Saturday morning.
The light is wrong. Wrong angle for my room. I'm in a bed and the sheet smells like cedar and something warmer underneath that I don't have a word for yet but my body already knows.
Marcus isn't in it.
I lie still for a moment, looking at the ceiling. His ceiling. His room, his pillow, his bed that's technically a single but wide enough that we'd fit last night without either of us having to make a decision about it. I remember moving up here sometime after two, neither of us saying much, just the silent agreement of two people too tired to pretend the couch was where they wanted to be.
I listen. The house is quiet but not empty. Something downstairs. The faint knock of a cupboard, the low hiss of something on the stove.
He didn't leave. He's just making breakfast.
I stay in the bed a little longer than I need to, looking at the pillow beside me, still slightly creased where his head had been, and try to figure out what my face is going to do when I walk into that kitchen.
I find a t-shirt on the back of his desk chair that might be mine or might be his. At this point it doesn't matter. I pull it on and head for the stairs. Third step creaks like always. I know which ones to skip but I don't skip them today. I don't want to appear like I materialised.
Marcus is at the stove with his back to me. Two pans going. He's in the same joggers he had on last night and a hoodie I've definitely borrowed before. He doesn't turn around when I come in, which means he heard the stair.
"Coffee's done," he says.
"Thanks."
I pour myself a mug and stand with my back against the counter. The kitchen smells like butter and eggs. He's making actual food, not just toast, which means he's been up for a while.
I watch the back of his neck and don't say anything.
He plates everything without looking at me until he has to. When he finally turns around his face is very still. Marcus when he's thinking too hard. I know that face well.
"Eggs," he says, and sets a plate down across from his.
"I see that."
I sit. He sits. We eat.
For a while the only sounds are forks and the refrigerator hum and someone mowing something two streets over.
He puts his fork down and clears his throat.
"So," he says.
"So."
He nods, like that answered something. Then he picks up his fork again, puts it back down.
"I just want you to know that I don't usually," he starts. "I mean. That's not something I."
"Marcus."
"I'm serious."
"I know."
"I just." He exhales. "I don't know what that was."
I look at him. "Okay."
"Okay?" He sounds annoyed now, which is somehow better.
"Yeah. Okay." I take a sip of coffee. "It's Saturday. Can we just."
He stares at me for a second. Then he picks his fork back up.
We finish breakfast.
He takes our plates to the sink and I refill my coffee and for a few minutes it's almost normal.
"Pool?" he says, back still to me, rinsing.
"Yeah."
We both head upstairs. My bag is in his room. I find my swimsuit and pull it out and Marcus is already at his drawer with his back to me and neither of us says anything but the room feels very small suddenly.
I pull on my swimsuit facing the window. I hear him doing the same behind me. We've done this a hundred times, at the gym, at college, in this same room. It was never anything. But now I'm aware of every second of it. Every sound he makes.
We don't look at each other until we're done. Then we do, for just a second, and Marcus grabs his towel off the chair and heads for the door.
"Sunscreen's downstairs," he says.
I follow him.
The pool is in the back garden, small but private, screened in by the hedge his parents planted years ago. The water is already bright in the morning sun. We drop our towels on the loungers and Marcus hands me the sunscreen without a word.
I do my arms and chest and hand it back. He does his front, then holds it out to me.
"Back," he says.
I take it. He turns around and I squeeze some into my palm and start working it into his shoulders. He's tense for the first few seconds, then I feel him let go of it. I take my time. His skin is warm and I can feel the muscles of his back under my hands and I keep my breathing even and say nothing.
When I'm done he turns to face me and takes the bottle.
"Turn around," he says.
I do.
His hands are steadier than mine were. He covers my shoulders, the back of my neck, down my spine to the waistband of my shorts. He stops there. Doesn't move for a second.
Then he caps the bottle and sets it down.
We stretch out on the loungers. Marcus puts his sunglasses on and picks up his phone. I do the same.
It's quiet. Birds, distant traffic, the water still. The sun is warm but not hot yet.
