“Eli,” Cooper said as Dean crashed to an astonished stop beside him.
“In the flesh.” Eli flourished his hand and crossed his legs, as prim and elegant as a tea party. “And the fur.”
“And not much else,” Cooper noted.
Eli dipped his long, dark eyelashes in a come-hither look Cooper would not have dared try himself even if he wasn’t lounging around stark-naked at a zoo, but somehow it worked on him. Cooper had forgotten how depressingly good looking Eli was with his blue-black hair and scruff kept just long enough to look like a rakish pirate without dipping into bunker-man territory, and his body’s muscles and fat combined to look powerfully sensual.
His eyes were as mischievous as Cooper remembered them when they’d met back at the Park pack’s estate after the death of Park’s grandfather, but under the careful air of amusement, they flickered with exhaustion and were adorned with dark circles and crow’s lines that hadn’t been there before. There was a slight tremble in Eli’s arms too, and as Cooper followed them down, he noticed his fists were clenched in his lap...
“Undress me with your eyes any further and you’re going to hit bone,” Eli said wryly. “Er. So to speak.”
Cooper looked away and hoped the flush he felt in his cheeks wasn’t too noticeable.
“You know each other?” Dean demanded.
The thought of introducing Eli as Park’s ex-lover and current, active and honored member of his family’s pack was laughably unappealing. “Yes, we’ve met,” Cooper answered shortly.
“A technically true statement, if characteristically lacking in flair,” Eli said archly. “Antony and Cleopatra met. Romeo and Juliet met. It’s what happened after that’s become the stuff of legends.”
“This day is certainly shaping up to be a tragedy,” Cooper said. “So maybe you’re onto something.”
Dean was looking between the two of the curiously. “Do you...work together?”
“Well, we’ve both dedicated long, long hours to the betterment of man. One man in particular. So yes, I think you could say we’ve collaborated on a project.”
“No, you could not say that,” Cooper protested quickly. “We’re definitely not saying that. Eli, my brother. Dean, this is Eli. He’s...a friend of Oliver’s.” Eli twitched an eyebrow, but for once kept his mouth shut. Not that it mattered. From the expression on Dean’s face, he could add one to one and get a couple just fine.
“So that was you back there, right?” Dean asked. “I mean, you were the”—he gestured in the direction of the fence—”you know.”
Eli leaned back on his hands provocatively. “What’s the matter, don’t you recognize me...cutie?”
“Ah ha ha.” Dean’s voice was a little higher pitched than usual and a blush spread up his neck. Eli’s smile widened.
“The more pressing question,” Cooper said meaningfully, “is what the hell are you doing here?”
“Just dropped into town to see an old friend.”
“Hotels all full?” Cooper asked sarcastically. “I was more wondering what you were doing here as in here in the zoo undercov-fur.”
Eli gave him a vaguely disappointed look, which Cooper figured he deserved. “Yes, I see how you might be confused,” he said briskly. “And I’m endlessly empathetic to it—ask anyone and they’ll say Eli is empathy personified—but this really isn’t a good time, so I don’t suppose you’d be a couple of dolls and tootle off back down the mountain to play with the pandas and forget this ever happened?”
“Funny,” Cooper said flatly. “Now, what’s going on?” He hesitated. “Are you okay? Did... No one forced you into this, did they?”
Eli’s expression softened slightly. “No. Not like that.” He shifted a bit awkwardly on the concrete slab and Dean stepped forward, taking off the long green cape that was his Halloween costume.
“Can I—” Dean hesitated, then took another cautious step forward, holding it out in offering. Eli stared blankly at the cape, looking uncharacteristically lost for words.
“I’m a pupae,” Dean said, then stuttered. “From the metamorphosis, life cycle, butterflies.”
“That’s always been my favorite stage,” Eli purred, accepting the fabric.
Cooper momentarily yearned for the end of his own life cycle. “Anyway,” he prompted.
“You’re really not entitled to the private ins and outs of my life, you know,” Eli said evasively, taking his time to drape the pupae costume into a sort of toga, somehow managing to look even more pretty and ethereal when he was done, like a fae they’d stumbled across who was about to ruin their lives.
“Entitled, no,” Cooper said. “But consider me curious.”
“You know what that does to cats.”
“Good thing their exhibit isn’t close by, then,” Cooper countered.
