The light in my cottage always looks different in the morning. Softer. Less certain. The kind of light that slips across paint-splattered floors and makes everything feel like a memory before it’s even happened.
I hadn’t slept much. Not because I couldn’t, but because I didn’t want to leave the feeling. That voice in my ear, low and unravelling. Bryn, telling me everything, not like a confession, but like a release. Like the truth had been waiting just under his skin, and I was the only one who’d ever thought to ask.
And now it was morning. The quiet kind. No cars, no calls. Just me and the weight of everything he’d said.
I made coffee without thinking. My hands knew the steps even if my mind was still somewhere inside yesterday. I leaned against the counter, watching the city slowly yawn awake through my window, and tried to catch up to myself.
He told me about Kane.
He told me about Marianne, about Chloe. About the life he chose. The life that almost saved him.
And he told me about what it cost.
I don’t know how he held it together. Not just on the call, but all these years. The grief was still in his voice. So was the guilt. But more than anything, I heard a man who had spent too long trying to live in a story that wasn’t his. Trying to be everything for everyone. Father. Husband. Ghost keeper.
And somehow, I’m part of that story now.
It doesn’t feel romantic. Not yet. It feels fragile. Like something newly unearthed. A diary buried in the dirt. You brush it off and the pages fall open, already written in someone else’s blood.
I should feel honoured. He trusted me with so much. And maybe I do. But I also feel scorched.
He didn’t say he loved me. But it felt closer than that. It felt like he needed me. Not for comfort. Not for sex. For clarity. Like I was a mirror he’d been too afraid to look into until now. And it made me wonder if he kept coming back for the sex or the companionship.
I’ve seen men fall apart before. I’ve painted them that way. In loss. In lust. In surrender. But never like that. Never with their voice so calm and their past so jagged.
He’s still married. And he loves his daughter. I could hear that in every word.
But I also heard something else.
He’s aching for something that feels like truth.
And maybe, just maybe.. that’s me. Do I dare to believe it this time?
The kettle whistled and I let it. I stood there, palms on the counter, and let the sound pierce the silence for a few seconds too long.
Because something had changed. Not just in him. In me too.
I wasn’t just having sex with him anymore. I was now also his confessional.
With every confession he fucked and released into me, and me into him, this thing, whatever we choose to label it as, or not, was becoming deeper than just sex. Emotions have now become part of it.
And it slightly scared me that I was falling into the spaces he thought he had to hide.
The kettle stopped whining. I moved slowly, pouring the water over the grounds, letting the scent rise and fill the space between thought and breath. The aroma helped. Earthy. Bitter. Real. Something to hold on to.
I didn’t realize how tightly I was gripping the kettle until I set it down and saw my knuckles pale.
Part of me wanted to run.
Not because I didn’t want him. God, I wanted him. I wanted every part of him. The wild confidence. The quiet ache underneath. The way he looked at me like I could undo the knots no one else even noticed.
But I’d been here before. Not the same shape. Not the same name. But the same story. A man torn between the life he built and the life he craved. And me, always, just out of frame. The painting that was finished and signed but never hung and displayed.
Marcus had promised me the world. The same world he was too afraid to live in. To even understand. And when it came time to choose, he didn’t choose me and that life. He chose silence. I became a secret captured in oil and regret.
I took my coffee to the window and stared out at the morning, one hand wrapped around the cup like it might ground me. The street was quiet. A dog barked in the distance. Laundry fluttered on a line two houses down the street. Life, still happening.
Where would I fit into Bryn’s life?
He’s still grieving Kane. I could hear it in the way he said his name, soft and reverent. Like speaking it too loudly would wake something he couldn’t face. And there’s Marianne. Beautiful, kind, knowing Marianne. The woman who sees everything and pretends not to. The mother of his child.
And Chloe. The baby he loves more than his own breath. That was the part that both softened me and scared me most. Because I wasn’t competing with a man or a wife or even a ghost. I was up against a kind of love that asked him to stay the version of himself that didn’t include me.
It would be easier if Bryn were just a selfish bastard. If he didn’t care who he hurt. But that’s not him. His cockiness isn’t armour. It’s camouflage. I see it now. The swagger. The smirk. All of it carefully constructed to keep people from seeing how close to breaking he really is.
But there’s a difference between hiding your pain and hiding the truth.
