The Weekend

Friday afternoon. Finally.

Marcus's house is quiet except for the hum of the AC and whatever playlist he threw on while we dumped our bags by the basement stairs. His parents' car is gone and won't be back until Sunday. Two whole days. I've been thinking about this weekend since Monday.

I've been thinking about him since longer than I want to admit.

We've been friends for two years. Close in the way that stops making sense to explain to other people, we just fit. Same stupid humor, same late nights, same comfortable silences. But lately the silences feel charged. Or maybe that's just me.

I catch him sometimes. A half-second too long when I climb out of the pool. A glance when I bend to pick something up. He always looks away fast, smooth, like nothing happened. But I see it.

I've been working for it, honestly. Every squat, every hip thrust at the gym. Yeah, I know what I'm doing. And it's working.

Today I wore the grey sweatpants. The ones that do exactly what grey sweatpants are supposed to do.

"You want chips?" Marcus calls from upstairs.

"Yeah, grab some." I drop onto the couch, reach over to the mini fridge and pull out two cans, then grab a controller.

He comes down the stairs and drops the bag of chips on the table. I don't look up right away. I let him settle in beside me, close, the way we always sit, shoulders almost touching, before I turn and grin at him.

"What?" He raises an eyebrow.

"Nothing." I toss him a controller. "I have an idea for a game though."

"What kind of idea."

I lean back, arms behind my head, watching the ceiling with a very innocent expression.

"A dare game. Like, simple stuff. Just to make it interesting."

He snorts. "We're not twelve."

"Scared?"

He grabs the controller out of my hand and looks at me sideways. "What are the rules."

I'd thought about this. A lot. Probably too much.

"We play Mortal Kombat. Every three rounds, whoever's lost the most picks up a dare. Small stuff at first." I shrug like I made this up just now. "We can set limits if you want. Nothing leaves the basement."

He's quiet for a second, turning the controller over in his hands. I can see him running it through his head, checking it for traps. Marcus is smart. That's part of what I love about him and also what makes this interesting.

"Fine," he says. "But I'm picking Scorpion."

"Pick whoever you want. You're still gonna lose."

He almost smiles. Almost.

We play the first three rounds. He drops two of them. I take it easy on him, let him think he has me, then close it out clean. He throws his head back against the couch cushion.

"Okay. What."

I pretend to think about it. I have the whole list ready in my head but I let the silence stretch just long enough.

"Take your shirt off."

He stares at me.

"It's hot down here," I say, which is not entirely a lie.

"That's your dare? You're a child."

"Rules are rules."

He rolls his eyes so hard I think he might pull something, then grabs the back of his collar and pulls his shirt over his head in one motion. Drops it on the floor. Grabs the controller again like nothing happened.

I keep my eyes on the screen.

He's built. I know that. I've seen him at the pool a hundred times. But here, two feet away, under the basement light, it's different. The way his shoulders settle. The line of his stomach. The fact that he's just sitting there, comfortable, like pulling his shirt off for me is nothing.

Maybe it's nothing.

Maybe it isn't.

I lose the next set on purpose.

I let myself sink back into the couch when the screen flashes his win, casual, arms dropping to my sides, and that's when it happens. Nothing dramatic. Just my arm settling against his. Bare skin against bare skin, his forearm warm and solid where it presses into mine.

He doesn't move. I don't move. Neither of us says anything.

On the surface, nothing has changed. We've sat like this a hundred times. But I feel it in my chest, slow and heavy, like a current that has always been running underneath us and I've just accidentally touched the wire. My pulse is doing something it has no business doing.

I stare at the screen. Keep my breathing even.

He's still looking at the TV too, controller loose in his hands, and from the corner of my eye I can't read his face at all. That's the thing about Marcus. He's hard to read when it matters.

The arm stays where it is. His. Mine. The few inches of contact between us that suddenly feel like the only real thing in the room.

"Your dare," I say. My voice comes out normal. I'm proud of that.

He glances at me sideways. Something in his expression I can't quite catch.

"Take your socks off," he says.

I laugh before I can stop myself. He smiles, small and real, and looks back at the screen.

"Rules are rules," he says.

I kick my socks off and we keep playing.

The next two rounds go fast. He takes one, I take one, and I dare him to do ten push-ups on the floor right there, which he does without complaining, which I absolutely do not watch from the couch like a man starving. When he gets back up and grabs his controller his chest is flushed and he's breathing a little harder and I have to look at the loading screen for a solid five seconds before I trust my face.

