Branaird Lake
I wake up in the small tent, boxed in on all sides, the nylon walls of Hayden’s Cat’s Meow holding the cold at bay and the warmth very much in.
Hayden is on his back beside me, one arm flung up over his head, the other heavy across my ribs as if he’d anchored me there sometime in the night. Brendan is on my other side, turned slightly away, but close enough that I can feel the steady rise and fall of his breathing through the luxurious barrier of our sleeping bags. The three of us fit in a way that still feels improbable: too many limbs, too much heat, but no one has shifted away.
For a second, I don’t move. I just listen.
The lake was awake before I was. I can hear the soft lap of water against the shore, the distant call of something small and winged, the faint whisper of wind slipping through the trees. Condensation freckles the inside of the tent, catching the early light and turning it silver.
My body aches in that good, sincere way: hiked-out legs, shoulders worked loose from yesterday, the lingering heaviness of a night that feels more significant than when it was just Hayden and me. I am aware of everything: Hayden’s warmth, Brendan’s presence, the way the air feels thicker in here, shared.
Hayden stirs first. He exhales through his nose, shifts just enough that his arm tightens reflexively across my chest before relaxing again. His face is calm, unguarded in sleep.
Brendan doesn’t wake, but he moves too, a small adjustment of his knees, his bare shoulder brushing mine. It was accidental. Or maybe not. Either way, neither of us pulls away.
I stare at the low curve of the tent ceiling and think, not for the first time, about how strange it is that the most meaningful moments of my life happened in places just like this: miles from cell service, packed into a space meant for two.
Last night hadn’t fixed everything. I know that.
But waking up like this, between them, not pushed out to the edges, feels like something solid.
Hayden lets out a quiet groan, his eyes blinking open. He looks at me first. There is no panic. Just a soft, tired smile.
“Morning,” he mutters.
“Morning, sexy,” I whisper back.
A second later, Brendan shifts again, more deliberately this time. He blinks awake, takes in the scene: the cramped tent, the tangled sleeping bags, the two of us, and for a beat, his expression is indiscernible.
Then he exhales, long and slow.
“Guess all of us sleeping in here wasn’t such a bad idea,” he says, his voice rough with sleep.
A small, relieved chuckle escapes me. “Yeah. It was nice.”
Outside, the sun climbs higher over Diamond Lake, and for the first time since this trip started, it feels like we are waking up after something, instead of bracing for what comes next.
The zipper whines softly as Hayden cracks the tent open, letting in a blade of cold morning air and pale sunlight. It is a signal. Okay, back to reality.
Eventually, we moved. Sleeping bags get shoved into stuff sacks, pads deflate with tired sighs, and the three of us stumble out into the clearing like we’re emerging from a secret bunker.
The campsite looks different this morning. Less dramatic. More forgiving.
After a quick breakfast bar, I am crouched by our lowered tent, snapping the shock-corded poles apart, when Hayden wanders back from the food hang.
Without saying anything, he steps in behind me.
His arms settles across my shoulders, loose and familiar, his weight leaning just enough into my back to steady me. His chin almost, but not quite, rests against my head.
I pause mid-fold. “You helping,” I ask, “or supervising?”
He hums, amused. “Moral support.”
I feel his smile against the air near my ear. The contact is casual in theory, but out here, after last night, it feels loaded. Intentional.
I finish collapsing the poles, aware of Brendan packing up the gear tent across the site. When I glance up, he is watching us openly, not with tension, but with something lighter.
He grins. Not sharp. Not defensive. Just… knowing.
“Wow,” Brendan says, tightening a strap on his pack. “Didn’t realize the REC offered a couple’s discount.”
Hayden doesn’t move his arms. If anything, he presses in a little more. “You jealous? Maybe if you’re lucky, you can bring Josephine up here.”
Brendan laughs. “Nah, getting too cold for that. I’m just shocked. I never saw this when I met you, Joey.”
Heat creeps up my neck, but there is no sting to it. Just observation.