Eli pursed his lips. “I understand you’re pathologically nosy, but it really is critical that no one knows I’m here. No one. Broadcasting my affairs to every busybody and his brother who barges into my business isn’t exactly conducive to that, wouldn’t you agree?”
Cooper opened his mouth, but Dean spoke first. “If it’s so important no one knows you’re here, why did you reveal yourself to us in the first place?”
“Yes, I can see now that was my mistake.” Eli sighed. “To be brutally honest with you, I thought Cooper had recognized me. But I’m beginning to understand this whole glaring, staring, nostril-flaring thing is less ‘I know that wolf’ and more of a permanent feature of his face.”
Dean snorted and Cooper shot him a betrayed look. “Well, he’s not wrong,” Dean muttered defensively.
Eli jerked his head to the left suddenly and stood. “Someone’s coming. I need to go.”
“Wait—” Cooper protested.
“We’ll be seeing each other again, soon. Just...buy me some time? Please?” Eli pleaded, already fetching a pile of clothes that had been hidden behind the concrete pile.
“You could have been dressed all along?” Cooper asked.
At the same time Dean said, “We’ve got this. Go. And good luck.”
Eli blew a quick air kiss in their general direction and hurried deeper into the brush with the long green shimmery fabric trailing behind him.
“C’mon.” Dean tugged Cooper in the opposite direction, toward where even human ears could hear the approach of another person by now. “We need to cut them off before they can get closer and risk seeing your friend.”
“You certainly jumped on Team Eli pretty fast,” Cooper said, even as he followed quickly.
“Obviously I’m Team Eli. A wolf just turned into a man and asked for our help. This couldn’t be any more of a quest if he’d unfurled a scroll that said This is a quest on it,” Dean hissed. “Which is why I keep saying, you need to get into gaming. Your literal job is helping werewolves. You have got to start being cooler than—”
“Excuse me! Hey! You—you can’t be back here.” An extremely tall young white man was approaching them from down the dirt path, about twenty feet into the brush from the paved trail. He wore a zoo employee uniform of gray polo shirt tucked into unfortunate cargo pants and—more strikingly—had brown, fuzzy, pointed animal ears sticking out of his shaggy blond surfer hair and whiskers painted on his face. “Sorry, guys. But this is not open to the public.” He looked between the two of them suspiciously and then over their shoulders, as if searching for other ne’er-do-wells. He had a remarkably deep voice for someone so lanky, and though the kid had to be a decade younger than them at least, Cooper felt a bit like a teenager caught sneaking around by his dad.
Dean just waved a greeting and in the amiable, unconcerned voice of someone who didn’t often experience consequences, said, “Sorry, man. We got carried away following one of those wandering peacocks.”
Cooper hoped Eli heard that.
The zoo worker was still scanning the trees and took a step closer as if to walk past them. “Is anyone else—”
“Just us,” Dean cut him off. “Well, us and the peacock. I’ve always wondered why you guys let them roam loose. Aren’t you worried they’ll fly away? Or wander into a wolf’s den?” He gestured at the exhibit.
“Nah, they’re just big, fancy chickens really,” the man said, turning his attention safely back on Dean. “If any of them ever do get brazen enough to fly straight into a predator’s den, well, let’s just say those aren’t the ones passing any grand ideas to the next generation.”
“Hear that, Cooper?” Dean said cheerfully. “I think we’re politely being told to keep to the path or natural selection is going get us.”
“No, no.” The man laughed, much more relaxed now. Dean had a knack for putting people at ease with his simple, easygoing nature that had both bewildered and filled Cooper with jealousy when they were kids. “That’s not quite how it works. Not for people, anyway.” The man winked at Dean. “I’ve seen you picking up Dr. Odell before. You’re her...”
“Her husband. For now.” Dean laughed. “She might change her mind if she finds out I’ve forgotten my fifth-grade science.”
“I won’t rat you out. We’ve just got to be careful, you know? Lots of kids running around today and parents who think the perfect photo op outranks safety.” He looked at Cooper curiously.
“My bad, this is my brother, Cooper,” Dean said. “And sorry, remind me of your—”
“Ryan. Ryan Basque.” They all shook hands. “I’m one of the curators here.”
“That’s like a head zookeeper, right?” Cooper asked.
“Yeah! Well, kind of. I oversee a couple of the exhibits,” Ryan said. He rolled his shoulders back, clearly proud.
