hopefully reassuring.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a lot on my mind lately." And then, because he wanted to know why Bailey seemed upset, he asked, "Why?"

"I just got the feeling that you were...distracted or, like, upset," Bailey told him. "But it makes sense if you have a lot going on. I know you started looking for a job and stuff. It just seemed like you started being a bit down after the last time we played."

Ah, so his uncharacteristic hesitance fit the pattern. This was about kink. It seemed to be the only time Bailey allowed himself to be perceived as vulnerable, going on the offensive automatically any other time he felt anxious. Nate wondered if it was okay for him to so obviously need kink and power dynamics to settle and open up to communication outside of a screaming match or fistfight.

"That is one of the things on my mind," Nate said.

Sure, he wondered why Bailey liked to feel afraid of the person he was with sometimes. Bailey had explained a bit of it to him, but he could not imagine wanting that himself. And the more he thought about leaving Bailey in that bathroom, even though he had been just on the other side of the door, the more he felt sick to his stomach. It had been play, but he didn't like having that barrier between them.

But maybe he was just thinking about it all wrong. He liked treating Bailey like a toy who had no agency. He always trusted him to let him know if things were too much. That dynamic didn't bother him, so why would he be so uncomfortable using that lack of agency to scare Bailey? How did he end up scaring himself instead?

"It's fine if you don't want to talk about it right now!" Bailey assured him. "I mean, we are on our way to meet Jared and Sarah and..."

"No, I don't mind," Nate sighed. "It's probably good to get it out since my head is a bit of a mess about it all. But, I just...I don't think I'm comfortable scaring you or...well, being someone scary to you."

"Oh."

Ah, he sounded so small and disappointed.

Deep, deep down, another one of Nate's anxieties about asking Bailey to live with him was that he might not actually give him everything he needed. He could pay most of the rent. He could tie him up in complicated knots and make him cry. But if Bailey needed someone to make him feel afraid, Nate wasn't sure he could be that.

He thought he could. He thought he would like the glint of fear in Bailey's eyes. He thought that power trip would make him feel puffed up the way he usually did during their play, as ridiculous as the thought made him feel now. But it had just made him feel bad.

"I want to be able to give you what you want," Nate told him, "But I got freaked out a little the other day. I was supposed to be scaring you, but I was just so...ah..."

Of course, at that moment, the mini golf course where they were meeting Jared and Sarah loomed at the top of the hill. Nate had to focus on putting his turn signal on and slowing down. He pulled in and found a parking space. The awkward tension in the cab of his truck sucked all the oxygen out of the air and made each breath he tried to take feel too thin. He put the truck in park and sighed.

"I think I just need to talk it over with you more." He away from Bailey's carefully neutral expression, which was just about Nate's least favorite expression on his face. Laid out behind the building was the expanse of the golf course. A few people already milled about between the squat windmill and a big plastic dragon. He did not see Jared and Sarah anywhere yet, but "Maybe later, though."

"Yeah," Bailey bobbed his head, "later." But as Nate turned to get out of the truck, Bailey put a hand on his arm and stopped him. "I don't ever want to pressure you into doing something you don't want to do. You know that, right?"

Nate twisted in his seat to grab Bailey's hand and squeeze it. "I know. And...we're experimenting, right? So, I'm not always going to know if I don't like something until I try it. Besides, I'm not even sure exactly how I feel about the other night. That's why I want to talk with you again, now that I've thought a bit more about it."

"Okay," Bailey nodded, this time with a little more conviction, looking a bit less small and sad. Nate squeezed his hand one more time before letting it go and turning to hop out of the truck. Sarah's little red car turned into the parking lot as he closed his door. Nate thought it was hilarious that she was driving Jared all over the place because Jared's car sucked so much.

Nate retook Bailey's hand as they walked over to the building where they could get their gold balls and clubs and pay. Jared and Sarah tumbled out of the car and hurried across the parking lot toward them, arguing over a pair of sunglasses.

"Sarah forgot her sunglasses and is trying to steal mine," Jared complained as soon as they got within earshot.

"As the boyfriend, it is your responsibility to give up your coat if I'm cold and your sunglasses if I forget mine!" Sarah laughed, lunging for them again.

She was pretty short. Nate thought everyone was short simply because he was so tall, but she was particularly vertically challenged. She had to leap for the glasses and still couldn't reach, especially when Jared chuckled and held them well above his head.

"That's sexist!" Jared accused, a dismayed hand plastered to his chest. "What if I'm cold! Men can get cold! Who do you think shares the jacket in Nate and Bailey's relationship if one of them gets cold? Nobody, because they are both smart enough not to forget their sunglasses!"

Sarah made a strangled noise and turned to Nate and Bailey, gesturing to Jared like she was commiserating with them about what she had to deal with all the time. Nate just knocked his sunglasses off his head so that they fell onto the bridge of his nose. Bailey, who was already wearing his, lifted his eyebrows and smirked.

"Boys!" Sarah grumbled. "This is not fair. I'm totally outnumbered. Fuck you for dating a guy, Bailey. Now I don't have a sister to take my side."

"You could have stuck with chicks instead of dating him," Bailey pointed out. He smiled, but it was a bit more reserved than usual. Maybe some part of him was still stuck back in the truck in the conversation he'd been having with Nate.

Sarah crossed her arms and pouted at him.

"Here," Jared shoved the sunglasses on her head, nestling them into her curly hair. "I suppose my love for you will have to shade my eyes from the sun. After all, you do outshine that boring old star."

Nate's brain hiccupped, trying to make sense of that, but Sarah's pout morphed into a smile that he had to admit rivaled the sun's brightness. Beside him, Bailey made a gagging noise and grabbed his arm to drag him inside. They each got their clubs, ball, and little notepad for tracking the scores, then wandered out to the first hole.

"Alright," Bailey announced, holding up his notepad and shaking it a few times. "Now, the real score is going to be how many golf innuendos each person can make."

"I think my shaft is too short," Sarah mused, knocking her club against the toe of her sneaker. She grinned at Bailey like they were sharing an inside joke. He rolled his eyes but twirled his pencil toward his notepad and made a mark. Nate had the sudden feeling that this was a game they had played before, and that he and Jared would be at a disadvantage.

"Aw, babe," Jared crooned, "It's not about the length, but how you use it."

He pretended to tee up and take a shot.

Nate decided it would be a miracle if he managed to get through this even without whacking someone with his club. Bailey pursed his lips at Jared to stop himself from grinning, then shrugged and made another mark on his notepad. Seeing him lose some of the tension that had followed him out of the truck was a relief. It was probably good for them to get out with other people to give them a little bit of space away from their play with power dynamics.

Although going on double-dates was a couple-like thing to do. Nate bit his lip and took a deep breath to calm the sudden uptick in his heartbeat. Tonight. After this date, and dinner at the burger joint next to the mini golf place, he and Bailey would go back to his dad's trailer, and they'd talk about it.