And I couldn’t help wondering if he’s been lying to himself for so long, he’s forgotten how to stop. Forgotten how to be honest with anyone, including me. "With that, I recalled a line from Tori Amos’s' Jackie’s Strength.'" – If you love enough you'll lie a lot. I always thought it was a beautiful line. But now I understood it. Felt it. Lived it. And by default, so did Bryn.
That thought stung more than I expected.
I set my coffee down, untouched.
I don’t know if I’m about to fall into something real or into someone else’s denial dressed as love. But I know I can’t stay on the edge of it much longer. It’s time to face the truth.
So I reach for my phone. And text him.
“About last night..”
I didn’t have to wait long.
My phone buzzed where it sat beside my cup. The screen lit up with his name, just Bryn, no heart, no emoji, just his name. Like a bookmark I kept coming back to.
He’d seen the message: "About last night…"
For a few seconds, nothing. Then the typing bubble. Then it vanished.
Then it came back.
"What about it"
Three words. No punctuation. No warmth, but no coldness either. Just neutral. Neutral could mean anything.
I stared at it too long before typing back.
"When are you free?"
Another pause. Then:
"Chloe’s napping. M is at work. I’ve got an hour if you want it."
I could picture him as I read it, barefoot in his living room, baby monitor buzzing faintly in the background, the light from the curtained window slanting across his chest. Maybe shirtless. Probably restless.
I typed: "I want it."
A moment later he answered: "It seems you always do."
I smiled. Couldn’t help it. But it faltered quickly. There was a charge in his words, like static before a storm. He was teasing, maybe, but something about it felt careful. Like he was trying to sound irritable, even though he knew he’d opened a door last night that can’t be closed again.
"You’re not wrong," I wrote.
And then I almost didn’t send the next part. But I did.
"But I also want to understand you. Not just undress you."
This time, the silence stretched.
I thought maybe he wouldn’t answer.
Then, finally. He did: "You make it sound like those things can’t go together."
"I think they should," I replied. "But they usually don’t."
He didn’t answer that one right away.
I got up to rinse my cup, walked to the window, watched a pigeon drag a piece of string across the road like it meant something. I nearly missed the next ping.
"I’ve never had someone want both.", it read.
It landed with more force than he probably intended. I read it three times.
"You deserve someone who does," I typed.
Another long pause.
“can’t this just be about sex and want” he typed.
“No”, I answered, “You know it can’t. Not anymore”
Then, at last, the shift. No more dancing.
A photo arrived.
No words. No warning.
Just him.
Naked. Standing in front of a window with curtains open to the sun. Every gloriously naked muscle on full display. One arm behind his head, the other holding the phone high. Sunlight streaked across his torso, highlighting the curve of his chest, the dark trail of hair down his stomach. His cock was hard, gloriously so, rising against his belly like it had a mind of its own. A bead of pre was forming on the tip.
And his face. Half defiant, half afraid.
Below it, a caption:
"Isn't this what you want?"
I didn’t smile this time. He was being his cocky self again.
I just stared.
And I whispered, "Fuck."
Because I knew then. I wasn’t going to survive him.
Not even close.
“Come over when you can talk, please. I think we need to,” I answered.
He left me on read.
I moved without thinking. Pulled the canvas from the stack, ran my fingers along the frame, checked the tension. My body knew the steps even if my mind hadn’t caught up. I gathered charcoal, a soft brush, a cloth for blending. The easel creaked as I adjusted its height. Each motion calmed me a little. Like if I prepared the space well enough, I might be ready for what walked through the door next.
The canvas waited, primed and blank. I set the easel near the window where the late morning light curved in soft through gauze curtains. The air smelled faintly of turpentine and coffee, the scent of my life distilled.
I hadn’t planned to start sketching, but my hands moved anyway. As if something inside me already knew his shape.
The charcoal slid across the canvas, light at first. The slope of a shoulder. The suggestion of a thigh. I worked from memory, but it wasn’t really memory or the inspirational photo. It was obsession. The curve of his neck. The way he held his breath when he wanted to speak but didn’t. I caught that pause in a single line, then smudged it slightly with my thumb. Blurred. Like him.
I was still lost in the lines when the buzzer rang.
I pressed the intercom. "It’s open."
A few minutes later, he stepped into the studio.
He wasn’t trying to look good. That’s what made it worse. Or better. I couldn’t decide.