“Sounds like a cool job,” Cooper said, and Ryan grinned. He had a very friendly face now that it wasn’t furrowed with suspicion. Beyond boyish. Puppy-like.
“The coolest. But I’ve always been in the animal business. I grew up on a farm. Led tours abroad.”
“Is this lady one of the exhibits you oversee?” Dean asked, gesturing toward the wolf enclosure.
“Nah, not my specialty. I was just driving by when I saw you running into the woods.” He reached up and tweaked one of the furry ears on his head. “Ryan the Lion is giving tours this afternoon. You guys want to sign up? You get to ride in the jungle cart.”
“I don’t—”
Dean interrupted Cooper to his dismay. “Sounds great!”
Ryan clapped his hands together excitedly. “Awesome! Get ready to take a ride on the wild side!”
“What happened to that thing you were saying about people bending over backward to make me happy,” Cooper murmured to Dean as they followed Ryan back to the paved path where a large, black-and-white striped golf cart was parked. “Just so you know, this doesn’t make me happy.”
“But complaining about it sure does. Along with helping your friend,” Dean said knowingly. “The path to happiness isn’t always the most direct.” Ryan honked the horn, and a sound like an elephant’s trumpet rang out. “And sometimes you’ve got to take the zebra-striped jungle cart to get there.”
That evening, as Cooper was pulling down the driveway of their new house, the first thing he noticed was a waist-high, rectangular box on their front porch.
And here, to kick off the third act, he thought, getting out of the car. On top of the day he was already having, Cooper really should have expected this to be the day it arrived. The emblem of his and Park’s interior decorating conflict. The keystone of their very healthy adult relationship compromise.
A floor vase.
“For umbrellas?” Cooper guessed when Park had pointed it out to him at a market.
“No. For decoration. In the foyer. You don’t like it?”
Over three feet tall, handmade, ceramic and glazed in a wash of deep blues and greens, it was...pretty. And pricey.
“What if you lose something in there?” Cooper had complained. “How the hell do you get it out? It’s too long and narrow. Too heavy to turn upside down easily.”
Park had shaken his head, bewildered. “What the hell are you talking about? What are you losing?”
“Boogie? My sense of self? My core values?”
Eventually, Cooper had convinced Park to leave the vase behind. But the squabbling over house decor had gotten so bad that they’d established a rule that each person was allowed one non-arguable purchase every two months. To Cooper’s dismay, Park had immediately—and smugly—doubled back for the vase, which was clearly his plan all along.
“That’s cheating,” Cooper had protested.
“Or is it the brilliant stroke of strategy that wins the war,” Park had said, bowing with a flourish before running his hand suggestively up his thigh, frisky with victory. “Check and mate.”
“You’ll be checking if you still have a mate if you keep that up,” Cooper had snapped. Things had escalated pleasantly from there and, shame of shames, he had in fact agreed to the vase when he was feeling significantly more amenable for, ah, some reason or another.
The package weighed a ton and he nearly dropped it wrestling it into the foyer. And then did drop it when Boogie snuck up and tried to help.
“If it’s broken, you’re taking the blame,” Cooper said to his cat.
Boogie’s expression said fat chance, and sadly she was right.
He left the vase in the box and settled down in the living room with wine and his laptop to check some emails, Boogie prowling for a prime position on the couch with him. It was just after eight but he was exhausted and, though he’d never admit it, a tiny bit lonely, too. After the excitement of the day it felt anticlimactic and strange to come back to the house alone and sit in silence with Boogie.
An absurd and embarrassing thought. Park had only been gone for six days, and here was Cooper, as restless and horny and lamentful as a Tennessee Williams woman. Cooper enjoyed being alone. Even if Park was in the house, Cooper might choose to spend time by himself. But knowing Park was there, that Cooper could debrief the day, hear his opinions, intersect his orbit at whim, was, well, something he’d come to depend on.
What stage of love was it when another person became a habit? How quickly had the mere background hum of another person’s life become such an essential fixture of the house that its absence felt like a robbery? Like their home had been gutted and he was left drifting around the remains with the non-valuables like giant, ostentatious floor vases?
“Except for you. You’re priceless,” Cooper murmured, turning to scratch Boogie, who purred briefly and then immediately regretted it, jerking away from him sulkily. She definitely blamed him for her favorite roommate’s unusual absence.
