Wanderlust

By Lexi Stone

I.

Shea promised himself that, after tonight, he would never break

into a house again.

Low-hanging branches swiped at his face and errant spiderwebs

stuck to his skin as he pushed himself up the incline through a tangle of
undergrowth. His simple running shoes weren’t up to the task; he
stumbled on the rocky, uneven ground under his feet and a searing pain
shot up his ankle just as his goal came into view: a small, moss-covered
house that, in the growing darkness, nearly disappeared into the trees
surrounding it.

He stumbled to a halt to catch his breath as his calves burned in

protest; the sight of the cabin made him falter. Methodically he wiped
damp hands on his jeans, brushed stray pine needles and leaves from his
hair as chided himself for wearing a white shirt tonight of all nights.
Some criminal you are.

But Shea wouldn’t turn back after coming this far, not even if he

felt embarrassingly awkward and obvious in the dark quiet that lingered
in this sparsely-populated stretch of forest. Stubbornly he set his jaw and
studied the cabin silhouetted against the evening sky with quiet, earnest
blue eyes. He couldn’t go back. He wouldn’t go back.

He had a promise to keep, after all.

Still, a strange melancholy took him at the sight of the place. What

had happened here? At twelve, the cabin might as well have been a
castle for all the magical enchantment it promised. Shea could remember
every childhood vacation he’d spent here: hours whiled away picking
wild strawberries and crawling through the underbrush to chase
squirrels, desperate and ill-fated attempts to climb the stubbornly tall

tree whose branches swooped down over the roof. Now, however, he
thought as he cautiously approached, memory lied; he couldn’t mistake
the signs of age and neglect that contradicted his happy childhood
memories. The rough-hewn wood of the porch groaned as he set foot on
it and the roof of the cabin sagged dangerously in places, heavy with
damp. Every window boasted spiderweb cracks that distorted the
clouded glass. Still, even through his heavy sense of melancholy Shea
felt a profound sense of relief: breaking into an obviously unoccupied
house, he reasoned, wasn’t as bad as all that.

Hurriedly, his ankle throbbing in time with his heart, the slim

young man assessed the entrance. He didn’t want to break the windows
unnecessarily, though he suspected he wouldn’t have much trouble with
them as cracked as they were. Broken glass, he thought absently. I’ll get
cut, maybe. And I’d definitely need a tetanus shot, after that. Instead,
he tentatively pressed his shoulder against the door and gave a good
shove. Nothing. He cursed quietly to himself, flushed with effort, and
tried again.

The door, to his surprise, popped open with the second blow. His

own momentum carried him through the entrance and inside a few
staggering steps, and his ankle ached sharply in protest. Shea stumbled
and then caught himself before he fell. Inside, the heavy scent of must and
pine greeted him, and the breeze that entered through the broken
windows stirred the warm heaviness of the humid air. The sudden quiet
that enveloped him hurt his ears.

“I made it,” he breathed aloud into the unnatural stillness, and then

gratefully leaned against the nearest wall as adrenaline abandoned him.
His shoulder bumped the nearby light switch and to his surprise, the
kitchen light flickered in response before it steadied to cast a sickly
yellow glow over dull, buckled linoleum and peeling countertops. He
hadn’t expected the electricity to still be on, though he knew the utility
costs for the property were quite low; surprised, he glanced around at
the kitchen. The old and obviously broken refrigerator stood ajar in the
corner, leaking water onto floor stained with mold, and the old table
leaned, hobbled on one leg, to the side with only two chairs as
companions.

Dad, Shea thought with a wistful smile as he ran absent fingertips

over the counter, would’ve known how to fix all of this. Even in the
hospital the old man watched home and garden shows on a near-constant
loop, offered his only son tips on how everything from how to repair a
leaky pipe to how to remodel a basement. Shea felt a dull ache now that
he couldn’t recall any of them, could only remember the barest details of
those absent-minded conversations held over the beep and whirr of
machines, monitors, and IVs.

A curious pain tightened his chest.

But there wasn’t time for sentimentality, at least not now, and so

limping he forced himself forward into the rest of the house, grief-
softened gaze roaming over the decayed remnants of his childhood and
happier times. There, on the lumpy yellow couch in the living room,
they’d stay up late past bedtime and watch movies together: Mom and
Dad, Kady and Shea. He remembered the slide of the buttered popcorn
on his hands, the sting of too-much salt on his tongue, the silly sing-
alongs. And here, in the bedroom, he and Kady used to construct
extravagant forts around the simple bed with its cheap metal frame,
hanging billowing sheet-canopies from the door to the headboard and
scrawling signs that read Parents Not Allowed.

Shea’s eyes stung. He cleared his throat and told himself it was the

dust. A sharp ache in his ankle reminded him he was injured and,
wearily, he let himself slide to the floor by the old oaken bookcase in the
bedroom. For a few moments he simply breathed, enjoying the serene
quiet of the darkened room, the trill of birds outside. An adventurous
ladybug wandered across the floor and began an arduous climb across
the leg of his jeans. “Hi,” he said fondly, and let it crawl onto his finger
as he smiled faintly. How many of these had he captured and kept in jars
before, in a fit of childish remorse and sorrow, he freed them all back
into the outdoors? He wondered if future families would come here to do
the same thing, or what would happen to this place if not, who owned it,
and what might become of it.

Maybe, most likely, the cabin would simply be destroyed, or

simply decay away into an abandoned husk.

A rustling that could have been leaves or bugs or simply the wind

floated in through the open window and made Shea’s skin prickle.

Reluctantly he clambered to his feet and tested the wounded ankle. The
pain made him wince, but he hoped he could make it to the car at the
base of the hill. Best to do so before darkness fell fully. His childhood
recollections contained no memories of particularly intimidating forest
creatures, but he scarcely felt inclined to test the theory—and anyway, he
really didn’t want to be caught. He wasn’t sure how a solitary graduate
student would explain trespassing and breaking in to a secluded forest
cabin.

Determined, he didn’t pause until he returned to the kitchen—and

there, Shea lingered as his fingers stilled on the light switch and his gaze
swept the simple room. This time, when tears pricked his eyes he
indulged them. Surely he could allow this much, a tribute to all the
happiness and laughter that used to live in this place. Surely he could
feel sadness over the emptiness and darkness of it now, the painful
reminder of permanent loss. What was it about adulthood that made
everything about childhood seem smaller? “Bye,” he whispered
helplessly. He took another hobbled step forward to the door and turned
his face away. Don’t look back. Just keep going. You came to see it one
last time, just like you promised Dad you would. That’s all you can do.
“Goodb—”

The sudden brilliance of a flashlight blinded him as a sharp,

demanding voice punctuated the stillness of the night. “Who the hell are
you?”

Shea stumbled backwards in fear and squinted against the blaze of

radiance as he glimpsed, dimly, a slim, tall figure in the yard silhouetted
against the trees. A forest ranger, maybe—or was this a neighbor? The
owner? The police? Panic welled up inside him; he opened his mouth
and then shut it. He should think of something to say, an explanation, an
alias, or—“Shea,” he blurted helplessly and honestly. “Shea Matthews.”
He knew how he must look: wide-eyed younger than his twenty-six
years, pale blond hair curling just slightly under his ears and his face
pale with confusion and fear. He held his hands out, palm-up and open.
Best not to look threatening. Best not to look like he was breaking into a
fucking house, which was exactly what he was doing, and fuck, he
realized frantically, he’d probably get arrested for this. He wondered
wildly if his financial aid could be revoked for something of this nature,

if graduate schools could kick students out for—

The flashlight lowered a fraction and the new arrival stepped

forward from the overgrown yard into the faltering illumination of the
porch light. He lifted a skeptical, challenging gray gaze to Shea’s.
“Sorry,” he said casually, but he didn’t sound sorry at all and his defiant
eyes held no apology. “Asshole teenagers come by here sometimes in the
summer to drink and fuck.” He spun the flashlight around in his hand, a
fluid and absent movement, then gestured to himself with it. “Jamie.”

“Oh,” Shea replied uncertainly, and tried not to stare at strong

shoulders, capable hands, at the mocking set of the man’s mouth or the
soft dark hair that framed the sharp and delicate features of his pale face.
Handsome, he thought irrationally, and immediately chided himself for
the thought. This couldn’t be a less appropriate time to think of
something like that. “Do you—do you own this place?” His heart
pounded beyond his ability to calm it, but he breathed deeply and cast
about in his mind for an explanation that might make sense. He could say
he’d gotten lost, maybe, or needed help when he sprained his ankle and
simply stumbled upon the cabin. Something. Anything.