Grey compression shorts. A soft blue tank clung to his chest like it was made just to frame those nipples I couldn’t stop thinking about. Tight enough to tease. Loose enough to make me want to tear it off. No bag. No towel. Just him, sweat still glistening faintly on his neck like he’d jogged over instead of driven.
I swallowed. The sketch already felt irrelevant.
“You ran here?” I asked, trying not to sound like I noticed. Trying not to stare at the faint bounce of his cock beneath the fabric.
“Marianne thinks I’m at the gym,” he said, not quite meeting my eyes. “So I figured I might as well break a sweat on the way.”
I nodded slowly. "You didn’t have to lie."
He looked at me then. “Didn’t I?”
I didn’t answer.
He stepped closer, saw the easel. Paused.
“That me?”
“It was,” I said. “Before you walked in here like this.”
His mouth quirked, but only for a second. That flicker of cockiness he wore like armour. And then it was gone again, the tension beneath it already fraying.
“I’ve been thinking about last night,” I said, setting the charcoal down. “About what you said.”
Bryn didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
I went on anyway.
“About Kane. About how he kept you hidden. Made you small. Quiet. Like a secret. You know that I know what that feels like.”
His jaw tightened. Barely. But I saw it.
“Marcus did the same to me,” I said. “And now, you are here, lying to her, hiding from yourself, from your life. From me.”
He crossed his arms. "That’s not fair."
“Isn’t it?”
He looked away, toward the window, then back at the canvas. “It’s not the same.”
“No,” I agreed. “But it’s close. Close enough that I should be afraid.”
His eyes flicked up, sharp now. “Are you?”
“Yes,” I said simply. “Because I’m starting to feel something real. And I’m not sure where you have space for real in your life right now.”
He didn’t argue. That scared me more than if he had.
“Chloe,” I said softly. “Marianne. Your marriage. The ghost of Kane. You’re living a life that’s already full. What part of it are you willing to break open to make room for this?” I gestured vaguely about the room, about myself..
Bryn’s voice, when it came, was quiet. “I don’t know.”
Silence held between us. Not angry. Just wide.
“I wasn’t supposed to fall for anyone,” he added. “Especially not someone like you.”
“Someone like me?”
“Someone who sees everything.”
I didn’t have anything left to say after that. So I looked at him. Just looked.
He stared back, then slowly, deliberately, peeled off the tank top.
It clung to him for a moment before slipping free, revealing his chest flushed, tight, radiant. He let it drop to the floor and started on the shorts.
“Bryn..”
“If I’m going to be on your canvas,” he said, cutting me off, “I might as well give you something honest to draw. Paint me like one of your French boys.” The Titanic reference should’ve made me smile. Only, it didn’t. Instead I swallowed. Hard. Audibly.
He kicked off his sneakers and stepped out of the shorts and stood there, naked, defiant. His cock half hard, his skin lit by the same light I’d tried to catch in charcoal.
It wasn’t bravado. Not really. It was fear. Disguised as invitation.
He was trying to change the subject of our conversation with his body. But the question still hung between us.
What are we doing?
He didn’t ask it out loud. He didn’t have to.
And I didn’t answer. Not yet.
Because right now, all I could do was look at him and see the man who could both wreck me and make me feel alive.
And I picked up the charcoal again.
Because even if I didn’t know what this was, I knew it was worth capturing.
I stopped sketching. The lines were already there, and now they needed breath.
I reached for the amber yellow paint, thick and warm, the shade of honey held to the sun, and dipped my brush deep into it. When I looked back at him, something shifted. I had asked him to adjust before, small things, a tilt of the chin, the bend of a knee. But the pose kept escaping me. So I stepped forward, brush in hand, and touched him. His left arm first, then the curve of his hip. Anchoring the shape I needed.
The paint clung to the brush, trembling slightly with each movement. I paused, the handle balanced between my lips, and he reached up to take it from me. Without a word, he dragged the bristles slowly across my cheek. A single golden line, soft as breath. Like I was the first surface that needed painting. He licked his lips and smiled. "I think it’s only fair if you get naked too."
I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t. My mouth had forgotten how to form words.
Instead, I nodded once. Slow. Like consent carried weight. Like it mattered.
Bryn traced his fingers over the paint blooming down my cheek like spilled sunlight. His fingers trailed over my chest, slipping beneath the collar of my shirt. He didn’t tug. Just held the fabric between his fingers like it was something precious. Then, with excruciating care, he started to unbutton me.