My phone buzzes. A cat meme from Marcus. Completely stupid. I snort.
"Really," I say.
"Felt appropriate."
I send one back. He laughs, low, without looking up from his screen. I find another one and send that too. He answers immediately. We go back and forth like that for a while, getting more ridiculous, and at some point I'm laughing hard enough that I have to put the phone down on my chest.
When I look over he's already looking at me, sunglasses pushed up, smiling in a way that's just him, no guard on it.
I look back at the sky.
"What do you want to do this afternoon?" Marcus says.
"Don't know. We could go somewhere."
"Where."
"I don't know. Town?"
"There's nothing in town on a Saturday."
"Cinema maybe."
He makes a noncommittal sound. "Could just order pizza later. Watch something."
"Yeah."
"End up in the basement anyway."
"Always do."
A pause. The sun is warm on my face.
"We need more beers," he says. "Should stop by the shop at some point."
"Okay."
Beers.
I think about the can he finished in one go last night, right before he said it. Kiss me. And then everything after. His mouth. His hands moving down my back. The sounds he made when I went down on him, the way his grip tightened in my hair.
I have a problem. Lying flat on my back is not going to work for much longer.
I stand up.
"Checking the water," I say, to no one in particular.
I walk to the edge and crouch down, drag my hand through it. Cold enough. I stay there for a second.
I don't hear him get up.
I just feel two hands flat on my back, and then I'm in the water.
I come up gasping. Marcus is standing at the edge with his arms crossed, trying very hard not to smile and failing.
"Temperature okay?" he says.
I push my hair out of my eyes and look at him. He laughs.
I grab his ankle and pull.
He goes under and comes up spluttering, hair everywhere, and the look on his face is so outraged that I start laughing before I can stop myself.
It escalates from there. He gets me twice, once from behind, once when I'm not paying attention. I get him back. We're loud and stupid about it, the way we always are in this pool. At some point I get both hands on his shoulders and push him under and he comes up grabbing my arm and takes me down with him and we both surface coughing and laughing at the same time.
Eventually we stop. Floating on our backs side by side, catching our breath. The water moves around us. My chest is still shaking from the last laugh.
The quiet settles in slowly.
"Last night," he says, to the sky.
"Marcus."
"No, let me." Still not looking at me. "I just. I don't know what this makes me."
"Does it have to make you anything?"
He doesn't answer that.
"I don't want things to be weird," he says.
"Are they weird right now?"
He rights himself, looks at me. Thinks about it. "No, well maybe a bit."
"Okay then." I look over at him. Hair pushed back, water running down his face. He looks good like this. Annoyingly good.
He's quiet for a while. The water moves between us.
Then he swims over, slow, and stops when he's close. Really close. I stay still and let him work out whatever he's working out. He's searching my face for something and I don't know what it is but I don't look away.
"I thought about it again this morning," he says. "When I woke up."
"Yeah?"
"Before you came down."
"What did you think?"
He looks at me for a long second. "That I wanted to again."
"I've been thinking about it too. Can't stop actually."
I close the distance between us.
"Can I kiss you again?"
He looks at me for a moment. Then he nods.
I kiss him slow this time. No urgency, no dare pushing us toward it. Just his mouth on mine, warm despite the water, and his hands coming up to my waist under the surface and pulling me closer. I feel the water move between us as the distance closes.
He kisses differently now. Less desperate, more deliberate. Like he's paying attention to it. I bring my hand up to his jaw and he makes a low sound against my mouth and pulls me in tighter and I can feel him through the water, hard against me, and I'm not far behind.
We stay like that for a while. Just kissing. His hands move up my back slowly, same way they did with the sunscreen, and I press closer and he lets me. At some point I feel him smile against my mouth.
I pull back just enough to look at him. "What."
"Nothing." He shakes his head slightly, still close. "Nothing."
He kisses me again.
Eventually we stop. Still close, foreheads touching, both breathing a little faster. He looks at me and I look at him and neither of us says anything for a moment.
Then Marcus leans back slightly, putting a small distance between us. Not pulling away. Just thinking.
