"The Sorrowful Tale Of The Reckless Prince"
(Five years earlier)
The classroom was quiet now.
Desks stood like orderly patrols, each still warm with the memory of minds wrestling with ideas too big to be contained. Sunlight poured across the floor in long golden slashes, catching the edge of Nick's desk as he gathered his notes with methodical grace. His fingers lingered over a copy of Madame Bovary, its corners worn, spine curved to the weight of many rereadings. He ran a thumb over the underlined passages like one might trace the scar of a healed wound.
The knock came not as a surprise, but more as an inevitability.
A soft rap, courteous but firm.
Nick looked up without rising. The door eased open, revealing a tall man in a tailored navy suit, silver hair precisely parted, glasses gleaming like shields. Professor Lionel Thorne, Board Liaison for Ethical Conduct and Academic Standards. His presence never boded well for spontaneity.
"Professor Morrisey," Thorne greeted, stepping inside with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Do you have a moment?"
Nick nodded, gesturing toward the row of student chairs. "Of course, Lionel. Choose your battlefield."
Thorne offered a faint chuckle and remained standing. "I thought I'd keep this brief. I've just come from the Dean's office."
"I assumed as much," Nick replied smoothly, straightening his desk into its usual symmetrical calm. "And let me guess...the storm cloud overhead has something to do with Lady Chatterley's Lover?"
Thorne exhaled, half amused, half resigned. "Among other things. A few students, well, parents, really, have expressed concern over the material you're assigning. There's a sense your syllabus…pushes boundaries."
"Isn't that the point?" Nick asked, lifting his eyes at last. "A literature course should never feel like a safe space. It should be a crucible. We enter to be changed, not coddled."
Thorne didn't flinch. He'd expected this. "And yet, as educators, we must balance provocation with responsibility. You're guiding young minds. Shouldn't there be...boundaries?"
Nick rose now, not hurriedly, but with the kind of quiet command that turned air into attention. "Boundaries protect the weak. Ideas protect the strong. I'm not asking them to mimic scandal. I'm asking them to question morality. To understand it as a construct, not a commandment. If a character cheats on her husband, I want my students to ask why, not just how dare she. That's where critical thinking begins, not in the safety of judgment, but in the discomfort of empathy."
Thorne's brow furrowed. "Some of the board worry you're encouraging nihilism."
Nick smiled, serene and unshaken. "I'm encouraging nuance, Lionel. You can't build an intellect on sanitized virtue. The real world isn't a thesis. It's a contradiction. And my students deserve the tools to survive in that contradiction."
For a moment, the silence was not contentious, but contemplative.
Thorne looked past him toward the tall windows framed by the rustling trees. "You're brilliant, Nick. You are. But brilliance is a fire. If it gets too close to the drapes, the university will have to put it out."
Nick's voice softened, but it carried. "Then I'll burn carefully."
Thorne gave a dry laugh and nodded. "As I said...just a word of caution. Not a sword. But I've delivered the message." He turned to leave, pausing at the threshold. "I do respect your mind, Nick. Even when I don't understand where it's leading."
Nick offered no reply, only a look that spoke of distant rooms within him, rooms Thorne would never enter. And then he was gone. The door shut with a click. The classroom was silent again for a moment.
Then the students began to file in, their chatter breaking the sacred hush of the interim. Pages fluttered, bags dropped, and the mundane rituals of learning resumed. Nick scanned their faces automatically, noting the energy, the indifference, the hunger, the distraction.
And then he paused. No Caleb. The seat by the window, his seat, sat empty. The shadows slanting across it like the outline of absence. Nick's fingers twitched faintly at his side. But his expression remained unchanged.
The bell rang.
And class began.
*
(Present time)
The room was a cathedral of stillness as Bobby sprawled across the tangled sheets like a painting left unfinished, skin aglow, breaths shallow. Only a pair of soft, black briefs hugged his hips, the cotton clinging to the contour of a body that had never once apologized for its beauty.
He moved slowly, languidly, as though time itself bowed to him. Fingers grazed the rise of his chest, tracing the slope of his collarbone and the ridge of a rib. His touch wasn't idle. It was deliberate, teasing. His nails lightly scratched over a nipple, then drifted downward, mapping the heat of his own skin.
But his eyes remained fixed on the ceiling above, unblinking.