One. Two. Three.
Each movement and it’s accompanying sound was soft, deliberate. A hush in the room.
His eyes didn’t leave mine, not even when he reached my waist. He slid the shirt open like unveiling something sacred, palms grazing the bare skin beneath. His fingertips caught paint from my cheek as he leaned in to taste it. Slowly, from the corner of my mouth. My breath hitched.
He knelt then, sinking with such control it made my knees weak. He undid my pants, not like he was in a hurry, but like he wanted to memorize the way I opened for him. The fabric fell, pooling around my ankles. His hands rose to my hips, warm and steady.
I stepped out of the last of my clothes, bare now under the studio light. Vulnerable. Offered. His warm breath hovered over my cock. Bigger than his, but now feeling as if it needed him to come to life. To be.
He stood again, dragging one hand across my chest, paint smearing in a line between us. I caught his wrist. Brought it to my mouth. Bit gently, then kissed the mark.
We stood like that. Skin to skin. Breath to breath. Paint on our fingers. Paint on our mouths.
This wasn’t foreplay. It was foretelling.
Everything we couldn’t say would be spoken with bodies. And there was no turning back.
Bryn looked at me like he already knew what I’d sound like when I broke.
And I wanted him to hear it.
I sank slowly to my knees, one hand on his hip again, the other steadying me lightly against his thigh. His skin was warm beneath my fingers. I let my palm glide from his hip, then around the back of his leg, drawing him closer. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, but his breath shifted, deepening with quiet anticipation.
I leaned in, pressing a kiss just above his knee. His muscles tightened under my mouth. I moved upward, slow and deliberate, kissing the inside of his thigh, then trailing my tongue higher. I let my cheek rest there for a moment, feeling the steady pulse beneath his skin. He twitched slightly when I exhaled.
My lips brushed his cock, and he flinched, not from surprise but from restraint. I kissed the tip first, soft and open-mouthed, letting my tongue taste the salt of his skin. Then I took him in slowly, savouring the weight of him, the heat, the way he filled my mouth inch by inch. Bryn exhaled through his nose, low and steady.
I moved carefully, keeping my rhythm slow and generous. I wanted him to feel everything. My tongue circled the head of his cock before I slid down again, my hand cradling the base, fingers just barely tight. He reached for my curly hair but didn’t grip, just held me there, anchoring himself in the moment. I met his gaze once as I pulled back, lips wet, jaw loose. His eyes were darker than before.
There was no rush. Only sensation. Only this moment where I could show him something we still didn’t have the courage to name. I let my lips slide down farther, taking more of him. The head of his cock nudged the back of my throat and I held there, breathing through my nose, muscles tightening around the welcome intrusion. Bryn’s thighs tensed around me, a small tremor passing through his legs. I pulled back slightly, then swallowed him deeper.
The punch of it hit the soft wall at the back of my throat. My eyes watered. I didn’t flinch.
I stayed there, letting the fullness settle, letting him feel what it meant to be claimed like this. Bryn’s hand gripped my hair, tighter this time, not guiding, but bracing. I could hear the quiet catch in his throat, the one he made when something felt too good.
When I pulled back, a thick strand of spit clung between us, stretched from my lips to the glistening head of his cock. It wobbled, glinting in the overhead light, before it broke and landed across my chin. I looked up at him, breathing hard, lips swollen and slick.
I looked at him. Through him. One hand hung loose by his side, the other still tangled in my hair. He smirked down at the mess on his cock. “Fuck, we can’t waste that.”
Then he dropped to his knees beside me, spun me around, and pushed me onto my hands. A can of acrylic base paint tipped and rolled, clattering out of sight. I barely registered it before I felt him at my entrance, thick and urgent.
He pushed in without warning.
I screamed. The burn split through me like lightning. But he didn’t move. He just stayed there, chest pressed to my back, both hands gripping my hips.
“Just let it settle,” he whispered, voice low and shaking. “You’ll be ready in no time.”
Then he spat, thick and wet, landing it right where our bodies met. I felt it slide down between us as he started to rock his hips, shallow and careful at first. My fingers dug into the drop cloth. My teeth clenched. But I didn’t pull away.
I wanted the ache. I wanted all of him.
He didn’t stay gentle for long.
