Chapter 23
Silas
The apartment is smaller than I expected. Not in a bad way. In the way that things are smaller when you actually stand inside them instead of imagining them. Four hundred square feet of freshly painted walls and new carpet and one window above the kitchen sink that lets in a bit of light.
Devin's been here for six hours. In that time, he has: arranged his books on the floor along the far wall because he doesn't have a shelf yet, set up his mattress (no frame, just the mattress on the floor with sheets Robin brought over still in the plastic wrap), plugged in his phone on the kitchen counter, and put three small herb pots on the windowsill above the sink.
Basil, thyme, rosemary. Jason's starter kit.
He's also made coffee. In a French press. His first kitchen purchase. Not a bed frame, not a table, not any of the things a normal person would buy first. A French press.
"You own a mattress and a French press," I say from the doorway.
"And herbs." He hands me a mug. A plain white mug from the thrift store, one of two. "And two mugs. And a kitchen scale."
"The kitchen scale before furniture."
"Jason said the scale was non-negotiable. He was very intense about it."
"Jason is very intense about everything."
"He sent me a list." Devin pulls out his phone. "Essentials, in order: kitchen scale, chef's knife, cutting board, one good pot. He underlined 'one good pot' three times."
"Do you have the good pot?"
"Robin bought it. A Le Creuset. It costs more than my rent."
"That sounds like Robin."
"He cried in the store. The cashier was concerned."
I sit on the mattress because there's nowhere else to sit. No couch, no chairs, no table. Just the mattress on the floor with the new sheets and two pillows and the books lined up along the wall and the herbs on the sill and the French press on the counter.
It's the most Devin room I've ever seen. Stripped down to what matters. Books, coffee, growing things, a place to sleep.
"Do you like it?" he asks. There's a nervousness there, faint, controlled, but present. He wants me to like his space. His first space. The four hundred square feet that belong to nobody else.
"I love it," I say. "It's you."
"It's empty."
"It's potential. It's a room that hasn't been filled yet." I lean back on my hands. "The books on the floor are a nice touch."
He sits next to me on the mattress. Cross-legged, his mug in both hands, his shoulder against mine. The window above the sink lets in the streetlight. Not the orange glow of my room above the bar. Something cooler. Bluer. New light for a new place.
"First night," he says.
"First night."
"I was going to do this alone. Prove I could.
Sleep here by myself, in my own apartment, and wake up and be okay.
" He takes a sip of coffee. "But then I thought, that's the old logic.
The foster-care logic. The one that says being alone is the only way to prove you're strong. And we're not doing that anymore."
"We're not?"
"We're not. We're doing the new thing. The one where I ask for what I want instead of managing around it." He looks at me. "I want you here tonight. Not because I need you. Because I want you."
"Then I'm here."
"Good." He sets his mug on the floor. "I have Netflix on my laptop and approximately zero furniture to watch it on."
"We have a mattress."
"On the floor."
"The floor is underrated."
He pulls his laptop from the counter and sets it at the foot of the mattress, propped against the stack of books that are serving as a stand. We lie on our stomachs side by side, shoulders touching, the laptop screen glowing in the otherwise dark apartment.
"What are we watching?" I ask.
"I don't know. I've never had my own Netflix account. Tyler let me use his at the shelter but I always watched on my phone with earbuds."
"First Netflix on a real screen in your own apartment."
"First everything in my own apartment." He scrolls. "What do you watch?"
"Documentaries. Nature ones mostly."
"Of course you do. You're a lion shifter who watches nature documentaries."
"They're informative."
"They're about animals. You ARE an animal."
"Partially."
"Do you watch the lion ones?"
"Sometimes."
"Is it weird? Watching lions on TV when you can be one?"
"It's like watching home movies. Mildly nostalgic."
He laughs and picks something, a documentary about deep-sea creatures, which seems like a compromise nobody asked for but works.
We watch bioluminescent jellyfish pulse in the dark and I'm aware of every point of contact between us: shoulders, forearms, hips, ankles.
The mattress is firm, new, cheaper than good, and the floor underneath is solid and the apartment is warm because Devin turned the heat on the moment he walked in, because he's spent too many cold nights not to.
Fifteen minutes in, he's not watching the screen.
He's watching me.
