They did not have a fight, Jordan told himself for the hundredth time. Not at all. It was just a disagreement.
December 23rd, and the Merritt Parkway was doing its best impression of a snow globe someone had shaken too hard.
Jordan kept the Volvo in the right lane, wipers batting away fat, lazy flakes that melted the instant they hit the windshield. The trees lining the highway had turned into charcoal sketches: black trunks, white branches, every needle outlined in frost like someone had taken a fine brush to the world and painted winter in negative space. The sky hung low and pewter, the color of old silverware, pressing down on the rooftops of passing towns. Every exit sign, Westport, Fairfield, Bridgeport looked like it belonged on a postcard his mother would frame.
The road itself was half-empty. Most people had already made it home or given up trying. A lone salt truck rumbled past in the left lane, amber lights pulsing, leaving a gritty white wake that smelled of brine even through the vents. Every few miles a plow had carved the shoulders into neat, dirty cliffs of snow, reflecting the Audi’s headlights back in dull orange flashes.
It was good that the highway was empty. He wasn’t driving his best. He was still disgruntled from his not-a--fight with Ben. He wasn’t fuming. It wasn’t a fight. There was no yelling. No one got angry. No doors were slammed, no one said words they would regret later. It was just to men in a healthy relationship that disagreed on something and, very calmly and very respectfully, presented the arguments on why they were in the right.
Jordan’s playlist had given up somewhere around Stamford; now it was just public-radio Christmas jazz, soft brushes on snare and Ella Fitzgerald purring “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” like she knew exactly what kind of holiday he was walking into. The heater was cranked high, but his hands were still cold on the wheel.
He passed a roadside farm stand shuttered for the season, its handwritten HONESTY BOX still out, half-buried under a drift. A hand-painted sign read CLOSED UNTIL MAPLE SEASON in red letters already bleeding from the wet. Beyond it, a field stretched white and endless, broken only by a single red barn and a herd of black-and-white cows that looked like punctuation marks someone had scattered across a blank page.
It started the morning after Jordan sent the DM to Montoya.
They’d scheduled the Zoom call for 9 a.m., both very sharp and professional, Jordan in a crisp shirt, Ben in a black tee that stretched across his chest, in front of the laptop with coffee steaming and the loft’s morning light pouring in behind them)
9:00 turned to 9:10.
9:10 turned to 9:15.
Ben’s knee started bouncing under the table. By 9:25 he was outright scowling, arms crossed, muttering “guy’s got a million followers and can’t tell time?” Jordan fired off a polite message to Montoya, asking if everything was fine, and got nothing back.
9:45 came and went. It was past ten when the Zoom notification finally pinged.
Dante Montoya is calling.
Ben snorted, clicked accept, and the screen filled with Dante’s face: sleepy-eyed, hair tousled, shirtless, clearly still in bed, bronze skin against white sheets somewhere in Miami.
“Yo, sorry fellas,” he yawned, scratching his chest, not sounding sorry at all. “Overslept. What’s good?”
Ben’s jaw flexed. Jordan felt the temperature in the loft drop ten degrees.
That was how it started.
Dante Montoya was ridiculously attractive, even Jordan, already annoyed as hell, couldn’t pretend otherwise. The camera caught him from the chest up, morning sun flooding the bedroom he was sprawled in, and it was unfair how good he looked half-asleep. Thick, carved pecs dusted with the perfect amount of dark hair, shoulders broad and round, arms heavy with ink and muscle. Abs like stacked bricks, a treasure trail disappearing under the sheet riding low on his hips. He had that polished, Instagram-filtered perfection that came from treating the gym like a full-time job, something working-class guys like the Ben Jordan had met years ago could only dreamed of. He looked, Jordan realized with a sick twist, kind of like Ben had looked when they first met… only better. More symmetrical. More marketable.
More everything.
Ben’s jaw flexed again, the only outward sign he’d noticed the same thing. Dante yawned, stretched, and the sheet slipped a dangerous inch.
Dante’s personality, however, was a flaming dumpster.