"So," he says.
"So."
He runs a hand through his wet hair. "Is this a thing now?"
"What do you want it to be?"
He makes a face. "I asked first."
I almost smile. "I don't know what to call it. But I don't want to stop."
He nods slowly. Looks at the water. "Do we tell people?"
"Do you want to?"
"I don't know yet."
"Then we don't. Until you do."
He's quiet for a moment. "And in public. Like. Are we."
"Marcus."
"I'm just asking."
"I know." I look at him. "Same answer. When you're ready."
He nods again. It's a lot of nodding, which means he's still processing. I let him.
"This doesn't have to be decided today," I say.
"I know." A pause. "I just don't want to mess it up."
"You're not messing it up."
He looks at me then. Really looks. The line he's had between his brows since breakfast disappears.
"Okay," he says.
"Okay."
After that it gets easier. We get out of the pool and dry off and go inside and make sandwiches and eat them standing at the kitchen counter and it's almost like always, except it isn't, and we both know it, and neither of us needs to say so.
In the afternoon we go for the beers.
It's the same walk we've done a hundred times. Down the street, left at the corner, five minutes to the supermarket. He falls in on my right like always, but today we walk closer than usual. At some point our hands knock together. He doesn't grab mine. I don't grab his. But neither of us adjusts our stride either, and it happens again, and again, knuckles grazing knuckles, and by the time we reach the supermarket my whole right side is warm.
Inside he goes for the beers and I grab crisps and we meet back at the checkout and he stands behind me in the queue closer than he needs to, his shoulder against mine, and I stare at the rack of chewing gum and say nothing and feel everything.
On the way back he bumps his shoulder into mine for no reason.
I bump back.
Back at the house we shower and change and Marcus orders the pizza and we end up in the basement the way we always do, controllers in hand, beers on the table. The neons are on. The couch is the same couch. But we sit closer and neither of us mentions it.
The pizza arrives and we eat on the couch watching something neither of us is really watching. His knee is against mine. At some point he reaches over to grab a slice and his arm stays against mine on the way back and doesn't move.
I look at him.
He's watching the screen.
I look back at the screen too.
Halfway through the second beer he reaches over and puts his hand on the back of my neck, easy and unhurried, like it's something he's done before. I go still. His thumb moves once against my skin and I turn to look at him and he's already looking at me.
He doesn't say anything. Neither do I.
I lean in and kiss him and he kisses me back.
His hands find the hem of my t-shirt and I lift my arms and he pulls it off. He looks at me for a second in the neon light, just looks, and then his hands are on my chest, my stomach, moving like he's been thinking about this all day. Which maybe he has.
I pull his shirt off too. He lets me.
We kiss for a long time on the couch, slow and unhurried, his hands learning me again from the top. When they get to the waistband of my joggers he slips his fingers just inside and stops.
"Bedroom," he says against my mouth.
Not a question.
"Yeah," I say.
He stands and reaches down and takes my hand. Just holds it all the way up the stairs.
His room is dark except for the light coming under the curtains. We don't turn anything on. He closes the door and I sit on the edge of the bed and he stands in front of me and looks at me the way he's been trying not to look at me all day.
"What," I say.
"Nothing." He reaches out and tilts my chin up and kisses me again, slower this time, one hand on my jaw, and I feel it everywhere.
He pushes me gently back onto the bed and comes down over me and for a while we just kiss like that, his weight on me, his hips between my legs. I can feel him getting harder against me and I push up into him and he exhales through his nose and rolls his hips back deliberately.
We get the rest of our clothes off. He sits back on his heels and looks at me spread out on his bed and doesn't move for a long second.
He kisses down my chest, my stomach, taking his time, and when he gets his hand around me I arch up into it. He strokes me slow, watching my face, figuring out what I want from every sound I make. When I'm close to losing my mind he pulls his hand away and I make a noise of complaint which makes him smile.
His hands move to my hips and turn me over, and I hear the sound he makes when he gets a proper look at me. He doesn't bother to keep it quiet.