Hayden finally lets go, giving my shoulder a quick squeeze. The moment breaks, but it settles between us, an agreement made without words.
We work in an easy rhythm after that. The clearing slowly returns to its untouched state. When everything is stowed, we shoulder our packs together.
“Brainard Lake next,” Hayden says, squinting toward the trailhead. “Real toilets. Crowds. Civilization.”
Brendan groans. “I give it ten minutes before some couple from Denver asks us to take their picture.”
I smile. “It’ll be worth it.”
We step back onto the trail as a unit. Whatever last night was, it isn’t staying behind. It’s coming with us.
The hike down feels like walking out of a dream. The silence between us isn’t empty anymore. It is companionable. The tension that had pulled our words tight has unraveled, leaving room for the easy, surface-level talk of people who don’t actually share a daily life.
Hayden leads, his long legs eating up the downhill grade. I follow. Brendan brings up the rear, but the line is fluid. Sometimes he surges ahead, pausing on a sunlit rock to wait for us with that same accepting grin.
“I swear, Coach made us do suicide sprints for an hour last practice because one guy was late,” Brendan says, shaking his head. “My lungs are still in the gym.”
Hayden snorts. “Try doing 800-meter repeats until you taste yesterday’s lunch. Track’s just elegant suffering.”
I listen, an outsider to their world of sanctioned pain. “My biggest hardship this week was deciding between the peanut butter and the cheese crackers at King Soopers.”
They both laugh, and for a moment, it doesn’t feel like I’m on the outside of their public lives at all.
The forest gives way to the trailhead with a sudden, violent transition. The quiet shatters, replaced by the flat glare of sun on gravel and the hulking shape of Brendan’s Bronco.
Hayden shrugs out of his pack with a groan. He pulls his phone from his pocket, and the screen blooms to life.
“Service,” he announces. A cascade of notifications lit up his face. “Whoa. Okay. The world continued without us.”
He looks from the Bronco to the trailhead, then back at me. The peaceful camper vanishes. I watch the gears turn as the student, the D1 athlete, the boyfriend all slot back into place behind his eyes.
He pockets his phone like it is suddenly heavy. “Alright,” he says, forcing a grin. “Let’s see if we can get to the lake before the hordes do.”
Brendan pops the tailgate. “Don’t count on it.”
As the Bronco climbs the road out of Ward. Brendan has one hand on the wheel, the other drumming against his thigh as Fetty Wap’s ‘Again’ blasts through the stereo, loud enough to vibrate the seatback.
“Wait…” Hayden squints at the dashboard. “Are we seriously listening to rap? In the mountains?”
Brendan doesn’t flinch. “It’s Fetty. You’re welcome.”
“Bro, this came out when we were in elementary school. Why does it sound like it’s trying to blow out my spine?” Hayden whines.
Brendan pouts, keeping his eyes on the road. “It’s called taste. Let him speak his truth.”
I wince as the volume spikes. “You gonna give me the AUX before we hit Brainard?”
Brendan sighs as if I’d just asked for his firstborn. “Fine. But don’t play anything tragic.”
The moment the Bluetooth catches, the car fills with the synth pulse of Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club.”
“Hear Santa Monica, I swear it’s calling me…” Hayden starts singing instantly.
I blink. Brendan stares into the rearview mirror. But Hayden is already dancing in his seat, mouthing every word like it was muscle memory.
Brendan chokes. “What the? You know this?”
Hayden just grins, spinning his wrist dramatically. “I’m gonna keep on dancing down in West Hollywood!”
I lose it, laughing so hard I nearly spill my Nalgene.
Hayden turns to me, hair wild from the cracked window. “Never doubt me again.”
The road curves, and Brainard Lake comes into view ahead. It is beautiful, the kind of place that hushes you. For a second, it feels like we’d made it.
The moment we step out of the Bronco, the wall of sound hits us.
It is the opposite of Diamond Lake. Car doors slam. Families chatter in a dozen languages. Children shriek. The air is thick with the relentless click-shutter-click of smartphones.