The arrogance was expected, anyone who made bank off thirsty worshippers had to have an ego, but Dante took it into a different stratosphere. He talked over Jordan every time he tried to ask about scheduling or testing protocols, eyes flicking to him like he was some assistant who’d wandered into frame by mistake. When Jordan mentioned scheduling, Dante cut him off with a lazy hand wave and a “Yeah, yeah, you gonna have to figure it out, little bro.”, then immediately turned back to Ben and flexed one tattooed bicep for his own Zoom preview window, admiring himself while Ben was mid-sentence.
He was barely warmer to Ben. He kept calling him “big guy” in this patronizing, syrupy tone, like Ben was a hired prop instead of the guy about to split him open on camera. He spent half the call outlining his vision: “I still gotta look like the alpha, you feel me? None of that twink-bitch crying Ezra does. I’m the prize here too”, as if the entire collab was a favor he was graciously bestowing on them. When Jordan asked about STD panels, Dante rolled his eyes so hard it was audible and said, “Bro, I’m clean, relax. You think I’d let just any dick in if I wasn’t?” followed by a slow, condescending wink at the camera.
Ben’s opinion of the man clearly wasn’t high either. The longer Dante talked, the tighter Ben’s jaw got, answers shrinking to flat monosyllables, eyes narrowing behind his glasses until Jordan half-expected him to reach through the screen and deck the guy. So when every detail, the dates, the revenue split, the marketing, the positions and even the stupid “alpha vibe” Dante kept insisting on had finally been hammered out, Jordan was stunned when Ben gave a single, curt nod.
“Yeah. I’m in.”
Dante’s grin spread wide on the screen, smug and triumphant, like he’d never entertained the possibility of any other answer.
“Aight, gym’s calling,” he drawled, already reaching to end the call. No goodbye, no thanks, just a flash of a stupidly dazzling smirk and the screen went black.
The loft fell dead silent.
Jordan stared at the blank Zoom window.
Ben exhaled slow through his nose, rubbed a hand over his beard, and muttered, “I’m gonna need a longer shower after that asshole.”
Jordan waited for the but, the never mind, the let’s cancel. It never came.
“You’re sure about this, Benny?”, he asked.
“Whatever. I’dont need to like the guy to put my dick in him. You feel me?, he said, making Jordan snort. Ben stood, rolled his shoulders like he was loosening up for a fight, and said, “Book it, babe” before walking away.
The one thing about being completely overwhelmed with work was that, unlike the endless, gnawing days before the Ezra shoot, Jordan had zero time to spiral. Between closing a last-minute seven-figure Basquiat consignment for a Park Avenue widow, flying to Boston for a frantic three-hour authentication on a dubious Kandinsky, and spending e moderating Ben’s new Patreon tier and filing quarterly taxes, the days blurred into a single exhausting streak. His mom called on the 17th, voice warm and flustered in that holiday way, asking when they were coming up and mentioning something about Jordan’s father-in-lar and prime ribs for dinner when they arrived.
Nolan texted twice that same week, short, hopeful messages about maybe visiting after New Year’s, and Jordan, swamped, distracted and guilty, left the poor kid on read again He barely slept, lived on espresso and adrenaline, and, for once, his brain was too occupied to obsess.
So when, on the night of the 19th, Ben stretched out on the couch and casually said, “Heading to the gym early session tomorrow so the rest of the day’s free for Montoya,” Jordan actually blinked, brain stuttering for half a second before the name clicked.
Montoya. The collab. Tomorrow. And only then did the familiar twist of heat and dread flare low in his gut, sharp and sudden, like a match struck in a dark room he’d forgotten was full of gasoline.
Then, the asshole struck again.
On the morning of the 20th, Jordan was half-dressed for work and Ben was lacing up his gym sneakers when Jordan’s phone buzzed on the kitchen counter.
Dante Montoya:
Forgot to book the flight guys
Will only hit the city on the 23rd
We still game right?
Jordan stared at the screen, heat crawling up his neck. Ben read it over his shoulder, jaw locking so hard Jordan heard the click.
“That motherf…”
Jordan wanted to call it off. Fuck that guy, he had snapped. Montoya had been an asshole from the very first begining, and now he was trying to muscle in on the one day Jordan had promised his parents they’d both be there. So yeah, fuck him.