“He’ll be back tomorrow,” Cooper said ostensibly to Boogie, but hell, he needed to hear it himself. Park was coming home tomorrow after a week of successful negotiations that helped secure their future, and Cooper couldn’t even settle on a season to get married in.
He opened his laptop, determined to get something done. Start with who you want to be there, Dean had said. Well, okay, he could do that.
Twenty minutes later, Cooper had listed his family; his old boss, Santiago; his current boss, Cola; his preteen cat sitter, Ava...and had drawn a blank. If that wasn’t the bleakest dance card, he didn’t know what was.
A loner to his core, Cooper had always been bad at maintaining friendships. But starting work for a top-secret agency dedicated to an entire world he couldn’t talk about directly after experiencing a violent attack he wouldn’t talk about had pretty effectively withered any lingering relationships. What he now understood to be PTSD-related drops into depression hadn’t exactly helped either.
Seems like a lot of people spend a lot of time bending over backward to make you happy.
Dean’s words had immediately rubbed Cooper the wrong way, because of how long he’d been on his own, looking after himself. But things were different now. Park was determined to make him happy. Perhaps even too much so. Cooper wanted to get married, so they were getting married. Cooper suggested a compromise on the house décor, so they were compromising on the house decor. It’s not that he was hoping for drama, but in moments like this, he wondered if they were supposed to be this compatible. If perhaps things were a little too easy...
Cooper glanced uneasily at the cupboard across the room where he’d shoved the research he’d stolen from Maudit Falls. Did it count as stealing if the research was performed on him and Park without their knowledge? Or was it just taking back something that they’d never agreed to give?
Regardless, after everything that happened three months ago—their engagement, Park getting shot, Freeman popping up out of the woodwork to groan, “Beware,” like a specter of the night—Cooper had never bothered to get his Alpha Quotient retested and still didn’t know what his actual score was. The last two times he’d taken it he’d completely screwed up, getting “impossible” test results. Not exactly surprising considering the hijinks the bastard administering the test had been getting up to at the time. Cooper’s new therapist, a stone-faced wolf with an almost painfully gentle voice named Dr. Ripodi, had offered to retest him when he felt ready, but so far Cooper had rejected the idea. Frankly, he was fine never knowing. It was only times like this that, well, he worried. His go-to emotion, really.
Park insisted it was fine. He was a big boy who could stand up for himself and say no, even if he did see Cooper as his alpha. He swore he was getting something out of this, too. Cooper just had no idea what.
He wanted to be able to do something for Park. Something tangible. Something to make him as happy as he made Cooper. He wanted Park’s family to murmur amongst themselves, That Cooper sure does bend over backward to make you happy. Because he would for Park. He’d bend his body backward around the entire world if it made Park smile.
He just didn’t know how.
Cooper stared at his laptop screen. Heart beating just a little faster, he opened a search window and typed “good alpha behavior,” face flaming even as he hit enter. The first couple of links were specific to animals, and he skipped over them. Then came pages and pages of links that were geared toward people.
Cooper tried one hesitantly. It listed long, detailed descriptions of what it claimed were the top traits or characteristics of an alpha. It was...rough. Intensely misogynistic, cissexist, heteronormative, for starters. It also didn’t sound like Cooper at all. Not a worrier? Can shoot the shit? Be able to walk away from hot girls? Well, he supposed that wasn’t inaccurate, per se, but it certainly wasn’t relevant to his situation. He couldn’t think of a single person who should be reading this, honestly.
He clicked through a couple more links, growing increasingly dismayed, and was just about to try new search terms when Boogie jumped off the couch top and scrambled onto the arm.
Cooper slammed the laptop shut, startled and guilty. Just the thought of being caught looking at one of these sites by someone—anyone, a passing squirrel, Michael Myers—made him want to curl up and die. But he didn’t hear anything.
Still, Boogie’s head was held alert, ears and tail twitching with concern. Her pupils were enormous and unmoving, staring toward the large picture window that faced the front yard. Cooper followed her gaze, half expecting to see someone standing, watching, but of course there was no one there.
“What is it, killer?” he whispered to Boogie. Worryingly, she didn’t even react to his voice. Cooper turned off the small lamp by the couch, tipping the room into darkness. He made his way over to the window and carefully pulled back the curtain to peek outside.
Nothing. Porch, driveway, yard—empty. The only movement was one of Park’s two pitiful attempts at the “common man’s” holiday decor: a hideous plastic skeleton hanging from the porch eave, shifting slightly in the wind.