He was replaying it.
Nick's voice from the night before, low, composed, almost tender. Too tender. The way he had peeled Bobby open, not with violence, but with language. No accusations. No moralizing. Just precision. Like someone reading a book they already knew by heart. Bobby had smirked through it, of course. Had chuckled even. But now, with the night behind him and the echo of Nick's words still tightening something in his chest, he wasn't smiling.
He hated that Nick had seen him. Really seen him. Not just the surface, the deflective cruelty, the hunger, the bravado he wore like armor. No, Nick had gone deeper, like a scalpel to soft tissue. And it burned.
He exhaled through his nose, lashes fluttering. His fingers paused over his stomach. His legs shifted slightly against the sheets. A muscle in his jaw ticked, and then, crunch.
A soft sound outside.
He turned his head toward the open window. There, just beyond the railing, the early sun kissed the world awake. Pale and cautious. The sea shimmered, still dark and dreaming, not yet golden. Bobby leaned forward and pushed the curtain aside with two fingers.
There he was. Nick, in his usual swim shorts and nothing else, descending the wooden steps toward the shore. Barefoot, silent, body outlined in the bruised blue of morning. He moved with that same composed grace, shoulders drawn back, head lifted, a man not in retreat but in ritual.
Bobby watched, pulse low but constant.
There was something frustratingly complete about Nick. Even now. Especially now. He didn't flinch, fall apart, or lash out. And that annoyed Bobby more than he could admit. He leaned his elbow against the window frame, resting his chin in his palm. The breeze tousled his curls. His eyes narrowed with something between curiosity and contempt.
"Morning, professor," he murmured, lips curling.
Then, almost instinctively, his fingers resumed their path down his body, lighter now, less teasing than thoughtful as he kept his gaze on Nick's back until he disappeared onto the beach. He dressed slowly, carelessly. A linen shirt left open, sleeves rolled. Swim shorts slung low, hugging the hipbones he knew people stared at. His body, as always, was a costume, tailored, deliberate. He tousled his curls with wet fingers from the bathroom tap and didn't bother with shoes. The wood beneath his feet was cool as he padded down the stairs and through the house, passing the scene of last night's dinner like a ghost retracing old steps. The table still bore the wine-stained cloth and a few burnt-out candles.
Outside, the air was muggy and dense with salt. A gull screamed somewhere far off, and the waves whispered as they tirelessly and secretively licked the shore. He saw Nick again. Down by the tide line, waist-deep in water, body still. Not swimming, not floating, just there. Like some mythic creature refusing to surrender to the horizon. A statue of resignation, or perhaps defiance. The line between the two had blurred for Bobby lately.
He crept down the dune path, each step softer than the last. He didn't call out. Didn't want to be seen. Not yet. Instead, he stopped just before the edge of sand met water and crouched low behind a drift of sea grass. The wind tangled in his shirt, flaring it open. He let it. There was no one here but Nick. And Nick had already seen too much.
Why are you watching him?
The thought was quiet but relentless.
He didn't have a good answer.
Was it curiosity? Possibly. Nick was unlike any man he'd ever met. Not because he was kind, Bobby had met kind men before, and had eaten them alive. But because Nick didn't try to win. He didn't manipulate. He observed. And in doing so, he'd cracked Bobby open without lifting a finger.
Bobby watched the muscles in Nick's back shift as he dove under again, silent, smooth, unflinching. The kind of dive that spoke of someone not afraid of cold, pressure, or depth. He came up slowly, shaking the water from his face. And then he turned.
Bobby flinched.
Nick saw him. Of course he did.
Their eyes locked across the soft lapping tide, across the veil of early morning mist. For a second, just one breath-long second, Bobby thought about dashing. But his body didn't move. His feet stayed planted, bare toes curling into the sand. He straightened. Shoulders back. Chin high. Let him look. If Nick saw him now, hair tousled, shirt blowing open, eyes dark, it would be on his terms.
But Nick didn't say anything. Just nodded. Barely. And turned back to the sea. Bobby's stomach flipped. What the fuck was this guy doing to him? What was this game, if it even was a game? Bobby exhaled and stepped out from the dune, strolling to the water's edge. The chill crept up his ankles, biting, cleansing.
