FIFTEEN
Kieran woke to warmth and weight and the vague sense that his body had been borrowed overnight by someone who knew what they were doing.
His eyes opened slowly, adjusting to the soft gray light filtering through the curtains. Morning. Early, based on how quiet everything was. The kind of quiet before the world decided whether to commit to the day.
He became aware of three things simultaneously.
One…he was naked.
Two…Rory was pressed against his back, one arm slung heavy across his waist, warm breath steady against his shoulder.
Three…Rory had an undeniable erection nudging insistently against the curve of his ass.
Kieran’s brain caught up.
Oh.
He was frozen in that particular brand of panic that came from not knowing the protocol. Was this normal? Was he supposed to acknowledge it? Ignore it? Pretend he was still asleep and let Rory deal with the situation himself?
Then Rory shifted, hips pressing forward with enough intention that it was obviously not accidental.
“You awake?” Rory’s voice came low and rough, sleep-thick and unapologetic.
Kieran swallowed. “Yeah.”
“Good,” Rory murmured, and his hand slid lower, fingers splaying across Kieran’s stomach. Not grabbing. Not demanding. Just there, holding him in place with casual possession.
Kieran’s body responded before his brain caught up, heat pooling low and immediate, his own cock filling with interest.
“Rory…” he started.
“I’ve been awake for like twenty minutes,” Rory said, mouth brushing the back of Kieran’s neck. “Lying here. Trying to be respectful.”
“How’s that going?”
Rory’s hips rolled forward again, impatient this time, and Kieran felt the hard length of him slide against his ass in a way that made his breath hitch.
“Not great,” Rory admitted, voice edged with amusement and want.
Kieran laughed, surprised by how normal this was. “What do you need?”
“You,” Rory said simply. “If you’re up for it.”
Kieran turned his head enough to catch Rory’s eyes, dark, intent, but waiting. Always waiting for permission.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he twisted in Rory’s grip, pressing a brief kiss to the corner of his mouth before sliding down, taking the sheets with him.
“Kieran.” Rory’s voice caught, surprised.
“Shh.” Kieran’s breath was warm against Rory’s stomach, his hands finding the sharp cut of his hips. “Let me.”
Rory’s muscles tensed beneath his palms, the quick intake of breath as Kieran settled between his thighs. He took a moment to look, Rory hard and flushed and wanting, all that careful restraint finally cracking.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know,” Kieran said. And then his mouth was on him, and Rory stopped talking.
The sound Rory made, a low grunt, went straight to Kieran’s core. He took his time, learning the weight and taste of him, one hand pressed flat against Rory’s stomach to feel every shudder and twitch.
When they were both spent and sticky and the sheets definitely needed changing, Rory flopped onto his back with a satisfied groan.
“I’m not moving,” he said. “Possibly ever.”
Kieran turned his head, smiling before he could stop himself. “We did go twice.”
“Overachievers.” Rory’s hand found Kieran’s, fingers gripping together loosely. “No regrets.”
They lay in a comfortable silence, the morning creeping in around them. Kieran could hear birds outside. The distant sound of a lawnmower running. Life continuing, oblivious to their indiscretions.
Eventually, Rory sat up, running a hand through his hair. “I should shower. You have coffee?”
“Yeah,” Kieran said. “That sounds good.”
Rory stood, relaxed in his nakedness, and Kieran watched him move toward the bathroom, unhurried, already treating this as routine.
The door closed. Water started running.
Kieran lay there alone, trying to force his thoughts into order.
They’d slept together. Twice, technically. Three times for him if he counted the one he hadn’t planned.
By the time Rory emerged from the shower, towel slung low around his hips, Kieran had pulled on his boxers and was sitting on the edge of the bed, hands braced on his knees.
Rory paused, reading the room suddenly. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Kieran said. “Just...thinking.”
Rory grabbed a shirt from the floor—Kieran’s—and pulled it on without asking. It fit him differently, tighter across the shoulders, loose around the waist. He sat down beside Kieran, close but not crowding.
“Thinking good or thinking bad?” Rory asked.
Kieran exhaled. “Thinking we should probably talk.”
“Okay,” Rory said. “Let’s talk.”
They ended up in the kitchen. Coffee brewing, morning light slanting through the windows, the dogs circling their feet with hopeful energy.
Kieran leaned against the counter, mug warming his hands. Rory sat at the small table, one leg folded under him, looking annoyingly composed for someone who’d just had morning sex and borrowed his neighbor’s T-shirt.
“So,” Kieran started, then stopped.
Rory waited, patient.
“I don’t know how to do this,” Kieran admitted. “The...morning-after conversation.”
“We could skip it,” Rory offered. “Pretend everything’s normal.”
“Is this normal?”
Rory smiled faintly. “I don’t know. Is it?”
Kieran set his mug down, rubbing the back of his neck. “Are you...out? Like, publicly?”
Rory’s expression didn’t change, but his posture shifted, subtle, almost imperceptible. “Define publicly.”
“I mean do people know you sleep with men?”
Rory raised an eyebrow. “Do people know who you sleep with?”
Kieran’s jaw dropped. Then closed.
