Chapter 2
Coffee.
I wake to the smell of it, rich and dark, cutting through the last fog of sleep. For a second I’m fifteen again, and the biggest thing I have to worry about is a history test I didn’t study for.
Then I see the other bed, already made. Dominic’s shoes are gone.
I lie there a minute. The posters are faded in daylight, corners curling. My body’s heavy, slow from the drive and a restless night I don’t remember dreaming through.
Downstairs, Dominic’s at the stove, shirtless, gray sweatpants slung low, scrambling eggs in a pan I didn’t know my parents still owned. His back is tanned, muscle shifting as he moves. I stop in the doorway. My mouth goes dry.
He glances back. Grins. “Morning, sleepyhead.”
“Morning.” My voice comes out rough. I aim for the coffee maker instead of him.
He moves through the kitchen like he belongs here, because he sort of does. He used to crash on weekends, sleeping bag on the floor, too far to walk home after midnight. My mom made him pancakes. He did the dishes.
He slides a plate across the counter. “Eat.”
I eat. Buttery, the way I like them. I don’t ask how he remembered.
We shower in shifts. The bathroom’s still steamy when it’s my turn, mirror fogged.
I stand under the water longer than I need to, working the knots out of my shoulders.
Something under my skin won’t settle. The water is hot enough to sting.
I let it beat against my back and try to think about anything other than the image of him at the stove.
Shirtless, sweatpants slung low, the way his shoulders moved when he reached for the pan.
I look down. My cock is half-hard.
I press my palm against the tile and force myself to breathe. It’s just proximity. It’s just eight months of not seeing him. It doesn’t mean anything.
It doesn’t.
Dominic’s on the floor between the beds when I come out, a cardboard box open in front of him. Yearbooks. Loose photos. Notes bound with a rubber band.
“Found these in your closet,” he says, not looking up. “Memory lane.”
I sit across from him. The carpet’s thin, our knees brushing when I fold my legs. Neither of us moves away.
The next hour dissolves into shared history.
His shoulder against mine over a photo album.
A prom picture: bad tuxedos, arms around each other, grinning like idiots.
I remember that night. The way his hand felt on my waist, hot through cheap fabric.
The way I told myself it was nothing. Just two friends goofing off for a picture.
I’d been telling myself that lie for years. I just didn’t know it yet.
I don’t remember who took it.
“Look at us,” he says. “We thought we were so cool.”
“We were cool.”
“We were losers.”
“Losers who peaked in high school.”
He laughs again, and I feel it in my chest, warm and bright.
Then he picks up a folded note, worn at the creases. My handwriting. Eleventh grade, passed in chemistry class, forgotten until this exact second.
He reads it out loud. “You’re the only person who gets me.”
The words sit in the quiet. The air feels thicker.
“I meant it,” I say. The admission is out before I can stop it.
He looks at me. Something softens, the playful edge gone. His hand lands on my shoulder, warm, solid, his thumb brushing the side of my neck.
The touch lingers.
Heat pools low in my stomach. My cock stirs against my thigh, a slow insistent throb that burns my face. I jerk to my feet, mutter something about water, and grip the bathroom sink, staring at myself in the mirror.
What was that? Nothing. Nostalgia. Closeness. Eight months apart and now we’re here, surrounded by everything we used to be. It doesn’t mean anything. Bodies respond to weird things.
I splash cold water on my face. My pulse doesn’t settle.
The day blurs, wedding errands, suits, lunch at the diner we used to haunt. Dominic is easy and familiar. I am careful. I don’t let our fingers brush over the ketchup. I don’t sit too close in the booth. I keep my eyes on my food.
By night I’m exhausted from the effort.
We get ready for bed the same as last night. Elbows bump. I laugh it off. He grins in the mirror, toothpaste foam at the corner of his mouth.
“Night, Marcus.”
“Night.”
I pull the sheet to my chin. The orange glow finds the ceiling again. His breathing evens out.
I don’t sleep.
I’m still half-hard, an ache that won’t fade no matter how I shift. I don’t touch myself. That would make it real, and it’s not real. It’s proximity. Old memories. Whatever strange alchemy comes from being back in this house, this room, with him.
I can hear every breath he takes. Every rustle of sheets. The maple tree outside.
I stare at the ceiling and try to breathe.