“See?” Brendan yells over the din, sweeping an arm out. “I told you! Ten minutes to find a spot!”
He was right. The famed aspen groves are a blazing, impossible gold. Every inch of shoreline is occupied by someone trying to capture it.
We navigate the gravel path single-file, crushed by bodies. It feels bizarre, like a teleportation into a nature-themed theme park. Hayden pulls his hood lower, his shoulders tense.
The path opens at a classic photo spot: a gnarled pine framing the lake and the divide.
As we skirt the crowd, a guy in a green CSU Rams hoodie does a double-take. His eyes lock onto Hayden, flick to me and Brendan, then back. Recognition dawns.
“Whoah.” He nudges his friend, a girl with a DSLR. “Babe. Is that Hayden Latimer? From CU?”
Hayden freezes for a half-second. The hiker vanishes. The public figure takes his place. A tight, practiced smile appears. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Oh my god, it is!” the girl squeals, lowering her camera. “I follow you! Your dances with Gabriel are so iconic.”
Brendan, who had been scanning the crowds with amused contempt, goes very still beside me. His easy grin vanishes.
“Could we get a picture?” the guy asks, already stepping forward. “My little sister is obsessed. It would make her year.”
Hayden’s eyes dart to me, apologetic, strained, before the mask snaps fully into place. “Yeah, for sure. No problem.”
He steps away from us. They crowd on either side of him. He turns on the charm: the full-wattage, TikTok smile, a casual arm around their shoulders.
I watch, a strange hollow feeling in my stomach. This is his other life.
A low, tense sigh comes from my left. Brendan is staring, his jaw tight. It’s not a lover’s jealousy. It’s the jealousy of a fellow TikTok star being treated as part of the background.
“Unbelievable,” he mutters, not to me, just to the trees.
“They’re from CSU,” I say quietly. “Maybe they don’t know you’re on the basketball team.”
“As if it matters,” Brendan shoots back, his voice sharp. “People actually watch basketball games on TV. He does a little dance on his phone…” Brendan shakes his head in disgust.
The photo op ends with effusive thanks. They wander off, already tagging and posting. Hayden extracts himself. The bright smile drops the moment he turns back to us. He looks exhausted.
“Sorry,” he says, rejoining our huddle. “That was…”
“Interesting?” Brendan finishes, his tone cool. He doesn’t look at Hayden. He looks past him, at the lake. “Came for the colors. Got to be a celebrity again before we’re even back in town. Cool.”
The fragile unity of the Bronco crystallizes, then cracks in the autumn air. The world isn’t just continuing without us. It was waiting to remind us exactly where we stand.
Brendan’s “Interesting?” hangs between us like our breath in the sudden chill.
Hayden’s jaw tightens. He looks from Brendan’s rigid back to me, caught between apology and defensiveness. “Let’s just… get one shot and get out of here.”
We find a quieter spot down the shore. The photo is a chore. I snap a few of them together: Brendan’s smile dying at his cheekbones, Hayden’s arm looking like a prop. They swap. Brendan takes the phone. Hayden pulls me close, but his body is tense. The picture will look fine. The pixels will lie.
We are in the middle of putting our phones away when a family of five spills onto our outcrop: loud, bright, wielding selfie sticks.
“You boys mind?” the father beams. “Just gonna be a sec!”
It’s the final straw. We don’t confer. We just go.
The ride down is a study in deflation. I control the AUX, playing soft, atmospheric indie folk. No one objects.
Hayden scrolls silently through his phone in the back, the glow illuminating tired lines on his face. Every few minutes, his thumb moves, typing a quick reply. To Ava? To his team? To the world? I don’t ask.
The silence is heavy. The tent, the shared bags, the laughter, it all feels like it happened to different people. We are three separate planets again, pulled by the gravity of the lives we’d escaped.
They drop me at my apartment on Aurora with a quiet, mumbled “later, Joey.” No plans are made.