The moment my body gave way, just a flicker of surrender in the way I moaned, he grunted and drove deeper. I gasped, bracing my elbows, paint-slick hands sliding uselessly over the tarp beneath us. My back arched with the force of it. His thighs slapped against mine, heavy and relentless. Every thrust hit full and unforgiving, his cock slamming straight into the spot that made my vision blur.
He growled above me, raw and breathless, “Fuck, Bruno. You take it so good.”
I tried to respond, but the next thrust knocked the words out of me.
His fingers gripped my hips so tight I knew there’d be bruises. He held me in place like I was his to wreck. My shoulders burned. My jaw was clenched around every ragged breath. But I didn’t tell him to stop.
I screamed instead.
Loud. Uncontrolled. The sound of a man being split open and loving it.
He slammed into me harder, his pelvis grinding into my ass, forcing me to feel every inch. My hole clenched around him on instinct, desperate and overstimulated. He pulled out nearly all the way, then slammed back in with sharp, wet slaps that made my arms buckle.
“Yeah,” he panted, voice feral. “Scream for me.”
I did. Again and again.
Paint smeared my knees, my thighs, my stomach. My cock leaked untouched, dripping against the cloth with every thrust. The wet sound of us echoed in the high ceilings of the studio, filthy and glorious.
He bent over my back, sweat slicking his chest against me. His mouth grazed my neck, his breath hot and wild.
“I’m not stopping,” he said. “Not until you break for me.”
Something shifted in me.
Maybe it was the way he kept talking. Maybe it was the bruises blooming on my hips. Maybe it was the deep, aching need to take something back. I reached under my chest and gripped his wrist, twisted just enough to throw him off balance.
Another can of acrylic went rolling as I pushed up, turned beneath him, and shoved him flat on his back. His cock slipped from me with a wet pop. Bryn groaned in surprise, eyes wide and glittering, mouth open.
I straddled his chest, my knees pressed into the smeared colours beneath us, and without a word I pushed my cock between his lips.
He took it like he’d been waiting for it.
His mouth opened with hunger, and I thrust forward, desperate and unfiltered. My cock was longer than his, though not as thick, but it filled his mouth fast. He choked, gagged once, and I didn’t stop. I buried myself deep and held. The tension in his throat tightened around me like a vice.
“Yeah,” I breathed, gripping his jaw. “You wanted it messy.”
Precum and spit frothed at the corners of his mouth. Paint streaked his cheeks, his throat, his chest. I rocked my hips, fucking his face in slow, wet pulses, the need crawling up my spine, coating everything.
He moaned around me. Swallowed. Let me use him.
Our bodies were slick with sweat, with paint, with whatever had spilled beneath us. I looked down and saw our sex painted in colour on the tarp. His stomach slick with red and blue. My thighs streaked in violet. We were chaos. We were colour. We were lust too loud to whisper.
And I didn’t want to stop.
I held his head, groaned through gritted teeth, and kept thrusting.
I pulled out of his mouth with a wet slap. Strings of spit and precum hung between us, catching the light like silver thread. He gasped for air, eyes blown wide, lips red and shining.
I didn’t wait. I shifted back, reached for his cock slick with spit and paint and pushed myself down onto him.
The stretch was immediate, but this time I was expecting it. I growled through it, nails clawing at his chest as I sank until I was seated fully, his cock buried deep.
“I’m not done with you yet,” I rasped.
Then I moved.
Hard. Fast. My thighs slapped against him with furious rhythm, the sound louder than our breathing, louder than anything. He grabbed at my hips, but I shoved his hands away. This was mine now. My need. My ride.
Precum flung from my cock with every bounce, splattering his chest, my stomach, the tarp beneath us. Paint smeared in streaks beneath my knees, up my spine, in the creases of his elbows. We were slick with it. Coated. Claimed.
Bryn’s head fell back. He cried out, hands scrabbling at the mess as I rode him without mercy.
We were noise. We were chaos. We were fucking like we had something to prove.
I pulled off him, panting, trembling, not even bothering to steady myself as I grabbed Bryn by the waist and flipped him onto his stomach. His limbs sprawled, hips raised. Paint streaked his back in ribbons of violet and lavender. His ass was already slick, twitching, begging.
I shoved his thighs apart and spat, watching it pool over the mess we had already made. My cock slapped against his hole, throbbing, flushed dark with need.
"You’re mine," I growled, more to myself than to him, but he answered with a broken moan that cracked into something like a sob.
