Chapter Six

AFTER SPENDING ALL of Sunday night thinking about how John’s mouth tasted, Isaac looked forward to the distraction of the school week. He needed to immediately stop obsessing over his coworker, and he promised himself he would—as soon as he got to work. So what if he still reeled at the memory of touching John’s hair, of the feel of that impeccable jaw in the palm of his hand?

Arriving early to his office, Isaac placed his laptop on his desk and planned to check email. First, he grabbed a cup of coffee from the machine in Cleo’s office. She smiled and waved when he entered, chatting on the phone to what sounded like a worried student. She used soothing, quiet tones and dancing hand gestures as if the student in distress could see her.

Once Isaac had his coffee, he turned to step back into his office, nodding to a few other faculty members in the hall. Then, he saw John walking swiftly toward him, a white flyer in hand and his cell phone pressed to his ear. He was always a pale guy, but that morning, he looked almost blue.

“I’m not mad at you,” he said into the phone, shoving the flyer at Isaac. “Janelle, I really need you to call me back. Please.”

Isaac looked at the flyer. Across the top, in boxy, black letters were the words, “Being Frank.” Below the words was a picture of Chris Frank with x’s over his eyes. Isaac skimmed over the submission information, but he didn’t really see the words. He gaped at John as he hung up his cell phone. Cold dread pooled in Isaac’s gut.

“Where did this come from?” Isaac asked.

“They’re hanging all over campus.”

“I never saw this.”

John grabbed the flyer back. “Shit, neither did I, Isaac.” He pressed his lips together. “Sorry. This is not your fault.”

“Janelle did this?”

“Apparently. She’s not answering her phone.” As if to clarify, John pulled his phone from his pocket and stared at the black screen hopelessly.

Tommy arrived at a jog holding a copy of the dreaded flyer. He flung it between Isaac and John. “Did you see this? Are you insane?”

“Are you going to lower your fucking voice?” John hissed. They were quickly drawing the attention of all faculty in the vicinity—which was most of the English Department since the majority of professors stopped by their offices first thing in the morning. “I didn’t know about the flyers. Janelle must have printed them.”

Tommy appeared to shrink behind his glasses. “Meeks is gonna have your head, man.”

As if conjured by a dark spell, her voice echoed down the hall, shouting John’s name.

John closed his eyes.

Meeks rounded the corner in a blue business suit, her long, dark hair in a high ponytail. Isaac thought her makeup was too thick, like she hid a whole other person under all that paint. Of course she had a flyer in her hand, and as she stomped toward John, Isaac had the irrational reflex to jump in front of him.

“What the hell is this?” She waved the half-crumpled flyer in his face.

“Sonya, I didn’t know about the flyer, okay? One of the students went rogue. I’ll fix it.”

“You’ll fix it?”

Now, everyone in the hall stared, heads craned out of offices, whispering behind hands.

“I forbid you from doing this.” She threw the flyer at his feet.

“From doing what?”

“You will not produce this literary magazine.”

He shook his head. “The literary magazine is a brilliant idea. I’m not dropping it.”

“Being Frank? Do you know what effect that title will have on the student body?”

“It’s supposed to have an effect.” John’s hair flew around his face. “It’s supposed to start a conversation. I understand the flyers are completely out of line, but we’re doing this literary magazine.”

“Says who?”

“Says me.”

Meeks pointed a finger in his face. “You will not publish a magazine about the shooting. There is no reason to scare the students and remind them what happened here.”

“But it did fucking happen, Sonya!”

Meeks went silent. In fact, the whole hallway seemed empty of oxygen. They could have been in space.

After a moment that felt like centuries, Meeks glanced around at all the staring faces. She leaned close to John, but Isaac heard her whisper, “Let’s talk about this in my office.”

“Let’s talk about this here.” His eyes scanned the area. “Does anyone remember Demi Snyder? Cute little redhead with freckles? Does anyone remember the sound she made when she got shot? I remember. I remember her calling for help. I remember her blood on my hands, the way it felt too damn cold.” John picked up the flyer Meeks had crumpled and thrown at his feet. He uncurled the edges so everyone could see Chris Frank and held the flyer in the air. “Something really bad happened last year, and I don’t know why we’re pretending it didn’t.”

No one spoke, not even Meeks, who now had John’s full attention. He spoke right in her face.

“Six people are dead, and whether we talk about them or not, they’re still dead. Even Abby. Do you remember our friend, Sonya?”

