41. Theo
FORTY-ONE
THEO
I rock back on my heels, excited hands twitching around the bouquet of flowers in my hands as I wait for Matteo to open the door. I know he never locks it, but proper date etiquette says you knock to pick up your partner. While I wait, I bring the flowers up to my nose, wondering if he’ll like the ones I picked out. I don’t know much about flowers, but these caught my attention on the walk over. I thought it might be fitting for our first official date.
I furrow my brows, knocking again when he doesn’t answer. It’s not like we’re running late for the movie, but we do have to drive a town over. I wait for a beat and when he still doesn’t answer after the third knock, I let myself in.
It’s dark when I enter the room. The only light is being cast by the setting sun lighting up the mosaic windows. For a split second, I’m hit with a pang of deja vu. I rush through the living room into the bedroom, half expecting Matteo to be lying on the bed drunk. What I find instead is him standing facing the windows, hands tucked into his pockets as he stares out at the Wyoming landscape.
“Hey,” I begin, holding the flowers close to my chest. When he turns, I let out a small gasp, smiling brightly. “You look so handsome, baby. Do you have everything you need for the movie?”
“I’m not going to the movies,” he says softly, eyes not meeting mine when I step to him.
“Oh,” I say as I kiss his cheek, frowning when he doesn’t kiss me back, and growing disappointed at the change of plans. “I mean, we can just stay here too. That’s fine. I brought you some flowers.”
“They’re beautiful,” he whispers, taking them from my hands. He sets them down on the dresser, moving toward the bed. “We need to talk.”
“About what?” I ask, wondering why he seems so detached. “Is everything okay?”
He sits on the bed, hands braced on his thighs. He lets out a deep breath, amber eyes filled with nothing but sadness flicking up to meet mine. “No, Theo. It’s not.”
My steps falter as I join him on the bed, placing a hand on his arm that he quickly shrugs away. “What’s wrong? Have you been drinking again?”
I swear I hear a mumbled ‘ I wish ’ under his breath. “It would make this easier.”
“Make what easier?”
“Theo, we can’t see each other anymore.”
“I…” No. I couldn’t have heard him right. I had a long day at work and my ears are playing tricks on me. “What?”
He drops his head, rocking forward as he clenches and unclenches his fists. “We’re over.”
My heart rate kicks up, blood pounding in my ears as I take in his words. I laugh breathlessly, shaking my head. “You’re kidding. Please, tell me you’re kidding. It’s not funny.”
“And I’m not laughing,” he says, solid and unwavering, with nothing but conviction in his voice as he finally looks at me. “What’s happening between us is done.”
What’s happening between us? Does he mean us being in love?
I suck in a sharp breath. No. No, no, no . Last night we were fine. He confessed things to me that have brought me infinitely closer to him. There’s no way we’re over. Not when we’ve finally told each other how we feel. Then it hits me.
“Is it because of what I said last night?” I ask, desperately trying to make this right, to get rid of this nightmare that I’ve been sucked into. “I… I’ll leave her, Matteo. I’ll do that for you.”
He shakes his head, and I now notice the tears welling in his eyes. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
“This doesn’t have to be anything,” I plead, now frantic to turn back the clock to last night when he first told me he loved me, to how heavenly and serene I felt, like nothing could touch me. “Why are you doing this?”
“Did you ever stop to think of the people we’re hurting?” he questions, looking at me, jaw clenched tight. “Did you ever think of the lives we’re ruining just to be together? Forget Clara for a second, but what about her parents?”
He’s right. A part of me hates it, but he is. Bill and Noreen would be devastated if they found out—crushed. They think of me as their son, as a part of their family, and I’d be destroying every semblance of trust they’ve given me.
They would outcast me, of course. They’d choose their wonderful daughter over her cheating husband. If the neighbors found out, they’d turn against me too. The sense of community I cling to, that I love so much, would just disappear.
But I’d have Matteo, and that’s enough, right?
Still, I resist. “We?—”
“What? We can cross that bridge when we get there?” He snorts, but it’s not filled with malice, just simple resignation. “We’re here, Theo. We have been for a while. We’ve just been fooling ourselves into thinking we weren’t.”
I can’t deny anything he’s saying. “But I love you.”