"You're gonna freeze your dick off," he called out, voice half-teasing.
Nick didn't look back. But he did smile.
The water was up to Bobby's knees now, the hem of his linen shirt soaked and clinging to his thighs. The sea chilled him, but he kept moving forward, arms slightly out, hands dragging through the surf like he could feel the shape of the moment through it. Nick was maybe twenty feet away, standing in the tide with that maddening, monastic stillness. The sun hadn't yet broken fully, but it painted his skin in soft silver, catching on the droplets that stuck to his chest and shoulders like pearls.
"You always swim alone?" Bobby asked, voice low now, threading through the morning hush.
Nick didn't turn. "Usually."
"That's...dangerous. You could drown. Float out. Get eaten by a shark."
There was a small, amused breath from Nick. "So could you. But here you are."
Damn him, Bobby thought, half-angry at the answer, half-stung by how calm it was. He moved closer, deeper into the water. Shoulder-deep now, the sea cradling his hips and belly like a lover, hiding his pulse and the way his breath stuttered.
"I thought I had you figured out," Bobby said. "I'm usually good at reading people."
"I know," Nick replied. It wasn't arrogant. It wasn't even said with challenge. Just fact.
Bobby narrowed his eyes. "You don't make sense to me."
Nick finally turned, just slightly, just enough for Bobby to see his profile. His face in the quiet was something sculpted, eternal. "Maybe I'm not here to be made sense of."
"But you're something, right?" Bobby pushed. "Not just my father's doormat husband. Or the soft, sad professor."
Nick said nothing for a long time. The waves swelled and passed between them. Then, finally, he spoke. "Why does it matter?"
Bobby's throat tightened. He didn't like that question. He didn't like that it hit something sharp and buried. He didn't have a ready answer. So he deflected. "You read a lot?"
Nick arched a brow. "Yes."
"Favorite author?"
Nick considered. "Depends on the day."
Bobby scoffed. "Of course it does."
"Today? Maybe Baldwin."
Bobby blinked. "Why?"
Nick finally turned fully toward him. His gaze met Bobby's, steady, clear. "Because he wrote about pain without decorating it. And about love that refused to apologize."
That landed somewhere in Bobby's chest like a bruise blooming. He looked away. What the fuck was he doing? He felt stripped, again. Not by lust this time, but by something worse. Something intimate. Bobby was used to bodies. To desire. To manipulation, hunger, and being wanted. But this was someone seeing him without asking to touch him.
"Do you think…" Bobby started, then stopped. "Do you think people are broken by choice or by nature?"
Nick's smile was soft, sad. "Sometimes by neither. Sometimes by the things they were told they had to be."
That hit too close. Bobby waded back, flinching slightly as if from a lash. His bravado flickered, the sarcasm shriveling into silence. And still Nick didn't chase him. Didn't offer comfort or pity. He just stood there in the sea, sun climbing behind him now, casting him in gold. Then he turned and swam out, clean and slow, each stroke cutting the ocean in half. Bobby watched him go, teeth tight, fists clenched beneath the water.
Seconds later, he followed Nick.
Nick didn't stop walking. Just kept heading toward the steps leading back up to the house, droplets trailing behind him like breadcrumbs for Bobby to pick up. He fell into step a few paces behind Nick, unwilling to pursue but doing it anyway.
"Are you always trying to be clever?" he muttered.
Nick glanced back, a faint smile playing on his lips. "No. That would require effort."
Bobby scoffed, but the heat at the back of his neck gave him away. They climbed the wooden steps up the side of the dune, Nick moving slowly, deliberately. Bobby realized with a jolt that the man was toying with him, pulling him along not with force, but with gravity. Like a tide. Like something age-old and patient.
"Why do you always talk like that?" Bobby asked, catching up.
"Like what?"
"Like you're above everyone but too polite to say it."
Nick didn't rise to the bait. "You think that's what I'm doing?"
Bobby rolled his eyes. "You're worse than he is, you know that? At least he doesn't pretend to be deep."
Nick laughed, and it was disarmingly warm. "I'm not pretending."
That shut Bobby up.
For a few paces, all he could hear was the crunch of their feet on the deck boards and the breeze in the dune grass. They passed the wide glass doors into the kitchen, still slightly fogged from the contrast of indoor coolness. Nick paused at the door. Bobby nearly bumped into him.