Jaw clenched, she turned away from him, so he addressed the now crowded hall.

“This literary magazine is an open forum for students who want to talk about what happened. You all want to whitewash a shooting? Fine. Or we can give the kids voices, let them write about how they’re feeling. Let them write about the people they miss. I miss Demi. I even miss Chris.” He turned to Meeks. “Either give this magazine the go-ahead or fire me.”

“Jesus, John.” Her shrewd, dark eyes turned to the floor.

“The kids need this. The school needs this.”

She sighed and tapped her fingers against her lips, probably now in desperate need of a cigarette.

“I agree with John,” Isaac said, not only to keep John from getting fired but also to prove he agreed with everything John had just said.

Other professors nodded, and Meeks looked like she had one hell of a headache. “Make new flyers. And you will keep me updated on everything.”

“Fine.”

“Don’t let this get out of control.” She turned away and said, “Show’s over,” before disappearing down the hall.

Foreseeing mass chaos, Isaac took John’s arm and dragged him into his office, closing the door once Tommy was inside. John fell into Isaac’s guest chair and buried his hands in his hair before bending forward at the waist as though he might puke.

Tommy leaned against the door. “Dude, I can’t believe you actually used to be friends with that wench. I think my balls are in my abdomen right now.”

John chuckled from beneath his slouch.

“No, man, that was like a scene out of a movie.”

“I feel sick,” John confirmed.

Isaac knelt in front of him and tried the trick Tommy had used before. “Hey. Breathe.”

John looked like he was having trouble.

Tommy put his hand on John’s shoulder. “You did good.”

His gaze shifted to Isaac, still kneeling in front of him. “You got my back on this?”

If it gave him a purpose, a cause? A plausible excuse to spend more time with John? “For sure. I am your assistant faculty advisor.”

“We’ve got to think of a cooler title.”

Tommy looked at his watch and tried to tuck his wrinkled shirt into equally wrinkled khakis. “Shit, I have to teach or something. Martinis tonight? Crocodile Lounge. Jazz and gin. I’m buying.”

“Yes, please.” John leaned heavily against the back of the chair.

“Isaac, you in?”

“I’ll be there.”

“This is a day,” Tommy said with cheerleader enthusiasm before stepping back into the hall and closing the door behind him.

“What did I just do?” John muttered. “Did I just give an Al Pacino monologue out there?”

Isaac stood and leaned against his desk.

“This is going to be an uphill battle, isn’t it?”

“Yep.” Isaac crossed his boat shoes. “But we can do it.”

John’s face wasn’t good at hiding emotion. Every thought he had played out in the differing shades of his eyes, an up or downturn of his mouth. Sometimes, even his forehead expressed full sentences. For instance, in that moment, Isaac could see he was worried, scared even. He looked up at Isaac, and Isaac hoped he wasn’t as transparent.

 

AT CROCODILE LOUNGE, Cleo and John were excellent salsa partners. Isaac knew they’d taken lessons together, but they were also of similar heights. Then, there was the rhythm: impeccable, thanks to Cleo’s knowledge of music and John’s…well, Isaac wasn’t sure where he’d learned rhythm. It certainly wasn’t part of English curriculum. Maybe it was his love of classic rock, or maybe he’d watched his parents waltz happily around the kitchen of his childhood home.

Tommy stood at Isaac’s side, both men drinking Manhattans as Janelle and Anthony hopped around the dance floor. Apparently, she and John had talked earlier about her snafu. All Tommy would say was that it had been “intense” but that they’d eventually gone around campus together removing flyers.

John spun Cleo, and she let out a bright “Woohoo!”

“Hey, how was Ohioana anyway?”

“Fine,” Isaac said quickly. Maybe too quickly. Every time he stopped to think, he tasted John’s tongue in his mouth.

“Didn’t have to bodyguard anyone?”

“I broke a couple kneecaps.”

Tommy smacked his shoulder. “My man.”

When an older gent in a suit asked John if he could cut in, John bowed to Cleo and headed their way. “Where’s my drink?”

“I don’t know,” Tommy said. “Where is your drink?”

John batted his eyelashes, and Tommy groaned before turning around and ordering John a Manhattan too. John leaned on the bar next to Isaac and watched the band—a four-piece number that played salsa, swing, and just about everything else.

“Things good with you and Janelle?”

John lifted one shoulder. “We’ve fought before, and we’ll fight again. She likes anarchy. When Demi was alive, they were the queens of protest. They even went to a couple gay marches with me.”

