Chapter 3
The bar hasn’t changed.
Same neon sign, same sticky floors, same bartender who remembers our order before we say it. Two beers, a shot each, fries to split. We used to come here after football games, crammed into a corner booth, pretending we were older than we were.
Just us now.
Half-empty on a Tuesday, regulars nursing drinks under a muted TV. Dominic slides into the booth across from me, his knee finding mine under the table. Neither of us moves. It’s been like that all day, low-grade contact I keep noticing and pretending not to.
“Good to see you boys back,” Hank says, setting down our drinks.
“Good to be back.” Dominic’s voice is warm, easy. He’s always been the one who could talk to anyone. My mom used to call him the golden boy. Everyone’s friend.
The beers go down fast. Then the shots. By the time the fries are gone and the ice has melted, the conversation’s drifted from the wedding to our jobs to the dangerous territory of the past.
“I never wanted to leave,” Dominic says.
His voice is thick, the whiskey slurring the edges. He’s not looking at me, tracing patterns in the condensation on the table.
“What do you mean?”
He looks up. Too bright. “I just didn’t know how to ask you to stay.”
The words land in my chest, square and hard. I’ve thought about it for years, leaving for college, never really coming back. Dominic staying, building a life here, marrying someone I barely knew, divorcing her, going on. The distance between us that never felt like distance, not really.
I don’t know how to answer. He’s looking at me with something raw in his eyes, something I’ve never seen before. Or maybe I’ve seen it a hundred times and just refused to name it. I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.
“You could’ve just asked. I’m easy.”
His laugh comes out wrong. Hollow. “No, you’re not. You’ve never been easy, Marcus. You just pretend to be.”
That lands harder than the whiskey. I open my mouth. Nothing comes.
We sit in the quiet until Hank calls last call.
I don’t remember paying the tab. I don’t remember walking to the door. I just remember the weight of his silence beside me, heavier than any words he could have said.
The parking lot is empty except for his truck. Streetlights buzz overhead. The air’s cooler now, a hint of autumn under it, but I don’t feel the cold. My skin’s too warm from the alcohol and something else entirely.
Dominic stops walking.
I turn.
The streetlight catches his face. His jaw is tight. His eyes are dark, fixed on me with an intensity that makes my stomach drop. I know what’s coming before he moves.
His hands are in his jacket pockets, face half in shadow, eyes fixed on me like I’m the only thing in the lot worth looking at.
“Marcus.”
My name, rough. A question wrapped in a warning.
Then he’s moving. Three strides. His hands come out of his pockets, fist in the front of my jacket, and he pushes me back against the truck. The metal’s cold through my shirt. I gasp, and his mouth is on mine.
We drive home in silence. The tension is unbearable, filling every inch of the cab. Inside, we undress without looking at each other, the same routine as every other night, except everything about it feels different now. Charged.
I climb into my bed. Dominic climbs into his. Three feet of dark carpet between us, and I can feel every inch of it like a weight.
He touches his mouth in the dark. He can still taste him. His jacket still smells like the parking lot, like whiskey and cold air and Dominic’s hands fisted in the fabric. He doesn’t need to name what this means. His body already has.