"You know...I think you like following people," Nick said, not turning around.
Bobby narrowed his eyes. "No, I don't."
Nick finally turned, bare-chested and still damp, that infuriating softness around his eyes that made everything he said feel like both a hug and a slap. "You've been following me the entire morning."
It was said without malice. Without pride. Just truth. Bobby's lips parted, ready to bite back. But nothing came. He stood there instead, chest rising and falling, aware of the shift in gravity again. Of how his own body had betrayed him. Of how his mouth wanted to sneer while his feet wanted to stay.
"Fuck you," he said, but it landed somewhere between breathless and broken.
Nick stepped inside.
And Bobby followed.
The kitchen welcomed them like an old friend. Nick moved with the confidence of someone who had made it his own, his every motion measured, clean, unhurried. Bobby stood in the doorway for a moment longer than necessary, barefoot, arms crossed, shirt drenched, watching.
With a casual flick, Nick grabbed a towel carelessly draped over one of the stools and launched it at Bobby. "Take that off before you catch a cold," he said, his voice calm but commanding.
Bobby followed the command. He peeled his drenched shirt off, feeling the weight of the fabric as it slipped from his skin. With a dull thud, it hit the floor. A hopeful glance shot upward. He was sure that would get Nick's attention. But to his surprise, Nick remained oblivious. He didn't even look up. He opened the cupboard and pulled out two mugs with the easy familiarity of ritual. The coffee machine sputtered to life, steam whispering into the air.
Bobby sat slowly on one of the stools at the counter, trying not to disturb whatever was happening.
Nick cracked two eggs into a bowl, the sound sharp in the silence. A flick of the wrist, a pinch of salt. His hands were efficient but elegant, deliberate. Not the kind of hands that rushed. Bobby's eyes traced them, fixated on the veins along Nick's forearms, the soft flex of muscle beneath skin. The eggs hissed in the pan. The scent curled into the air. Bobby inhaled it before he meant to. Nick still hadn't said a word. Bobby's knee bounced once, then stopped. He hated the weight in his chest. Hated that he couldn't look away from the line of Nick's spine as he reached for a plate. Hated that the small, domestic act of one man making breakfast felt intimate. Felt real. The kind of real that didn't ask for anything in return. Nick slid the eggs onto plates, added toast and a few slices of avocado, and didn't glance up. He just set one plate in front of Bobby as the coffee finished brewing.
Bobby blinked at the food. "You didn't have to," he said, voice hoarse, almost disbelieving.
Nick finally looked at him. His expression was calm. "You followed me."
Bobby looked away, jaw tight. He picked up his fork but didn't eat yet. The tension sat there, rich and quiet. Nick poured the coffee.
Then Bobby finally took a bite.
It was good. Of course it was.
Damn him, he thought.
Bobby pushed a piece of toast around his plate with the edge of his fork, chewing slowly, pretending the food didn't taste better than anything he'd eaten in weeks. Across the counter, Nick ate silently, sipping his coffee between small bites. The morning sun had fully taken the room now, laying a warm gloss across the countertops and along Nick's bare shoulders. The man moved like someone unbothered by the world, composed even in the most mundane acts. It was starting to infuriate Bobby. I mean, Nick had been right there. For years. But why was it bothering him now?
Nick suddenly stood, took the dishes to the sink, and washed them one by one. When he dried his hands, he glanced over his shoulder and said, as casually as if commenting on the weather, "I'll need to drive into town."
Bobby's fork paused mid-air. "Why?"
Nick's smile was slight, almost private, like he'd expected the question. He turned, leaned back against the counter, arms crossed loosely over his chest. "That's none of your business."
Bobby stared at him, stunned for a beat. His tongue ran over the inside of his cheek. "Fine," he muttered, scraping back his stool. He stood abruptly, the legs of the chair screeching across the floor. He stalked out of the kitchen, each step loud with teenage defiance, even though he was no boy. The bedroom door slammed behind him. The noise echoed, then settled. Bobby stood in the middle of the room for a moment, fists clenched, his pulse hot in his throat. Then he fell back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling fan slowly spinning. He was barefoot, bare-chested, breath sharp with tension.
What the hell was that?