“But you’re obviously her favorite teacher.”

“That’s the thing. I don’t know if she thinks of me as her teacher. More like her friend.”

Isaac smiled. “Probably because you look like a student.”

John stared pointedly at the side of Isaac’s head. “Well, at least I don’t have any gray hair.”

Isaac blinked. “I do not.”

He chortled and accepted a drink from Tommy. “Do you dance, Isaac?”

“No. Well, Southern men can waltz, I guess. I had to learn how for all the rich girl cotillions growing up.”

Tommy reached behind his glasses and itched his eye. “Jesus, I can just see you in an oversized tuxedo and pastel cummerbund.” He yawned and gestured to his drink. “This is it for me, guys. I’m not sure if I’m more emotionally or physically exhausted.”

“You’re emotionally exhausted?” John smacked his arm. “You’re not the one who gave an impromptu screaming speech this morning.”

“I’m sympathetically exhausted,” Tommy said.

When a slow swing song began, Cleo motioned for John, who went to her side immediately. He spun her before pulling her back into his arms, and they floated across the floor like Fred and Ginger. Isaac watched John’s hands—his long, thin fingers. He laughed and talked to Cleo as they moved, flash of white teeth, tip of a pink tongue. Cleo pushed hair behind his ear, and they danced cheek to cheek. So what if Isaac was jealous.

Tommy left, and the other “adults” didn’t linger long after. Isaac, John, and Cleo stepped out into the crisp September night, while Janelle and Anthony remained dancing inside, along with a half dozen of their friends.

“Do you need me to walk you home?” John asked.

Cleo shrugged into a faux-fur coat. “I’ll be fine. Thanks for the dance, as always, and thanks for today. It was…” She blinked and looked up at the stars. “I have no words.”

“That’s unlikely.”

She quirked an eyebrow at them both. “Night!”

John and Isaac walked in the same direction, toward both their places. So convenient that Isaac’s stairwell was right next to Crocodile Lounge. After taking a quick glance up and down Union Street, he opened the door and dragged John inside.

Behind the closed door, he pressed John against the wall and leaned in for a kiss, but John turned his head. “Isaac.”

“Mm?” He rubbed his nose across John’s cheek.

“I thought you said kissing me was the worst.”

“I was wrong. Not kissing you is the worst.”

John’s lips parted when Isaac pressed their noses together, but he soon put his hand on Isaac’s chest and pushed. “We can’t.”

Isaac pushed back and took hold of John’s hips. “I can’t stop thinking about you.” Whatever this was, whatever they had together, Isaac wanted more—and not just because he was lonely or horny. He wanted specifically John, in the stairwell, over a desk, anywhere really.

He must have been doing something right, because John’s breath caught in his throat, and his eyes closed. “You have to stop thinking about me. We can’t…” He blinked and gave Isaac a soft shove. “Isaac?”

He stopped kneading John’s hips but kept their foreheads pressed together as he took a long, slow breath. “You’re right. Sorry.”

Instead of pushing again, John put his hands on Isaac’s face. “Behave.”

“You smell good.”

“Of course I smell good. I smell like Knob Creek.”

“No, it’s just you.” Isaac stood up straight and leaned against the wall opposite. “I didn’t think you’d be a problem for me.”

John grinned. “Surprise! Now, go upstairs and go to bed. No running tonight. We have important literary magazine business tomorrow.” He adjusted the lapel on Isaac’s coat. “And no more kissing. Even if we maybe, sort of, totally want to.”

He touched John’s hand. “Fine.”

“Good night,” John said.

“Night.”

John waved and opened the door to the street. His dark hair glowed in the glare of a nearby streetlight before he disappeared behind the swinging door. Isaac leaned his head forward and thumped it back into the wall. Deny it all he wanted, but Isaac longed to chase after him.

 

THE REVELATION OF Being Frank spread, thanks to Janelle’s impromptu—and ill-advised—flyer campaign. While Isaac half expected protests outside their meeting that night, instead, more students arrived to volunteer. John rushed around chatting everyone up like the host of some grand soiree. He separated the students into groups based on skills and interests, so a couple of kids worked on the official flyer design, the type-A folks put together their deadline schedule, and the hard-core writers built criteria sheets every submission would be judged by. Janelle sat to the side observing, mingling here and there. Despite her ridiculous T-shirt that read “Brunettes Make Better Psychos,” she seemed older than her classmates. Isaac wondered if the shooting had anything to do with it.