“Seems like a strange thing to broadcast,” Rory said. “I don’t really want to know who my friends are fucking. Do you?”
“Fair…point.”
“I sleep with people I’m attracted to,” Rory continued. “Sometimes they’re men. Sometimes they’re not. I don’t make announcements, but I don’t make apologies either.”
Kieran nodded slowly. “But not everyone knows.”
“No,” Rory said. “Not everyone. The people who matter do.”
“What does that mean?”
Rory leaned back in his chair, considering. “It means I won’t lie if someone asks, but no one does. I also don’t volunteer the information unless it’s relevant.”
“So you’re...what? Selectively out?”
“I guess,” Rory said, shrugging. “I don’t think about it in those terms. I just live my life. If people figure it out, cool. If they don’t, also cool.”
Kieran absorbed that, turning it over in his mind. It made sense, in a way. Rory wasn’t closeted—not in the traditional sense. But he also wasn’t waving a flag.
“And what about me?” Kieran asked.
Rory’s gaze sharpened. “What about you?”
“Where do I fit into your...selective disclosure policy?”
Rory stood, crossing the small space between them until he was close enough that Kieran could smell his shampoo.
“You,” Rory said, pressing his finger against Kieran’s chest, “are not a secret. If that’s what you’re asking.”
Kieran’s chest loosened. “Okay.”
“But I’m also not going to parade you around town like a trophy,” Rory continued. “I prefer medals anyway. And you sunburn too easily for a parade.”
“I’m not asking you to,” Kieran said quickly.
“Good.” Rory’s hand came up, thumb brushing along Kieran’s jaw. “Then we’re on the same page.”
Kieran leaned into the touch despite himself. “What page is that?”
“The one where we figure this out as we go,” Rory said. “Without overthinking it.”
“I’m excellent at overthinking.”
“I’ve noticed.” Rory kissed Kieran’s cheek.
They sat down at the table, coffee between them, and the conversation eased into safer territory.
“So,” Rory said. “Your turn. Where are you at with all this?”
Kieran wrapped his hands around his mug.
“I’m out. Have been for about two years.
” He shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t think it surprised anyone.
I spent my entire childhood watching reruns of I Love Lucy and I Dream of Jeannie.
My mom once caught me practicing Barbara Eden’s blink in the bathroom mirror. ”
Rory cracked his knuckles as he listened.
“So yeah. Not exactly a plot twist.” Kieran’s expression shifted, the lightness draining out of it slowly, like water finding the cracks. “But my mom never knew. Not officially.”
Rory didn’t push.
“She was sick for a long time,” Kieran said. “And I never found the right moment. And then she died. And the moment was gone.”
Rory nodded in silence. Not the kind of quiet that was waiting for more. The kind that was making room for what had already been said. “That’s heavy.”
“Yeah.” Kieran looked at his coffee. “It was.”
“You don’t have to tell me everything,” Rory said. “Not now. Not ever, if you don’t want to.”
Kieran nodded, throat tight, grateful in a way he couldn’t articulate.
Because everyone else…Emory, his therapist, the grief counselor he’d seen twice, had wanted the story.
The full story. The timeline and the details and the feelings organized into something narratable.
And Kieran had given it to them, over and over, until the telling itself had become a performance.
Rory wasn’t asking for the story. He was okay sitting with the fact of it.
“I don’t know if she would’ve been okay with it.
Me being gay. I think she would’ve loved me either way.
But okay is different from love, right? And I’ll never know which one I would’ve gotten.
” He swallowed. “Sometimes I think the reason I never told her is because I was afraid I’d be another disappointment on her bingo card.
Not a rejection. Just a quiet, permanent letdown she’d have to carry on top of everything else. ”
Rory set his mug down. He didn’t say anything. He stood, crossed the small kitchen, and pulled Kieran into him, solid and sure, one hand at the back of his head, the other pressed flat between his shoulder blades.
Kieran stiffened for half a second, instinct, surprise, the part of him that still flinched when someone got close to the raw places. Then he exhaled. Let his forehead drop against Rory’s shoulder. Let his hands find the back of Rory’s borrowed shirt, and held on.
A heavy stillness settled over the room, holding them in place until the coffee went cold. It lasted long enough that Hank finally wandered over and plopped on the floor, looking up with the patient confusion of a dog who didn’t understand what was happening but wanted to be included.
Rory didn’t say it was okay. Didn’t fill the silence with reassurance that might not be true.
He just stayed.
When they finally pulled apart, Rory’s hand lingered on Kieran’s back, thumb brushing the skin there, small and steady.
“For the record,” Rory said, no teasing in it. “I don’t think you’re a disappointment.”
Kieran looked away. “You barely know me.”
“You keep saying that.” Rory held his gaze. “Like you think knowing you is something people survive instead of something they get to do.”
Kieran didn’t have an answer for that.
The conversation drifted after that, lighter, easier. They talked about Rory’s job, about the dogs, about Aubrey and her ongoing campaign to collect every rock in Southern California.
Later, after Rory left, after he’d kissed Kieran goodbye at the door, Kieran stood alone in the kitchen, pressing two fingers to his mouth as if the kiss had left evidence.