I drove into him in one thrust. Not cruel. Not careless. Just desperate. My hips slapped hard against his cheeks, loud and wet, the impact shoving us across the tarp. Another can tipped over, its thick yellow contents oozing across the floor and seeping into the folds beneath us.
The smell was everywhere. Sweat. Sex. Acrylic. Salt. Even the faint sweetness of turpentine for my oils from an open jar nearby. We were animals in a painter’s den. No, more than that. We were art destroying itself as it was being made.
Bryn clawed at the floor, his head buried in the crook of his arm, gasping.
"Bruno. Fuck. Don’t stop. Don’t you dare."
I couldn’t have if I tried. I was snarling through my teeth, plunging into him over and over, our bodies slick and grinding, sliding through the paint. I reached around, stroked his cock hard, and he begged for it.
We were breaking through each other.
Not lovers. Not strangers.
Just two men ruined by wanting too much.
I flipped Bryn again, breath ragged, limbs slick with sweat and streaked with paint. I hauled his legs high, knees pressed toward his chest, and hovered over him, barely breathing. His eyes searched mine, wide and waiting. His hole throbbed, flushed, still open, still slick from everything we had done.
I gripped the base of my cock and angled it back to him. One push and I was inside again, buried to the base, swallowed whole by heat and stretch and want. He cried out, head thrown back, hands scrambling for the tarp.
I braced over him and started to move, my rhythm savage and steady. Each thrust landed hard, our bodies slapping loud into the thick summer air. A can tipped over behind us, paint bleeding into the folds of the tarp like it was joining in. I smelled it all - linseed oil, salt, sweat, the raw sweetness of sex.
My thighs slapped against his ass. My cock drove deep. His body rose to meet each thrust like it was desperate not to lose me.
I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to. I needed to stay inside him, to brand something unspoken into the slick, pulsing heat that welcomed me back again and again. His cries weren’t sharp anymore. They were open. Needy. Drenched in pleasure.
And then he came.
His body seized beneath me, spine arched, mouth slack, thick streaks of cum spilling across his chest. I watched every drop hit his skin, and still I kept fucking him, cock aching, brain scattered.
I pulled out just long enough to stroke myself hard, paint-slick fingers wrapped tight. I looked down at him. His face flushed, his chest heaving.
And I came with a grunt, hot ribbons of cum painting his cheek, his lip, the soft hollow of his throat.
His eyes locked on mine. No fear. No shame.
“I love you,” he whispered.
It hit like a blow and a balm. I dropped to my elbows, dragged my tongue across the mess on his chest, then up over his jaw, tasting everything. Him. Me. Us. I fed him the truth through our kiss.
“I love you too,” I whispered against his mouth, voice thick, mouth open, heart wide.
We lay there, tangled and wrecked. My cum drying on his face. His smeared across my chest. Paint everywhere. The room breathing around us. The canvas still waiting.
But I didn’t need to finish it yet.
Something else had just begun. What it was I couldn’t tell.
We didn’t speak at first. Just lay there. His breath slowly syncing with mine, his hand pressed to my chest like he was checking if I was still real. My heart was pounding. Still. I don’t think it had slowed since he said it. Since I said it back.
He turned his head toward me on the tarp. His hair was stuck to his forehead, strands flecked with paint and sweat. “Did I really say that out loud?” he asked, half-laughing, voice hoarse.
I nodded. “You did.”
“And you said it back.”
“I did.”
We stared at each other like two men waking up somewhere new. Somewhere dangerous. But neither of us moved.
I ran my thumb over the mess I left on his jaw. “I didn’t plan it.”
“I know,” he said. “Me neither.”
“I’ve never said that to anyone like this.”
I swallowed. “I have. Once. A long time ago.”
His expression shifted, but he didn’t ask. He just pressed his forehead to mine and whispered, “It’s true though. I didn’t just say it because.. because of what we did.”
“I know,” I said again. “Me neither.”
He kissed me gently then. Nothing urgent. Just soft and searching, like we were still testing whether the words would hold.
They did.
Eventually, the stickiness between us became too much to ignore. My spine ached. His thigh was cramping. We laughed quietly as we untangled ourselves, limbs sluggish and smeared with colour.
“God,” he muttered, looking at the tarp. “We ruined the whole studio.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
I took his hand and pulled him up. We padded toward the bathroom, trailing fingerprints and flecks of paint behind us.