Ben disagreed.
Jordan could see him trying to be careful, choosing his words the way you walk across thin ice. When Ben suggested he could still shoot with Montoya on the 23rd and drive up to Connecticut right after, during the night, his voice was low, cautious, almost apologetic.
Jordan tried to stay diplomatic, he really did, but the annoyance was burning under his skin. If it had been any other circumstance, a delayed flight, a family emergency, even the fucking weather acting up, Jordan might have been flexible the way Ben was gently asking him to be. But Montoya wasn’t delayed by fate; he was delayed by his own careless, arrogant ass. Jordan had promised his mom and step-dad that both of them would roll into the driveway on the 23rd so his Walt could fire up the smoker and feed them his famous prime rib. Jordan hated the drive alone. And he really, really hated Dante Montoya.
So yeah, fuck that guy.
Ben was calm, measured, almost gentle.
He explained he wanted to be professional even when Montoya wasn’t. This was his work now, unorthodox, sure, but still work, and he was new. He couldn’t afford to burn bridges or get a reputation for flaking, not when a creator with almost a million followers had asked for him by name. One scene with Dante could open doors that would still be closed years from now if he said no today. And he’d make it to Connecticut in time for dinner, he promised. He’d drive up right after, be there for the prime rib, for Jordan’s family. He laid it out like a lawyer making a closing argument: reasonable, logical, airtight. Jordan’s only real counter was “Yeah, but he’s an asshole,” and even he knew that didn’t carry the same weight, so eventually, quietly, he admitted defeat.
He’d make the drive alone on the 23rd and Ben would stay in the city and film with Dante. They sealed it with a small nod, a soft kiss pressed to Jordan’s temple, and the unspoken agreement that they’d pretend it didn’t hurt either of them as much as it did.
So that was how he found himself alone on the Merritt Parkway, Christmas music turned low, hands tight on the wheel, pretending he wasn’t mad at his boyfriend while Ben, at this very moment, was in some midtown hotel suite fucking the shit out of Dante Montoya.
The scenery had started to turn familiar: the same stretch of stone wall patched with snow, the same crooked mailbox shaped like a lighthouse his dad had built the summer Jordan was twelve, the same stand of birches that always looked half-dead no matter the season. The parkway narrowed, the trees closed in, and then the exit sign for his childhood street appeared.
A minute later he rolled to a stop in front of the house he grew up in: big, cedar-shingled Colonial set back on an acre of old oaks, wraparound porch decorated with tasteful garland and white lights that twinkled against the snow, three-car garage, driveway left unplowed and blanketed in snow. Cizy, quiet, perfect, the kind of house that made you feel like you’d made it even when you were just coming home for the holidays.
His mom, Jo, flung the door open before he’d even reached the porch, arms already out, eyes shining like he was eighteen again and coming home from college. Walt hovered just behind her, tall and willowy, silver hair swept back, wire-rimmed glasses glinting under the porch light. “Jordikins!” Jo sang, pulling him into a hug that smelled of Chanel No. 5 and the same sugar-cookie candles she’d burned every December since he was six. She looked much younger than she actually was, light-blond hair she insisted was “all natural,” since before Jordan began high school, skin suspiciously smooth for a woman in her mid-sixties. Walt followed with a firm, one-armed hug and a gentle back-pat. They fussed over him like he’d been gone years instead of months, dragging him inside, peeling off his coat, pressing a mug of spiked eggnog into his hand before he’d even kicked the snow off his boots. Questions came in a warm, overlapping avalanche: how was the drive, was traffic awful?, you look so thin, Jordy, are you eating?
“And Ben, sweetheart, how’s Ben? We were so worried when he lost that job, but you said he finally found something new. What was it again? Something in movies?”
Jordan’s smile felt stapled on. “Yeah,” he managed, voice only cracking a little. “Something like that.”
The house wrapped around him the way it always had, like a favorite sweater pulled out of storage: same creak on the third stair, same scent of pine and cinnamon drifting from the kitchen, same low hum of Nat King Cole from the living-room speakers. Ten years since he’d lived here full-time, and still his shoulders dropped the second he crossed the threshold. Home. Undeniable, uncomplicated, safe. The anger that had ridden shotgun all the way up the Merritt began to thaw.