He wins the round after that and makes me do the same. I drop to the floor, knock them out, and when I come back up I catch him looking. Not at my arms. Lower. Just for a second before he pulls his eyes back to the TV.

I say nothing. Sit back down. Let my shoulder press into his.

He doesn't shift away.

We play three more rounds. I lose one, take the other two. When I close out the last one I set my controller down on my knee and let the silence sit for a second.

"Pants," I say.

He looks at me.

"You lost. Rules are rules."

"That's not small stuff."

He holds my look for a moment, working something out behind his eyes. Then something shifts in his expression, and he says, "Enjoy it while you can. When I lose you won't be able to say no either."

He stands up, thumbs in the waistband of his shorts, and pushes them down in one quick motion like he's ripping off a bandage. Drops back onto the couch in his boxers and picks up the controller without a word.

I keep my face completely neutral.

He nods at the screen. "Play."

We keep playing. And now I need to lose a round, because there's no way I'm letting him sit there like that while I'm still in my sweatpants.

I drop the next set. Not obviously, just let my timing slip at the right moments. The screen flashes his win.

He doesn't say anything. Just looks at me and waits.

I stand up, hook my thumbs into the waistband of my sweatpants and push them down slowly, not in a rush, not making it a thing. Fold them over the armrest and sit back down.

Marcus looks at the screen. Says nothing.

But I see it. The smallest shift, his jaw tightening just slightly, his eyes not quite making it back to the TV as fast as he wants them to.

We sit there in nothing but boxers, controllers loose in our hands, the game's menu music looping quietly in the background. This basement is ours, really. Marcus's parents never come down here. We've spent two years making it what we wanted. The neon strips we've run along the shelves throw everything in a low purple and blue glow, soft enough that the room always feels like late night even at four in the afternoon. A string of warm amber lights follows the edge of the ceiling above the TV wall. Posters, a mini fridge we keep stocked, the big L-shaped couch that has been here since we were kids but that we've buried under blankets and cushions until it became something else entirely. It's the kind of room that makes time feel optional.

And this weekend feels like a different country.

The couch hasn't changed. The basement hasn't changed. But something between us is sitting differently now, heavier, like a question neither of us has said out loud yet.

We keep playing.

Marcus wins the next one and dares me to grab the chips from the table without getting up from the couch. The table is just far enough that it shouldn't be possible. I lean, stretch, nearly slide off the cushion entirely, and somehow get two fingers on the bag and drag it back. When I straighten up he's watching me with that unreadable expression he's been wearing for a while. Not at my face. I don't say anything. He takes the bag without saying anything. Our fingers touch on the pass and neither of us moves for a second longer than we need to.

I sit back down. Closer than before. He doesn't comment on it.

I win the next round and make him move to the other end of the couch. His eyes narrow.

"Why."

"Because I wanna see your face when you lose."

He moves. Turns to face me with his back against the armrest, one knee bent up on the cushion between us. I mirror him. We keep playing like that, facing each other now, controllers in hand, the TV at an angle we're both half ignoring.

It's harder to not look at him this way. I keep my eyes on the screen.

He wins and tells me to close my eyes for thirty seconds. I do. I hear him shift on the couch, hear his breathing, slow and even, feel the air in the room change in a way I can't explain. When I open my eyes he's closer. Just slightly. Like he's moved and stopped himself halfway.

He picks his controller back up and says nothing.

I win the round after that. And the one after that.

I set my controller down.

He looks at me and waits.

I let the silence stretch just long enough, then say, "Give me a back massage."

He stares at me.

"You heard me."

"That's not a dare, that's a service."

"It's whatever I say it is. Rules are rules." I hold his look, easy, unbothered. "You can say no if you want. First one to quit loses the whole game."

A beat. Two.

He puts his controller on the armrest without a word. Then he looks at me and says, "Lie down. Face down."

I turn and lie down across the cushions, face down, arms folded under my chin.

The room is quiet. The neons hum their low purple light across the ceiling.

I feel the couch shift as he moves, and then his weight settles on me, sitting down across the back of my thighs, just below my ass. Not kneeling beside me. On me. I keep my face in the cushion and say nothing.

Then I feel his hands on my shoulders, and I stop thinking entirely.