The Bronco pulls away. I’m left on the sidewalk with my reeking pack and the profound solitude of the city pressing in.
Monday grinds into motion. Classes. Deadlines. The trip becomes a vivid dream I turn over during lectures.
Later that afternoon, back at the REC, my phone buzzes.
A Snap from Brendan. A selfie.
I opened it. A close-up, stark against fluorescent lights. The tan, sculpted curve of his bare bicep, damp with sweat. Hooked over his shoulder, the sleeve of his CU Basketball home jersey. His muscles are coiled, defined. A D1 athlete’s body, on display.
The caption: 💪🏀
My breath catches. It’s not overtly sexual. It’s a statement. This is what I am. This is my currency. See, Joseph?
Why send it to me? A peace offering? A reminder? A probe?
I stare at it. I don’t reply. I don’t mention it to Hayden.
The next day, Valerie from REC marketing slides up to the Outdoor Desk with her iPad. “Joey! Hey. I saw those amazing Brainard Lake pics with Hayden Latimer.”
My stomach sinks. “Oh. Yeah. We went hiking last weekend.”
“They’re epic! The tagging is primo.” Her eyes gleam with strategy. “You think you could ask him about a collab? ‘The REC’s got your gear for fall and winter? It would be killer for engagement.”
She looks at me like I hold the key to the algorithm.
“I, uh… I don’t know if he does that sort of post.”
It’s a weak lie. We both know his entire life is that sort of post.
“Just ask! You’re clearly buddies. Easiest favor ever. For the REC!”
She bounces away, leaving me with a professional-sized knot in my gut.
Two days later, there’s a knock on my door.
I open it. Hayden is on my doorstep, but not the Hayden from the trail. This is CU Hayden. Crisp sneakers. Faded jeans. A soft heather-gray tee. In one hand, a cloth bag with his ring light. In the other, a large, glossy cardboard box.
“Hey.” A nervous energy buzzes off him. He hefts the box. “Hello Toothpaste sent me a PR kit. A ‘get ready for the big party’ collab. A GRWM for Halloween.” He gestures vaguely. “My dorm lighting is trash for this sort of stuff and the guys would get weird if I filmed in the bathroom… Can I film it here?”
He looks at me, his pale blue eyes wide and hopeful, but a layer of performative cheer is plastered over it. This isn’t the guy who shared a sleeping bag. This is @itshaydenl, content creator, scouting a location.
I lean against the doorframe. “A GRWM? ‘Get Ready With Me’?”
He grins, the TikTok grin. “Gotta show the people how a track champion smiles.”
I look from the box to his expertly arranged face. The world isn’t just reminding us. It’s asking to come inside and set up studio lights.
“Sure, Speedstar,” I say, stepping back. “Come on in.”
He slips past me, the door clicking shut behind him, and just like that, the outside world is gone. No street noise, no campus chaos: just my apartment and the faint hum of the fridge. Hayden drops the box and ring light bag by the wall like they’re props he’ll deal with later and immediately wanders deeper inside, taking inventory.
“Well,” he says, entering the living room. “See, you actually have space. And furniture that doesn’t look like it came from a prison.”
“Careful,” I say, toeing off my slippers. “You’ll never want to go back to Baker Hall.”
He grins over his shoulder. “Too late.”
I’m halfway through clearing off the couch for him when I realize he’s disappeared.
“Hayden?”
“In here,” he calls, voice muffled.
I find him in my bedroom. He’s already sitting on the edge of my bed, shoes kicked off, leaning back on his hands like it’s the most natural place in the world for him to be. My sheets are rumpled, pillow slightly indented, like the room itself has given him permission.
I stop short in the doorway. “Wow. You move fast.”
“You said I could come in,” he says innocently.
“I meant the apartment.”
He shrugs, stretching his legs out, heel bumping lightly against the mattress. “Long day. Also, your bed is objectively superior.”
I glance at the window. Full dark outside. Streetlights glowing. The blinds wide open.