Type A himself, Isaac worked with the scheduling kids, although John checked in every once in a while. He would walk by, smile, and maybe squeeze Isaac’s shoulder. Once, Isaac caught Janelle staring at them. What did she see?

Isaac didn’t have to wonder long. After the meeting was adjourned, Janelle handed him a folded piece of paper and walked away, black hair bouncing behind her. He unfolded it.

John has a crush on you.

He refolded it and tried not to grin like a goose.

Isaac wrestled with his own resolve once he got home. The apartment, as always, was empty and awful. He turned on some James Taylor, but that didn’t help, because it only reminded him of John singing on the way to the Ohioana.

“Screw it.”

He plopped down on the couch and pulled out his phone and the note from Janelle. He snapped a photo and sent it to John with a quick message: Note from Janelle. Is it true?

It took a couple minutes, but John eventually responded: No. You have too many muscles, and you make me feel safe. It’s disgusting.

Of course, Isaac had expected a joke, but the “safe” comment?

“Keep it light,” Isaac muttered. He typed: Good. Your hair is too silky, and I’ve never once thought about your mouth in the shower.

He was rewarded with three laughing emojis.

Isaac was prepared for that to be the end of it, but his phone soon pinged with another text from John: NFL Thursday night special. Party at my place 7 PM. No flirting or Tommy will beat you up.

Isaac texted quickly: I’m afraid flirting is now my biological response to you.

Go take a shower.

If only that would be enough. He wanted John there on the couch, preferably on his lap. It was only nine o’clock. Isaac could go to the Cave and pick someone up—but what would that achieve? A release, for certain, but he already knew he’d be picturing John the whole time. He had some very choice images to build on, thanks to their time at the hotel in Columbus. Plus, there had been that bit of hair pulling at the Cave with that Adam guy. Did John like having his hair pulled? What else did John like?

A text: Jesus, did I just break you?

Isaac almost dropped his phone.

 

HE DIDN’T KNOW anyone but John and Tommy at the NFL party, but he thought he recognized a few of the other guests from that night at the Cave. Thankfully, Adam wasn’t there. No matter the bartender said there was nothing going on between them, Isaac couldn’t stand the idea of another guy kissing John—not that he had a bit of license to be jealous, no. He kept trying to get himself in check, and it would work for a couple hours, until he saw John again. Even being within a ten-foot radius was a distraction, and every time they were together, John looked at him—a lot. All John’s stories were for Isaac now. Out at lunch that afternoon, he worried Tommy was beginning to feel like a third wheel.

John hurried into the kitchen where Isaac hid. “Why aren’t you eating?”

Isaac glanced toward the impressive appetizer spread on the large island. “I will later.” He lifted his glass of wine. “Liquid diet for now.” He hoped the alcohol would calm the way his heart pounded whenever John was around.

From where he stood, he could see all of John’s kitchen and living room and out onto the back porch where guys smoked. The open layout made the small house seem huge.

“Scoot.” John hip checked Isaac out of the way so he could get to the fridge.

“I thought you liked college football.”

“I do.” He pulled out a bottle of bleu cheese dressing, presumably for the hot wings. The sauce scent burned Isaac’s nostrils from five feet away. “I like all football, but I prefer college football because the University of Wisconsin is everything.”

“Do you suppose Hambden ever feels slighted by your undergrad fixation?”

John blinked his big eyes up at him. In a thin black sweater that was a little too long in the sleeves, he might as well have written “Cuddle Me” across his forehead. “Isaac, they’re not even in the same division.”

“My mistake,” Isaac muttered.

Tommy, decked out in Ohio State garb, even though Ohio State wasn’t playing, shouted, “Kickoff” from the living room, and John hurried to his side, slinging an arm around Tommy’s shoulders. They toasted with bottles of beer as the football on screen flipped and spun into the far-off New England air.

It wasn’t that Isaac didn’t like football. He just didn’t care. He understood it could be a nice escape, but he’d always preferred escaping into books—especially now that he’d found award-winning author John Conlon. He was on his third book by then.

Watching John watch football was like watching a prizefight. He jumped on furniture and shouted and gave high fives. Tommy was no better, although he was less enthusiasm, more wrath. They acted as a counterbalance—good cop, bad cop—their shenanigans more entertaining than the game itself.