This makes him crack. He lets out a choked groan, turning swiftly to capture my face in his hands. “And I love you, mi precioso . But love doesn’t always equal right. We’re not right for each other.”
“We’re perfect for each other,” I argue, but it’s half-hearted and cut off when I see the way his face crumbles. I claw at his wrists, trying to pull him closer. “We…”
“I know it hurts,” he breathes, pressing his forehead against mine. “But can you tell me I’m wrong? Can you tell me that life wouldn’t be better if you could work things out with your wife? Don’t you want to at least try?”
I thought I had been trying, but the way he says it makes me think maybe I haven’t been. What have I really done to salvage our relationship? Instead of working through our problems, I ran into the arms of someone else. Someone who understood me, who made me feel special, who validated me in a way Clara never did.
But that doesn’t mean she couldn’t. That doesn’t mean our future is over.
It also doesn’t mean I have to blow up my life and everything I’ve known without giving it a fair shot.
“I don’t want to leave you,” I cry, brushing my lips against his. “Please…”
Please tell me you’re kidding. Please tell me it’s okay to hurt people. Please tell me it’s okay to love you.
He pulls back, pushing a strand of my hair off my forehead, pressing a sweet kiss that lights up my skin. “You’re exquisite, Theo. The very best of people. You and Clara have a happy future ahead of you.”
“A future without you.” I lean forward, brushing my nose against his, inhaling the scent of him that’s always reminded me of home. “Baby…”
“Just—” He gulps, fingers trailing down my chest, a trembling hand settling on my belt. “No.”
I nod, knowing what we both need right now, knowing that the dying ember of our love can’t be put out with a bag of salt. If we’re going to go out, we’ll go out together. “One more time.”
“One last time,” he corrects but sinks against me when my lips climb up his neck. “Theo, yes .”
“Need to taste you, baby,” I whisper, gently playing with his zipper. “Can I?”
He starts to slowly move me off the bed, helping me slide down to my knees as he spreads his legs apart. “Show me how badly you need it.”
I do. I hastily unzip the jeans I bought him that I love so much. I fish him out of his boxers, giving him soft deliberate strokes that make his head fall back, before taking him into my mouth. With an unmatched desperation, I start to lick up and down his length just the way he likes. He pumps his hips up, hungry groans leaving him, fucking my mouth like it’s the last time.
Because it is.
“Get inside of me, precioso ,” he demands, ripping me off his cock as he stands, working down his pants and briefs. “Get the lube.”
I rush to comply, fumbling with my clothes as I grab the lube from the dresser. By the time I turn back to him, he’s completely naked, bent over the edge of the bed, hands spreading himself open so I can get a nice look at his perfect little hole.
“You’re so…” But I can’t find the words as I slick up my fingers and play with him, rubbing around his rim until he’s pushing back at my hand and two fingers slip in. “Damn. That tight hole’s hungry for my cock, isn’t it?”
He cranes his neck to look at me, eyes hard with lust as he slaps his own ass. “Enough. Fuck me.”
Seeing that hot bubble butt turn bright pink makes me lose it. I barely remember to slick up my cock before I’m pressing it against him and plunging in. We both let out simultaneous groans, Matteo tightening under me, my body coiled tight with pleasure.
I start with small thrusts, just enough to inch him higher up the bed, but shallow enough that I don’t reach the magical spot inside him. He doesn’t seem to mind, however, because he moans and reaches one hand back to wrap around my wrist. “Yes, so good. You fuck me so well. Just like that, precioso .”
I eat up his praise. He knows how it lights me up and wraps me in a warm cocoon of affection that I feed off. After a few more gentle thrusts, I decide I want this to be different. This is our last time, and our last time shouldn’t be with him facing away from me. I want to see every wrinkle in his expression, every ounce of love he holds for me, just so I can engrain it in my memory.
I pull out, hands rubbing his ass. “Flip over, baby. Wanna look at that beautiful face.”
His breath hitches but he turns. I crawl on top of him, forcing him to go higher up the bed until he’s by the headboard. I sit in front of him, grabbing his legs to bring him to me. “Come sit on my cock.”
He scrambles onto my lap. I help him guide his legs around my waist, and I press his face to the crook of my neck with my hand on the back of his. When he slides down on my cock, I shudder, kissing his temple as my hands migrate down to his ass. “Matteo. I want you to know how much I love you. I need you to know that you changed me, baby. I think…” I cut myself off when I feel tears in my eyes.
