“Tell me about this guy,” Matt said to Miles. “Apparently, Ollie didn’t give me any of the good stuff.”
Miles started talking to Matt, who laughed at Miles’s exaggerations. There was a moment where Oliver wanted to tell all of them to fuck off but when he glanced at Chance and his friend gave him a small grin, he knew that Chance had done this on purpose. He’d found a way to break the ice between Matt and Miles, most likely because he knew that was what Oliver wanted.
And it was great. The conversation didn’t stay on Eddie for long. They talked about bad hookups and fucked up Grindr messages. Work and play and family. They laughed and it was just like old times. For Oliver, it was perfect.
*
Matt was drunk as hell.
They all were. They’d downed drink after drink as the four of them lounged in the booth Oliver, Miles, and Chance sat at weekly and talked.
He couldn’t remember when he’d had so much fun. It was sad, really. Not the fact that he had fun with his oldest friends, Miles included, despite the tension that was often between them. No, it made sense that he had a good time with this group of men. But on the other hand, it was sad that he never just had fun like this anymore. That any time he and Parker had gone out lately, Matt had felt alone, no matter how many people they’d surrounded themselves with.
He hadn’t realized just how long he’d been pulling away like muscle from bone in a sporting injury.
He’d been pulling away from life, and damn it—he was starting to get emotional drunk.
“Let’s dance again,” he told Chance before he let himself get into a funk.
He’d always had a good time with Chance. How could he have forgotten how much fun they had together?
For the third or fourth time that evening, Matt and Chance made their way to the dance floor.
Chance was a beautiful dancer. Matt could just sit back and watch him sometimes. When they were younger, they spent a lot of time watching him dance.
But as Chance grinded against him and Matt closed his eyes, it became more than about dancing or Chance. It was about the music. He breathed it in, smelled it in the air, studied the sound in his ear.
He fell in love with it the way he’d done hundreds, if not thousands, of times in his life.
It didn’t matter what genre of music it was when it came to listening—every sound, every beat, every note made his heart pulse because those sounds were someone’s love the same way his music was his.
With each moment that passed, the joy he’d been feeling began to fade. Sadness grew and expanded in his chest. He missed this. Why wasn’t he doing this? Because you couldn’t.…Because you failed.
And then as if Oliver could sense his pain, he was there, his arms around Matt and dancing with him. Matt wrapped his arms around Ollie and held him tight, let the music wash through him as Oliver surrounded him.
“You ready to go home, Matty?” Oliver whispered in his ear.
“Yeah.” He really shouldn’t have drunk so much.
The two men said their good-byes to Chance and Miles. Before he knew it, they were in an Uber, then the car was pulling up in front of Oliver’s house and they were walking inside.
“You okay?” Oliver asked as he closed the door.
“Yeah, I’m good.” And he was. He was just drunk.
“You never have been able to handle your alcohol well.”
“Exactly! So you’re not supposed to let me drink that much!” Matt teased, trying to bring himself back from the edge.
“I’ll keep that in mind next time.” Oliver grinned at him and Matt’s heart sped up. Jesus, he was really fucking drunk. They were standing close, so close, and Matt noticed a small scar by Oliver’s mouth that he’d somehow never seen before.
“I should go up…to bed…”
Oliver didn’t reply. He just kept looking at Matt and Matt wondered what it was he saw. What he’d always seen in Matt that made him reach out, that made Oliver care about him the way Matt knew he did.
The way that meant so fucking much to Matt, even though he’d never let himself voice it.
And then Oliver’s arms were around him. He hugged Matt. His lips pressed softly to Matt’s forehead before he leaned down and pressed his own forehead against Matt’s.
“Tonight was fun,” he said softly. “It was good…spending time with you, Chance, and Miles like that. I missed it. I missed us.”
He knew Oliver meant “us” as in talking about the four of them but in that moment, it was only the two of them. Oliver, his friend he cared about so much but who he’d held himself back from for so long.
They started moving closer. When Matt’s lips moved, they brushed against Oliver’s. He did it again…and again. He felt Oliver’s breath when he whispered, “Matty…”