“No. I write here,” Jamie replied, and then gestured to the bag

hanging from his shoulder in response to the question in Shea’s blue
eyes. For the first time, then, Shea identified the unmistakable lines of a
laptop through worn black fabric. With blithe disregard, Jamie
shouldered past him into the kitchen and dumped the laptop bag on the
crooked table. It wobbled perilously under the sudden weight. “I didn’t
think anybody owned this place. Even during hunting season it’s empty.”

For some reasons, the words felt like an indictment. Shea frowned

at the thought of his cherished old cabin uninhabited for years—but he
couldn’t deny the wave of relief that washed over him at the news,
either. “So—so you don’t own this place.” Maybe there would be no
police and no trouble, after all.

“Didn’t I just say that? Jesus, try to keep up.” At the table, Jamie

tugged out a scratched and battered laptop; a few granola bars and a
half-consumed bottle of juice tumbled out to accompany it. He jammed
the plug of the power cord into a dangerously-loose outlet nearby.

“You…you’re trespassing, then, aren’t you?” Shea asked. He

immediately winced at his accusatory tone, but worry drew down his
brow in consternation. Even though the cabin wasn’t really his anymore,
the place held precious memories. For just anyone to come in and take
possession of the place seemed…wrong somehow.

Jamie arched an eyebrow. “Look who’s talking, buttercup,” he

answered flippantly, and turned his attention to the computer as he turned
it on. The operating system was so outdated Shea couldn’t remember the
last time he’d used it, and he almost commented on it before Jamie’s next
question silenced the words on his tongue. “And anyway, since you’re so
intent on prying into my business, now it’s my turn: why’re you here?”

“My dad just died,” Shea began, and tried to hide hurt beneath a

tone of contrived offhandedness. “He loved this place—he only gave it
up when Mom died a while ago. He didn’t tell me he’d sold it until later,
but in the hospital this last time…he asked me to come and say goodbye
to it for both of us. That’s all.”

Jamie observed him for a few seconds in silence. His expressive

gray eyes softened slightly at the words, but the guarded set of his face
had not changed; he regarded Shea with a curious blend of pity,
indulgence, and understanding. “You’re really sentimental,” he finally
murmured. A faint, knowing smile settled on his lips.

“And you’re not?” Defensiveness in response to the condescension

and sarcasm in Jamie’s tone drove Shea to blurt out the words
instinctively. Still, he found himself surprised when Jamie’s eyes
narrowed in response and his smile disappeared.

For a moment the two of them simply gazed at each other, a silent

test of wills—and then Jamie ’s gaze dropped to Shea’s feet, to the
weight he shifted to his right leg, as if to dismiss the conversation. “Did
you hurt yourself or something?”

Shea stubbornly shifted his weight to his bad ankle and gritted his

teeth against a searing surge of pain. “I just twisted it,” he replied
casually. “It’s no big deal.” Satisfied that he needn’t fear any trouble for
his incursion onto the property, he now only wanted to leave and be done
with this as quickly as possible. He didn’t understand Jamie’s manner,
his native sarcasm or the prickly way he responded to questions.
“Anyway, I’ve interrupted enough and I should leave you to your writing

—”

“Jesus,” Jamie muttered as he rolled his eyes, “are you always this

nice? You have as much right to be here as I do. Stay if you want to stay.
Go if you don’t.”

Caught off balance by the offer, Shea paused before he shook his

head. “No,” he reassured. He had a paper to finish by the end of the
weekend, and his apartment badly needed cleaning. He’d left the desk
covered in books bristling with sticky notes and errant slips of paper.
“That isn’t necessary.” I just want to get this done and go. But his body
seemed unwilling to listen to his wishes even as he stepped out the door;
his ankle twisted badly as he took his first step onto the porch. The car
seemed impossibly far away, and the journey down to it more
treacherous with every hour deeper into darkness. He blew out a
frustrated breath and reached for his cell phone, peering at the glow of
the screen in the dimness. Maybe I can call someone. Though, if he was
honest, out of all his many friends and acquaintances he couldn’t think of
many who would drive to the middle of nowhere, sight unseen, to
retrieve him. Maybe—

“Do you honestly think you can get service up here?” Jamie asked

incredulously. Shea listened to the wood creak as the other man stepped
outside; a pair of battered sneakers came into his vision as he gazed
intently at his phone. Jamie reached out and tilted his head up with warm
fingers. Shea’s heart jumped at the surety in his touch, the confidence in
the way he moved. He really was handsome, Shea realized, with features
both serious and delicate, those gray eyes somehow softer but still
playful in the darkness. “You’re not going to get far on your own,” Jamie
pointed out archly.

Shea hesitated. “But my car—”

Jamie tilted his head. “Want me to carry you down there,

princess?”

Shea’s cheeks flamed. “No,” he snapped, and ignored Jamie’s hum

of amusement. He wasn’t used to this harsh kind of teasing, the
immediate intimacy of it, and recklessness made words spill from him,
relentless and stubborn. “I’m just hungry. And tired. I did what I came
here to do, and now I want to go home.”

A shrug. “Suit yourself,” Jamie replied casually as he turned back

inside. “But if you’re hungry, I have food. I packed it for myself, but
there should be enough for two.” His grin as he looked back over his
shoulder was knife-sharp and sudden. “I’m scintillating company,
promise. Hell, I’ll even fix up your ankle.”

Shea paused. And it occurred to him that he really should go home.

However long it took him to get to the car, his apartment was waiting:
small and cramped, yes, but cozy with carefully-shelved books and
framed pictures of family and friends. Assignment due dates and
deadlines waited, foreboding, on his calendar, and Monday would be
full of demanding classes. Beyond that, he found that he didn’t know
what to make of Jamie, how to handle his antagonistic way of teasing, the
challenge in his gray eyes, his blunt manner. Yes, Shea thought firmly to
himself. Home would be best. Home where there would be time to study
and research. Home where every few days he’d receive updates from
family and friends, and send a few brief and impersonal lines about his
life in return. Home where there would be stillness and silence. A lot of
silence.

Sadness pierced him.

“Yeah,” Shea replied absently and limped into the kitchen past

Jamie. “I guess I could stay. It’s the last time I’ll probably be here
anyway. I might as well enjoy it.” He felt Jamie’s surprised glance more
than saw it, but didn’t acknowledge it as he dropped wearily into one of
the sturdy chairs at the kitchen table. He fixed his gaze intently on the
faux-wood grain, rubbed a fingertip against a smudge on the slick finish,
and tried to ignore how much he’d just surprised himself with his
decision, too.

He started when Jamie’s hands cupped his foot.

“It’s sprained, right?” Jamie stripped away his shoe and his damp

sock with capable, confident efficiency, and Shea blushed at the touch of
warm fingers against his skin. From this angle, Shea could look down at
Jamie’s dark hair, could study the comfortable fall of his soft-worn
jersey shirt against his strong shoulders, the well-frayed cuffs of his
jeans. “Shoes like this aren’t much help around here,” Jamie pointed out.

“I don’t see you wearing hiking boots,” Shea retorted with a

pointed gaze at Jamie’s scuffed sneakers, and tried not to wince as the
other man turned his ankle this way and that to inspect it.

To his surprise, Jamie laughed sharply. “But I know this place

really well. You obviously don’t.” He rifled through his dark bag and,
after a few moments, produced a bandage that he would around Shea’s
ankle with confident expertise. “I found this place a while ago just by
hiking around up here. The ticks are pretty bad around, so maybe that’s
why hardly anyone comes by. Either way, when I found it empty, I
thought it’d be a good place to do some writing.”

“You write for a living, then?” Shea gazed down at Jamie’s dark

hair, surprised by how soft it looked, and became suddenly
overwhelmed by the sudden temptation to weave his fingers into it.
Embarrassed by the urge and the suddenness of his own desire, he kept
his hands clamped firmly at his sides as his cheeks flamed.

Jamie snorted, oblivious to Shea’s mortification. “If I wrote for a

living I’d be dead,” he replied, and tugged Shea’s sock back onto his
foot. “I was one of those pretentious assholes who went to college and
got a humanities degree.”