Cooper relaxed against the sill with a sigh. Boogie wasn’t the only one having a hard time adjusting to a home outside the city. It was so quiet here, interrupted by sounds louder and more brutal than anything he’d ever heard in DC. At least it seemed that way in their unfamiliarity. Cooper had grown up in the suburbs, but it had been almost twenty years and he had long since forgotten the screaming, screeching sounds of the cycle of life coming to a bloody end—or a bloody beginning—just outside his window, and the way a squirrel suddenly possessed the weight and gait of a full-grown man when it found its way into your attic. They’d only been moved into the house for less than a month and Cooper was still waking up most nights positive they were under siege, only to have Park roll over, still half asleep, and identify the “attackers” for him.
Jus’ a fox.
Same owl as last night. Come back to bed.
Frogs. Yes, I’m positive. Yes, that one, too.
Cooper didn’t remember nature being this loud. Partly it must have something to do with being in a new house he hadn’t quite relaxed in yet. The numerous large windows and wood floors seemed to complain noisily whether someone was touching them or not—relatable—and while it was nothing like the temples of greed Park had first taken him touring, the house was still too large for one man and his cat alone at night.
Cooper shouldn’t complain. Overall, they were both happy about some things, unhappy with others. They’d mostly landed on the place for the property. A half hour out of DC, the house was set back from the road and nestled on the edge of an animal preserve, ensuring lots of privacy for Park to run around in fur. Cooper was the one who had championed the house itself.
“A unique labor of love,” the Realtor had called it.
“Some failed architect’s personal testing ground” was what Park said. But the mishmash of classic styles with, ah, daring new takes at modernity that had never taken quite taken off—for undoubtedly good reasons—amused Cooper. Made the house a whole lot less Architectural Digest. More livable and—
This time Cooper heard the noise, too. A thud and creak from the back porch. The living room was still dark, but he could make out Boogie’s silhouette on the arm of the couch. She was arching her back slightly, tail twice its usual size.
Cooper made his way to the kitchen where there was a door to the outside, grabbing a poker from the fireplace as he went. Holding it up like a baseball bat, he peered out of the back door window.
Again, he saw nothing. Empty porch, empty yard. The dark tree line was uninterrupted by looming figures, ax-wielding or otherwise.
Carefully he opened the door. His heart was pounding hard. He tried to remember what Dr. Ripodi had said. Is this a useful emotion? Well, if he was about to be attacked, he would never hear them coming over the sound of his own rushing blood, so no, it wasn’t particularly useful. Now what could he do to calm down? They hadn’t talked about that bit yet.
Cooper stepped out on the back porch, scanning the yard for any trace of movement, for any shadow that was a little too dark, a little too still. Knocked to the bottom of the porch steps was Park’s second attempt at holiday decorations—a jack-o’-lantern he’d carved last week without any tools he didn’t already have sprouting from his fingertips. He’d done it purely for his own amusement, as their house was too far set back from the road to actually display them. Now it had split open and its irritated expression—Park’s attempt at Cooper’s face; he swore he was going for thoughtful, but he couldn’t even get the lie out without laughing—had morphed into a gaping sort of scream.
Cooper took another cautious step forward. It almost looked like something had been digging at it. Another animal?
A loud, violent buzzing broke the silence, and Cooper jumped and bit his lip hard. “Shit.”
He hastily went back inside and locked the kitchen door behind him before heading back to the living room. Boogie was nowhere to be seen. His phone vibrated again, obnoxiously loud against the low wooden coffee table.
Cooper answered it, snapping, “What.”
There was a second of silence. “And here I was thinking my fiancé might be happy to hear from me.” Park’s droll voice was an instant balm, as little sense as that made.
Cooper let out the breath he’d been holding. “Sorry, who is this?”
“Just a hot single in your neighborhood, looking to chat. You busy?”
Cooper snorted and put the poker down, leaning against the table. “Busy pining for the lover who abandoned me.”
“Mmmm. He sounds like a fool. You can do better.”
“Are you better?”
“For you? I better be,” Park murmured.
Cooper laughed, poured himself another glass of wine and relaxed back on the couch. Even with just the sound of Park’s voice in his ear, the house felt fuller, more familiar. “Speaking of finding better men in your life...”