He starts slow. Thumbs pressing into the muscle either side of my spine, working up toward my neck. He knows what he's doing, he always has, we've traded shoulder rubs after long gym sessions before. But this isn't that. This is unhurried in a different way. Deliberate. Like he's paying attention to every bit of me he touches.

I keep my breathing even. Focus on the texture of the cushion under my cheek. Focus on anything except the fact that he's sitting on me and I can feel every small shift of his weight.

His hands move down my back. Wide, slow passes, palms flat, following the shape of me. When he gets to the waistband of my boxers he pauses for just a second, not crossing it, just resting there, thumbs at the small of my back.

I don't move. Don't say anything.

The pause stretches.

Then his hands move again, back up, and I let out a breath I've been holding without realizing it. His hands on my back, the heat coming off him, the slowness of it all — I'm hard. Fully. Pressed against the cushion with nowhere to hide and very aware of it.

"Turn over," he says quietly.

I hesitate for exactly one second. Then I shift under him, turning slowly, and he just lifts his weight slightly to let me move, then settles back down. Same position. Except now I'm facing up and he's sitting right on me, and there is no version of this that isn't exactly what it looks like.

He sits right down against me and there it is, no question, no way to play it off. He can feel exactly what's happening. I watch his face and see the moment it registers, a small sharp breath, his jaw tightening. Then I feel him, hard against me too, and I tell myself it's the massage. Bodies do that. It doesn't mean anything. He probably doesn't even realise. I tell myself that and almost believe it.

The neon light catches the line of his jaw, his chest, his eyes looking down at me with an expression I have never seen on him before. Not quite nervous. Not quite sure. But not moving away either.

"Marcus," I say.

He looks at me for one long second. Then he climbs off, stands up, grabs his can from the table and finishes it in one go. Sets it down harder than he needs to. Walks to the other end of the couch and drops back onto it, picks up his controller and stares at the screen like nothing has happened.

I sit up slowly. Say nothing.

We play.

Neither of us speaks for three rounds. The only sounds are the hum of the AC and the game loading between rounds. The room feels different now, tighter, like something has been stretched close to its limit and is still holding. I win one, he wins one. I'm running out of ideas for dares that aren't just the one thing I actually want and don't know how to say.

Then Marcus wins a round. He'd played that one differently, focused, leaning forward slightly, no careless moves. Like he needed to win it. Like he'd already decided what he was going to do with it.

He sets his controller down on his knee. Quiet, the way he gets when he's working something out. I wait.

He's looking at the screen. Or pretending to. His jaw moves once, like he's about to say something, then doesn't. Then, barely loud enough to hear, barely loud enough to be sure I'm not making it up, he says it.

"Kiss me."

I go very still. I'm not sure I heard right. I don't move, don't breathe, turn it over in my head once, twice.

Then Marcus looks up. Straight at me, no looking away this time, jaw set, like he's grabbed every bit of courage he has and decided to use it all at once.

"Kiss me," he says again. Clear this time. No question about it.

The room goes very still.

I stare at him. "That's your dare."

"Those are the rules."

I hold his eyes and I can see it now, clearly, what I've been catching in pieces for months. He isn't nervous.

I set my controller down on the cushion and turn to face him properly. He's at the other end of the couch, turned toward me, one arm resting along the back of it, watching me close the distance with an expression that doesn't waver. No smirk. No deflection. Just his eyes on mine, dark and steady, like he's been waiting for exactly this and has finally decided to stop looking away.

I move slowly. Shift my knee onto the couch, cross the space between us inch by inch, giving him every chance to laugh it off, call it a joke, pick the controller back up. He doesn't move. Doesn't look away. His jaw is set and his chest is rising and falling a little faster than usual and his eyes stay locked on mine the whole way.

I stop when I'm close enough to feel the warmth coming off him. Close enough that this is already something, already a choice we're both making, before my mouth has even touched his.

He looks at me like he's memorising something. I wet my lips, nervous, and his eyes drop to my mouth and stay there for a second before coming back up. That's all I need.

I close the last inch between us slowly, giving him one final chance to pull back. He doesn't. I can feel the warmth of his breath, I'm that close, and his lips part just slightly and I feel something inside me come completely undone before I've even touched him.

Then I kiss him.

Soft. Barely anything. Just the lightest press of my mouth against his, careful and terrified and wanting it more than I've ever wanted anything. Like a question I'm not sure I have the right to ask.

He doesn't pull away. But he doesn't move either.

