You & Me

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was him.

He was already awake. I’d wanted him to wake up to my smile, but last night, all my exhaustion hit me like a right hook. I’d struggled to stay awake, but all those hours of not sleeping, of staring at my ceiling, of thinking about Landon, crushed me.

The last thing I was aware of was holding his hand as I stared into his eyes. I thought I remembered his lips brushing across my forehead.

A flicker of a smile darted across Landon’s face, a nervous thing, there and then gone. “Hey.”

I cupped his cheek. “Mornin’, gorgeous,” I said right before I kissed him, deep, slow, and oh-so-sure. He looked dazed when I was done. He blinked at me, eyes owlish and wide, lips parted, bottom lip glistening.

That was me. That was us.

“I’m still falling for you.”

Landon pulled me to him and kissed me until my toes curled.

He made breakfast again, and this time, I did wrap my arms around his waist and bury my face in his neck. He fed me bits of scrambled egg and crispy bacon over his shoulder. I dropped kisses in a line from his hair to his T-shirt collar.

“Is this okay?” I murmured. My hands lay on his stomach, above his waistband and over his shirt. I swayed with him in my arms, my chin hooked over his shoulder.

“Yes.” His hand landed on top of mine. “More than okay.”

“I’m kind of a starfish when I like someone.” Especially with him. Now that I could, I wanted to touch him all the time. Hold him in my arms and pull him close, kiss his neck and nuzzle his hair and breathe in the scent of him. I liked the closeness, the physical touch. I craved being near him.

He kissed my cheek and smiled. “I like it.”

We ate off the same plate, feeding each other eggs and bacon and buttered toast as we stood in the sunbeams falling through the kitchen windows. “It’s a gorgeous day,” he said.

“Let’s do something outside.” I washed our plate, our fork, the pan. “How’s the pool?”

“Still warm enough to swim. Do you want to borrow a suit?”

Maybe in the future we’d be skinny-dipping out there, but the day after promising to take it slow and steady, and with our sons due home that afternoon, wasn’t it. I could imagine it, though. Him naked on the pool steps, me balanced over him, kissing him as I sat on his lap. His bare thighs against my ass, my cock hard and aching and pushed against his belly, and his—

“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “Yeah, if you have one, I’d love to borrow it.”

Landon’s suit exposed more of me than the board shorts I owned. They were shorter in the leg, a little wider in the waist, and they rode scandalously low on my hips, almost revealing the wild tangle at the end of my happy trail. I’d need to do something about that now that there was someone who, one day, wanted to take a look down there again. I’d forgotten about those things a long time ago.

I tied the drawstring as tight as I could and met him in the backyard.

He was already sitting on the edge of the pool deck with his feet dangling in the water. He was in the same suit I’d seen him wear at the lake, this time with a T-shirt on instead of a surf shirt. My steps faltered on the way to join him. Should I have pulled on a T-shirt? He’d seen me shirtless before, but we weren’t together then.

Landon’s lips parted, and he took me in from head to toes and then back up again.

It had been a long time since anyone looked at me like I was a meal ready to be devoured.

I tumbled straight into the water, somersaulting into the deep end in a lazy backward roll. He laughed when I came up shaking my hair like a wet dog.

“Do you have any other tattoos?”

I smiled slowly and bounced my eyebrows at him. The only parts of me that he hadn’t seen, and where I could be hiding another tattoo, were the most interesting parts of all. “Maybe. But you’ll have to guess where.”

He flushed. “If I guess right, do I get to see?”

“One day, if you play your cards right.” I batted water toward him with a splash. “Coming in?”

“Yeah. Just needed a minute.” He stood and peeled off his T-shirt, and then it was my turn to go speechless and wide-eyed while my jaw scraped the surface of the water.

Landon was gorgeous. Fit and trim, with tapered shoulders, a narrow waist, defined hip bones, and thick, rounded pecs. He had the physique of a swimmer, which made sense, crossed with someone who did a hundred push-ups every morning and night. His biceps were bulging and swollen beneath carved deltoids. His triceps, too, were defined.

My arms looked like the skinny kind of chicken wings you found in the bottom of the basket.

I was still staring when he cannonballed into the water, unprepared for the wave that swamped my head. I sputtered when he broke the surface laughing, and then hauled him toward me until I was close enough to wrap my arms around him like I was going to ride his back.

We’d never been skin to skin before, and even underwater, the heat of him, the shock of his skin against mine, robbed me of my thoughts.

