Chapter 17
The Shape of Us
The Emporia motel room was clean in an anonymous, trying-its-best way: beige walls, thin carpet, a small table with two chairs pushed too close together. The AC hummed softly, steady and cooling.
Colin shut the door behind them and stood there for a second longer than necessary, his hand still on the knob.
Joshua didn’t comment. He tossed his bag aside, kicked off his shoes and socks, then sat on one of the two beds and bounced.
Colin was still standing in front of the door, both arms drooping at his sides.
“Come sit,” Joshua urged gently, patting the edge of the bed.
Colin obeyed without comment, pausing beside the bed to remove his shoes and socks, then sitting on its edge.
Joshua knelt behind him and tugged lightly at the hem of Colin’s shirt. “Arms up.”
Colin lifted them, letting the fabric slide over his head. Cool air brushed his skin, raising a faint shiver along his shoulders. Joshua tossed the shirt aside and inched closer, warm hands settling at the base of Colin’s neck.
He rested his palms there, letting Colin’s body register the contact, and only when his shoulders dropped slightly did Joshua’s his hands begin to move.
First, in slow circles. Thumbs pressing gently along the muscles of his spine.
Colin exhaled, long and quiet, like he’d been holding that breath since the school parking lot.
Joshua’s fingers worked their way outward, along Colin’s shoulders, then back in again, steady and familiar.
When Colin leaned forward slightly, Joshua’s hands followed, adjusting without breaking contact.
After a few minutes, Joshua slid his fingers up into Colin’s hair, massaging his scalp in small, light, delicate motions.
Colin made a sound he didn’t quite recognize—not words, not quite a sigh—and let his head tip back just enough to give Joshua better access.
“Too much?” Joshua asked softly.
“No,” Colin murmured. Then, after a beat: “Perfect.”
Joshua smiled, though Colin couldn’t see it.
He kept going, fingers threading through hair, thumbs easing the tension at the base of Colin’s skull.
Colin’s hands rested loosely in his lap now. Not clenched. Not ready.
Just there.
“Kids stayed,” Colin said quietly.
“They did,” Joshua breathed out in agreement. He paused just long enough to remove his own shirt.
Another long breath left Colin’s chest.
For a moment, he was back somewhere else.
Not a place exactly—more a sensation. Stillness. The remembered safety of being held when his body had finally given up. A hospital room years ago. Joshua’s hand on his arm through the night. The certainty that someone was watching the door so he didn’t have to.
His breath slowed further as the present reasserted itself.
Joshua’s hand moved in the same patient rhythm now, unhurried, familiar. Colin felt the echo of those earlier nights dissolve into this one—not sharp enough to hurt, not distant enough to lose. Just memory settling, being put gently back where it belonged.
Here. Now. Alive.
He shifted minutely, a reflexive adjustment, and Joshua responded instantly—not pulling away, not tightening—just accommodating, as if his body had been waiting for that exact movement.
Something unclenched in Colin’s chest.
Joshua felt it before he saw it—the moment Colin truly let go. The change wasn’t dramatic. It never was. Just a softening, a subtle redistribution of weight—like a structure finally trusting its own supports.
There it is, Joshua thought.
He stayed quiet, resisting the urge to say anything that might pull Colin back up into himself. He knew better than that. This was a moment for presence.
Joshua traced slow, steady paths across Colin’s back, not thinking in terms of muscle or tension anymore—just contact. Proof. A language built over years of learning exactly how close he could be without overwhelming, exactly how firm without asking.
Colin had given so much of himself in the past few days—listening, steadying, holding space for kids who needed to see that survival was possible. Joshua knew what that presence cost him. He always did.
Joshua adjusted his position slightly, letting his body communicate: I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. You’re safe to rest.
Colin exhaled—long, slow, complete.
Joshua smiled to himself, quiet and fierce all at once, and kept his hands exactly where they were.
This was love. The kind that stayed.
He bent and pressed a brief kiss to the crown of his head, then straightened again, hands never leaving him.
“Lay down,” he murmured.
Colin sprawled, face down on the bed.
Joshua unbuckled Colin’s belt and eased his jeans and briefs over his hips, tossing them to the floor, then removed his own before straddling Colin’s body, settling on top of him, one hand still tracing slow, delicate patterns up and down Colin’s spine.
Joshua adjusted his weight carefully, mindful of every place Colin still carried strain. His knees framed Colin’s hips, solid and warm, an anchoring presence. One palm flattened between Colin’s shoulder blades, steady there, as if to say I’ve got you. You can stop holding yourself together now.
Colin’s breath hitched once —reflexive—then evened out again as Joshua’s hand began to move, slow and sure. Not searching. Not fixing. Just following the lines of muscle, the places that held the day too tightly.
“You don’t have to be on high alert,” Joshua said quietly, more reminder than instruction. “Because I am.”
Colin’s face turned slightly into the pillow. His eyes closed.
That was the answer.
Joshua leaned down again, his chest warm against Colin’s back, his breath brushing the nape of his neck. He stayed there, heart against spine, letting Colin feel the simple truth of Joshua’s body close to his own. Warm. Heavy. His.
The room was quiet except for their breathing—Joshua’s deep and slow, Colin’s gradually matching it.