The shower was hot and too small for how close we already were. Water turned the paint slicker, pooling in streams of violet and ochre as it swirled down the drain. I watched his face as I ran soap across his back, then down his arms. He did the same to me, careful over bruises, over the places where his grip had lingered too hard.
We didn’t speak. We didn’t need to. He kissed my collarbone. I rinsed the paint from his hair.
We stood like that under the spray until it ran clear.
I turned off the water, wrapped him in a towel, and kissed the corner of his mouth before we turned to face the wreckage of my studio. We giggled like teenagers caught in the act. I retrieved his shorts and sneakers, stepping carefully to avoid the streaks of paint on the floor, and we retreated to the plush safety of my bedroom.
“Sorry,” I laughed, glancing back toward the studio, “your blue vest didn’t survive the war. It’s still out there somewhere, covered in paint.”
The bedroom was warm, the air thick with the echo of everything we’d just done. Bryn sat on the edge of the bed, the towel clinging low on his hips. I stepped into the en suite and grabbed another, returned to him in silence.
I began to pat him dry, starting with his shoulders. He let me. Closed his eyes. Tilted his head as I moved down his arms.
“You okay?” I asked, finally.
He nodded, then shrugged. “Yeah. I think so. Just… full.”
I didn’t ask what he meant. I felt it too. Something between aftermath and arrival.
The towel dropped to the floor. Bryn bent to retrieve his shorts from the edge of the bed, slipping them on with a soft exhale. His sneakers followed, one hand steadying himself against the mattress as he tied the laces. When he stood again, there was nothing left to put on. His vest was still lying in the studio, soaked and streaked with paint, unsalvageable. I dressed slowly, methodically, pulling clean briefs and jeans from a nearby drawer, my back to him for most of it. We weren’t exactly avoiding each other. Just pausing. Letting it settle.
The silence between us wasn’t strained. It felt almost protective, like we were afraid too many words would undo whatever it was we’d just made.
“I should go home soon,” Bryn said, voice quiet.
I turned, met his eyes in the mirror. He looked different. Not remorseful. Not radiant either. Just real.
“I know.”
We didn’t talk about Marianne. Not directly. The weight of her name lingered behind everything. It didn’t need to be said out loud to be present.
I stepped into the wardrobe alcove and returned with the grey hoodie. The one he’d lent me after that long afternoon together. The one I never washed. The one that still smelled like both of us.
“Here,” I said, holding it out. “It’s yours, and it’ll get you out the door.”
He looked at it, then at me. Took it slowly.
“I forgot about this.” he said, slipping it over his head.
I smiled faintly. “I didn’t return it on purpose.”
He just exhaled, like there was nothing left to say, and pulled the hood up, then tugged the sleeves over his hands like armour.
We stood facing each other again, both dressed now, the wild heat of earlier cooled to something quieter. Warmer.
“I don’t know what this is,” Bryn said after a pause. “I don’t know what to call it.”
“Me neither,” I said. “Maybe we don’t have to yet.”
He nodded. Then surprised me by stepping forward and wrapping his arms around me. Not to start something. Just to hold. Just to be held.
We didn’t say much when we reached the door.
I opened it for him, let the cool night spill into the hallway. Bryn stood there a moment, hoodie zipped halfway, hands buried in the pockets like a teenager trying not to shiver. His sneakers squeaked slightly on the wood as he shifted his weight.
“Text me when you get in,” I said.
He nodded. “I will.”
There was a pause that wasn’t quite silence. Just something lingering in the space between us. A hesitation. Like neither of us knew how to walk away now that we’d finally stopped pretending we didn’t want each other.
Then he stepped forward and kissed me. Just once. A quiet, closed-mouth kiss at the corner of my lips. Nothing charged. Just real.
“Goodnight,” he whispered.
I watched him go. Waited until I couldn’t see him jogging down the street before I locked the studio and walked back in.
The space was still thick with the scent of sex and turpentine. Paint smeared the tarp like a battlefield. The unfinished canvas stood waiting, a fresh stroke of yellow now dried across its centre. It looked like it had been born in chaos.
I poured myself a whiskey. Just a single finger in a short glass, no ice. I didn’t need it cold. I needed it to burn.
I sat in the armchair near the canvas and let the weight settle. My body ached. My throat still held the shape of his name. My skin still carried him.
I didn’t know what we were.
But I knew what I wanted.
That’s when my phone buzzed.