There had been a part of me—a tiny, scared, fitful part—that wondered about this attraction. I still hadn’t been able to excavate a clue in my past that could explain this. Had this always been within me, merely waiting for the right man—waiting for Landon—to turn on? Was I bisexual and I didn’t know it? I’d had a healthy, if somewhat limited, sex life with women before Riley and I had married. But there had never been a wild threesome, no crushes on guys, no make-outs in dark corners at a bar or a club. I had assumed, like Landon had assumed, that I was straight.

Apparently, I didn’t know myself that well. Which wasn’t a surprise. I hadn’t done any of the deep identity work Landon had, and my formative years were spent in a haze of rebellion, angst, and pot smoke.

But here I was. Not just falling for a man, but desiring him, too. Hungry for him. My head, my heart, and my dick were all on the same page and pointing toward the same person.

In fact, I was starting to actually point, which wasn’t going to be easy to hide in Landon’s teeny, little bathing suit. I released him with a kiss on the back of his neck and pushed away.

“You okay?” Landon spun toward me. Water lapped against his bare chest, little swells that rose to his collarbone and skated down his shoulders. Droplets clung to his stubbled jaw.

I nodded. “You’re too gorgeous right now.”

He flushed when he got it. I laughed, even though him being adorably embarrassed wasn’t helping at all. Now I could see exactly how far down that pink went, watch how it spread from his throat to the valley of his pecs before it got lost in the thicket of his chest hair.

“Did I cause a situation?” His eyes darted beneath the waterline, toward my crotch, and then back to my face.

“You did. You and all of that.” I flicked another splash of water at his chest. “Jesus, do you have to be perfect all the time?”

He grinned and bit down on his lower lip. “How big of a situation?”

I swallowed. “It’s a decent situation. It’s gonna get bigger if you keep looking at me like that.”

Jesus. Now I was flushing, turning as red as a raspberry.

“You have caused many situations for me.” He pretended to look stern. “Turnabout is fair play.”

“Many, huh?”

“Many many.”

“I didn’t think a stick figure would be the type of guy you were attracted to.” I waved my arms and legs like I was an inflatable windsock, all gangly limbs and no curves, whipping around at the edge of a used car lot.

“You are not a stick figure!”

“Have you seen my ass? It’s nonexistent.” Teasing gave way to real nerves. My situation was shrinking as my worries took over.

“Turn around. Let me see.”

I spun until he said, “Wait, go back.” I did, and trod water as he floated behind me. After twenty seconds, I started to turn again. “Hold on, I’m not done.”

I was never accused of being the sharpest knife in the drawer. It took me about ten more seconds of bobbing in front of him, my ass wagging in the water. “Hey.” I twisted. “Are you checking me out?”

He floated backward, laughing. “In my very biased opinion, I think you’re perfect. And you definitely just caused another situation.”

He slipped underwater like a dolphin and swam three perfect laps, back and forth across the length of the pool. Water sluiced over his chest and streamed down the long lines of his legs. Watching him move, watching his muscles ripple and his skin gleam in the sunlight, brought my boner right back.

We clung to opposite sides of a pool float and drifted, lazily talking as our toes played underwater. The heat, the reflection of the sun on the water, the buzz of bees and the flutter of butterflies, the heady scent of the rosebushes he grew in the backyard, and, of course, him—all of it lulled me, made me dizzy and giddy in equal parts.

Late-September afternoons grew chilly fast, and as the sun dipped, so did the temperature. We got out and dried off and then took turns rinsing in his shower. He laid out a pair of sweats and a T-shirt for me on his bed. I inhaled deeply as I tugged the fabric over my head. The smell of him filled me, and I wanted to sink into his mattress and roll around in that scent. Pull him to me and bury my face in the back of his neck. Get drunk on him and him alone.

He popped a bottle of wine and poured us each a glass. Barefoot, we wandered over to his couch—which was exactly as comfortable as I’d imagined—and he grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. “Netflix? Or do you want to watch the game?”

Weekends in Texas were defined by kickoffs. Saturday was for college, Sunday the NFL. I didn’t watch football, but I still knew these gospel times for the Texas house of worship.

Bad memories hung around NFL games. It had been almost like this between Riley and me: a Sunday afternoon, a glass of wine, and the remote in her hands. I’d been shamed with my questions until I slinked away, never to return to try again.