I start to pull back. That half second of nothing is enough, my chest already caving in, reading his stillness as the answer I've been dreading, my brain going loud and stupid all at once, cataloguing every sensation at the same time it tries to shut them all down. The warmth of him. The smell of his skin. The way my whole body has gone to liquid and stone simultaneously, soft and rigid and completely out of my control. I'm already building the story in my head, already deciding how to laugh this off, how to make it a dare gone too far, how to survive the rest of the weekend.

His hand grabs the back of my neck and pulls me back in.

Not soft. Not careful. His mouth is on mine before I've had time to catch up and then I don't need to catch up because every part of me knows exactly what this is. He kisses me hard, with intent, with everything he's been keeping quiet behind it, and I grab the front of his shirt and kiss him back like I've been starving for this since before I even knew what this was.

When we finally pull apart we're both breathing like we've been running. His hand is still at the back of my neck, fingers curled into my hair, holding on.

"You set me up?" he says.

"You let me."

He looks at me for one more second, then pulls me back in.

This time his other hand finds my waist and pulls me closer, and I let myself go, swing my leg over and end up straddling him, his back against the armrest, both hands on me now, and the whole game, the controllers, the TV still running somewhere behind us, all of it disappears completely.

He tastes like beer and something underneath it that is just him, and I have thought about this exact thing so many times that I expect it to feel unreal. It doesn't. It feels like the most real thing that has ever happened to me. His hands move up my back slowly, learning the shape of me the same way they had twenty minutes ago on the couch, except now there's nothing to pretend. No rules to hide behind. Just his palms flat against my skin and his mouth on mine and everything we've been sitting on pouring out of both of us at once.

I pull back just far enough to look at him.

His hair is a mess. His lips are slightly parted. He looks at me with an expression that is completely unguarded in a way I have never seen on him before, no armour, no cool, just Marcus looking up at me like he can't quite believe this is where the evening has gone either.

"Hey," I say, which is a stupid thing to say.

He laughs, low and quiet, and the laugh breaks something open in my chest that I don't think will ever fully close again.

"Hey," he says back.

Then his hand slides into my hair and pulls me down again and I stop thinking about words entirely.

His hips shift under me and I feel exactly how hard he is, and this time there's no massage to blame it on. No accident. No excuse. It's me. I'm the reason. The sound that comes out of me is embarrassing and I don't care even slightly. He makes a low noise against my mouth in response, his grip tightening, his hands running down my back and over my ass. He squeezes, slow and deliberate, and his hands are actually there and it's better than every version I imagined.

"Been thinking about this?" I manage.

"Shut up," he says, and flips us.

I hit the cushions with him on top and the breath goes out of me. He's heavier than I'd imagined, solid, his forearms either side of my head, looking down at me with dark eyes and that jaw and everything we are to each other sitting underneath all of it like a foundation I can feel through the whole thing. He rolls his hips once, slow, and I grab his waist and pull him down harder and he drops his forehead against mine.

We stay like that for a second. Both breathing. Close enough that I can feel his pulse against my chest.

"The boxers," I say.

He looks at me.

"Off," I say.

Something shifts in his expression. The last trace of restraint. He pushes himself up onto his knees, hooks his thumbs into the waistband and pulls them down in one motion.

I do the same.

We both look. Neither of us pretends we don't.

He's hard, fully, no question about it, and bigger than I'd let myself imagine during all the times I'd tried not to imagine it. My mouth goes dry. His eyes drop to me and something moves across his face that isn't quite surprise but is close to it.

"Okay," he says, mostly to himself.

"Yeah," I agree.

We stay there for a second, kneeling on the couch facing each other, both of us completely exposed and completely obvious about it. Then he reaches out and wraps a hand around me, slow and deliberate, and I stop breathing entirely. The feeling of his hand there, warm and sure, is so much more than anything I'd been able to build in my head. My whole body locks up. I hear myself exhale, rough and uneven, and his grip tightens just slightly in response, like that sound told him exactly what he needed to know.

He lies back down on top of me and I stop being capable of forming thoughts that have any shape to them.

He moves slowly at first. Deliberate. Like he's figuring out what I want from every sound I make, and learning it, storing it, adjusting. His mouth finds my neck and I dig my fingers into his back and he bites down lightly and I make a noise that echoes off the walls.

"Marcus."

"Yeah."

"Don't stop."

He doesn't stop.