Hayden follows my gaze and immediately winces. “Oh, right. That won’t work.”
He hops up and crosses the room, grabbing the cord and yanking the blinds shut. The slats snap together, cutting the night into thin stripes before sealing it out completely. The room dims, private and enclosed.
“Can’t have it looking like nighttime,” he says. “Hello wants ‘getting ready,’ not ‘getting in bed.’”
“Because TikTok famously respects realism.” I joke.
He laughs and reaches for the ring light bag, setting it down near the dresser. “We’ll fake it. Like usual.”
I stand steady, arms crossed, watching him fold out the legs and start assembling the light with practiced ease. He’s done this a hundred times. Maybe a thousand. The confidence is automatic.
“So,” I say. “So you’re literally going to be in my bed to film content.”
He glances back at me, lips quirking. “Hey. It’s not OnlyFans,” he shrugs.
The ring light clicks on, flooding the room with harsh white brightness. Too much. Too honest.
He squints. “Yikes. That’s morning.”
“Dim it,” I say.
He does, dialing it down until the light softens, warmer now, like early evening that could pass for anything. The shadows return, gentle and forgiving.
“Better,” he grins.
He looks at the bed again, then back at me. There’s a brief, inscrutable pause before he reaches down and smooths the comforter, fluffing the pillows, erasing the evidence of him having been there.
“There,” he says. “Now it’s not your bed. It’s a set.”
I snort. “The set you fell asleep on a couple of weeks ago.”
He hands me his phone without acknowledging that. “You mind?”
I take it, thumb hovering over the screen. “I’m officially an unpaid crew member now?”
“You’ll get creative credit,” he suggests. “And moral fulfillment.”
“Beats an Oscar I guess.”
I hold the phone up, framing him against the soft, staged glow of the ring light. He shifts on the edge of the bed, running a hand through his hair, his eyes scanning the room as if seeing it for the first time through a lens.
“Okay,” he says, more to himself than to me. “So I’ll be in bed, get up, do the routine in your bathroom, show the toothpaste…”
His voice trails off as he looks down at himself. His gaze lingers on his perfectly faded jeans, the crisp white sneakers. A frown creases his forehead.
“Crap,” he mutters.
“What?”
“These won’t work.” He plucks at the denim on his thigh. “No one would sleep in these.”
“Wanna wear my pajama pants?” I suggest to him.
He ignores me, his mind already clicking through a wardrobe catalogue only he can see. He looks up, and his eyes land directly on me. There’s a sudden, focused intensity in them that makes my breath catch.
“You still have them, right?” he asks.
“Have what?” I shrug.
“My shorts. The blue Nike ones. From…the first time we… in my dorm.”
The air in the room flips. He’s not talking about a clothing choice for a video. He’s talking about the shorts he was wearing the night everything shifted into this new dynamic, the ones I got to wear back home with me.
I stare at him. “Yeah. I have them.”
“Can I wear them for this?”
The request is simple. Practical, even. But it feels monumental. He’s asking to wear a piece of our private history as a costume for his public performance. It’s the most Hayden thing imaginable.
“They’re in my dresser,” I say, my voice quieter than I intended.
“Cool.”
He doesn’t ask me to get them. He just gets up and walks past me, leaving me holding the phone. I watch him open the top drawer of my dresser and hear the soft rustle of fabric.
When he walks back, the blue Nike shorts are in his hand. He doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t ask me to turn around.
He just unbuttons his jeans.
The shhh-click of the button, the rasp of the zipper, they’re the only sounds in the room. He pushes the jeans down his legs, kicking them off into a heap on my floor. He’s standing there in just a pair of black Nike boxer briefs and the soft gray tee, his long legs pale in the ring light.
He doesn’t look back at me. He’s entirely focused on the task, as if changing clothes in my bedroom is just another step in the production. But the intimacy of it is staggering. This isn’t the heated, rushed undressing of our first night here. This is relaxed, domestic. It implies a familiarity that runs deeper than sex.