Jo pressed a second mug of eggnog into his hand, Walt’s special recipe, heavy on the cognac, light on the actual egg, and the burn down his throat was sweet and immediate. Outside, the snow thickened, big lazy flakes drifting past the bay window and piling on the porch railings until the world looked frosted in sugar. Inside, the tree lights glowed soft gold, the fireplace crackle of the fire mixing with the low clink of ornaments as Jo rearranged them for the thousandth time.
They fell into the old rhythm without thinking. Jordan followed his mom into the kitchen, rolling up his sleeves to peel potatoes while she fussed over the prime rib, humming along to “The Christmas Song.” Snow tapped the windows like it was asking to be let in; the oven radiated warmth that smelled of rosemary and garlic; Walt’s ancient golden retriever, Midas, snored by the island like a furry space heater. Walt bundled up and headed out to fire up the smoker on the back porch, Jordan watched him through the window, smoke curling up into the falling snow, and felt something loosen in his chest he hadn’t realized was knotted.
The cognac helped, sure, but mostly it was this: the quiet, ordinary miracle of being home for Christmas, snow piling up outside, Jo and Walt bickering affectionately over whether the rib needed one more hour or two, the dog thumping his tail every time someone said his name.
For a little while, Dante Montoya, OnlyFans, the future, none of it could reach him here.
Just snow, smoke, and the smell of his mom’s gravy simmering on the stove. Just Christmas.
He realized Ben wasn’t coming a little after six, but he didn’t accept it until eight.
Every time Jo poked her head out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a red-and-white towel asking, “You sure he’s still coming, honey? Maybe give him a call?” Jordan just smiled, tight and automatic, and said, “Traffic’s probably murder, Mom. He’ll be here.” He pretended not to see the quick, worried glance she shot Walt, or the way Walt cleared his throat and busied himself carving extra slices “just in case.”
By seven-thirty the prime rib was resting under foil, glossy and perfect, the kitchen thick with the smell of roasted garlic mashed potatoes, brown-butter Brussels sprouts with pancetta, and the cranberry-orange relish Jo only made when Jordan came home. The table was set for four, candles flickering, Bing Crosby crooning soft in the background.
At eight sharp Walt carried the platter in, steam curling off the rosy meat like incense. Jo hovered, twisting her towel, eyes flicking to the door every few seconds. Jordan stood by the window, phone dark in his hand, snow still falling in fat, silent flakes beyond the glass.
Walt and Jo looked at him, quiet, waiting. Jordan forced the smile that tasted like ashes, gave a small, self-deprecating laugh that hurt his throat.
“Yeah,” he said, voice thin. “I guess he’s not coming after all.”
He didn’t get mad.
He didn’t make a scene.
He smiled the way he’d smiled at a hundred gallery openings when a client was being difficult: polite, practiced, bulletproof. Ben had simply gotten caught up at work, no big deal. It wasn’t even Christmas Eve, just a normal family dinner. Nothing to see here.
He didn’t call Ben or text. He was three glasses of Walt’s good Cab deep and climbing, and he knew the wine would loosen his tongue into something ugly if he gave it half a chance. So he ate, fork moving on autopilot, answering Jo’s gentle questions about his dad’s newest girlfriend (“She’s twenty-nine, Mom, yes, younger than the last one”) and laughing at Walt’s corny puns like his chest wasn’t caving in. The prime rib was perfect, pink and smoky, the cranberry sauce tart and bright, the garlic mash creamy enough to make you cry on any other night. H
He tasted none of it.
Only the wine, sliding down glass after glass, and the resentment sitting metallic and sharp on the back of his tongue, growing with every swallow.