Shea’s brow drew down as he came to his feet and carefully tested

his ankle. He still couldn’t walk without pain, but limping around with
the stability of the bandage to support his ankle felt far preferable to the
alternative. “Getting a humanities degree isn’t for pretentious assholes,”
he objected as he gingerly made his way across the floor. “I have a
humanities degree.”

Startled, Jamie glanced up from his bag as he stuffed his supplies

back inside. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Shea answered. “Is it so surprising? I’m in graduate

school now.” Satisfied by his circuit across the floor, he reclaimed his
chair. “After I graduate, I’ll teach, and—”

Jamie rolled his eyes. “So you are a pretentious asshole.” Before

Shea could object, he scoffed in derision. “Getting a degree in
humanities to teach the humanities to other poor assholes getting degrees
in the humanities so that they can teach the humanities…” He dug around
in his bag some more and produced two more granola bars, an orange,

and an apple. “It’s a self-perpetuating system. It’s useless.”

He stuffed the apple into Shea’s mouth before Shea could protest.

Shea bit down reflexively, surprised by the tart sweetness of the fruit on
his tongue despite its bruised appearance, and remembered immediately
how hungry he was. He decided a debate on the value of the humanities
could wait. “This ish dinner?” he asked around a mouthful of apple.

“Yeah,” Jamie answered, and shoved a granola bar across the

table. “I only spring for the best, obviously. Enjoy the feast, m’lord.”

For a time, they didn’t speak, and only the crinkle of wrappers and

the tapping of Jamie’s fingers on the keyboard of his laptop disrupted the
companionable silence. Shea found the granola bars entirely satisfying,
despite their being smashed during their tenure at the bottom of Jamie’s
bag; the relative silence of the cabin crept into his bones and he relaxed,
breathing deeply of the warm damp air.

Nice, he thought tiredly. Outside, the crickets still trilled as they

had in his childhood, and as the shadows in the kitchen lengthened he
could almost ignore the decay of the house, the yellowed walls and the
buckled floor illuminated only by the screen of the laptop. He suddenly
felt very glad that he’d visited, after all.

“Jamie,” he began quietly.

The other man’s fingers paused on the keyboard. He didn’t glance

up. “You’re still awake? I thought you were dozing off over there.”

Shea’s gaze settled on the sky outside the window, on the

silhouetted tangle of trees against a deepening night sky. “You said you
didn’t write for a living. What do you do?”

The silence lingered so long that for a moment he thought he

wouldn’t receive an answer. Jamie didn’t resume his typing, but finally
he offered a shrug and tilted his head as he glanced up. “A little bit of
everything,” he answered. “Whatever jobs I can find wherever I go. A
bachelor’s degree in the humanities won’t really get you shit these days.
I’ve worked at amusement parks, fairs; I’ve done temp work, a few stints
as a server and one as a secretary, truck driver…” He nodded to his
computer. “And in my spare time, I write and travel. When I get tired of
a place, I just leave and go somewhere else.”

“Really?” Shea asked incredulously.

Jamie’s gray eyes narrowed slightly, challenging, though a faint

amused smile still lingered on his lips. “Think I’m a drug addict?” he
asked. “An alcoholic? Homeless?”

“No,” Shea replied defensively. He didn’t. Something about the

clarity in Jamie’s steady gaze, his biting humor and his confidence,
disabused Shea of such notions before he could entirely form them. But
he’d never imagined a life like that, so blithe and untethered and lacking
in linear progression. High school, a bachelor’s degree followed by a
graduate degree, a teaching job: he’d planned and mapped out those
things for years, and so had everyone else around him. Life meant going
forward, and forward meant moving up—and Jamie seemed not as
interested in moving up as he did in moving sideways, or in circles, or
wherever the hell he wanted. Shea tried to put the thought into words.
“It’s just,” he explained earnestly, “that I’ve never met anyone like you
before.”

Jamie hummed in amusement. “You’re one of those kinds of guys,”

he observed lightly as he stood up from his seat and glided by, brushing
the back of his hand against Shea’s cheek as he went. “One of those nice,
polite, sweet guys—”

“You talk about me,” Shea pointed out sourly as he tried to ignore

his aching response to the touch, “like I’m an idiot. I’m not an idiot.”

“—who’s never thought beyond his own picket-fence plans even

once,” Jamie finished triumphantly, and rummaged through his bag. He
emerged with a towel, which he flourished at Shea as he struck a
dramatic pose, hands outstretched. “There are more things in heaven and
earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Shea blinked, surprised. And then he smiled. “I like that play.”

In response, Jamie flicked him lightly on the nose. “If you like it so

much then you can recite it to yourself while I shower,” he announced,
and turned towards the bathroom. Before Shea could express surprise
that the old plumbing still worked, the taller man threw a wicked smile
over his shoulder. “Unless you’d like to join me.”

Shea flushed deeply; Jamie disappeared into the bathroom

laughing. After a moment, the squeal and rattle of the pipes preceded the
rushing patter of the water, and silence fell again. The laptop remained
open on the counter, beguiling—and after a guilty glance or two at the
shower, Shea peeked at the screen.

He didn’t know what he expected. Porn, maybe. Porn definitely.

Instead, though, he saw simply documents: fragments of prose, half-
written poems, and thoughtful paragraphs. All eloquent. Jamie was a
good writer; the musings Shea read wouldn’t have been out of place on
some of the witty and progressive blogs he enjoyed, and certainly
surpassed the skills of some of his graduate school peers. The short
stories, still rough drafts, nevertheless had the compelling pull of a
really good read. “What an interesting guy,” Shea murmured aloud,
surprised, and retreated to the nearby window in hopes that gazing
outside would soothe his guilt over snooping.

Darkness completely surrounded the cabin now, and Shea grew

gradually aware that he’d lost his chance to return to the car. He couldn’t
make the trek with no light, and he’d stupidly brought no flashlight of his
own. His cell phone wouldn’t illuminate enough to matter, and stumbling
through the darkness would only risk further injury to his ankle. And
suddenly, as he told himself all of these things and justified his decision
to linger, he realized as he did so that he’d never had any intention of
leaving to start.

He interests you too much.

Or maybe, he rationalized, he simply wanted to make the most of

his time here, to end it on a happier note. Yes. Today had been such a
sad day, after all, and—

“Enjoying your alone time with the window?”

Shea realized that his face was pressed to the glass and his warm

breath clouded the view of the darkness outside. He turned. Jamie’s shirt
stuck damply to his body and some of his wet dark hair clung to his
cheek. He smelled like soap and water, and Shea immediately shoved
down the urge to reach out and touch the beads of water that still
glistened against his collarbone. “That was quick,” he mumbled, and
prayed the other man wouldn’t notice his blush in the flickering light of
the kitchen.

“Not quick enough to save the hot water for you,” Jamie

deadpanned, and slumped down in front of the computer. “Help yourself.
There’s an extra towel in my bag if you want one.”

Surprised by the continued generosity, by the useful stock of small

supplies in Jamie’s bag, Shea obliged and retrieved the thin towel. Jamie
had thoughtfully left the bathroom light on and Shea focused on the feeble
golden glow to distract himself from the bathroom’s other problems: the
toilet that hadn’t been properly cleaned in years, the yellowing buildup
on the shower’s walls, the spider eyeing him from the corner of the
ceiling.

“Geez,” he muttered as he hurriedly doffed his clothes and tried

not to touch anything in the bathroom more than necessity demanded.
“The owner needs to clean this thing out.” The thought gave him pause as
he realized he wasn’t the owner, and Jamie either—they were both
trespassing, and worry stilled him as he eyed the lock on the bathroom
door. What if they got caught? What if they didn’t get caught? How safe
could it possibly be to strip down with a complete stranger in the next
room, anyway?

But he didn’t lock the door. Instead he set his jaw and, determined,

stepped inside the shower. The pipes rattled as he turned the ancient
silver knob, and the spray that shot out was colder than it was lukewarm;
Shea yelped in spite of himself and heard, through the closed bathroom
door, laughter from the kitchen. He inhaled a sharp curse through
chattering teeth.

It wasn’t safe, he knew. None of this was safe: breaking into a

cabin that wasn’t his, sharing it with someone else breaking in, spending
time with a stranger whose identity and statements he couldn’t verify
even if he felt they were true. Showering nude in an unlocked bathroom
with said stranger in the very next room…

But—the revelation hit Shea the moment that the warm water

finally tempered the frigid water that pelted his skin—he didn’t care. He
simply didn’t care. Whether it was grief over his father’s death, the
painful realization of how damn ordinary and empty life was back home,
or whether Jamie’s words stirred up longing within him, he didn’t care
that this might be risky, or unusual, or new.