But after a while he pulls back, breathing hard, and looks at me with that expression again, the unguarded one, and I can see something in it that looks almost like uncertainty. Like he's at the edge of something and isn't sure which way to step.

I know the feeling exactly.

"We don't have to," I say, which is possibly the most painful sentence I've ever formed.

"I know," he says. "I want to." A pause. "I just don't really know what I'm doing."

Something loosens in my chest. "Neither do I."

He looks at me for a second, then laughs, quiet and real, and presses his forehead against my shoulder. I put my hand in his hair. We stay like that for a moment, both of us catching our breath, the blue light of the neons soft on the ceiling above us.

Then I push him gently onto his back and kiss down his chest, slow, learning him, feeling his stomach tighten under my mouth as I go lower. His hand finds my hair, not pushing, just resting there.

I've thought about this. More than I've ever admitted to myself. But now that I'm here, close enough to feel the heat of him, something in me slows down. I wrap my hand around him slowly and just stay there, moving just enough, looking at him, taking it in. He's beautiful like this, fully hard, thick veins running along the shaft that I can feel pulsing warm under my fingers. His breath is coming faster above me. His stomach tightens every few seconds. I can feel his heartbeat against my palm.

I want to do more. But I've never done this before and neither has he, and I don't know if he wants that, if it would be too much, if he'd pull back.

Then I see it. A small bead gathering at the tip of him, catching the blue light of the neons.

Something short-circuits in me completely. Before I've made any conscious decision I lean in and run my tongue slowly across it.

The taste hits me and I go back without thinking. Salt and heat and something specific and entirely him. I lick again, slower, and hear him gasp above me, low and sharp.

I can't stop. Don't want to. I run my tongue along him, exploring, and when I finally take him into my mouth properly his whole body shudders and his grip in my hair tightens and I feel something settle in me like a key turning. This. Yes. I find a rhythm, slow at first, reading every sound he makes, every shift of his hips, learning exactly what undoes him and doing it again deliberately.

He isn't quiet. I'm glad he isn't quiet.

At some point his hand tightens in my hair and he says my name, low and unsteady, and I look up at him from where I am and the look on his face almost undoes me completely.

"Come here," he breathes.

He pulls me up and I move over him, lying side by side now, face to face, close enough that I can feel his breath. His hand finds me and I exhale hard against his neck. He strokes me slowly, getting to know me the same way I got to know him, and his mouth finds my jaw, my ear, dragging slow and deliberate, and I dig my fingers into his back and try to remember how to breathe.

Then he shifts, adjusting his grip, and suddenly he has us both in his hand at once, his and mine together, and the feeling of him right there against me, hard and warm and pulsing, hits me so fast and so completely that the word that comes out of me isn't really a word.

"Fuuuuck."

I feel him exhale a shaky laugh against my temple. He starts to move his hand and the friction of us together, skin on skin, is something I have absolutely no frame of reference for and my brain just gives up trying to process it. He picks up the pace and I'm already losing ground fast, way faster than I want to, the build coming up on me before I'm ready for it.

I reach down and wrap my hand over his.

He slows. Feels what I'm doing. His fingers adjust under mine and we find a rhythm together, both our hands, both of us, moving at the same pace. The intimacy of that, his hand and mine working together, holding both of us at once, is somehow more than everything else combined. I press my forehead against his and we just stay there, breathing the same air, eyes closed, taking our time.

His thumb does something specific and my whole body shudders.

"Don't stop that," I manage.

He doesn't stop that.

The build comes back, slower this time, deeper, and I let it, both of us chasing it together, until there's nothing left to hold back and I go first, gasping into his neck, and feel him follow seconds later, shaking against me, his grip tightening around both of us as he goes.

We finish close together, messy and breathless and tangled up on the big couch, and neither of us moves for a long time afterward. My heart is still going too fast. His hand is resting on my stomach, thumb moving in a small absent arc against my skin like he isn't even aware he's doing it.

The basement is quiet. The game has timed out on the TV, the screen dark. Somewhere upstairs the playlist is still going, something slow we're not really hearing.

"So," Marcus says eventually, to the ceiling.

"Yeah," I say.

A long pause.

"We probably could've skipped the Mortal Kombat," he says.

I start laughing before I can stop it. He follows a second later, and for a while that's all there is, the two of us laughing in the dark, bare skin and blue light and the whole weekend still ahead of us.