"Hi," I say without looking away from a very interesting anglerfish.
"Hi."
"You're staring."
"I'm admiring." His hand finds the hem of my shirt, fingers slipping underneath to touch skin. "You're in my apartment."
"I am."
"On my mattress."
"Also true."
"I have a door that locks from the inside and you're on the other side of it. With me."
I turn to look at him. The laptop light catches his face, the bruise almost gone now, just a shadow of yellow at the cheekbone.
His eyes dark and warm and looking at me with something I haven't seen before.
Not the heat of the wall or the desperate need of the first time or the vulnerable openness of the second time in my bed. Something new. Settled. Proprietary.
This is his space. His mattress. His decision. He's not a guest or a boyfriend-who-stays-over or a person being sheltered. He's a man in his own apartment with a locked door and he's choosing to have me here.
"Come here," he says.
"I'm right here."
"Closer."
I roll onto my side. He mirrors me. Face to face on the mattress on the floor of his first apartment, the laptop forgotten, the jellyfish pulsing unwatched.
He kisses me first. Slow, deliberate, his hand sliding from my hem to my waist to my back, pulling me against him with a confidence that's new. Not performing confidence. Real. The quiet authority of a person who knows what they want and has a locked door and a lease with their name on it.
"I want to try something," he says against my mouth.
"Anything."
"I want to be on top."
My breath catches. Not from surprise. From the image. From Devin, who three weeks ago had never been touched, looking at me in the blue-white light of his own apartment and asking for this.
"Yeah," I say. "Yes."
He pushes me onto my back and straddles my hips and the view from here, Devin above me, streetlight behind him, his face half-lit and certain, is something I want to remember for the rest of my life.
He undresses me first. Careful but not tentative. Shirt over my head, his hands mapping my chest like he's memorizing the topography. His mouth follows his hands. Collarbone, sternum, the place below my ribs that makes me twitch.
"Sensitive," he murmurs. Does it again. I twitch again. "Very sensitive."
"Dev —"
"I'm exploring. You explored me. Both times. Let me —" His mouth moves lower. "Let me learn you."
I let him learn me. His hands and mouth moving with the focused attention he gives everything.
Books, espresso, arguments about fictional wizards.
He catalogues my responses the way he catalogues everything: methodically, thoroughly, with the quiet satisfaction of someone who likes understanding how things work.
When his mouth reaches my hip, I make a sound that's embarrassingly close to a growl. My lion, surfacing, wanting. Devin looks up and grins.
"There's the lion."
"Sorry —"
"Don't apologize. I like the lion." His fingers trace my hip bone. "The lion is the one who noticed me first. In the library. Before you even knew why."
"He noticed you."
"What did he say?"
"This one."
"And now?"
"Now he says a lot of things I probably shouldn't repeat."
"Tell me one."
"Ours."
The word settles between us. Devin's hands still on my skin. The apartment quiet around us. No pride downstairs, no Jason in the kitchen, no Knox in the next room. Just us. His space. His rules.
"Yours," he confirms. Then he pulls his own shirt off and the rest of his clothes and he's above me, bare in the streetlight, and I stop breathing.
He's beautiful. Not in the way magazines mean it.
In the way that particular people are beautiful to the particular people who love them.
Narrow shoulders. The ribs still slightly too visible, though Jason's cooking is helping.
The scar on his collarbone from something he hasn't told me about yet.
The line of dark hair below his navel. All of him, unedited, in his own apartment, choosing to be seen.
He prepares himself. Reaches for the supplies I brought, because I am nothing if not practical, and does it himself, watching my face while he opens himself up. The sounds he makes are deliberate, unfiltered. The no-editing policy applied to sex.
"You're going to kill me," I manage.
He smiles. "Ready?"
"Dev, I've been ready since you said 'come here.'"
He sinks down onto me. Slow. Controlling the pace, the depth, the angle. His hands on my chest for balance, his thighs tight against my hips. The sound he makes when he's fully seated, low, shuddering, a sound of arrival, echoes in the empty apartment.
"Oh," he breathes. "That's — from this angle —"
"Yeah?"
"I can feel everything. Every — god, Silas." He rolls his hips experimentally. We both groan. "How does that feel from there?"
"Like I'm going to last approximately thirty seconds if you keep moving like that."