BRYN CALLING
It was nearly midnight. I answered with a smile I didn’t mean to show.
“Miss me already?” I said, sinking back into the chair.
For a second, there was nothing. Just the sound of soft breathing on the other end. Then Bryn’s voice, hushed and tight: “I’m in the shed.”
I straightened, heart knocking a little faster. “What? Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. I just... I couldn’t stay in the house. Not after what happened.”
I stayed quiet, waiting.
“When I got home, Marianne was still up,” he said. “Lights on. Baby asleep, thank God. But she was waiting in the kitchen.”
I could already see it. Her leaning against the counter. Demanding soft answers.
“She looked at me,” he said, “and asked why I was wearing a grey hoodie. Said I left in a blue vest.”
I ran a hand down my face. “Fuck.”
“I told her I forgot it at the gym a few weeks back. That they’d just returned it today. Some lost and found story I made up on the spot.”
“Did she believe it?”
“No,” he said flatly. “She stepped closer. Said it smelled... different. Not like my usual cologne. And then she saw it. A streak of paint behind my ear.”
I closed my eyes.
“She looked me dead in the face and said, ‘Did you help them redecorate the gym or are you seeing someone?’”
My throat tightened. “And?”
“I panicked. I said no. I told her she was overthinking it. Tried to laugh it off.”
“And?”
“She asked me if it was you.”
I blinked. “She used my name?”
“She remembered you from the coffee shop,” he whispered. “Said she recognised you as Bruno Mitchell the moment she met you. Said she did an internet search on you when I bought your painting to see if it was worth spending all that money on a painting.
That she saw how I looked at you that morning. She just.. never brought it up.”
My voice came out quieter than I intended. “And you said?”
“I told her it wasn’t true. I lied to her face.”
He sounded like he hated himself for it. Like the lie had left a sour taste in his mouth.
“And then she said..” His voice broke a little. “She said, ‘I thought you were done with that.’ Quiet. Not angry. Just.. tired.”
I sat with that. The weight of it. The history behind it. The things neither of us had asked about.
“I came out here so I wouldn’t cry in the hallway,” he said.
“Bryn..”
“I’m not calling to make you feel bad,” he added quickly. “I just needed to tell someone. And I needed it to be you.”
My fingers tightened around the glass in my hand. “I’m glad you did.”
There was a pause.
Then he said, “I think we need to lay low. For a bit.”
I looked at the canvas. At the mess of colour and sex still staining my floor. I let the ache rise and fall.
“How long is ‘a bit’?”
“Just a few days,” he said. “Just so she doesn’t start tracking me. Or you. She’s not stupid. I think she knew even before tonight.”
I rubbed the side of my face. “And what happens after those few days?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I can’t lose everything right now. I just.. I need to figure this out.”
I hated how gentle he sounded. Like he was asking me not to hate him. Like he already knew I might.
“Bruno?”
“I’m here.”
“Say something.”
“I’ve been here before,” I said quietly. “ Marcus said the same things. ‘Lay low. Hide for a while’. I thought I could live with it, but.. it broke me. Slowly.”
Bryn didn’t speak.
“I promised myself I wouldn’t be someone’s secret again,” I said.
“I’m not asking you to be,” he whispered. “I’m asking for space. For time.”
I could hear him trying to find a way to keep me close without making it harder than it already was. And I could feel myself wanting to say no, but I knew I was going to say yes.
“I’m not him,” Bryn said. “I swear to you, I’m not.”
I let the silence stretch.
When I finally spoke, my voice was calm. I reluctantly agreed. “You can have a few days. But don’t disappear.”
“I won’t.”
“And don’t lie to her again,” I added. “Not because I’m noble. Because it’ll eat you alive.”
“I know.”
Another pause. This one softer.
“I miss you already,” he said.
I laughed quietly. “You’re in the shed, not on the moon.”
“Still. I didn’t want to sleep without hearing your voice.”
Something in my chest gave way, gently.
“Goodnight, Bryn. I love you.”
“Goodnight, Bruno. Love you too.”
I waited until the call ended before setting the phone down. The glass was empty. I poured another, slower this time, and let the quiet settle around me. We’d said I love you again. No hesitation. No correction. Like the words had always been there, waiting for the right moment to breathe. The canvas loomed in the dim light, still wet in places. I watched it until the colours blurred.
And then I whispered to the empty room, “Don’t do this to me.”
Because I already knew.
He just might.
