Page 55 of He

Love. There was that word again. I busied myself at the bar. “Martini, right?” I asked.

“Yes, very dirty.”

“Is there any other kind?” I handed him his martini.

“To us?” he asked, lightly. We clinked glasses. I hadn’t been this nervous since the first time I’d visited Jackson in his bedroom in his parents’ absence.

The sun was setting, coloring the room a deeper rose then eventually flooding it with dense pink light. I’d lost track of how many drinks we’d had; the charcuterie tray on the table in front of us held just some crumbs, a handful of deep purple grapes, and the rind of a cheese wheel.

I was thinking I should get up and start dinner for us, when Rio suddenly asked, “Do you…do you stilllikeme?”

I hesitated. I’d already confessed too much since we’d reconnected months ago. “No…”

“No?” he repeated. He sounded surprised, disappointed, maybe a little hurt.

“No. No. I love you. I fuckingloveyou.”

He smiled. I went on in a rush. “I spent so many years convincing myself my feelings for you were just a silly schoolboy’s dream. I didn’t really know you, after all. Well, now I’ve gotten to know you, and you are exactly who I thought you were. Everything I imagined and loved about youactually exists.” I stopped abruptly, embarrassed by yet another unintended confession.

“You really were in love with me back then?”

“I was.Everyonewas in love with you,” I said. “You weren’t just on the basketball team, you were the star player! You were in the band. You played the lead in every school play starting with the seventh grade—”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said dismissively. “Everyone was in love with the star, the hottest guy in school, but now I’m sure you were the only one who lovedme.”

When I said nothing, he said, “I wish I’d known enough back then to love you back.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “As long as you love me now.”

“I do,” he said, reaching for his drink.

So, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when after we’d bade each other a drunken goodnight, he walked into my bedroom and asked, “May I join you?”

When I nodded, he slid in bed next to me and, lying on his back staring at the ceiling, his hands crossed on his chest, said, “I have a confession to make.”

I propped myself up on my elbow and looked at him.

“I’ve been trying to tamp down my feelings for you for months. My love for you, my attraction to you feels so foreign to me. Yet it exists, and I can’t deny it anymore. I went to Spain hoping to get some perspective. I thought putting distance between us would extinguish my feelings for you. It didn’t. If I’m honest, I was miserable the whole time I was there. I missed you so much.

“Hush,” I said. “Stop talking, stop thinking, and just feel…”

I felt his lips on mine and then he was inside me. He entered me again this morning. In between, I got to taste his come, which is thick and sweet as corn syrup.

As he slid inside me for the first time, I thought I might expire from sheer ecstasy. Now, I love being fucked in general, but this was next level. Maybe it was because I’d dreamed of just this for so many years in high school. Maybe it was because it has been so long since I’ve had sex. Or maybe it was because it was he; because it was I.

He wanted to have breakfast on the deck off the kitchen, so we did. Eggs Benedict, bacon, and mimosas. He was really quiet.

“Are you OK?” I asked, worried he already regretted last night and this morning.

“I’m fine,” he said, digging into his eggs. “Why?”

“You seem pensive. I thought you might be regretting…what happened between us.”

“You serious? I loved being inside you. The sex was pretty hot—even better than I imagined.”

“But? Pun intended,” I said nervously.

“I was just thinking that none of the women I’ve been with would believe this—or understand it.”