“It’s so firm … so strong … so certain.” I feel him smile against my chest. “I like listening to it.”
“Oh.” I keep stroking his smooth, muscled back.
A moment of silence stretches on between us as we lay there on the bed, floating in the warm, calm sea of our post-sex delight.
“I’m not crushin’ you, am I?” he asks lightly.
“Not at all,” I answer. “Truth is, you are heavy, but this feels good. Like a weighted blanket.” I reconsider. “Like several very big weighted blankets.”
He lets out a soft chuckle, then we draw silent again.
I wonder if we’re both thinking it.
The fact that I leave tomorrow night.
The fact that already, the end of the weekend is racing toward us, and it feels like I only just got here.
“I have a show,” I tell him.
“A show?”
“Yeah. Back in LA. It’s in a month.”
“Oh. Like … a fashion show?”
“A runway show, yes. It’s with my agency. It’s supposed to highlight all of their house designers’ newest work. I’ll have some pieces in the show.”
“That’s amazing, Lance. You gotta post some pictures on your social media, or send some to me somehow. I want to see it all.”
I smile wistfully, staring up at his flat, off-white ceiling. A tiny trickle of sadness is infiltrating my mood. “I’m not ready to go back to all of that. Not yet.”
“Well, do you gotta?”
I open my mouth, prepared to say yes, that one word shaped on my lips.
But I hold it back.
I think of Salvador and Richie. I think of my cramped shoebox apartment. I think of all the work I’ve already done on my pieces for the showcase. I think of my duties this coming week, which is really not too much.
The trickle of sadness is gone.
At once, I feel light again. “Maybe I don’t.”
“You don’t?”
“Yeah.” Suddenly I feel lighter than air, capable of anything. I’m at once the master of my own life again. “Maybe I don’t have to go back tomorrow. Maybe I can—”
“Postpone your flight?”
“Postpone my flight.” I let out a laugh. I’m suddenly hysterical with joy. “I don’t have to go back so quickly. I can stay longer!”
“I hear your heart racing.”
My arms wrap around his body, hugging Chad tightly against my body. For some reason, I don’t even once try to consider any consequences for staying here in Spruce a bit longer. Somehow, the great distance from California makes me feel that much less responsible for what happens there.
I have someone in my arms right now.
I want to see what happens between us.
Somehow, I know it’s the most important thing in my life—at least in this moment. I have to figure out the answer to this puzzle of Chad and myself—this puzzle over ten years in the making.
“Y’know, I’m gonna have to pull out of you eventually. I don’t think we have much longer before the sun starts to come up.”
“We should probably take showers,” I murmur thoughtfully.
“Yeah, I need one.”
We both chuckle at that. Then, like it’s as natural as anything, Chad lifts his head off my chest, gives my lips a firm, meaningful kiss, then slides his cock out of me and hops out of the room.
I lie there on the bed, all my limbs and muscles lazy and loose.
I hear the crank of a shower turn on.
Water runs against the wall by my head, firm and powerful.
I’m not leaving Spruce tomorrow after all.
A smile crashes over my face—I just can’t help it.
The pair of us shower together, washing away all the fluids, sweat, and the smell of chlorine still on Chad’s body from our little tryst in the swimming pool. Several times in the shower, he takes me into his arms and kisses me like my lips might run away from him if he doesn’t. He catches me by surprise a few times, and I’m forced to laugh against his soft, pillowy mouth.
We climb into his bed naked, spoon each other (I’m the little one, obviously), and it isn’t long before I hear a soft snore coming from him behind me.
I close my eyes and snuggle into his body. I feel so safe. I feel so whole. I feel so inexplicably perfect.
It isn’t long before dreams find me.
The next time I open my eyes, sunlight has found its way into the room, spilling over all the walls and the bed.
I turn to find Chad on his back, his mouth open, snoring a tad louder (and less cutely) than he was when we first drifted off.
I watch him awhile, amused, sleepy-eyed, and feeling like a pile of overcooked noodles in his bed. I don’t know where this is headed, this thing between us. I can’t even say I’m confident it will go anywhere at all. Maybe by postponing my leaving, I’m simply postponing the inevitable end of … whatever this is.