Cooper filled Park in on the events at the zoo and Eli. Part of him was hoping Park would just laugh it off and say Oh, that’s quintessential Eli. Wait ’til I tell you about the dogsled story, but instead Park sounded deeply disturbed. Far more than Cooper had even anticipated.
“And he really didn’t say anything at all about why he was there?” Park questioned yet again.
“I told you everything, word for word.” He had. What he hadn’t said was just how exhausted Eli had looked, the real note of urgency in his voice when he asked them to buy him time. “Look, don’t mention this to your family, okay? He was really adamant about no one knowing he was there.”
“They’re his pack. They probably know more than we do.”
“Maybe they’re not anymore,” Cooper suggested. “Maybe he took a page out of your book and left too.”
“Eli wouldn’t do well without a pack,” Park said firmly.
“Yeah, he seemed to be doing super well when I last saw him wandering around naked and panicked in the zoo,” Cooper said sarcastically. “Maybe I’m wrong. But you said yourself it was weird he was out of town when you visited and Helena wouldn’t say where.”
“I thought that was because—”
Park cut off. Cooper waited.
“I thought maybe he heard about us getting married from the others and didn’t want to see me,” Park mumbled eventually.
He sounded embarrassed, and Cooper wondered why. He waited a beat, hoping Park would elaborate, but he changed the subject instead. “Everyone says congratulations, by the way. Or something like that. They don’t get why we’re doing it, really, but they think it’s hilarious.”
“I live to make others laugh,” Cooper said wryly. “How’s it going up there?”
He listened to Park catch him up on various family gossip, relieved to hear it wasn’t going nearly as badly as he’d feared. When his eyes started to drift closed, the pleasant rumble of Park’s voice in his ear, Cooper grabbed the last of the wine, his glass and the poker, and went upstairs to their bedroom.
“Are you going to bed now?” Park asked.
“Yeah, I’m beat.”
“I’m in bed, too,” Park said in an odd tone, almost like Cooper was forgetting something.
“All right, so we’re both bringing shame to our age group.” Cooper set the poker up, leaning against the nightstand.
“I’ve been thinking about you a lot today,” Park was saying. “I wish you were here with me right now.”
Cooper snorted. “In your family manor? While you tell your traditional relatives all about how I’m Lady Macbeth-ing you into claiming key pack territory? With my arsenic allergy? Hard pass. I’m good here where only Boogie can judge me.”
“All right. Then I wish I were there, too. With you. Not the cat. The cat’s downstairs.”
“Is she?” Cooper asked, nonplussed. He realized he hadn’t seen Boogie since coming back inside when Park had called. A trickle of anxiety started down his throat. Had she followed him on to the porch somehow? She’d never shown an interest in nature before. But this was a new house, a new outside.
He abandoned his wine on the nightstand and went back downstairs, turning on all the lights. He searched her favorite lounging spots—only half listening to Park now and getting increasingly tense when he didn’t find her.
“Is something wrong?” Park was asking. “You sound off.”
Cooper flicked on the laundry room light. Finally. Boogie sat in a basket, nesting in a pile of Park’s clothes, looking supremely annoyed to be disturbed. Seemed like he wasn’t the only one missing their third musketeer.
Cooper scratched her head, relieved. “Just jumpy, I guess. Overtired.”
“I can think of one way to relax you.”
“Been there, drank that. What do you think I am, an amateur?”
Park sighed very gently, sounding almost disappointed.
“What? What’s the matter?” Cooper asked.
“Nothing,” Park said. “I’m just—I’m looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.”
“Me too,” Cooper said, and the raw honesty in his own voice made his cheeks heat.
Soon after, they said their goodbyes and hung up. Cooper put the house to rest once more, went upstairs and got ready for bed. It was near embarrassing how much more settled he felt after talking to Park. His body was warm, relaxed and lingering on the edge of a tingling sort of awareness that could tip into simple excitement for Park’s return the next evening or into full-blown arousal, depending on which way he pushed it.
He stripped down, watching himself absently in the bedroom’s full-length mirror—a big brass-trimmed, freestanding antique that Park had brought with him from his old place so Cooper couldn’t even veto it on sight. That hadn’t stopped him from proclaiming the mirror was a cursed heirloom that would kill them in their sleep, of course, though secretly he’d grown a bit fond of it. At least it was ostentatious and useful.