He buried his face into the pillow, let out a muffled scream, then flipped over. Then he heard it. The soft metallic clang of pipes. The shower. The water running. He pictured it immediately, Nick in there, the water steaming over his shoulders, dripping down that back, along his thighs, glazing his half-hard cock. The quiet ritual of it. No rush. No fuss. He'd be precise, Bobby imagined. Intentional. He probably dried his body the same way he spoke, with calm finality. Bobby pressed his eyes shut.
Mother. Fucker.
A moment later, the shower stopped. Bobby heard the bedroom door creak open down the hall. Drawers opened, the shuffle of fabric. A belt, maybe. Then the front door clicked shut. Nick was gone. The silence in the house shifted. It wasn't relief. It wasn't peace. It was vacancy. A sudden and viciously irritating cavity inside Bobby he didn't know what to do with.
Bobby followed the sound of Nick's car pulling away before slipping out of his room barefoot. He paused at the end of the hallway, listening. The faint buzz of the refrigerator came from the kitchen, and from the bedroom at the end of the corridor, Adrian's snoring's slow, unbothered rhythm drifted into the air like the low rumble of a distant train. He moved silently, the floor cool beneath his feet, the wood faintly creaking under his weight as he padded to the door.
Nick and Adrian's room. It was slightly ajar. Bobby hesitated, hand resting on the frame. His chest had a strange flutter, like guilt, but not quite. He pushed the door open and slipped inside. His father was facedown on the bed, limbs heavy, his mouth slightly parted, a sheen of sleep sweat on his brow. He wouldn't be waking up anytime soon.
Bobby's eyes shifted to the rest of the room. It smelled faintly of cedar and something else. Nick's cologne, maybe. A scent that lingered without trying. The bed was made with military precision, except for the messy tangle of sheets where Adrian had collapsed.
Nick's side of the room, however, was pristine. Folded clothes on a leather bench. A pair of shoes lined with monk-like symmetry. His suitcase was tucked beneath the armchair in the corner. Atop the dresser, a modest stack of books with bent spines. Not flashy. Not for show. Used.
Bobby approached them, fingers drifting across the titles. The Ethics of Ambiguity. Sophocles. Susan Sontag. One had pages marked with faint pencil notes in the margins, not just underlines, but thoughts. Questions, contradictions, revisions. Bobby flipped through it, heart strangely quick. These weren't notes for anyone else. They were Nick's. Honest and unguarded. He was reading Nick the only way he knew how, through fragments and margins.
His fingers brushed the old leather satchel next. It sat slouched open, one corner folded like a dog-eared page. It smelled like chalk dust and coffee. Inside, he found more papers, syllabi, folders. A manila envelope with student essays clipped together. A copy of a faculty letter. And nestled deep at the bottom: a small cloth-bound notebook. He pulled it out gently. It was black, worn at the edges, the spine nearly coming apart. He opened it, heart rattling in his throat. It was full of handwritten reflections. Some were lecture notes, others were prose passages, unfinished thoughts, snippets of conversations. A line caught his eye:
"I used to think morality was a fixed star in the sky. But stars die too. They just take their time."
Bobby sat on the armchair's edge, thumbing through the pages like he might find something written to him. Why did Nick keep things like this? Why wasn't he a mess, like everyone else?
His gaze slid back to Adrian, whose body barely stirred.
Bobby got up and walked over to Nick's closet. Inside were pressed shirts, clean-lined blazers, and cotton pullovers. Bobby ran his fingers across the fabric, then stopped at one shirt in particular, a navy linen button-down, soft and sun-worn. He pressed it to his face and inhaled deeply. Strangely enough, it didn't make him feel powerful. It made him ache. The room was too full. Of silence, of Nick. He let the shirt fall back into place and exhaled, heart still thrumming. He turned toward the door, ready to slip back out. But just as his hand found the handle, a voice, slurred and groggy, slid from the tangled heap of sheets behind him.
"Bobby?"
He froze.
Adrian stirred, rolling onto his side, his face still sleep-splotched, eyes blinking open with the struggle of surfacing too fast. "What are you doing?" he asked, his voice thick, confused.
Bobby turned around slowly, one brow arched, lips already twisting into that signature smirk. "What does it look like? Robbing you blind."
Adrian blinked again, groaned, and rubbed his face. "Jesus. You're like a damn raccoon." He patted the bed beside him, voice rough with sleep. "C'mere."