When Isaac’s phone vibrated in his pocket, he should have known not to look. He’d grown so accustomed to ignoring it, but now, John texted him pretty often—stupid, silly things about classroom glitches, the crappy Ohio weather, and even one picture of John with bed head. But John was in the room, so he wasn’t texting.

No, Simon texted—something simple, honest, and horrible: You can’t hide forever.

Isaac closed his eyes and slumped against the nearest wall. He wondered how much time he had before Simon showed up in Lothos, and what the hell would he do then? Strangely, his thoughts shifted to John. What would John think if he knew about Simon? There certainly would be no more impromptu kisses. John might not even want to speak to Isaac anymore. He gulped down dread at the thought. John was already a friendly fixture—or fixation. Either way, Isaac had never felt so comfortable with someone before, and in his limited relationship experience, he assumed that was something worth holding onto.

A loud, collective moan from the living room interrupted his inner turmoil as a news announcement spoiled the night, but silence ruled when the headline flashed across the screen.

At least 120 dead in Barcelona attacks.

“What the fuck,” Tommy muttered.

Isaac watched John, lips parted, eyes reflecting light from the TV.

The newscaster spoke in a clipped, British accent, but Isaac didn’t hear all of it, just fragments. “We still don’t have all the details…two explosions…team of gunmen…hundreds still trapped…”

At the sound of gunfire from some tourist’s cell phone video, John covered his ears and curled his shoulders forward. He whimpered and audibly sucked air into his lungs. Isaac moved to protect, putting his hand on John’s back, while Tommy practically shoved John into his arms. “Get him out of here,” he said.

Before Isaac could move John anywhere, John hurried down the darkened hall toward the bathroom, Isaac right on his heels. John barely made it to the toilet before throwing up. He fell to his knees, and Isaac tried to keep his hair out of the way. As John choked, Isaac handed him a towel.

“I’m sorry,” John muttered. “I get episodes. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, John.”

He wiped his face, still gasping for breath. “Could you get me, uh, in the medicine cabinet, there’s Klonopin?”

“Yeah.” Isaac hurried over and read the labels on several orange bottles before finding the right one. “How many?”

“Just one.” He sat back on his heels on the black tile floor.

Isaac joined him, handing him a small, pink pill that John swallowed without water.

“We should get back out there.” He moved to stand, but Isaac pulled him back to sitting.

“Let’s give it a minute.” Isaac wasn’t even thinking about Spain. All he could see was the man in front of him, trying desperately to hide the trembling of his hands.

John crawled past Isaac and reached under the sink for mouthwash. He swished and spit into the toilet before flushing. “God, this is embarrassing. You must think I’m a disaster.”

Isaac put his hand on John’s shoulder and squeezed. “No, I don’t.”

He coughed into his sleeve. “Who the fuck shoots up a cool place like Barcelona?”

Isaac scooted closer, their knees touching. “I assume you’ve been there?”

“I spent a couple summers in France with my mom’s family when I was a kid. We’d hit up Spain sometimes.”

“Your French is very sexy.”

“Isaac, you just watched me vomit. I’m pretty sure my mystique is gone.”

Someone knocked on the door, followed by Tommy’s voice: “John?”

“Come in.”

He stuck his head inside. “Need anything?”

“I’ll come back out.” He reached his hand up, and Tommy pulled him to standing.

They hugged—a tight, manly squeeze—but Tommy hesitated before letting John through. “The news is just getting worse. There are hostages in some theater. Lots of them.”

John closed his eyes, and Isaac felt dizzy. What possessed a person to kill innocent bystanders? What kind of blind hatred did it require to spray bullets into a crowd?

“I think everyone’s leaving. You know, loved ones and stuff. You two want to hit Joe’s Pub or something?”

“I don’t want to leave the house right now,” John said.

Tommy winced. “Right. Duh.”

“There’s no ‘duh,’ okay?” John growled but quickly covered his face and spoke through spread fingers. “Sorry. Why don’t you just go to Joe’s and drink for me?”

“Who’s going to help clean?”

Isaac stepped past them and into the hall. “I’ll stay.”

John started, “Isaac, you don’t—”

He said, “It’s no big deal,” and headed for the kitchen. He needed to keep his hands busy and hopefully his mind too.

He attacked the dishes in the sink, partygoers still watching CNN. They’d switched stations, the game forgotten. Isaac didn’t listen much. He focused on the task at hand, which eventually involved searching John’s cupboards for Tupperware and putting leftovers in the fridge. By the time Isaac actually noticed his surroundings, he was alone with John, and the TV was black. They moved around and past each other, finishing the last of the dishes, putting things away.