For tonight at least, he decided, he could be unreasonable.

Tonight, it was okay.

II.

Jamie stared absently at the computer screen.

In front of him, the cursor blinked. After a moment he impatiently

pressed the backspace button and watched with tired eyes as the cursor
gobbled up four sentences of words. He didn’t attempt to replace them;
tonight seemed like one of those nights where he couldn’t write for shit.

With a sigh, he turned a glare to the closed bathroom door that hid

the source of his current writer’s block. As if in response, the water cut
off and a resounding silence fell, broken only by the thump and thud of
Shea exiting the shower and getting dressed. Resigned, Jamie closed his
laptop and decided to give up writing for the evening.

“That water doesn’t get really warm at all; it just gets…less cold

for a little while.” Despite the complaint, Shea seemed in good spirits;
the shower had brightened his eyes and his limp, though evident, seemed
manageable. “How do you live with it like that?” Like a cat or a puppy,
he seemed smaller when damp: a petite, small-boned man whose clothes
fit a touch too loosely on his frame and whose sleek damp hair, water-
darkened into a pale gold, curled up untamed beneath his ears. Jamie
wanted to touch it, to touch him, to slide his warm hands over cool,
water-damp skin.

He dampened the urge immediately and arched an eyebrow

instead. “You talk like I’m here all the time.”

Shea glanced up from his inspection of a ladybug on the kitchen

counter. “You are, aren’t you? Or a lot of the time, anyway. You didn’t
mention living anywhere else, so I just assumed.”

Surprised, Jamie took his time packing up his computer to give

himself time to respond properly. Shea possessed a certain naiveté that

belonged only to the privileged—a certain belief that the world was
right and good and belonged in a certain order—but he was far more
perceptive than his earnest, honest blue eyes would have led Jamie to
guess. And Jamie didn’t want to talk about the rougher nights, the
darkness that nipped at him whenever he settled in one place for too
long. He didn’t want to lie to those trusting blue eyes, either. In the end,
he settled for evasion. “You assume a lot,” he observed. “And you know
what they say about assuming.” When Shea gave him a blank look in
response, he laughed helplessly. “Or not.”

Brow furrowed, Shea considered the comment and then shrugged,

turning to the window again as Jamie struggled to zip his laptop into the
bag. “Well, I won’t assume then. I’ll just ask. Where do you work now?”

“Nowhere currently,” Jamie replied coolly. He could feel Shea’s

eyes widen in surprise without even looking up to confirm it, and smiled
faintly in response. “Surprised? It’s kind of my cycle: I work at a place
and live cheaply until I can save up some money to live on for a while,
move when it pleases me and write until the money runs out, then start
over again when it’s necessary. Wash, rinse, repeat.”

Shea looked offended by the very idea; he turned away from the

window in evident consternation. “But what if you can’t get a job?” he
asked worriedly. “What if you need a job and one isn’t available?”

Jamie fought mightily not to laugh. “If I was a lawyer or a doctor

or I cared about where I worked, if I had a family to provide for or
needed more than I do, maybe I’d worry,” he shrugged. “But the world
will always need people to serve food and clean up other people’s shit.”
He caught the faint flinch that touched Shea’s features and sharpened his
tone. “Or is that kind of work beneath someone from the humanities?”

He didn’t know what he expected—for Shea to storm out, maybe,

or pout, or argue. To encourage him that he could do better, be more. But
the smaller man did none of those. He simply stood for a moment,
absorbing the words, and then nodded. “You’re right,” he said simply.
“I’m sorry.” And the sincerity written on his innocent, cheerful features
seemed so frank and honest that Jamie found himself without words.

Uncertain of how to respond, he walked instead to the hall closet

and tugged out the sleeping bag there. He felt Shea watching him—felt

that quiet gaze burning into his back—and sighed heavily. “What?” he
asked as he unrolled the bag across the floor. “What is it now?”

“Well,” Shea pointed out carefully, “there are two beds here, one

in the master and one in the guest room, so I don’t see why you need a
sleeping bag.”

Jamie stood from the bag and grabbed his flashlight, then caught

Shea by the arm and marched him to the bedroom. He pointed the beam
at the bed. “Look,” he instructed. “What do you see?”

Shea bent forward in the shadowy room and squinted.

“Something…moving” he said uncertainly. “Really fast. I only caught a
glimpse of it before—”

“Spiders,” Jamie announced, and gleaned a little satisfaction from

how quickly Shea backed away from the bed. “Goddamn huge fucking
spiders. They’ve made nests between the bed and the wall there and they
crawl over it at night. The other bed too, I think. I mean, if you want to
sleep in there, suit yourself, but…”

Hastily, Shea limped out of the bedroom and back to the bright

kitchen. “No,” he muttered, aghast. “I’m fine.” In the safety of the bright
light, he glanced around the room to assure himself that no spiders
infested this particular area, and then turned his glance down to the
single sleeping bag on the floor. “Um.”

Sleep on the goddamn floor and quit complaining, Jamie started

to say, but his gaze caught on the careful way Shea stood to keep his
weight off his swollen ankle. Cool from his shower, he had his arms
wrapped around himself to ward off the chill and his slightly swollen
eyes reminded Jamie that he must have been crying earlier during his
time here alone. Shit. Why am I supposed to care? And he wasn’t. He
wasn’t obligated to give a damn. And yet…

“A bed of only the highest quality for my prince,” he announced

sarcastically, and gestured to the sleeping bag.

Shea blinked. “But it’s yours,” he protested.

Jamie flopped down on the floor nearby, stretched out long limbs

and tried to ignore the way his shoulder blades dug into the hard floor.

“You’re a master of stating the obvious. Now quit complaining. It’s late
and I’m tired.”

Wordlessly, Shea obeyed. After some shuffling and awkward

bending to avoid putting pressure on his ankle, he tucked himself neatly
into the bag and pulled it up to his chin. “It’s warm in here,” he muttered,
sounding surprised, and before Jamie could tell him that sleep meant
shutting up, he added, “It’s nice to make a few more good memories
here.”

“This qualifies as a good memory?” Jamie asked skeptically. He

rolled over on his side and propped his head up on his arm to give Shea
a disbelieving glance.

Shea glanced over and offered a faint smile. “Yeah,” he answered

simply. After a few moments of silence, he continued fondly, “My family
and I had a lot of fun here. My dad took care of the cabin and it was in
good shape, then. Not like it is now.” He craned his neck to gaze around
the room. “You said teenagers come here to make trouble?”

“Yeah,” Jamie replied shortly, and opted not to share the details:

the too-young girls who came up here in borrowed fishnets and bandeau
tops to fuck acne-marked boys, the bands of teenage guys bonding over
cheap beer and stories about sex too exaggerated to be real, the addicts
who somehow found the place and made it a shelter to sleep off a
bender.

“Dad would have hated that,” Shea replied quietly. Jamie couldn’t

quite make out his features in the dark, but melancholy clotted his tone.
“He thought of this place as a sanctuary. A place where we could come
and be happy. Even towards the end, he had plans to buy it back and
work on it.”

Jamie told himself he didn’t care. He’d learned long ago that

roughly ninety-eight percent of people were assholes, and the other two
percent weren’t worth the trouble anyway. So he remained silent,
stretched out as far as he could on the floor with his arms and legs
splayed out, and listened to the chirp of insects outside. He didn’t care.
He didn’t care. But there was nothing else to do but look at the ceiling
and listen to the rustle of the trees outside, and maybe something the idiot
said would inspire his writing—so he gave in and asked, telling himself

the question was purely for curiosity’s sake. “You said your dad died.
What happened, exactly?”

Silence. For a moment he thought Shea was asleep. And then a

quiet answer in the darkness, a single sad word: “Cancer.” More
silence, and Jamie found he didn’t know what to say. He’d never had
parents beyond the purest biological definition, at least not in the honest
sense of the word, and therefore no realization of what it might be like to
lose them, to lose that kind of love or affection. But Shea spared him
from having to change the subject or offer false, comforting platitudes.
“It’s a horrible disease,” he acknowledged from the sleeping bag.
“Really horrible. But my dad had a pretty good sense of humor, and he
kept us laughing the whole time. My whole family’s like that—pretty
goofy, I guess. We don’t like sad stories, so…we try to find a reason to
smile. Even during the darker times.”