Landon wouldn’t do that. “Let’s watch football.”

He sat, and I stretched out beside him, lying down with my head pillowed on his thigh. If we were going to be together, then I’d need to learn a few things about this game he loved, and that Bowen was most likely going to play professionally.

I needed to dig out some of those deep-down fears Riley had left me with, too.

He kept the volume low, barely audible, and began his own narration, describing plays and downs and what I needed to look for. His fingers sank into my hair, ran in loops and circles and spirals on my scalp and my temples. We passed his glass of wine back and forth.

When halftime arrived, I thought I had a grasp on what was happening. I knew who was in the lead and why. I knew one team’s offense was stronger and that the other team was struggling to convert on third downs. I had an idea of how the game would end up, too, which was more than I could say about watching in the past.

He’d been talking almost nonstop for over an hour, explaining everything, and his voice was starting to fray. I pushed myself up to my elbows. “Thank you,” I said. I stretched to kiss him on the lips.

“Was that helpful?”

“More than you know.” I kissed him again, and again, until he tugged me up and pulled me into his lap. My knees hit the cushion on either side of his thighs as my arms wound around his neck. He tasted like carménère and him, a taste I could identify but not define. It was sunlight and warmth, radiance and joy. Happiness and him.

The kiss started gently. My fingers played with his hair and the collar of his shirt as his hands began a slow drag down my shirt-covered back. Our lips moved from soft to hungry to soft again.

There was a situation stirring, and I tried to scoot away. All I ended up doing was opening my thighs and sliding forward, until I brushed against a hardness in between Landon’s legs that matched my own.

He deepened our kiss and pulled me closer. My back arched as I moaned, and his lips landed on my chin, my jaw, my throat, his fingers dug into the small of my back.

I clung to him and drew him to me.

Hands slipped under the hem of my borrowed shirt and slid up my sides. His palms curved around my rib cage, and one of his thumbs swept over my pec, tantalizingly close to my nipple. I groaned. Ground my hips down, a reflex, automatic, until I found that hardness—Landon’s cock—between us again. Fuck, that’s his cock.

I thought he’d want to pull away, but he held me in place.

I grasped his hair and tugged, tilting his face up to mine.

Our eyes locked. We shared a breath as I rolled my hips and pushed my cock deliberately against his. His eyes blew wide, his pupils dilated so large I couldn’t see any color in his irises. His lips parted on a moan.

This wasn’t slow. This wasn’t what he and I had discussed and agreed upon twelve hours before, standing feet away in his kitchen.

But I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop. His thumb found my nipple and swept across it. His touch was like electricity, every press of his skin against mine a shock that melted my bones.

My shirt rose. I grasped his hair in my fingers. I knew what was coming. I’d done this move before. Instead of stopping him, I urged him forward, until his mouth pressed against my chest in the shallow valley of my pecs. He nibbled my skin, and then swirled his tongue around my nipple before suckling it into his mouth. His tongue flicked back and forth so fast I lost the ability to breathe.

Then I was falling, twisting. My back hit the couch with my thighs spread. He was there a second later, hurling himself into my open arms and legs. Our lips met, furious and frenzied. I wrapped one leg around his waist and dragged him to me, meeting him with a thrust that brought my hips off the couch. His cock was rock hard and matched my own. He ground into me, bounced my body against the cushion.

Moans fell from his lips. I kissed them away. The smell of him was everywhere. Beneath me, above me, surrounding me. His arms bracketed me, biceps jumping, shoulders hard as granite. I dug my fingers into the meat of his back.

I was so hard, so fucking hard. I was dizzy, aching, unable to parse reason or thought. I couldn’t get enough of Landon, of his touch or his kiss or his body in my arms. I wanted more. I wanted everything. I wanted to yank these sweats off and—

The garage door lurched open.

We sprang apart, fleeing to opposite ends of the couch. Landon was a man who appreciated accent decorations, and he had a throw blanket artfully draped over a chair and the foot of his sectional. I grabbed both and flung one at him, then covered my lap and my raging erection as I sank into the corner of the couch. I was breathing like I’d just sprinted my way through a marathon, full speed, no stopping.

Landon snatched our wineglass from the coffee table and downed the carménère that remained like he was shooting Jägermeister on spring break.

“Hey, Dad!” Bowen called. “We’re home!”