Cooper scratched at his belly and let the touch shift into a lazy, ticklish brush of fingertips over skin, hair. Such a simple, silly pleasure to know the one you missed missed you. Was thinking about you. Wanted to be in your bed, like you wanted them in your bed. Had said so, voice gravelly with desire...
Cooper froze and blinked at himself in the mirror. “You fucking idiot,” he said.
He lunged for his phone and called back.
“What’s wrong?” Park asked immediately, voice tense.
“Nothing’s wrong. I just—” Cooper searched for the right words, feeling suddenly, inexplicably nervous. “Were you trying to start something? Something on the phone before? With the I’m in bed and the wish you were here and one way to relax you stuff?”
Cooper winced. Hearing it all together...yeah, okay, so he’d been distracted, all right?
He could practically hear Park smiling fondly. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m not worried about it,” Cooper retorted. “I just... Do you still want to? Do something? Christ, I sound like a tenth grader.” He blew out a noisy breath and sat on the upholstered bench at the end of the bed. “Do you want to get each other off over the phone?”
“Well, don’t ease me into it too subtly,” Park said wryly. Then added, “Yeah, I want to. But only if you actually want to and not just because you think I want to. ’Cause I’m fine.”
“I’m fine too. You’re fine. We’re all fine. Now that’s settled—can we do the sex now?”
Park laughed. “Okay.”
There was a long silence. Cooper fetched some lube and left it beside him on the bench for later. The silence continued. He checked the phone to make sure he hadn’t accidentally disconnected the call with all the soundless opening and closing of his mouth he was doing.
They hadn’t done this before. He felt clumsy and awkward and slightly out of sync with Park in a way they hardly ever did anymore in person. The newness of it, the unfamiliarity, had Cooper vacillating between excitement and self-consciousness.
“Are you hard?” Cooper asked finally.
At the same time Park asked, “Are you lying down?” Then, startled, added, “Whoa, okay.”
Cooper felt his cheeks heat in a way that had nothing to do with arousal. “I’m sitting,” he said quickly. “But I could move if you want. Nothing fancy. I think I pulled something lugging that artisanal vessel for your ego inside.”
“My vase came?” Park asked, sounding delighted and frustratingly adorable. “How does it look? Please tell me you didn’t fill it with umbrellas.”
“I didn’t even take it out. I haven’t taken anything out yet,” Cooper added pointedly.
“What honeyed words you whisper, Mr. Dayton.”
“I can only work with what you give me here.”
“And what is it exactly that you want me to give you?” Park teased.
“Your...mouth?” Cooper guessed doubtfully, and wondered if the word mouth had always sounded unerotic or if that was a recent development. “And your...fingers? Am I hot or cold?”
Park sighed, unfortunately not in an Oh Cooper, the skeptical tone you use when talking about my body really does it for me way. “You’ve been hotter.”
“We suck at this.”
“We?” Park repeated innocently.
“No individual grades on the group project,” Cooper protested.
They drifted into silence again and he shifted uncomfortably, staring at himself in the mirror. He suddenly felt ridiculous. He looked ridiculous. Alone in a too-big, too-bright bedroom, his boxers rapidly deflating, a phone pressed to his ear.
It was strange to feel so utterly, shamefully shit at this. Cooper was a grown man hurtling toward the end of his thirties. He had a varied and solid amount of sexual experience under his belt, plus a knowledge of both his and Park’s sexualities and how they worked together that went deeper than any other relationship in his life thus far. And yet somehow there still existed unforeseen pockets of sexual bewilderment and awkwardness, waiting in the shadows to trip him up and send him sprawling flat on his face. Who knew.
“What are you doing right now? Be honest,” Park added swiftly. “Don’t act like you’ve rigged yourself up to the headboard with a couple of dildos and a blindfold or whatever.”
Cooper snorted. “So that’s what does it for you, huh? Honestly, right now I’m sitting on your bed bench thing, looking at myself in that big haunted mirror of yours, trying to remember if I’ve ever actually had sex before, and if so, did I like it.”
“You have. You did. I did, too.” Park’s tone was very conversational, like they could be talking about anything. “In fact, you’re very good at it. So much so that sometimes it’s all I can think about. The way your scent changes when you want to fuck. The way you look at me across a room like I belong to you, like you know all you have to do is crook your finger and I’ll come running over, begging for it. The satisfied little grunts that turn to whimpers when you just start to lose control. The way you taste right before you come down my throat.”
Cooper exhaled a little shakily. In the mirror, his reflection was wide eyed and clutching the phone now with both hands.
