Page 33

A fter signing books, t-shirts, pictures, whatever the excited Fash's staff presented, Alex announced they had to leave.

At the entrance of the door leading up a flight of stairs, Mrs. Fash handed Timi the rest of chocosnits, some chicken pies and doughnuts, wrapped up in foil within a bowl.

“I'll not forgive you if you make yourself a stranger,” she said, as she hugged him. “Happy Easter.”

“Happy Easter,” Timi said, hugging her back. His aversion to touch seemed to take flight whenever Alex was involved.

Mr. Fash was less dramatic, clapping him hard on his shoulder, but he still got into trouble.

“Do you want to break his back, so he'll become bent like you?” Mrs. Fash griped.

Timi and Alex snuck out as they went at each other for the 732nd time.

At the LM, they leaned against its bumper, facing the downward slope of corrugated sheets and glittering skylights.

Timi replayed many conversation starters in his head.

Light and playful. You bake. Cool stuff, init?

Or words matching his current state. Is there a hole I can bury my head in?

Was it I who freed you from your phobia?

Alex, what are we doing? What am I to you?

“Nice people,” he eventually said.

Alex stirred. “The Fash's?”

“Uhum.”

“I've known them since I was a kid,” Alex murmured. “Tunde, their son, used to come for the holidays, before he went abroad for school. They were…are my second parents.”

Timi clutched the bowl of snacks closer to his chest. “I can tell.” After another long moment of silence, he let out a deep breath. “You should have come with me to Lee-Gratias.”

“To drink?” Alex asked.

Timi turned towards him. Alex reclined against the metal; arms folded across his chest. “I didn't know about your…father,” he said softly.

Alex's expression remained neutral. Like he'd expected the Fash's to blab. Perhaps even wanted it. “It isn't exactly a good story to reminisce about. I guess we all have things we hide.”

“So, why?” The question fell before Timi could rein in the frustration in them.

Alex squinted at him. “Why?”

“Why bring me here?”

Alex looked away. “What do you think?”

The ache in his chest sharpened. He'd guessed his intentions correctly. “You didn't have to inconvenience yourself just to…comfort me.”

Alex scoffed. “I assure you; I did whatever I did for entirely selfish reasons. I took a gamble, and I was right.”

“Gamble?”

Alex tilted his head towards him. “I bet on your courage to help me muster mine. You went to that house knowing what awaited you. I stepped into that kitchen knowing what awaited me. And here we are, still standing.”

Timi gave a short bark of laughter. “The only person standing here is you. And courage, you say? The only word that remotely describes my actions lately is foolish.”

“Courage is foolishness clothed with optimism. And I'm trying this positivity thing Mrs. Fash is currently into. So, well, your foolishness has been inspiring.”

A rock crawled up Timi's throat. “How can you still think of me like that, after what you heard…after I…” The words refused to come out.

“A wise man once said, actions and choices aren't enough pointers to judge who people really are.”

“Alex…”

“I wish you'll be kinder to yourself.”

Timi shook his head. “You don't understand. How can you understand?”

“But I—”

“Was it hard? Trying to bake again.”

Alex sighed. “I didn't faint. So, there's that.”

“It's happened before?”

“After my father's death, I tried. Couple of times. The smell of everything had me throwing up and blacking out. Once I stepped out of the kitchen or breathed something else, I immediately became fine. Then, my uncles descended, and things got too messy. Abandoned the idea after that.”

“So…why?” Timi asked, genuinely perplexed. “The snacks…the biscuit, even volunteering to teach me how to fry pancakes. Why now?” Why me?

Alex's chin nearly hit his chest, as he watched the tip of his shoe dig into concrete. Timi had never seen him like this. So…beaten and unsure.

“Watching someone constantly take steps you were too cowardly to take proved to be enough morale to brave the damage you believed your fear was capable of. Turns out, easing slowly into baking kept the blackouts at bay.”

Timi frowned. “Cowardly? There was nothing you could have done to—”

“I should drive you home,” Alex said, straightening.

Timi placed the basket on the car's bonnet, jumped in front of Alex, and snatched the key from him. The other hand reached for his jaw before his brain could protest the terrible idea. Already sporting a day's old beard, hair follicles poked the softness of his palm.

Alex sucked in a breath as Timi guided his gaze back to his, saying softly. “An annoying wise man once said, if you must assume a god-complex and blame yourself for something you have no control over, find something more compelling. Even if it achieves nothing.”