When he stepped out of the shower, hours later, towel knotted low on his hips, another scrubbing roughly at his hair, his phone finally lit up on the nightstand. One message, time-stamped 11:47 p.m. Ben:
Just finished with Montoya. Sorry babe, can’t make the trip tonight. I’m beat. See you tomorrow first thing in the morning? Love you
Jordan stared at the screen until the letters blurred. He didn’t answer. He dropped the towel, pulled on soft flannel pajama pants and the faded Yale T-shirt he’d stolen from his dad’s drawer years ago. He padded barefoot down the hall, past the twinkling tree and the quiet stockings hung on the mantel, and made himself a mug of chamomile in the kitchen. Midas followed, tail thumping sleepily, and flopped at his feet while Jordan leaned against the counter and let the steam curl up into his face. He stayed there a long time, long enough for the tea to cool, long enough for the house to settle into its nighttime creaks and sighs. Mom and Walt had gone up an hour ago, kissing his cheek and telling him to get some sleep because tomorrow he’d be “slave labor in the kitchen all day.”
When he finally felt he’d stalled enough, he rinsed the mug, gave Midas one last ear-scratch, and climbed the stairs. The bedroom was dark except for the faint glow of snow through the curtains. He slipped under the old quilt that still smelled faintly of his teenage years and stared at the ceiling, phone dark beside him.
He snatched the phone again. Almost 2 a.m. He called. It rang once, twice, then rolled to voicemail after twenty endless tones. Jordan killed the call, thumb shaking. Then the thought slithered in, cold and poisonous.
What if Ben hadn’t skipped the drive because he was “beat” from fucking Montoya? What if he’d stayed in the city because he wanted more, more of that scalding, perfect heat, more of Montoya, of anyone else? Jordan’s mind painted it in brutal color: some dark Manhattan club, bass vibrating the walls, colored strobes slicing through sweat and bodies. Ben in the middle of it all shirtless, eyes black with hunger, surrounded by an army of pretty twinks staring up at him like he’d hung the moon and could ruin them with a smile.
He called again. His cock was getting hard, that traitor, aching against the soft flannel of his pajama pants. He pictured Ben in a club bathroom, door barely locked, pressed up against a tiled wall, buried balls-deep in some faceless, muscular guy who was already moaning like his life depended on it. Loud music thumping outside, doing nothing to smother the sounds, the pleas for more, while Ben fucked like the beast he’d become on set. It rang once. Twice
Jordan’s breath came shallow, hand drifting to palm himself through the fabric, shame burning hot in his throat and hotter between his legs, terrified of the call would go to voicemail again and terrified it wouldn’t.
On the third ring the line clicked.
“…Jord?”
Ben’s voice was thick with sleep, low and gravelly, the same rasp it got after long nights when they used to curl together and talk until dawn. There was only silence behind him: no pounding club bass, no breathy moans, no stranger murmuring who’s calling so late. Just the faint rustle of sheets and the soft hush of Ben breathing.
Jordan had to swallow a sound he wasn’t sure was a sob or a laugh. He was going crazy, wasn’t he?
“You okay, baby?” Ben asked when Jordan stayed quiet too long, worry creeping in. “Something wrong?”
“Everything’s fine,” Jordan managed, the lie scraping his throat raw. “Just… missed you.”
“Hey.” Ben’s voice softened instantly, warm, familiar, heartbreakingly kind. “I miss you too.”
A pause.
“Sorry I couldn’t make dinner,” Ben murmured. “I crashed the second I walked in the door. How’re Jo and Walt holding up?”
“They’re fine. Walt saved you some rib.” He hesitated, the silence stretching just for a bit, then let the question slip before he could overthink it. “How’d it go, then? With Montoya?”
Ben let out a long, exasperated groan that was pure annoyance. “Ugh, the guy’s a fucking prick, Jord. Even worse in person.” Another pause. “Hotter in person too, if I’m being honest.”
Jordan barked a short, surprised laugh despite everything.
“It all worked out, t hen?” he asked,
He was already feeling lighter. Somehow, knowing Ben had hated every second of Dante’s personality, that he hadn’t been off having the time of his life while Jordan sat at his parents’ table alone, eased the ache behind his ribs. Just a little. Just enough to breathe..
“Yeah, yeah, it worked out fine,” Ben said, tiredness creeping in. “But it was nothing like the Ezra shoot. No studio, no crew, no Victor telling us where to put the lights. Just me and him in that hotel room, arguing over every damn thing: who’s doing what, what position, how long, how hard. I swear to fucking God, if he called me ‘bro’ one more time I was gonna bash his fucking face in.”