He steps into the blue shorts, pulling them up over his briefs, the familiar fabric stretching over his hips. He adjusts the waistband and gives a little shimmy to settle into them. When he looks up, finally meeting my eyes, there’s a flicker of something, acknowledgment, maybe, before the influencer’s mask slides back into place.
“Better,” he says, his voice normal again. He glances at the discarded jeans. “More casual, right?”
Casual. He’s wearing the shorts from the night he cheated on Ava, the shorts that have lived in my drawer as a secret trophy, and he’s calling it ‘casual’ for a .and he’s calling it ‘casual’ for a #sponsored toothpaste post.
The disconnect is so complete it circles back to making a terrible kind of sense.
“Yeah,” I say, lifting the phone again, my thumb finding the record button. “Looks great. Ready for your intro, Speedstar.”
He grins, that effortless, camera-ready smile, and slips back into my bed. My bed, in my room, wearing the shorts that are a ghost of us.
“Alright,” he says, his voice smoothing into that warm, conversational tone he uses for his followers. “Let’s get this video started.”
“Okay, reset,” he says, already half out of frame. “We’ll do the getting out of bed.”
“Of course,” I deadpan before starting to record. “Because that’s a thing freshmen do at 10:30 PM.”
He just grins and flops backward onto the mattress, blue Nike shorts riding a little as he lands. For a beat, he’s just there, splayed, relaxed, fully in my space, then he rolls up and swings his legs over the side of the bed like he’s waking up in it.
Which, technically, he is.
He stands, deliberately slow, running both hands through his hair like he’s shaking sleep out of it. The motion is practiced but not fake; it looks good because it is good. He stretches his arms overhead, shirt pulling tight across his torso, then exhales like he’s greeting the day.
“Morning,” he says to the imaginary audience, voice low and soft. “Big party tonight!”
I don’t comment on the fact that it’s almost 11 at night.
“Cut,” I say after a second.
He drops the act immediately, laughing. “Okay, nailed it on first take.”
Before I can respond, he scoops up the PR box and his phone. “Bathroom scene. Let’s go.”
My bathroom is small: functional, not influencer-ready, but by the time I follow him in with the ring light, it’s already been transformed. The Hello toothpaste is perfectly staged on the sink, label facing out, next to a brand-new toothbrush still in its paper sleeve. He’s nudged my soap dispenser out of frame and shoved my half-empty deodorant behind the mirror like it’s a store brand.
I hover, just outside the doorframe, watching as he tweaks the ring light just enough to bounce off the mirror without blinding either of us.
“This looks like you’ve already moved in,” I say.
“Who says I haven’t? Hayden grins back.
He peels the black toothbrush from its packaging, snaps a dollop of Vegan toothpaste onto it with exaggerated precision, then catches his reflection and adjusts his posture. Shoulders back. Smile ready.
“Rolling,” I say again.
He turns on the faucet, wets the brush, and looks straight into the mirror, like this is exactly where he belongs.
“Even after you’d found the perfect costume,” he says, brushing already, words slightly garbled but still charming, “you gotta take care of the basics.”
I watch him brush his teeth in my sink, bare feet on my tile, like he’s lived here for weeks instead of minutes. There’s something intimate about it that has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with routine.
He spits, rinses, and flashes a toothpaste-commercial grin at his reflection.
“Cut?”
“Cut,” I confirm.
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and looks at me. “Okay. Final bit.”
Back in the bedroom, the light is warmer now, shadows soft against the closed blinds. Hayden hops onto the edge of the bed again, digging into the PR kit with theatrical flair.
“Ah hah,” he says triumphantly. “Seasonal accessories.”
He holds up a packaged set of white vampire fangs, just like the ones you’d find by the checkout at Spirit Halloween.
“You’re kidding.” I shake my head.
“Brand synergy,” he says seriously, then pops them into his mouth and turns back to the camera.
I raise the phone just as he lifts his chin, smiling widely.