Bobby hesitated, the cockiness flickering, and then, maybe out of habit, maybe out of something else, he moved forward and flopped down on the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped under his weight. Adrian rolled closer, draping an arm lazily around Bobby's bare shoulders and tugging him in. "There he is," Adrian muttered, forehead brushing Bobby's temple. "My little menace," he groaned into his son's ear, tongue already sliding inside it.
Bobby let it happen, let the closeness hang there for a beat too long before stiffening. "Jesus, dude. You're barely up."
Adrian chuckled, not letting go. "Trust me, I'm up. Besides, can't I cuddle my son?" he said, his hips grinding into Bobby's soft thighs. He could feel his father's stiff shaft rubbing against it.
"Technically, you barely qualify as a father." Bobby's voice was too sharp to be light.
Adrian winced, but smiled anyway. "Ouch."
Bobby tried to wriggle free. "Get off."
Adrian shifted, propping himself up on an elbow. "Da'fuck. Since when do you..." he uttered before pausing, eyes narrowing. That's when he noticed it. The faint bruise blossoming under Bobby's eye, subtle but unmistakable. His expression changed. "What's that?"
Bobby froze. "What?"
Adrian reached out, fingers grazing the darkened skin. "That. On your face."
Bobby batted his hand away. "It's nothing."
"Wasn't there yesterday."
Bobby stared at him flatly, the smirk gone. "You smacked me. Last night."
Adrian blinked, visibly trying to piece the night together. "I...no. No, I didn't."
Bobby sat up, voice calm now, controlled. "You were drunk. You probably don't remember."
Adrian was silent for a beat. Then, softly, "Guess I got a little carried away. I didn't mean to."
Bobby stood and stretched, his body long and languid, the lines of him cast in gold from the slanting morning light. He ran a hand through his messy hair. "Yeah, well. Intent's overrated."
He started toward the door, then paused. "I'm gonna shower."
Adrian's gaze lingered on the doorway, watching his son walk away. With a heavy sigh, he fell back on the bed, sinking into the inviting embrace of the covers.
Moments later, he succumbed to the pull of sleep again. Oblivious, as always, to the lingering pain in his wake.
Bobby rushed to his room, stripped, and stepped into the shower, pulling the glass door shut behind him with a firm click. Steam climbed around his lean frame, curling into the crevices of his collarbones, his ribs, the sharp angles of his hips. He stood still beneath the stream for a long moment, letting it beat against the top of his head, trying to soften something in him that had long ago hardened into shape. The bathroom fogged quickly. The sound of the water was thunderous, drowning out the world and almost muffling thought.
But not quite.
He ran his hands over his chest, slow, methodical, fingers trailing the bruise just beneath his eye, then down the faint scar near his hip. A collection of small wounds from a boyhood gone unsupervised, from a life half-lived in the shadows of other people's choices. He pressed his palms flat against the tiled wall, his head bowed, hair slicked back and dripping.
What the hell are you doing? he thought.
Adrian had always been more myth than man to him. The guy who left. The guy who returned. The creature who smiled on cue and spoke in polished sentences but always remained just out of reach, too late, too distracted, too something else. And yet, Bobby had needed him. In ways he would never admit out loud. Needed his attention. His approval.His body. His cock. Even his anger.
Because it meant Adrian saw him.
He closed his eyes against the burn of the water, remembering the first time Adrian had invited him over, years after the divorce. A "trial summer," they had called it. Like Bobby was a project to be managed, something broken to be supervised. And Adrian had done what he always did, given just enough affection to keep Bobby tethered and just enough distance to remind him he wasn't his. Not really.
But last night. Last night had cut differently. The slap hadn't been a mistake. It had been the sound of something snapping, maybe in Adrian, maybe in himself. Bobby still wasn't sure. All he knew was the way it felt. Not just the sting, but the absurd ache of disappointment that followed. He turned and let the water hit his back now, his spine straight as a blade.
You don't even remember, he had said. And Adrian didn't. Of course, he didn't. That first time they fucked. How good it felt. To have Adrian like that. Not the father, but the man. The one who hurt. And Bobby knew how to be hurt. Knew how to turn it into theater. Into charm. Into something delicious and ugly, something he could wear like armor.