Jamie closed his eyes. He didn’t care. Or maybe he didn’t know

why he cared. “Tell me,” he said simply. “About them. About you.”

Even in the dark he could sense Shea’s surprise, but after a

moment the sleeping bag rustled and he knew the smaller boy was
making himself comfortable, searching his memories. “Every year when
we visited this place and got ready to head back home,” Shea started
hesitantly, “my dad would hide the car keys from Mom when we were
supposed to leave. It used to scare her, but eventually she got used to it
and just shrugged it off. So the year he did lose the keys, it took him
hours to convince her he wasn’t just playing around.” He laughed a little
in the dark. “Before Mom went to the hospital for the last time, she hid
his extra set on purpose. He didn’t find them until weeks after the
funeral, and said it was her way of trying to make him smile even when
he was sad. I guess I’ve inherited their sense of humor, too…”

And so he spoke: about his mother and the heart problem that took

her life, the loss of his father, his sister Kady and her fiancé in New
York, his struggles in grad school, his quiet and small apartment. Jamie
listened rapt, imagining the faces and places to flesh out the words,
hearing in the stories more heart—and maybe more loneliness—than
Shea might have imagined. He didn’t know how much time passed as he
lay there listening; it was only after Shea had been silent for a few
moments that he stirred.

“Mm?” he asked without opening his eyes. “Why’d you stop?”

He could feel the weight of Shea’s sleepy gaze. “You’re letting me

go on and on about myself,” he murmured, “but you haven’t said anything
about you. What about you? What about your life?”

“Boring,” Jamie replied lightly, but he opened his eyes and fixed

his gaze on the ceiling. “Nothing worth speaking of, really.”

“But—”

“If Sleeping Beauty isn’t tired,” Jamie said archly before his

companion could argue, “then I’ll be happy to take his sleeping bag and
leave him in the bedroom to sort out his thoughts.”

Shea sighed, but accepted the pointed comment and did not protest.

“I’ll stay here, thanks,” he said dryly. The sleeping bag rustled more as
he settled down more comfortably. “Jamie?”

“Mm?”

Shea reached out blindly with one hand, caught Jamie by the

shoulder, and squeezed. Jamie’s gray eyes widened and his heart, thrown
into riot by the unexpected gesture, thumped rebelliously in his chest.
“Thanks,” Shea said simply. “For being kinder than you needed to be.”
The warmth of his touch vanished as he rolled over and scrunched
himself up like a caterpillar in the sleeping bag. “G’night,” he mumbled.

“Goodnight,” Jamie muttered mechanically. He wasn’t kind; he

knew better than that. He preferred being alone. He hated people who
coasted by on privilege, cared little to understand the way the world
worked, and wanted to live forever in the safety of their cozy little lives.
And he wanted to say all of those things suddenly, to make them
vehemently clear, but he couldn’t open his mouth to spit out the words
because at least right now, at least with Shea, they weren’t true. Shea
was fundamentally different from most people Jamie knew—naïve but
disarmingly shrewd, open and thoughtful in his manner, sweet even in his
melancholy—and Jamie chose to be kind to him because…

…because…

Sleep took him before he could find a satisfactory answer.

III.

Shea woke for no reason at all.

He could see nothing in the heavy darkness and, momentarily

disoriented, reached blindly for the lamp on the nearby nightstand before
he remembered that he wasn’t at home. After that, he simply stilled and
listened uncomfortably to the myriad sounds outside: the chirp of insects,
the warble of frogs, strange scratches and rustlings he couldn’t identify.
Animals? Bugs? He thought of the spiders undoubtedly crawling on the
bed in the other room and shivered, batting frantically at a tickle on his
cheek until he realized it was a stray hair.

Unnerved, he closed his eyes tightly shut and tried to focus on the

sound of his own breathing. Sleep didn’t return as easily as he’d hoped,
though, and his muscles tightened with anxiety as the sounds grew ever
louder outside. With a frustrated sigh, he opened his eyes again to gaze at
the ceiling and pushed away thoughts of crawling insects and animals
scratching at the walls. He wasn’t used to spending the night in such an
unfamiliar place, found himself lost without the comforts of his familiar
routine: the lamp next to his bed, a book in his lap, that weekly phone
call from his dad and the promise of homework as he hurriedly finished
a muffin in the morning. The difference between those relaxed, carefree
evenings and the current moment—as a crick in his neck demanded his
attention and he absently rubbed at the ache in hopes it would fade—
painfully threw the bitter truth into sharp relief:

Nothing stays the same forever.

Shea knew it was true, as much as his life and plans spoke to the

contrary. Jamie was right: he was a picket-fence person with picket-
fence plans who never once until now allowed himself to consider the
possibility that life meant change, unfamiliarity, instability. And yet here

he was, cocooned in a too-warm sleeping bag in a cabin that looked
nothing like the childhood vacation home he remembered, attempting to
identify the source of those unnerving sounds outside, knowing that even
when he went home to his lamp and his books and his bed he wouldn’t
receive weekly calls from his father any more.

The thought left Shea unspeakably sad and his throat tightened

painfully. Instinctively he shifted in his sleeping bag to seek out Jamie’s
prone form in the darkness. He wanted the simple comfort of knowing he
wasn’t alone, and relief took him as he made out the barely discernible,
shadowy lump nearby. Tentative, unsure of what he sought, he reached
out shyly and carefully to touch Jamie’s dark hair. Soft, he thought, and
felt some of the coiled tension leave his body. The warmth of Jamie’s
hair under his fingertips, the rise and fall of the other man’s breathing,
made him feel less lonely, somehow, chased away the grief that lurked at
the edge of his thoughts.

“Can’t sleep?”

Jamie’s voice, full volume and alert, startled Shea; his heart

paused for a too-long second before pounding quick and sharp inside his
chest. He snatched his hand back, embarrassed. “I didn’t know you were
awake.”

“Hard not to be,” Jamie replied lazily, “with you rolling around

over there.” He stretched, a lithe shadow in the dark, and rolled over on
his side to face his companion. To Shea’s gratitude, he made no comment
about the tentative caress. “Something bothering you?”

Shea tugged the sleeping bag up to his chin, a defense against he

knew not what. “No,” he muttered defensively. “I just woke up, that’s
all. Heard weird stuff outside.”

A rustling followed as Jamie sat up and fumbled for his laptop on

the table. A few clicks later, pale illumination lightened the heavy
darkness of the room and suddenly Shea could dimly make out the shape
of the cabinets, the ancient refrigerator and the table nearby. “Nightlight
help?” Jamie asked, and grinned.

“Oh, shut up,” Shea said wearily, and ran his hands through his

hair. “I’m fine.” Still, he glanced about surreptitiously for wayward

spiders or small animals and found himself comforted to see none
immediately nearby. His fear made him feel foolish, but to his
embarrassment he did find the glow of the laptop comforting. Exhaling
heavily, he willed his body to relax as he stretched out in the sleeping
bag.

“I’m cold,” Jamie complained. “Unzip.”

Shea blanched. “Unzip what?” he asked, and then understood—he

struggled with the zipper on the sleeping bag as Jamie laughed quietly at
the misunderstanding. “You volunteered to sleep over there, you know,”
he pointed out as he finally succeeded in getting the zipper down.
Reluctantly he crawled out of the warm nest and shivered. “I told you
before I’d—”

Jamie snorted. “Stay in there, dumbass. I’m not kicking you out.

We’re going to share.” And before Shea could protest—though he
realized to his embarrassment he had no desire to protest—Jamie shoved
him back into his previous position and then crawled inside the sleeping
bag with him.

Heat. The delicious heat of Jamie’s long body pressed against his

back. Shea flushed at the sensation and tried to remember how to
breathe. How long had it been since he’d shared a bed with anyone?
College, he thought dimly, early college, before bad breakups and
misunderstandings convinced him that maybe he loved too earnestly and
hoped too much. Awkwardly he held himself rigid and tried not to take
up too much space, resting his cheek on his hands and drawing himself as
close to the other side of the sleeping back as he could go.

“Geez, you’re tense,” Jamie muttered, and Shea jumped as the

other man’s long fingers poked at him playfully. “Am I bothering you or
something?”