Colin’s shoulders softened. His hands slid farther open against the sheets.
“I didn’t realize how stressed I was,” he said finally, voice rough but unguarded.
Joshua’s thumb traced a small, absent-minded arc near Colin’s shoulder. “I could see it,” he said. “You’ve been carrying it since Wise.”
A faint huff of a laugh escaped Colin. Then nothing. Just the weight of him yielding—not collapsing, not disappearing—trusting.
That, too, was their language.
Nothing else needed to be said.
Outside, a car passed on the road, tires whispering over wet pavement. Inside, Colin’s breathing evened out, his body finally remembering that it was safe to rest.
Then Colin stirred and turned on the bed, easing Joshua into his arms and nestling him close. “Need this,” he whispered.
“Me too.”
“Just to hold you. That’s all. Just…,” his voice trailed off, his lips pressed to Joshua’s throat.
“I know.”
For a long while, neither of them moved. Colin’s arms were firm but gentle around him, holding Joshua close in the way he did when he needed reassurance more than response. Joshua let himself settle fully into his arms—his weight, his breath, the simple fact of his body being here—solid and real.
He hadn’t known how much he’d missed this.
Not sex. Not even closeness in the abstract. This specific shape. Colin’s chest under his cheek. The way his arm curved protectively at Joshua’s back, as if his body still remembered the job even when his mind was tired of carrying it.
Joshua closed his eyes.
For a moment, memory slipped in uninvited.
Colin in Ireland.
The bed at home, too wide on Colin’s side.
The way Joshua had slept diagonally without meaning to, chasing warmth that wasn’t there.
The habit of turning in the night to check—always checking—only to remember, again, that Colin was walking miles of road with only the sound of his own footsteps and the past for company.
Joshua had told himself he was fine. He’d meant it, mostly. He believed in the journey. He believed in Colin.
But belief didn’t stop the nights from being long.
Didn’t stop the quiet fear that sometimes crept in around three a.m., unshaped but persistent: What if he comes back different? Or. What if he doesn’t come back?
Or worse—what if he comes back whole, and I don’t fit anymore?
Joshua exhaled slowly and pressed his forehead more firmly into Colin’s shoulder, grounding himself in the present. In the solid truth of arms around him. In breath that rose and fell beneath his ear.
Colin shifted slightly, his hold tightening just enough to be intentional.
“You OK?” he murmured, voice low, roughened by both relaxation and emotion.
“Yes, my love,” Joshua said softly. “I’m OK. Just–just thinking about you in Ireland and me… here.”
Colin’s hand moved at his back—just once, a slow pass from shoulder to waist, then still again. The gesture wasn’t restless. It was anchoring. As if he needed to reassure himself as much as Joshua did.
“I hated sleeping without you,” Colin said after a moment. Not dramatic. Just honest.
Joshua felt the words more than he heard them.
“The road was loud,” Colin went on quietly.
“Even when it was quiet. Too much time to think. Too much space.” His fingers curled lightly against Joshua’s skin.
“I kept thinking—I don’t know—if I should come back.
If we’d find our way back to each other.
All kinds of things. And some of them weren’t good. ”
Joshua didn’t interrupt. This was one of those truths that needed room.
“I knew you were waiting,” Colin said. “I held onto that. But there were nights…” He swallowed. “Nights where I wasn’t sure if what I was doing was healing me—or pulling me farther away.”
Joshua’s throat tightened, but he kept his voice steady. “I wondered too.”
Colin’s breath hitched slightly at that—surprise, not pain.
“I trusted you,” Joshua said. “I still do. But I didn’t know if loving you meant letting you go for good, or just…
letting you walk until you found your way back.
” His hand slid up between them, palm resting over Colin’s heart.
“I didn’t know which one it was going to be.
” He drew in a breath that shuddered in his chest. “And I was scared.”
Colin turned his face enough to press his mouth briefly to Joshua’s hair. Not a kiss that asked for anything. Just contact. Gratitude. Relief.
“But, we found our way back, mo chroí,” Colin murmured. “Back to each other.”
Joshua nodded, even though Colin couldn’t see it. “And maybe it’s possible that we never really left.”
They stayed like that, the weight of what had almost been settling gently into the present.
Joshua shifted, easing his leg more securely over Colin’s thigh, fitting himself closer. Their bodies aligned easily, shaped by years of shared space.
This was intimacy to them.
Not urgency. Not performance.
But memory held without fear.
Touch that didn’t ask for more than it needed.
The warm, comforting press of smooth skin against smooth skin.
Colin’s breathing slowed further, deep and even now, his body finally conceding that it didn’t need to stay alert. His hand slid once more along Joshua’s back, then stilled, resting warm and certain at his waist.
Joshua felt it—the moment Colin let himself rest with him, not just beside him. The moment when he found complete peace in Joshua’s arms.
He smiled faintly into the quiet.
Outside, the world kept moving. Cars passed. Somewhere, a door slammed. Life continued without noticing them at all.
Joshua pressed a final, gentle kiss to Colin’s throat and settled in, holding him the way he always had—like a promise that didn’t need to be repeated to remain true.
They had survived distance. Silence. Fear.
They were here now.
And that was enough.