But Nick? Nick was the one who'd looked straight through it. Who'd seen past the smoke and mirrors, past the performance. Nick had spoken to him last night, not like a child, not like a burden, but like someone worth the trouble of understanding. And that made it worse. He hated the way Nick made him feel seen. Hated that it suddenly mattered.
Bobby exhaled, dragged his fingers through his hair again, and whispered to no one, "Fuck."
He stayed in the shower longer than necessary. Let the water run down his body like confession, like absolution. But it didn't cleanse him. It never did. When he stepped out, the mirror was completely fogged. He wiped a line through it with the side of his hand and stared at his own reflection. Eyes bloodshot, mouth drawn into something not quite a frown. The bruise stood out more now, darkened by heat and time.
He touched it, just once.
And then he turned away.
*
(Hours later)
The wooden stairs gave a faint creak beneath Bobby's bare feet as he descended. His body moved with languid grace, but his chest was tight, breath shallow beneath the calm. The house was quiet, still.
And then he saw him.
Nick was on the couch, legs spread, torso bare, skin sun-warmed and pale against the beige cushions. He wore nothing but a pair of boxers. In his lap rested a half-rolled joint, fingers deftly coaxing paper and leaf together. A lighter lay waiting on the table beside him, patient as a promise.
Bobby silently lingered by the foot of the stairs, watching him. Nick didn't look up. "Want some company?" His voice came out soft, lower than usual, stripped of sarcasm, almost human.
Nick didn't respond right away. He finished rolling the joint, licked the edge, and sealed it with the precise intimacy of someone who knew the value of silence. Finally, he turned and met Bobby's gaze. The bruise bloomed violet and shadowed across Bobby's cheekbone, more visible now in the daylight.
Nick stared at it. His eyes didn't flinch.
Then he rose, slowly, deliberately, and walked past Bobby without a word. Bobby's shoulders tensed for a breath, expecting. What, he didn't know. A brush of judgment, an echo of his father's voice. But Nick only disappeared into the kitchen, the sound of the freezer drawer opening and closing breaking the hush. He returned a moment later with a pack of ice wrapped in a clean dish towel. He nudged his head, calling Bobby over. The young man followed and sat on the couch.
Without asking, Nick knelt before him and lifted the compress to his face.
The cold kissed the bruise, making Bobby flinch despite himself. Nick's hand stayed steady, his touch gentle, his other palm resting lightly on Bobby's knee to anchor them both. They were quiet again. A kind of quiet that said more than words could. Bobby looked down at him, at the line of his jaw, the calm in his eyes. Nick wasn't afraid of his mess. He didn't recoil. He held the ice there, letting the coolness do what it could.
"I don't bruise easy," Bobby murmured.
"I know," Nick said.
Bobby searched his face, trying to decipher what it was about this man that unsettled him more than rage ever could. There was no power game here. No bait. Just presence. Quiet. Steady.
"You always this nice to broken things?" Bobby asked.
Nick's lips curved faintly. Not a smile, something quieter.
"No," he said, "just the ones that pretend they're not."
Bobby's breath caught just for a second. Then he looked away, out toward the window, where the sky stretched pale over the water. The joint lay forgotten on the table. Nick's hand was still holding the ice to his face. They stayed like that. Not moving. Not speaking.
Just breathing.
Suddenly, Bobby lunged forward, his movements abrupt, almost reckless, as though the weight of his emotions had overtaken him. His lips sought Nick's with an urgency that bordered on desperation. It wasn't graceful or tender. No. It was raw, feral even, as though Bobby had been holding back for far too long and could no longer restrain himself. His hands gripped Nick's shoulders, tight enough to leave impressions, his breath coming in short, ragged bursts. The kiss was rushed, almost violent, an explosion of everything Bobby was: impulsive, intense, unrelenting.
Nick hardened immediately. His body pausing under the assault of Bobby's emotions, a wall of self-restraint against the forceful advance. His hands came up instinctively, palms pressing firmly against Bobby's chest. "What are you doing?" Nick asked sharply, his voice low but steady as he pushed back, not with cruelty but with a finality that couldn't be mistaken. The distance between them now felt like a chasm.