John initiated first contact. He wrapped his hand around Isaac’s wrist and pulled him close. He pressed his face against Isaac’s chest, so Isaac put his hand in John’s hair and held on. John eventually lifted up on his toes to kiss him, and whatever simmered between them rolled to a boil. As soon as Isaac tasted John’s mouth again, he groaned, consequences be damned. He trapped John against the counter, boxing him in with arms on either side. Hands everywhere—petting, touching, pulling at clothes—John whispered, “Need you.”

Isaac lifted him onto the counter and stepped between his parted legs. He slipped his hands up the back of John’s sweater and kissed him hard. He sucked kisses down the side of John’s neck until his head leaned back. He licked the soft skin, the place where Chris Frank once pressed a gun.

With ease, he lifted John from the countertop and carried him, legs around Isaac’s waist, to the bedroom. He kicked open the door. Dim light from the kitchen trickled down the hallway and poured in a pie-slice shape onto the ruffled, unmade bed. Isaac took hold of John’s hips and threw him down the center of a black-and-white down comforter. On the bed, John backed up on his elbows and feet, kicking blankets away as Isaac tumbled on top of him. Isaac vaguely heard John exhale a whoosh of air at the sudden arrival—just as Isaac used his knees to press John’s thighs apart. He shoved that all-too-tempting sweater from earlier up John’s arching torso, revealing two small nipples that Isaac leaned down and bit.

John made a sound like he’d been punched, back arching more, mouth wide in what Isaac could discern in the dark. Isaac knew what to do, had moves memorized from so many harried trysts with strange men in even stranger places. He leaned back and tugged at the button of John’s jeans, eyes watching his own hands move. Button free, he tugged at the zipper and was about to tear those skinny jeans right off when pale, delicate hands wrapped around his.

“Isaac?”

He closed his eyes and shook his head. When he opened them again, he recognized John beneath him, not some nameless stranger in a bar. He drew his hands away and leaned back on his heels as John stretched to reach the lamp on the side table. A click and the room glowed soft gold. Isaac saw the scattered pile of books by the lamp, the empty water glass and tube of lip balm. Then, he noticed John, shaggy dark hair askew, half in his eyes, and lips wet and parted. The sweater still rested up under his armpits, revealing those tiny, pink nipples and broad, hairless chest. Down his prominent ribs, his hips curved in at the sides in a skinny V. Nothing but a few sparse dark hairs decorated his lower belly, disappearing into black underwear beneath the open fly of his jeans.

Isaac’s breath shook.

“Isaac?” John scooted closer, thighs still on either side of Isaac’s. He sat up, and Isaac slumped down. “Hey, where are you right now?” He put his hand to Isaac’s face, and Isaac didn’t hesitate to kiss his palm.

“You’re so small,” he said.

John smiled, fingers tracing Isaac’s face. “I’m not that small.”

“Compared to the men I usually take to bed.”

John kissed his collarbone. Words like a warm breeze caressed his skin. “I’m not them.”

John was nothing like all those secretive one-night stands. He wasn’t even like imposing Simon—Simon, who Isaac had loved and who liked to play rough because that was what big, strong men did. John was John, an emotionally busted creative writing teacher whose hands felt as breakable as bird wings and who probably bruised at the lightest touch. John was his coworker, his friend.

No matter how much Isaac had previously thought he wanted this, warring emotions of guilt and anxiety, worship and need, blurred his brain. He shook his head. “Shit, we shouldn’t—”

John lurched up into his arms, mouth on Isaac’s. He was a persistent kisser, licking and nibbling while filling the bedroom with delicious, breathy moans. He broke away just long enough to pull Isaac’s shirt over his head. “I want you to fuck me,” he whispered.

“Jesus, your voice…” Isaac melted on top of John, but only after pulling his black sweater the rest of the way off his slight frame. With John’s legs wrapped around him, it was impossible for Isaac to miss how much John wanted. Isaac rolled his hips in response and watched in awe as John’s mouth dropped open, head thrown back. The center of his chest already glistened with sweat. “You’re so goddamn beautiful.”