“What?” he questions, slowly starting to rock on my dick. “Tell me.”
I hiss when he clenches around me, teasing me with that hot hole. “I think I’ll always love you, Matteo. No matter what.”
He pulls back, cradling my face in his hands, a bittersweet smile on his lips. “There will never be anybody else for me.”
I don’t respond because I can’t. He starts bouncing on my cock, using my shoulders as leverage, and I lose my mind. I become lost in the smell of him, his rough stubble against my cheek, the brush of hair on his chest against mine. I help him move, guiding his ass to grind against me before my hands wrap around his back and hug him to me.
Our heavy breathing is all I hear. We don’t need dirty words right now, we don’t need the filth, we need…
What we need doesn’t matter anymore. It’s just what it is .
When I think about all I’m giving up with him, everything I’m going to miss, the moments we won’t have, I start to tear up again. Jesus, I don’t think I’ve ever cried this much in my entire life. But I’m not the only one. I can feel the tremble of Matteo’s stuttering chest against mine and the wetness coating my shoulder.
“It’s okay,” I whisper through a cracked voice. “Shh, it’s okay.”
He shakes his head. “I’m going to miss you.”
The vulnerability in his voice, the absolute despair, it makes me sob. I hug him closer, thrusting up into him, feeling the drag of his walls against my sensitive cock. I’m so overcome with emotion that I start saying the things of my deepest desires, the ones I know I should keep to myself, the ones that will only make this so much harder.
I push him onto his back, bringing his legs up on my shoulders, and with every snap of my hips, I beg.
“Don’t make me leave you.”
Thrust.
“Ask me to stay, baby.”
Thrust.
“Make me choose you.”
He reaches for me with blind fingers, silencing me with his lips. It’s a messy tangle of tongues and spit, passion in its most finite, and it makes me pump into him even faster.
“I love you, I love you, I love you,” I chant, pressing my forehead against his thigh “Fuck, baby, so much. Tell me you love me too.”
“ Te amo ,” he mumbles, reaching for his cock, stroking himself quickly in time with my thrusts. “ Te amo, mi precioso. Mi amor. ”
I come on a sob, emptying myself inside him, marking him for the last time. I slap his hand away and take over jacking him, twisting at the head, playing with his foreskin until his cum coats his chest. I slump over him, breathing heavily, kissing and licking his skin.
“Theo…”
I know I can’t stay. I think we both know if I were to, this goodbye would extend to infinity.
But that’s what I want right now. I want this moment to never cease. I want to live in timeless oblivion with him, floating in our alternate world.
I kiss him one last time, lingering on his lips, and then I move to get dressed. I don’t look back as I do, but I think he understands. He doesn’t call out my name as I walk out of his room, with one last look at the pretty flowers I bought him. It takes everything in my body not to turn right back around and beg him to… I don’t know. Leave with me? Choose me? Disregard my wife and God?
I begin the walk home with my head hanging low, looking over my shoulder as I leave the church at the field where we took our first walk. I can almost see the ghosts of us laughing and smiling, sun-kissed and blissfully ignorant of the chaos we’d cause.
When I get home, Clara’s not in the living room. I go up the stairs and walk in to see her already in bed, face mask in place, fuzzy pajamas on as she scrolls through her laptop. She smiles when she sees me. “Hey, honey. Your plans with the guys fell through?”
Guys as in the coworkers I never talk to? “Yeah. Change of plans.”
“I’m sorry,” she says genuinely with a light shrug. “Maybe it’s for the best. It was getting late anyway, and you promised Mom you’d help her with the garden first thing tomorrow morning.”
I nod and begin to strip, wondering if she can smell the sex on my skin, and head to the shower. I welcome the scalding water, burning away the memories of tonight, hoping it’ll be enough to get me through the rest of my life.
I realize as silent tears spill that I found the love of my life.
Only both of us were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In the wrong life.
“Hey, Clara?” I ask when I enter the bedroom, a towel slung low on my hips as I walk toward the dresser.
“Yeah, honey?”
I take a deep breath, fisting my t-shirt, knowing my following words—no matter how painful—will be the start of the future I was always meant to have.
“Let’s talk about Cheyenne.”