“Even vampires need a fresh smile,” he says, exaggerated and playful, the fangs gleaming white under the ring light.
Then he throws his head back and lets out his best, most ridiculous Dracula laugh: long, dramatic, absolutely unhinged.
I break, giggling and shaking the phone. “Oh my god.”
“Perfect,” he says around the fangs, still laughing. “That’s the one.”
He reaches forward and taps the screen to stop recording, then finally pulls the fangs out, tossing them onto my nightstand as if they belong there.
The bedroom goes quiet.
No ring light hum. No performance voice. Just the two of us, standing too close, the night still pressed up against the blinds.
Hayden exhales, rubbing his face with both hands. “Okay,” he says softly. “Content done. I’ll edit on the weekend.”
He looks at me then, not at the phone, not at the mirror.
“Thanks,” he adds. “For letting me… everything.”
I nod, handing him back his phone. “Anytime.”
Neither of us moves back to our separate sides of the room. The space between us feels charged, but not with the energy of filming. This is slower. Heavier. The ghost of his Dracula laugh still seems to echo, a reminder of the real person under the brand deal.
I take a breath. The question that had been knotting in my gut since he showed up with the box finally pushes its way out. My voice is quiet, too quiet for the room that had just been full of his.
“Did you just come over for the video?” I finally ask.
Hayden’s hands still mid-air, then fall to his sides. The change is immediate: the easy grin vanishes, the relaxed shoulders square. His eyes find mine, holding a sudden, sober intensity.
For a second, he doesn’t speak. He just looks at me, and I can see him deciding, online persona, or person.
“No,” he says finally. The word is simple. Clear. It wasn’t defensive. It was just true. “I needed a place to film. But I… wanted to come here to see you again.”
He takes a small step forward, closing the last of the distance. The ring light casts a warm halo around him, but his face is in a gentle shadow now, his expression unreadable except for the intensity in his eyes.
“And I don’t have class till 10:30 on Fridays,” he adds, his voice even lower.
Something tight in my chest releases. It isn't a grand declaration. It’s better. It’s an admission.
I don’t say anything back. I just reach out, my hand finding the soft fabric of his heather-gray tee at his waist, my fingers curling into it. A claim. An answer.
He moves first, leaning in. The kiss isn’t like the others, not the hungry, secret one in his dorm, or the frantic, chill-induced one in the tent. This is new. Slower. Tender. A deliberate meeting in the quiet aftermath. It tastes like farm-grown mint toothpaste and the faint, metallic hint of the plastic fangs. It tastes like the end of a performance and the continuation of something private, only ours.
My other hand comes up to cradle the back of his head, my fingers tangling in the soft, golden hair at his nape. He makes a small, appreciative sound against my mouth, his arms wrapping around me, pulling me flush against him. The familiar, athletic solidity of his body is a shock of heat through our clothes.
We break apart, breathing unsteadily, foreheads resting together.
“Joey,” he breathes, my name a sigh in the quiet bedroom.
That was all it took. I guide him backward, not toward the door, but toward the bed, my bed, which he’d just been using as a set. He goes willingly, letting himself be pushed until the backs of his knees hit the mattress and he sits down with a soft thump.
I stand between his legs, looking down at him. He looks up, his eyes dark, pupils wide in the low light. His hands settle on my hips, thumbs rubbing small circles through the fabric of my pajama pants.
Without a word, I hook my fingers into the waistband of the blue Nike shorts, his shorts, the ones I had been wearing all month, and begin to pull them down. He lifts his hips to help, the shorts sliding over his boxer briefs and down his thighs, pooling around his knees over the comforter.
He is already hard, the outline of his erection clear against the black fabric of his briefs. I sink to my knees on the floor, the carpet rough against my skin. My own breath feels loud in the silence as I nuzzle against him through the briefs, feeling him twitch at the contact. I mouth him, hot and heavy through the stretchy material, before finally tugging the waistband down and freeing him.