By the time John reached for the lube in his bedside table, they were both halfway out of their pants, rutting like teenagers. As John dug around for condoms, Isaac removed his own jeans before tugging on John’s—and tugging John halfway down the bed in the process. John laughed, a high-pitched musical sound, so foreign to Isaac in sexual situations. Sex had always felt like a task to be accomplished, something to finish. And yet, here was John, laughing as Isaac wrestled to get his feet out of his skinny jeans.

Once successful at his task, Isaac crawled up the bed, rubbing every inch of his naked skin against John’s but not before sucking his hip bones and pressing his nose against the center of John’s chest. He balanced on one elbow while his other hand cupped John’s jaw, thumb running across his pink bottom lip.

John held up the bottle of lube. “Do you want to? Or do you want to watch me?”

Isaac snatched the bottle. “Are you kidding?” He added a couple of drops to his fingers before moving slowly to reach between John’s parted legs, but John halted his progress, hands digging into Isaac’s shoulders.

“Be gentle at first?”

The slight trepidation in those big, green eyes made Isaac want to hide. He whispered, “I’m sorry I was rough earlier.”

“Rough is fine. You just have to work up to it.” He wrapped his arms around Isaac’s neck. “Although you can pull my hair anytime.”

“Oh, yeah?”

John nodded and licked along the seam of Isaac’s lips until Isaac sucked his eager tongue into his mouth.

When Isaac pressed his first finger all the way inside, he suspected there was no way they would ever be able to have sex. “You’re so tight.”

Eyes squeezed shut, John muttered, “But very accommodating. Just go slow.”

Later, three fingers in, Isaac further suspected he would never last long enough to actually fuck the writhing, pleading man beneath him. John chewed his lips so much, Isaac worried they might bleed. If Isaac’s hand lingered too long, caressing the lean muscle of John’s chest, John would grab Isaac’s hand and put it back in his hair until Isaac did as bid: grabbed a fistful and pulled.

John suddenly clutched to his biceps. “Please. Please, please, please.” Hazy eyes blinked up at Isaac; he would have given John anything he asked for in that moment.

Despite John’s begging, Isaac had to lean back to put on the condom. Before pushing into John’s wanting body, Isaac had the fleeting thought: This is a terrible idea. And not because of the nonfraternization policy or Simon or John’s floundering mental health. It was terrible because Isaac was already half gone on the man below him, lured in by his charisma like everyone else in town. More than that, he wanted to shield and protect. Isaac had never been good at either of those things, but he was good at fucking.

He pressed into John’s body slowly until John winced and said, “Stop, just for a second.” Isaac waited and leaned down to press kisses all over John’s face. Then, a moment later: “Okay.”

Isaac tilted his hips forward. John’s heels dug into the backs of his thighs as they both moaned.

“I knew you would feel good,” John said. He kissed Isaac’s forehead and ran his hands through Isaac’s hair while Isaac felt the much-hated, long-despised burn of salt behind his eyes. Instead of crying over John’s unexpected tenderness, he pulled his hips back and thrust forward. John yelled, “Oh, fuck,” but Isaac didn’t stop. He kept going rough and fast until John’s hands lifted above him to keep them both from ramming into the headboard.

John’s voice trembled with the rhythm of Isaac’s thrusts. “Fuck, there’s going to be nothing left of me.”

Isaac pulled out and easily flipped John onto his stomach. He thrust back into him. Both John’s hands clenched to the sheets below him. His spine arched as he pressed onto all fours, continuing to welcome Isaac’s body into his by way of sibilant consonants and weak whispers of Isaac’s name. John eventually melted onto his elbows, but Isaac held his hips in the air, fingers pressing into flesh and bone. He thought about John’s pale skin, how it would probably bruise, but was beyond the point of caring. He never wanted to hurt John, but the way John begged for “harder” and “more” only spurred Isaac on.

John finished first, face twisted to the side so Isaac could just make out the wrinkled profile of his face, mouth in the shape of an O. Isaac kept going, never wanting to stop. If only his whole world could be this beautiful creature beneath him, the one who now allowed Isaac to pull out again and flip him onto his back.

Isaac lifted John’s knees over his shoulders and continued the amazing fuck he never wanted to end. John trembled and twitched and begged “please” some more, although this time, he begged for relief from Isaac’s need to stretch things out—his need to pound the heartbreak out of John and into the ether where it could swallow some cruel killer or murdering thief instead of this Hambden hero.

As if hearing his thoughts, John took hold of Isaac’s face. “It’s okay. Come for me?”

Isaac pressed his forehead against John’s collarbone, finishing with a groan that sounded like a sob.