Alex chuckled thickly, and still holding Timi's gaze, rubbed his cheeks against the palm holding his face. “We, indeed, dish out what we can't take.”

Timi, whose heart had taken to exploding in tiny bursts at the adorable, intimate gesture, sank into Alex's eyes.

Beyond the sorrow brimming on the surface, was a vulnerability Alex didn't bother to hide.

He'd let his heart shine through his regrets, and the beauty of it stripped Timi of his defences.

They stared at each other, the glittering lights and city noises providing a convenient backdrop for the insanity slowly engulfing them. Alex reached out a finger, tracing a trail of fire from Timi's eyelids down to his lips. His eyes, following the slow, torturous movement.

The touch of Alex's gaze was live wires on Timi's lips set to the highest voltage. Dragging his eyes helplessly downwards to Alex's plump ones.

He ached to let go of his inhibitions. To pull Alex into his arms and breathe him in.

To surrender to the delicious madness taunting them and claim those lips he'd tried hard not to think about.

The thought of kissing anyone should have sent him into a state of panic and overwhelming revulsion, but now only evoked a gut-wrenching anticipation.

One dip of Alex's head and a lift of his, and the madness would be in freefall.

Drowning them. Consuming them. Extinguishing them.

Timi jerked backwards, blindly reaching for his bowl of snacks. He moved towards the driver's door but froze when arms wrapped him up in a loose back hug .

“Don't leave.” Alex's warm breath scattered across his nape, cranking up the shivers now tearing through him. Then, he removed the bowl from Timi's grip.

“Alex,” Timi whispered. “We can't.”

Alex's body inched closer, its heat burning through Timi's back. “Yes. We can't.”

He tried to keep his eyes open. “This is madness.”

The tip of Alex's nose brushed the dip of his neck, causing his stomach to tighten painfully. “Yes, it is.”

“If we do this, we won't be—”

Alex released a shuddering breath and snuffed out the air separating their bodies. Timi felt it then. Undeniably. Shockingly. Devastatingly. The evidence of Alex's desire; a growing testament of his. It nudged the curve of his butt; hard, demanding, unashamed.

And every resistance crumbled like fragile ruins. Biting his lip to stifle the damning sound he almost uttered, he pushed back with a matching courageous insistence. Alex let out another ragged breath, then buried his face in his neck, engraving a “Fuck!” deeply into his skin.

“Alex…” he rasped, eyes closing, palms braced against Alex's thighs. This was it. The pinnacle. They’d eventually arrived at the apex of the hill they’ve been steadily hiking. One more step, and it was a freefall, down into an endless hollow, no hope of escape.

However, if they held steady, kept the line uncrossed, and maintained the availability for denial as they'd been doing, then maybe they could come back from—

Alex's teeth and fingers began moving. Nibbling at the soft skin of his neck and smoothening over the wide expanse of his chest. Timi stopped breathing, stopped thinking, all his senses narrowed down to wherever Alex touched him.

When those palms brushed against his nipples, left unprotected by the fitted dress-shirt he had on, hot pleasure unexpectedly zinged through him, punching a breath out of him.

“Please…”

He didn't exactly know what he was begging for except he feared the fire ravaging his insides might cook him alive.

His body had never felt like this. Pulled tightly like a bowstring, on the verge of exploding.

How had Alex gotten him trembling this badly from just his fleeting touches?

Those palms settled on his stomach now, and every inch of him begged for a continuation of this downward journey, where the only acceptable stop was on that part of him straining painfully against his zipper.

The metal door down the stairs creaked open, and awareness hit him over the head like a charged brick. He sprang away from Alex, horrified at what had been about taking place in an open car park where anyone could have seen. He grabbed the bowl of snacks and clambered into the driver's seat.

”I'll…drive myself,” he said to Alex, who had moved away from the vehicle looking as dazed as he felt. The last thing Timi saw as he drove through the gate was Alex watching him go, ignoring the book a staff waved at him.

Staring at his image, Timi's hair hung down his shoulders like knots of dead western threadsnakes, and his nose stood on his face like a clown's, furiously red from being under the air conditioner for too long.

He swiped at the misty mirror with a palm, so he could see his eyes.

They appeared as wild as the myriads of emotions holding him captive since he zoomed off the Fash's parking lot last night.

Timi was many terrible things, but being stupid always took the back bench. However, a day later, and he could still hear the loud clang on his stupidity scale.