Shea considered the question. “No,” he answered truthfully,

because bother couldn’t accurately explain the heat on his cheeks or the
stir of desire that left him acutely aware of every inch of Jamie’s long
body behind his.

“Then what? Still worried about those noises?” Jamie’s voice, a

warm breath of air against Shea’s ear, left shivers in its wake. “About

the dark?” His tone fell into a wicked singsong, playful and teasing.
“About spiders?” He skittered fingertips over the back of Shea’s neck, a
barely-there touch.

Shea smacked at his hand instinctively; the touch did feel spidery.

“Quit that,” he began—but Jamie only obeyed to poke him in the side
again, and suddenly the knot of tension and fear in Shea’s stomach
dissolved as the playfulness devolved into a mock-tussle between the
two of them, into light, ticklish touches and a teasing struggle that ended
only when, finally, he fell laughing onto his back in the sleeping bag and
batted Jamie’s hands away. “Stop,” he pleaded, breathless. “Stop, you
win. I’d rather deal with the spiders than this.”

A faint, surprisingly genuine smile touched Jamie’s lips. “Feel

better?” he asked, and to Shea’s surprise the words held an undertone of
concern. Oh, Shea realized lamely. He’s trying to cheer me up. The
thought so startled and touched him that for a moment he didn’t respond
and simply gazed up at his companion and marveled, entranced suddenly
by the sharp attentiveness in those defiant gray eyes, the contrast between
that pale skin and that silky dark tumble of hair.

“Yes,” Shea whispered. He knew that even in this dim illumination

his emotions—his gratitude, his curiosity, his sadness, his desire—must
be written all over his face, but he didn’t bother trying to hide them even
as the silence stretched between them into something pregnant and
meaningful that made his breath catch and his heart beat faster. Right
now he didn’t want to hide anything. Perhaps it was because of how
languid the night felt, with the laptop’s cool, faint light draping the old
cabin in otherworldly shadows and the quiet outside sounds surrounding
them. Perhaps it was because of Jamie himself, the electric energy he
seemed to carry with him, the constant dare in his gray eyes. Either way,
Shea welcomed all of it, welcomed how far this felt from his own life,
from the world he remembered and thought he loved.

He’d never felt so much in his life.

So he wasn’t surprised when Jamie, those gray eyes softer than

normal, leaned down to kiss him. But he did surprise himself when he
responded immediately and passionately: his lips parted willingly at the
gentle insistence of Jamie’s tongue, and he reached up instinctively to

wrap his arms around the other man’s neck to bring him closer. Jamie
hummed amusement and appreciation, and though the hands that cupped
Shea’s face were gentle, the bruising kiss was not; the fierce
possessiveness as Jamie claimed his mouth stole Shea’s breath and made
his heart pound wildly.

He couldn’t ever remember a kiss like this. The noises outside that

seemed so persistent only moments ago ceased to exist and the world
contracted to the heat of Jamie’s body pressed against his own, to the
overwhelming desperation of the kiss that didn’t end but instead gentled
into softer, deeper kisses that blended into each other, all innocent
hunger and honest desire. Shea’s hands moved up to tangle in Jamie’s
dark hair as their tongues touched, teasing and slow, as their
unsuccessful attempts to part went astray every time Jamie nipped at his
lower lip and every time Shea leaned up to draw him back down again.

“You’re not as shy as I thought,” Jamie whispered approvingly

against his lips. The taller man’s confidence was both alluring and
disconcerting; he leaned in for another lingering kiss as his cool hand
slipped under Shea’s shirt and stroked the bare skin of his back. “Does it
feel good?”

Shea tried to respond—to say something, anything in the

affirmative. But every time his lips parted on a “yes” or “please, more”
Jamie silenced him with another kiss as his seeking hand trailed lightly,
idly over the flat planes of Shea’s back and then around to his chest. The
faint smile on Jamie’s lips and the predatory desire in those darkened
gray eyes told him the touches were anything but accidental or
unplanned, and though Shea fought against the moans that threatened to
spill out he couldn’t hide his body’s response. Desperately he broke
away from the kiss and turned his head to the side as he squeezed his
eyes shut, afraid his desperate desire showed too plainly on his face.

Gently Jamie turned his head back. “If you like it,” he murmured,

“don’t hide it.” Teasingly he grazed Shea’s nipple with his fingers,
waited for the hitch in Shea’s breath and the widening of his eyes before
he teased the pink bud between forefinger and thumb. Shea couldn’t flee
from the relentless hunger in that gray gaze. “How does it feel?”

“Good,” Shea managed helplessly.

Jamie responded with a teasing smile as he pushed the smaller

man’s shirt up to expose his bare chest. “You’re sensitive,” he remarked,
appreciative, and lowered his mouth to where his fingers had been. The
floor was hard under Shea’s head, but he barely noticed it as he
reflexively arched his chest to meet Jamie’s mouth and tightened his
hands in the other man’s mass of dark hair. His cock, trapped in his
jeans, ached and throbbed at this new wet heat as Jamie sucked one
nipple and then the other, teased hardened pink buds with tongue and
fingers.

Overwhelmed by sensation and still desperate for more, Shea

simply moaned, unable to put words to the need that surged through him
at the glide of that wicked tongue across his skin, the work of that skilled
mouth. “Please,” Shea he managed raggedly, and arched his hips up in a
blind effort to find the friction that would relieve the ache between his
legs. “Please, Jamie.”

He wasn’t entirely sure what he was asking for. But Jamie leaned

back in response and studied him with heavy-lidded eyes. To Shea’s
surprise, the other man looked as disheveled as he felt, his dark hair
tousled from Shea’s seeking fingers and his breath quick and uneven. But
a smile still curved Jamie’s lips as his eyes roved over Shea’s naked
chest to nipples peaked and wet from his ministrations, then down to the
hardness evident even through his jeans. Soothingly, Jamie stroked
Shea’s heated cheek with the back of his hand, a surprisingly tender
gesture belied by the feral hunger in his eyes. “‘Please?’” he repeated
softly. “What is it that you want, hm?”

You, Shea thought immediately. To be with you. But he felt certain

that Jamie would scoff at such a sentiment. The words caught in his
throat. Another time, he promised himself, without wondering why or
how he expected to see Jamie again after tonight. Another time. Snared
by that gray gaze and the passionate hands still stroking his chest, he
sought for better words that would express this wild and sudden need
and eventually settled on simple honesty. “To feel good,” he replied,
embarrassed by the rasp of desire in his voice, and then amended, “with
you.”

The right answer. Jamie’s teasing smile softened into something

more genuine and he tilted his head as he trailed lazy fingers down

Shea’s chest to the waistband of his jeans. “How could I refuse a request
like that?” he asked, bemused, and followed the path of his fingers with
wet, hot kisses and the slick slide of his tongue. Deftly, even as he took
Shea’s nipple between his teeth and tugged, he worked open the button of
Shea’s jeans and unzipped them, then unceremoniously tugged them
down and off along with Shea’s underwear.

Shea flushed deeply at the stir of cool air against his skin and tried

to ignore the swollen heaviness of his own arousal hot against his
stomach as Jamie regarded him with appreciative gray eyes. He’d never
felt so exposed in his life, not even with other lovers. But the cool blue
illumination from the laptop and the unfamiliar shape of this room made
this feel like another world, an altered one in a time and space separate
from normal reality—and in spite of that, or maybe because of it, Shea
felt a strange freedom in disregarding his own restraint and breaking the
rules he normally set for himself. So rather than avert his eyes or close
his legs he simply surrendered as Jamie leaned over him, as the taller
man’s knowing hand stroked his abdomen, slipped teasingly down to his
thighs and then wrapped gracefully around his cock. “So pretty,” Jamie
sighed against his ear, and nipped affectionately at the lobe.

Each slow, lazy stroke provoked an aching shock of pleasure and

desire that made Shea’s hips arch slowly, reflexively, into the tight,
pleasurable grip. And even this might not have been so different from
any other act of intimacy but for Jamie’s presence, which somehow
transformed the simple touch into something more electric and intimate
than Shea had ever experienced. Jamie seemed to enjoy Shea’s pleasure
more than his own, and studied every shift in Shea’s expression with
intense, inquisitive hunger, worrying his lip as he watched. To Shea’s
surprise, he found pleasure in Jamie’s evident pleasure, in being
watched in such a way, and they might have continued on in that
delicious feedback loop indefinitely if Shea hadn’t noticed Jamie shift
slightly, a casual gesture to accommodate arousal, and if Shea hadn’t
suddenly and sharply wanted more.