I take Hayden into my mouth, slow and deep, relishing the familiar weight and taste of him. A sharp gasp tears from his throat, his hands flying to my hair, not guiding, just holding on. His hips give a tiny, involuntary jerk.
“Fuck, Joey,” he moans, his voice strangled.
I work him, setting a steady, deep rhythm, one hand wrapped around the base of his cock, the other gripping his thigh. I can feel the tension coiling in his muscles, hear his breathing grow ragged. I’m pulling him to the edge, lost in the act, in the power of it.
But then his hands tighten in my hair, not pushing, but guiding. He pulls me up along his body, my mouth leaving him with a soft, wet sound, until we are face-to-face, my chest against his, both of us breathing hard.
I look at him, confused, my lips swollen.
Hayden’s face is flushed, he looks wrecked, but his eyes are clear and burning into mine. “Wait,” he pants. “I want… I want to do it again. But I want to see your face clearly when we do it, not in the dark or hidden by a sleeping bag.”
The director’s outline was simple and devastating. It wasn’t about a position. It was a plea for intimacy, for connection. He didn’t want to watch the top of my head. He wanted to watch me in our most intimate act.
My heart hammers against my ribs. I nod, my throat too tight for words.
I stand up on shaky legs, kicking off my pajama pants and briefs. Hayden shimmies out of the shorts and briefs tangled around his knees, pushing them off the bed entirely. He lies back against the pillows, and I climb over him, straddling his hips.
But he shakes his head. “Not like that,” he whispers. Hayden guides me onto my back instead, then moves over me, settling between my thighs. He reaches for the tube of KY I keep by a box of tissues on my nightstand and makes quick, slick work of opening me up, his fingers gentle and sure.
As he feels satisfied, he positions himself, the head of his cock pressing against me. He pauses, bracing himself on his arms above me, his face inches from mine.
“Look me in the eyes,” he says, and it wasn’t a command. It was a request.
I do. I keep my eyes locked on his pale blue ones as he pushes forward, slowly, inexorably, filling me in one long, breathtaking stretch. A moan punches out of me, and his eyes flutter shut for a second before forcing themselves open again, refusing to break the contact.
He begins to move, a deep, rolling rhythm that vacates the air from my lungs. Every thrust accompanied by his intense, unblinking gaze. I am completely exposed, my legs in the air over him, utterly vulnerable, and more seen than I have ever been in my life. It is overwhelming. It is everything.
“Joey,” he chants, my name a prayer on his lips with every drive of his hips. “Joey… God…”
I can feel his control fraying. His rhythm becoming erratic, his breath hot against my face. With a final, broken cry, he buries himself deep and cums, his body shuddering above me, his eyes finally squeezing shut as pleasure wrecks him.
He collapses forward for a moment, his weight a welcome heaviness, his forehead damp against my shoulder. I hold him, my hands stroking his sweaty back, waiting for my own raging need to crest.
After a minute, he pushes himself up. Without a word, he kisses his way down my chest, my stomach, until he settles between my legs again.
He looks up at me, his face earnest in the dim light. “I want to make you cum too,” he says, and there is a new confidence in his voice.
Then he takes me into his mouth.
And he’s been paying attention. There is none of the initial tentativeness from before. He uses his tongue the way I’d used mine on him, with a focused, determined pressure that has me gasping and arching off the bed within seconds. He’d learned the rhythm, the spots, the little tricks that drive me out of my mind. He’d learned me.
It is too much: the intense eye contact during sex, the aftershocks of his own climax still echoing in his touch, and now this skillful, devoted attention. I erupt with a shout, my hands fisting in his golden hair, my vision whiting out.
When I float back to myself, he is curled beside me, his head on my chest, one arm thrown possessively across my stomach. We are both sticky and spent, the room smelling of sex and the faint, clean scent of the Hello toothpaste he’d just advertised.
The set is officially destroyed. The performer vanished.
There is only this: the two of us, real and quiet in the aftermath, with no camera rolling.
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