“Please tell me you didn’t assault someone again, Ben,” Jordan half-laughed, half-pleaded.
“No, no assaults this time, I promise,” Ben answered, almost meek. Then he gave a dark, humorless chuckle. “Nah… what I did was probably worse, I guess.”
“What?”
“Treated the guy like a bitch, babe. Slapped the shit out of him. Every time I fucked him I pretended it was my fist on his nose and just went harder.”
Jordan’s breath caught. “He… let you do that?”
“Let me?” Ben’s laugh was almost cruel. “He fucking begged for it, Jord. All that alpha-bro talk was complete bullshit. Ten minutes in he was crying for more, fucking calling me Daddy, telling me to break him. If I hadn’t watched his videos myself I’d swear the prick was born to bottom. Likes cock more than you do, baby.”
Silence stretched thick across the line. Jordan could hear Ben’s breathing, slow and satisfied, like he was still tasting the memory.
“Whole different animal once the camera was off,” Ben murmured. “You should’ve seen him.”
“Did you like it, then?” Jordan asked, voice barely above a whisper, like the dark might hear.
“Oh yeah,” Ben answered, low and lazy, satisfaction thick in every syllable. “Came so fucking hard I thought the hotel was gonna call the cops. Painted his whole face, babe.”
A soft exhale, almost a laugh.
“It was hot as fuck. Wish you were there to see it.”
That last line set every nerve in Jordan’s body on fire.
He wasn’t even going to pretend he wasn’t hard. He palmed himself through the flannel, a helpless shiver racing from his scalp to his toes, cock straining thick and urgent against the soft fabric. He wished he’d been there too, hidden in the corner, swallowed by shadows, watching Ben own Dante Montoya the way a storm owns the sky.
He could see it perfectly: cheap hotel ring-lights throwing harsh white glow, camera rolling, the room thick with sweat and want. Ben on top, mounting Dante like a stallion breaking a mare, all two-hundred-sixty pounds of raw man pinning the smaller guy down, chest to back, beard scraping skin. One huge hand fisted in Dante’s hair, yanking his head back, the other cracking across that perfectly round ass, across his cheek, merciless. Montoya, all that alpha swagger shattered, overwhelmed, broken, begging for more cock, more slaps, more everything, voice cracking into desperate, worshipful sobs while Ben gave it to him: brutal, unrelenting, breeding him until the only word left was Daddy.
Jordan’s breath came shallow and fast, hips rolling into his own hand without permission, the old quilt suddenly too hot, the dark bedroom too small. He bit down on his lip to keep the moan inside. He wanted to know more, every filthy, excruciating detail. He wanted to beg Ben to stay on the line, voice low and rough in his ear, recounting minute by minute how he’d broken Dante Montoya, how he’d made that arrogant mouth sob for mercy, how it felt when he came all over that gorgeous face. He wanted to slide his back into his soaked flannel, jerk off quick and desperate while Ben painted the picture for him, breath hitching with every thrust he described.
But he didn’t know how to ask.
That night in the Rolls had taken every drop of courage he had, and even then the words had clawed their way out half-choked. Now, with a hundred miles of dark highway and snow between them, the distance felt like a canyon. His throat closed up just thinking about it.
“I gotta go, Jord,” Ben murmured. “Need to catch some sleep. Set the alarm for five so I’ll probably get there before you even wake up, okay?”
Jordan swallowed the hunger clawing at his throat, pressed the phone tighter to his ear, and forced out the only words he could manage.
“Sleep tight, Benny. Can’t wait to see you tomorrow.”
His voice only shook a little.
Ben yawned, soft and trusting. “Night, babe. Love you.”
The line went dead.
Jordan dropped the phone like it burned. His hand was already sliding down, wrapping around his aching cock, slick with the mess he’d made. He rolled onto his stomach, shoved his face into the pillow and muffled the broken sound that tore out of him as he came hard, silent, shaking, alone in the dark of the bedroom he grew up in while the snow kept falling outside and Ben slept a hundred miles away with another man’s taste still on his lips.
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