His hands spread over my ass, slow and warm. He takes his time.
"Marcus."
"Yeah."
"You know what you're doing?"
A pause. "Not entirely." His mouth is at my shoulder. "Tell me if I get it wrong."
He leans down and bites my shoulder lightly and I press back into him and feel exactly what this is doing to him against me.
He reaches into the drawer and I hear the click of a cap and then his hand is back on me, slick now, one thumb pressing slow circles against my hole and I exhale hard into the pillow.
He takes his time getting there. Circles and pressure, learning the give of me, until I'm pushing back against his hand without meaning to and he makes a low sound and presses in with one finger, slow and careful, watching for my reaction.
"Good?" The shape of his voice is different now. His mouth so close to my ear I feel the word before I properly hear it.
"Yeah." I grip the sheets. "More."
He works me open with two fingers, unhurried, twisting slowly, and when he curls them forward I make a noise that surprises both of us. He goes back to that same spot immediately and does it again and I press my face into the pillow and groan.
"There," I manage.
"Yeah," he says, low. "I noticed."
He keeps going, pace building gradually, his other hand gripping my hip to hold me still when I start moving too much. His mouth moves slow and soft across my neck, my shoulder, my cheek, like we have all the time in the world. I can feel how hard he is against my thigh and every time he shifts his weight behind me it drives me half insane. I reach back and get my hand on him and he exhales sharply and his rhythm stutters.
"Don't," he says. "Or this ends too fast."
I put my hand back on the sheets.
He adds a third finger and I bite down on the pillow and he leans forward and kisses my spine and keeps going.
Then he stops.
His fingers don't move. The hand on my hip goes soft, like he's forgotten he's holding me. I hear him breathe in and hold it a second too long.
I turn my head against the pillow.
He's looking down at where his hand is. The colour is high on his cheeks. He doesn't look up when I move.
"Marcus."
He does, then. His eyes find mine and he holds them there but he isn't saying anything.
His other hand has come to rest on the back of my thigh, weightless.
"We don't have to do this tonight," I say. "We don't have to do anything we're not ready for."
He breathes out. The whole of him drops about an inch.
He slides his fingers out, careful, and I roll onto my back. He sits up on his heels between my legs and looks at me, all of me, and doesn't pretend not to. He wraps his hand around me and strokes me slow and I grab his arm and hold on.
He's watching what his hand is doing. Then he isn't, he's leaning down.
He hesitates with his mouth an inch from me. I can feel his breath. He doesn't look up. He's just deciding.
Then he takes me in.
Not all the way. Just the head, and he holds it there for a second like he's learning its shape. Then he goes lower, slow, and I have to grip the sheets and remind myself to breathe.
He works it out as he goes. Where to put his tongue. How far he can take me. His rhythm is uneven at first and I don't care, I don't care at all. He's doing it. And that is enough to undo me.
My hand finds his hair, just resting. His head moves under my palm.
Then I see his other arm.
The way it's moving below my line of sight, fast, his shoulder working with it. He's got his hand on himself.
That hits me somewhere I'm not braced for. I drop my head back against the pillow and groan and his rhythm picks up immediately, like he heard it and answered.
"Marcus." I'm closer than I want to be. "I'm close."
He doesn't stop. He doesn't pull off. He moans around me, deep, and the vibration of it goes straight through me. That's what does it. I'm gone.
I come hard, hand still in his hair, his name coming out of me before I can stop it. He stays where he is. Takes all of it. And somewhere through it I feel him jerk against me, hear him make a sound that's broken in the middle, and I'm almost certain my name is in it.
He pulls off slowly. Drops his forehead to my hip. Doesn't move for a long second.
Then he drags himself up the bed and lies down beside me. Mouth slick. Face flushed. He doesn't say anything. I don't either.
We lie there after, not moving. His hand rests on my stomach. His thumb moves.
After a while he gets up without a word. I hear the bathroom, the tap, and then he comes back and takes care of me and drops back down beside me and doesn't go anywhere.
His breathing slows before mine does. I stay awake a while longer, listening to it.
