Page 37 of Slick & Spooky

It’s always like this. The air shifts the second we're connected. The parts of me I keep hidden under scowls and silent fury crawl out of their hiding spots just long enough to breathe. With him like this, I don’t have to perform. I don’t have to calculate. I just am.

I think that's true for him too.

Because yeah, even when we’re fully clothed, even when we’re pretending we’re fine, we slip. We let bits of the truth leak out, but here while we’re wrapped in each other, sweat-slick and breathless, with my forehead pressed to his and his nails digging into my back we don't slip.

We fall.

We fucking collapse.

When we’re like this, I can be the version only he knows. The version even I forget is real.

I think that’s what keeps pulling us back.

Not the sex. Not the obsession. Not the high of trying to destroy each other.

It’s the relief of being seen.

Later that night, he smears the last streak of red down my cheek and declares, “no one’s gonna fuck with you now,” with a grin that borders on proud. That reaction is what helps me put one foot in front of the other, no matter how ridiculous I look, trying to move through a crowd with a two-foot arrow sticking out of my chest.

This is one of the biggest crowds I’ve seen for this party in the four years I’ve been a brother here. Tyler’s ahead of me, trying to push through the sea of bodies in these massive, glitter-covered wings strapped to his back, the kind most of the sorority girls are wearing except louder. So much bigger and gayer.

Joey keeps calling him “TinkerHell” and begging for a hit of whatever confidence he’s on. Tyler just flips him off and keeps moving, unfazed, cause he knows the whole party will make way just for him.

He commands a room like the music exists for him. Like the lights hit better when he walks under them. I try to mirror it. I puff out my chest. I square my shoulders. I try to be strong and stoic and every ounce the picture of masculinity I’ve always been told I should be, but next to him, I still feel like a cardboard cutout of a man someone forgot to color in.

It’s not jealousy. It’s something deeper than that. Something softer.

He doesn’t try. Not really. He just is.

When I’m with him and I’m close enough to see the smirk that doesn't quite reach his eyes or feel the casual brush of his hand against mine I know don’t have to try either.

I don’t have to prove anything. I don’t have to posture or pretend. I can just exist.

He makes space for me like it’s instinct.

Like maybe, in a different world, I could be effortless too.

I think that’s how love begins. Not in the trying, but in the moment you realize you didn’t have to.