“Hey,” he whispered, and his own voice sounded foreign and

breathy in the dark as he stayed Jamie’s hand. “Stop—just for a minute.”

Expression guarded and wary, Jamie obeyed instantly and

removed his hand. “Change your mind?” he asked with a forced lightness

that, to Shea, sounded like an attempt to cover hurt.

“No,” Shea murmured hastily to reassure him—Jamie changed

moods so fast it unnerved him, and he didn’t want to lose the precious
moment—and reached out instead, awkwardly tugging Jamie’s shirt up to
his shoulders. “No, I just want—” Jamie lifted his arms obligingly,
amused now, and with a huff of effort Shea managed to draw the shirt
over his companion’s head and shoulders. He wanted these moments to
linger as long as possible. “I want—to feel you, too—”

Jamie laughed. “So honest,” he remarked, and ran the back of his

hand over Shea’s cheek again, that indulgent caress that seemed to mean
you’re so odd and I like you all at once. “Well, I won’t say no, if you’re
up for it.” And he unbuttoned his jeans before Shea’s fumbling fingers
could finish the work, shrugging them off with a lithe twist of his hips
and kicking them off with his feet.

Shea reddened. “You’re not wearing any underwear,” he remarked

absurdly, and forgot momentarily about his own nakedness as he glanced
down. Jamie was very aroused, he realized, and entirely unashamed of
it; the other boy leaned back casually on his elbows, body utterly on
display, and offered a cocksure grin.

“Like what you see?”

There wasn’t any way to respond to that with the slightest

modicum of decency, and so Shea didn’t respond at all. He simply
leaned forward for a surprisingly soft kiss and let his hands roam where
they would, over the slope of Jamie’s shoulders and down his narrow
chest, to the jut of his hipbone and the smooth curve of his ass. Riveted,
he mapped out the other man’s body, discovered scars with careful
fingertips: the long raised line that slashed Jamie’s skin above his right
hip, and a thicker, shorter scar at the small of his back. When he finally
glided his palms down and traced the shape of Jamie’s sizeable arousal,
the velvet skin stretched taut and smooth over impossible hardness, he
found himself surprised by Jamie’s answering gasp. He hadn’t meant to
tease, not exactly, but the thought made him smile into the kiss as he
tightened his grip around the shaft of Jamie’s cock and tried to stroke
with his companion’s casual, lazy assurance.

His fingers slipped, at first, and both the grip and the angle felt

wrong. Flushed, he tried again—and then started as Jamie’s hand slid
down to meet his, to guide him with their fingers tangled together. It only
took moments before Shea found the right rhythm, his mouth pressed
against Jamie’s as he grew comfortable with the slide of his hand against
Jamie’s hardness. When Jamie reciprocated in kind and rubbed nimble
fingers affectionately over the swollen head of his cock, Shea almost
forgot what he was doing entirely, lost a beat in his careful strokes, and
felt Jamie laugh lightly against his lips.

The dark felt like it might swallow them, or at least as though it

might erase the world beyond the confines of their embrace. Mouth to
mouth, tangled in an embrace, they touched each other—sometimes with
purpose and sometimes not, sometimes with a determined rhythm and
sometimes with faltering grips when the kisses grew too heated and
desire overwhelmed purpose. Shea had no idea how long it had been
since he’d felt something like this, pressed himself harder against Jamie
as his hand faltered. The constant throb of pleasure above and below left
him dizzy. Maybe a long time. Maybe never.

Jamie purred against his mouth and somehow the world moved and

Shea found himself on his back on the sleeping bag, cool air rushing over
his naked body as Jamie pulled away only to resettle himself between
Shea’s legs. You don’t have to do that, Shea started to say, but couldn’t,
and then Jamie’s head dipped low and his warm, wet mouth took Shea in
all the way to the root. Thought stopped. Time stopped. Nothing else
existed but Jamie’s mouth moving on him, the heat of Jamie’s hands on
his thighs. “Please,” Shea managed, strangled. “Please, yes.”

Low cries came from him unbidden and he forgot to be

embarrassed in the wake of this encompassing bliss; still, Shea fought
not to thrust into Jamie’s mouth, refrained from tangling his hands in that
silky dark spill of hair. Difficult, when all he wanted was that wet heat,
but he didn’t want to force, or—or—

“Go on,” Jamie encouraged, breathless as he lifted his head. “You

don’t have to hold back. I don’t mind.” He smiled, lips slick with saliva,
but there was a tenderness to his gaze that startled Shea, almost threw
him out of the moment. Because I was being considerate? Hasn’t
anyone ever tried to be careful with him before? But Shea lost the
thought almost immediately as Jamie cast an appreciative, possessive

gaze up the length of his body; he stroked Shea’s slick cock briefly,
playfully, before sliding his hand down farther and back to rub Shea’s
entrance with gentle fingertips. The smaller boy’s body tensed and he
moaned helplessly; Jamie smiled as Shea bucked up instinctively into his
mouth.

Help, Shea thought, and his eyes squeezed shut of their own accord

as his focus narrowed to sheer overwhelming sensation: Jamie’s warm
mouth taking him in, clever fingers encouraging him to part his legs as
they teased his tight opening, the desire that burned more and more with
every arch of his hips into that wet heat. “Help,” he whispered aloud,
and didn’t know why that was the word that came out when what he
really meant was please, I’m close, please don’t stop. This shockingly
intimate kiss, the slow, decadent way Jamie tasted him, the silken glide
of Jamie’s tongue against his aching hardness drew from a deep well of
pleasure locked somewhere inside and flooded his senses until he felt
wholly lost; open and surrendered, Shea pressed longingly against
Jamie’s fingers and thrust up into his mouth until either seconds or
eternities later his whole body went tense and all the pleasure coalesced
at once. Unashamedly he cried out, heard Jamie’s soft murmur of
encouragement and felt strong hands tighten on his thighs as he pitched
over the edge trembling and waves of bliss claimed him.

Dimly, Shea felt Jamie swallow once, twice, and barely stirred as

the other man’s hands stroked his thighs. A profound peace claimed him,
but he forced his eyes open after what felt like a small and blissful
eternity. “Hey,” he mumbled, and blinked to refocus as the world came
back into relief around him; he noticed the laptop again, gleaming in the
dark, and the vague outlines of the table nearby. Outside, the night sounds
continued on unabated, and Jamie crouched, relaxed, between his thighs.

“Hey yourself,” the other man returned, amused. “Feel good?”

Shea nodded, rapt as he studied the slope of Jamie’s shoulders, the

body that seemed both slim and lithe-muscled. He blushed as his gaze
dropped to Jamie’s still-evident arousal. “Sorry,” he said hastily,
ashamed. “I didn’t mean just to think of myself.” Awkwardly, slick and
sweat-damp with pleasure, his hair ruffled, he pushed himself up from
the floor and came to his knees. His whole body ached pleasantly and his
dampness stained his thighs from Jamie’s avid ministrations. “Let me—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jamie returned casually, and stretched out

on the floor, relaxed in spite of his obvious desire. “I’ve got hands. I can
take care of it later.”

But that wasn’t fair. And even though the urgency of his own need

had passed, Shea found Jamie no less alluring than before. Maybe even
more alluring, now that he could notice the smaller details that arousal’s
haze had clouded: the mingled affection and desire apparent in those
gray eyes, the swollen lips slightly parted and saliva-slick, the
vulnerability in his features when he seemed, as now, at rest. Shy, Shea
nevertheless felt no restraint; he lowered his head willingly and nuzzled
Jamie’s abdomen. He felt the stillness in Jamie’s body as the other man’s
breath caught, and the simple reaction—the honest expression of want—
spurred him forward.

This he’d done only rarely—only during fumbling and largely

underwhelming encounters in dark dorm rooms—and he didn’t let
himself wonder why he wanted to do it so much now. Instead, he took his
time, kissing down the length of the shaft, tracing the beguiling hardness
with an eager tongue. Jamie’s hands cradled his head gently,
encouraging, and stroked his hair; because of that Shea didn’t feel
obligated to take more of the man’s substantial girth than he was able.
Instead, he used his hand in concert with his mouth, sucking and stroking,
pulling back to run his tongue over the slit and tip of Jamie’s cock before
taking him deep again, over and over. To his surprise, the act didn’t feel
like the chore he remembered from earlier days; he reveled in his ability
to draw out those low, quiet sounds of pleasure from Jamie, to discover
his taste and the way he arched his hips when pleasure overwhelmed
him.