Bobby stumbled forward slightly but caught himself, his expression flickering between shock and anger. His chest rose and fell with rapid breaths as if he'd just sprinted a mile. For a moment, his lips parted as though he might shout something, anything, but then he bit down on whatever words were forming. Instead, his jaw tightened, and he ran a hand roughly through his already disheveled hair like a caged animal trying to claw its way out.
"I thought..." Bobby's voice cracked slightly before he steadied it, lowering it to a strained whisper. "I thought that's what you wanted." The words came out clipped, defensive, like a shield hastily thrown up to protect himself from the rejection he hadn't expected.
Nick didn't answer right away. The air between them grew heavy with silence. Bobby's eyes darted away, glancing anywhere but at Nick's face. He looked at the floor. The ceiling. Anywhere but at Nick's eyes. Those eyes that always seemed to see too much of him.
But then Nick moved.
His hands were slow and gentle as they reached up toward Bobby's face. There was no hesitation in his touch, only purpose and tenderness. His fingers ghosted over Bobby's cheekbones first, brushing against smooth skin. Then they slid upward, tracing the curve of his jawline with almost unbearable softness. Bobby flinched slightly at first, unused to such gentleness, but he didn't pull away.
"Look at me," Nick said quietly, his voice carrying an intimacy that made the air around them feel suddenly warmer. When Bobby didn't respond immediately, Nick repeated himself, not louder but firmer this time. "Bobby...look at me."
Slowly, reluctantly, Bobby raised his eyes to meet Nick's gaze. What he saw there wasn't pity, anger, or even confusion. It was something deeper. Something softer. It was understanding. Nick leaned in, not with the hurried impulse Bobby had shown moments earlier, but with a deliberate slowness that made every millimeter of closeness feel profound. His lips met Bobby's briefly at first, softly, almost experimentally, and then once more, this time with superb conviction.
This kiss was worlds apart from the last.
Nick's lips brushed against Bobby's like they already knew each other. Soft at first, teasing, like the slow drag of a tongue over the tip of a hard cock. It didn't feel like just a kiss. It felt like a promise, a whisper of what was to come. Nick's mouth moved with an unhurried, deliberate rhythm, like he was savoring every second of Bobby's taste. His tongue slipped out, tracing the seam of Bobby's lips, coaxing them open with a wet, hungry insistence that made Bobby's knees wobble.
Bobby's body went pliant against Nick's, his muscles dissolving. He didn't even realize he was leaning in, his chest pressing flush against Nick's now, their heartbeats syncing up. His hands hovered momentarily, trembling, before they finally found their place on Nick's waist. Their mouths had locked now, lips dancing together, Nick's musky, weed-scented breath engulfing Bobby's armor, chipping at it one flick of his tongue at a time. Bobby's chest caved, and he released a soft moan. Yet, its sound lingered endlessly. As if every single cell in his body was being sucked out of him.
Bobby had never felt anything like it.
Ever.
When Nick finally pulled back, his lips parting from Bobby's with a soft pop, a string of spit still dangling between them. Their bodies remained close, foreheads touching. Bobby closed his eyes briefly, enjoying how Nick's fingers lingered on him a moment longer than necessary. The ice towel was now damp in Nick's hands, its contents melting into the floor. Bobby's breath steadied. His usual bite had dulled, but not disappeared. Just folded in on itself, like something cautious and coiled.
Nick's hand dropped, setting the towel over Bobby's hand. "Goodnight," he said, voice a low murmur in the room's hush. There was no ceremony in it, no paternal finality. Just a quiet release.
He stood, muscles moving like slow water under his skin as he straightened. He looked down at Bobby briefly. Then, without waiting for an answer, Nick turned. His bare feet padded silently across the floorboards. He left the half-rolled joint on the table, the lighter untouched beside it. No gesture to clean up. No expectation. Bobby watched the long lines of his body retreat into the dark hallway, past the dining room, toward the stairs. The wooden risers sighed under his weight, each step quiet but certain. At the landing, Nick paused. Just briefly. As if he'd remembered something, or nearly said something, but thought better of it. Then he disappeared.
Seconds later, the door clicked shut at the top.
And Bobby was alone again.
The ice towel had grown warm in his hand.
He didn't move.
He just sat there.
Wrapped around that intoxicating, lyrical, and profoundly disquieting serenity Nick left behind.
(To be continued…)
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