Bowen and Emmet blew in, flinging their duffels and fishing poles and a plastic cooler in a heap before stomping around the house. Their voices and laughter bounced off the walls, their heavy footfalls shook the floors, and the kitchen cupboards opened and slammed, opened and slammed.

In absolutely no time at all, my situation had resolved.

So too, it seemed, had Landon’s. We shared a sidelong look as we stood and refolded our throws over the back of the couch. He blushed, and my cheeks warmed as well.

We needed to talk about that. That wasn’t slow, and I didn’t want to be another man who went too fast for Landon or who disregarded something that was obviously important to him, but our sons were right there, loitering in the kitchen and chugging Gatorades and slouching against the counters. Fish stench clung to them, a cloud that Landon and I walked into.

Landon waved his hand in front of his face. “Did you bring the lake back with you?”

“Kinda.” Bowen pulled off the lid of the cooler. Four large bass lay on a bed of ice. He beamed. “We brought home dinner.”

Both boys looked extremely proud of themselves. “Nice, Em.” I knocked him on his shoulder with a gentle push. He smiled.

“You know how to fillet fish, right, Dad?” Bowen asked.

That was a talent I wasn’t aware Landon had. I turned to him along with the boys.

“I learned from my dad. He taught me and my siblings when we went camping.”

Did Bowen catch how Landon’s gaze had dropped at the mention of his family? Or how his voice had thickened, caught when he mentioned his brothers? I wanted to reach for him, run my hand over his back and hold his hand. I settled on a small smile when our eyes met.

Maybe Bowen was aware, because he asked, “Can you teach me?”

“Of course. I’ll teach all of you, if you want.”

Emmet and I were the hands-off observers to Landon’s demonstration. Handling raw chicken was the extent of slimy things for me. Emmet, too, seemed to balk at the idea of breaking down the bass with his bare hands.

That didn’t stop either of us from perching on the barstools and leaning over the continent to watch, wide-eyed, as Landon showed Bowen how to descale, where to slice along the fish belly and spine, and how to remove the innards. He sliced the first fillet away, deft hands moving in sure and steady strokes. He passed the knife to Bowen to cut away the second.

Bowen was far less confident, and when he finished, his fillet looked like it had been run over by a truck instead of delicately carved. He grinned at Landon, though, and Landon said, “Awesome. Let’s do the next one.”

Bowen improved with each, until he did the last two on his own, almost as well as Landon had. “Now what?” he asked, looking at the eight fillets Landon had laid out in aluminum foil boats on a baking sheet.

“Are you guys hungry now?” He eyed the time. It was 4:30 p.m.

“Yes,” Bowen and Emmet said at once.

Landon and I shared a smile. “Of course. Are you staying for dinner?”

“If we’re invited.”

Landon shot me a dry look. I grinned.

We all hung around in the kitchen like we were a live audience to a cooking show as Landon layered slices of butter, salt, peppercorns, and lemon slices on each fish. Bowen helped, shaking salt and slicing lemons and pinching aluminum foil when instructed, until Landon slid the baking sheet into the oven and told the boys to scatter for thirty minutes.

As soon as they stampeded their way upstairs, my apology burst out of me. “I’m sorry for earlier,” I said in a rush. “I don’t want to push you. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable. I said I was good with slow, and I am—”

He came around the kitchen and took my face in his hands. He smelled like lemon hand soap and sunshine. He kissed me quickly, smiling. “I should apologize. I only meant to kiss you back, but…” He kissed me again, and this time it grew until our tongues were sliding against each other and I was grabbing his waist.

A creak on the upstairs landing shot through us like lightning. We put three barstools between us and clung to their seatbacks.

“I am so attracted to you,” Landon breathed. His eyes burned into mine. “You drive me wild, Luke.”

There was a promise in that stare. This growing hunger between us, our passion, the way we ignited every time we touched. There was a night before us where we would choose not to stop, and where these kisses between us would lead to more. Hands on skin, legs intertwined, body to body. Heat burned through me, burrowing down to my core. I licked my lips. He was still staring.

The oven timer dinged.

We ate together in Landon’s dining room, Landon and Bowen on one side of the table, Emmet and I on the other. The boys regaled us with stories of their campout. Last night, they’d lowered the bench seat in Bowen’s SUV and spread their sleeping bags in the back at a campsite overlooking the moon-soaked lake. In the morning, they ate SpaghettiOs cold out of the can and swam until they flopped like dead fish on their towels on the beach. After annihilating monster burgers and abusing the bottomless french fry privileges at one of the swim-up dock diners, they rented a canoe. It was touch and go for a while, whether they’d end up overturned and swimming back to shore, but they got the hang of it. After they caught four fish, they called it a day and came home, reeking of lake funk and teenage jock.