Park still sounded completely unbothered. “Sometimes I can’t stop thinking about it. Like in the mornings, when I wake up, before I go on my run, and you’re still asleep next to me. And you smell like sex. And you’re making these needy little noises and rubbing against me. All I want to do is roll you over and rut into you. I think about it so much I have to get up and jerk off in the bathroom instead. I have to bite into my own hand so I don’t wake you.”
“You could do that,” Cooper said. His voice cracked and he had to clear his throat. “I mean, I give you my permission to fuck me awake. Sometime. Depending.”
He clamped his mouth shut from adding any more qualifiers or technical concerns. This was a fantasy. If they actually wanted to experiment with any of that, they’d have a much more in-depth, clearheaded conversation about it later.
Right now, Cooper’s skin felt too tight. He was hyper aware of the heat of the phone against his cheek, the prickling of sweat in the crook of his elbows, the damp brush of fabric where his cockhead pushed against his boxers, but he didn’t touch himself yet. Just enjoyed the slow build of pleasure as his hips started to make unconscious, abortive little twitches into space.
“Yeah? Would you like that?” Park was sounding a bit more affected, too. “It seems like you would, the way you grind up against me all night, humping my leg like a dog in heat. You’re very demanding, even when you’re asleep, did you know that?”
“How horrible for you.”
“It’s hell,” Park agreed. “Someday I’m going to snap and give you what you’re so clearly desperate for. Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” Cooper whispered. “I want it. Tell me.”
“It would be some early morning after we already fucked the night before, so you’re still a little sweet and soft and open for me. I could put you on your side and work my fingers into you easily enough that you’d think you were still dreaming. I would let you use me how you like. Let you rock on my fingers while my other hand would stroke your body, tease you, touch you everywhere except where you need it. And when you try to reach for yourself, I’d trap your hands behind your back.”
Cooper made a soft, involuntary sound. “Why?”
“Because it’s my turn to do whatever I want. And what I want is for you to wake up hard and wild and desperate for it when I finally work my dick all the way into your tight little hole. So far gone already that the only thing you can do is lie there and take it as I wrap my arms around your body, trap you against my chest, and grind deep and slow. Yes?”
“Yeah,” Cooper choked. “Fuck, Oliver. I need—”
“Touch yourself now.”
Cooper fumbled with the phone and managed to free himself, underwear pulled awkwardly down to his thighs. He cried out softly with relief when he gripped the shaft and heard Park’s answering groan and murmured encouragements to get the lube out and slick himself up. To watch himself in the mirror while he stroked. That was an unnecessary suggestion. Cooper was already watching, couldn’t look away. His reflection was absolutely wanton, sprawled half on the bench, half on the bed, wild-eyed and thrusting into his fist noisily, dripping over his fingers.
“I can hear you,” Park growled in his ear. “God, you sound good. I want to stay inside you all night. Let you keep my cock warm until I feel like fucking you again, and again, until you’re so full you—”
Cooper’s orgasm felt ripped out of him. He came on himself so suddenly and intensely that his leg kicked out and then got caught hovering in the air for the millisecond his nonessential muscles all froze and tightened as one before recoiling with a ferocity that knocked him on his back and forced his hips off the bench, as if trying to fuck the very sky itself.
Somewhere by his shoulder, where he’d dropped his phone, Park made a series of guttural sounds Cooper recognized well, and he knew Park was coming, too. He listened intently, still riding the aftershocks, and imagined the mess Park was probably making. Imagined how if he was there, Cooper might lick it up just to watch Park’s eyes flutter back again, maybe coax a little extra out.
Eventually, Cooper’s heartbeat slowed and the last sexual edge to his thoughts dulled to nothing. He drifted into a content blankness. Enjoyed the silence and stillness of his own mind while Park caught his breath and went through his own recovery process of murmuring Cooper’s name and some soft, silly affections.
Fortunately, Park was familiar with Cooper’s customary distancing postorgasm and didn’t push him to express tender truths or speak in full sentences at all. Just checked that he was okay, talked him through a basic cleanup, told him he’d see him tomorrow and said goodnight.
After hanging up, Cooper crawled into the bed and, thanks to Park, dropped off into a relaxed, easy sleep, completely wiped out.
So, it was of course Park’s fault too that he didn’t hear the intruder’s approach until the pillow landed on his legs.