They were both beaming. We all were laughing. Emmet had a shine in his eyes I hadn’t seen in years. At one point in Bowen’s retelling of their dubious canoe launch, Emmet laughed so hard he accidentally blew the orzo he’d eaten from his lips like a dragon exhaling smoke. He hid his face in his napkin as he swept up the pieces, his face as red as his football jersey on Friday nights.

I slung my arm over the back of Emmet’s chair and squeezed his shoulder. He dipped his head against my forearm, the closest we’d come to a hug since he was in fifth grade. Across from me, Landon and I locked our gazes.

Bowen drove me and Emmet home after dinner. Landon didn’t have to come with us, but he did, and he and I loudly protested the stench in the SUV and the mess the boys had left behind. They’d scattered their crap like birdseed in the house, a trail from the garage door to Bowen’s bedroom and back down to the kitchen—flung off hoodies, discarded shoes, Bowen’s keys, wallet, and phone left on the stair steps—and it was hard to believe they’d left anything in Bowen’s car. But there were their sleeping bags and pillows bunched up like they’d just crawled out and forgotten about them in the trunk. There were their swimsuits and wet towels on the floorboards.

Bowen grinned at Landon in the rearview mirror and rolled down the windows.

Our goodbye was shortened by the boys. I held Landon’s stare as I slid out of Bowen’s back seat, trying to fill my “Bye” with everything I couldn’t say. That I adored him, that that weekend had been the best I could remember having, that he excited me and filled me with something that no one ever had in my life. That I still couldn’t believe he wanted me like I wanted him or that I was lucky enough to have his friendship, never mind this chance at something more. That I was already missing him, even just climbing out of the car.

He moved to the front seat as Emmet and I unlocked our front door. I looked back, and I saw Bowen giving his dad a long, careful look as Landon waved to me.

Emmet and I bounced around downstairs, neither of us wanting to put an end to these good vibes. He retold the stories from the lake and added more from the State Fair as he blended a protein shake—even though we’d just eaten—and then asked how my Saturday was with Landon.

“Good,” I said. God, don’t let the heat rising in my face give me away. “Really good. Hey, do you want to watch a movie?”

“Sure.”

Halfway through the movie Emmet picked, a mash-up of car chases, cursing, and cleavage, he slumped sideways and fell asleep on my shoulder. He had his hoodie up, and his hair tumbled over his forehead as he snored open-mouthed.

I pulled my phone out as delicately as I could and snapped a selfie of the two of us, and then immediately sent it to Landon.

He sent back a heart emoji. I’m so happy for you. You and Emmet both.

I smiled. Me too. For this, and, you know. Other reasons. Heart eyes emoji.

He sent a heart eyes emoji back. I miss you.

I’d missed him since he’d dropped us off. My little townhome with Emmet and me was too empty, too quiet, too lonely. I wanted to bring Emmet and myself back to Landon and Bowen’s house, where we cooked and ate and laughed together. Like we were a family. Like we were all meant to be.

I miss you, too. So much. When can I see you again?

Tuesday? Do you want to come over while the boys are at practice? I can make dinner for you.

Yes! How many hours was that from now? Two whole nights without seeing him. How had I managed in the weeks before?

My bed smells like you. It’s driving me wild.

I swallowed. The mental image of Landon writhing in his bed like I’d writhed in his guest bed, panting and sweaty and wanting, hit me sideways.

A picture arrived on my phone, and my heart stopped in the second before it loaded.

Surely not. Surely Landon wouldn’t. I eyed my son, still snoring—now drooling—against my shoulder and angled my phone away.

Of course, Landon didn’t send that. The picture was sweet: Landon sitting in his bed, the lights dim, holding the pillow I’d slept on to his nose. His hair was rumpled and his gaze was soft, and he looked like he had last night when I’d fallen asleep gazing into his eyes. I sent a heart emoji to him.

Emmet stirred. We ended the movie, and he threw one arm across me, mumbled, “Night, Dad,” and then shuffled upstairs to his bedroom. I heard his mattress squeak, and then the snoring started again.

When I climbed into bed, I pulled Landon’s photo up and propped it beside me so I could stare into his eyes as I fell asleep.