It didn’t take long. Shea’s jaw had only just begun to ache when

Jamie’s grip tightened on his hair. “Shea,” he managed in warning, “just
—in a minute, I—” And even though the sound of his own name spoken
in such a way threatened to undo Shea’s composure, he managed to keep
his rhythm, tightening his hand on Jamie’s cock and taking him as deeply
as he could until the other man’s hips bucked once, twice, and bitter
warmth flooded his mouth.

“Fuck,” Jamie muttered breathlessly after a moment, and stroked a

surprisingly gentle hand over Shea’s hair as he swallowed. “You didn’t

have to do that.”

Shea lifted his head, surprised by how much younger Jamie

seemed without the challenging glint in his eyes and his sarcastic smile.
Right now the set of his mouth was soft and serious, his gray eyes heavy-
lidded with satiated passion. “I wanted to do it,” he responded simply,
and unfolded himself from his kneeling position on the floor. A delicious
exhaustion took him as he stretched out alongside Jamie without
bothering to dress. “Felt good.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jamie replied, but the words held fondness. He

didn’t stir from his position, but simply pulled the sleeping bag on top of
them both like a blanket and settled in willingly behind Shea, content to
remain as he was. Shea relaxed into the loose embrace and the heat of
Jamie’s body against his back, allowed sleepiness and the relaxation of
release to loosen his muscles and cloud up the thoughts in his brain.

He closed his eyes. “Different like this,” he murmured.

“Everything about tonight—and you. Different.”

Jamie draped his arm loosely over Shea’s waist. “Probably ‘cause

you did what you felt for once,” he replied drowsily. His lips pressed
lightly against the back of Shea’s neck—whether the barest of goodnight
kisses or a simple accident of speaking, Shea wasn’t sure. “What you
wanted to do.”

“Yeah,” Shea whispered softly, after a long moment of silence.

What I wanted, instead of…everything else that I do because I should.
Or because it seems right.

“Should stay here with me, you know,” Jamie continued, and his

faint grin against Shea’s skin made Shea smile instinctively in response.
“And come with me when I leave. Give up that boring picket-fence life
of yours and risk something, for once.”

The offer sounded absurd on its face; Shea huffed a little laugh into

the darkness. “Very funny,” he replied, but his heart twisted as soon as
he said the words, as he realized that the dawn would bring with it
goodbye to this place, to Jamie, and a return to all the routine and
ordinary comforts of home. He paused, his fingers twisting the sleeping
bag into knots. “You’re joking, right?”

Only silence greeted him, and he realized Jamie’s arm around his

waist was limp and slack. Troubled, Shea exhaled slowly, staring
blindly into the darkness and listening to the deep and even breathing of
the man behind him. “Goodnight, Jamie,” he said quietly, and tried not to
think of goodbyes and the life that waited for him at home.

Sleep, he knew, wouldn’t come for some time yet.

IV.

Jamie didn’t wake up until the early afternoon.

Groggy, he squinted at the sunbeams that poured through the

fractured windows. Morning light had heated the sleeping bag draped
over him to an uncomfortable degree; he shoved away the synthetic
fabric and sat up all in one motion, wincing at the ache in his back.
“Christ,” he muttered, and dampened his tone instinctively before he
looked to the side and realized what he should already have known:

Shea was gone.

For a moment the slim young man simply sat where he was, his

gaze fixed on the bare spot beside him and the tangled sleeping bag on
the floor as the sun warmed his naked body. “Asshole,” he muttered to
no one in particular. “You’re welcome for the food. And the orgasm.”

Irritable, he came to his feet and sought out his clothes. His shirt

hid tangled in the sleeping bag; his jeans had landed halfway across the
floor. As he dressed, his thoughts drifted to last night, to Shea—to blue
eyes feverish with longing, to that slim body open and longing under his
mouth and his tongue, to the long languid kisses and that blond head
buried in his lap.

Jamie sighed.

“Asshole,” he muttered again, but the word held no real malice. It

wasn’t as though he’d expected anything to come of it, anyway. Yawning,
he finished tugging on his shirt and scrounged for the last granola bar in
his bag, holding it in his teeth while he finger-combed his hair. Shea
had...well, some sort of life, surely. Graduate school, he’d said. Jamie
tried to picture it, a world outlined by the proud stone archways of an
elite university, the bland white walls of a comfortable apartment, a
regular schedule that blended work and school and a social life. Just as

well he was gone. Shea was the type of guy who wouldn’t make it one
day without a schedule, would lose his mind not knowing what the next
day would bring.

Pampered. Spoiled. Stupid picket-fence—

“I hope you don’t have anything against fast food.”

Jamie started and dropped his granola bar as the kitchen door

slammed, then accidentally stepped on it as he turned to the cabin’s
entrance. Shea seemed particularly alert, his pale hair only faintly ruffled
and his blue eyes cheerful. His limp had improved, too, and he held forth
a crumpled white bag, grease-stained here and there, in offering.
“Breakfast,” he announced. “Bacon, egg, and cheese. I don’t know what
your tastes are, so I hope it’s okay.”

Jamie regarded him warily. “What are you doing here?”

Misplaced pride pricked him, spawned a new and unpleasant worry. “If
this is just because I gave you a blow job—”

Shea favored him with a laugh. “I’d say last night was probably

worth more than the nine dollars I spent on breakfast,” he pointed out.
“It’s just that you fed me dinner last night, so I thought the next meal
should be my turn.” Unperturbed by Jamie’s obvious bewilderment, he
pulled out two neatly-wrapped biscuits from the bag. “We have to split
an orange juice, though. I didn’t have a ton of cash on me.”

The scent of bacon made Jamie’s stomach growl, but he ignored it

to plant both hands firmly on the table and lean forward until his face
was an inch from Shea’s. “What,” he snapped, “do you think you’re
doing? Shouldn’t you be home by now?”

Honest confusion touched Shea’s blue eyes as they searched

Jamie’s face. “I don’t understand. Do you want me to leave? When you
first found me here, you said I should stay if I wanted, and last night you
said I should risk something—you said I should stay, and then maybe
come with you. I thought you were joking, and maybe you were, but...”
He glanced down at his food, then sharply back up at Jamie. “But part of
it felt true. So I decided to come back.”

Jamie opened his mouth and then shut it. At a loss for words, he

plucked the second biscuit from Shea’s proffered hand and busied

himself with the wrapper as he sat down at the crooked table. “You’re
spoiled,” he finally muttered after a moment. “Don’t pretend you have
that much bravado. All you did last night was tell stories about your
comfortable little life and your comfortable little school. Don’t act like
you’re just going to leave it all behind.”

“And you didn’t tell me anything about yourself at all,” Shea

countered honestly as he started on the biscuit. “You’re right; I am
spoiled. Coming here to break into an abandoned house is probably the
craziest thing I’ve done in my life, and I know that makes me a person
who’s lived comfortably.” He paused, brow drawn down in thought,
radiant in the morning sunlight in spite of the crumbs on the side of his
cheek. “But I don’t want to be that person always.”

The breakfast biscuit, Jamie decided, tasted good enough to make

up for how deranged this idiot sounded. He picked up a scrap of bacon
that had fallen out and stuffed it back into the biscuit as Shea continued
earnestly. “My dad told me to come here to say goodbye to the place,
and then when I did I met…you, out of the blue. It’s crazy, but I really—”

Jamie eyed him from across the table. “Don’t you dare start

spouting some bullshit about fate or—”

To his surprise, Shea smiled. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he replied,

but then his features softened back into seriousness. “All I mean is that—
well, I think you’re right. My comfortable life, my little world…I’ve
lived in it for a long time, and chosen my path without really thinking
about what I wanted. I focused instead on what felt safe, or seemed
proper, wise to do…” He paused. “And then last night happened.”

“An orgasm changed your life philosophy,” Jamie deadpanned.

Shea snorted. “Please. More that for the first time I made decisions

based on what I felt, what I wanted, and it was…nice. Different. I don’t
want to stop it so soon. This morning, I was going to leave, but I didn’t
feel like leaving. So I decided to stay instead.”

Jamie fell silent for a moment, surprised by the unyielding will in

Shea’s honest gaze and the resolve that firmed his jaw. “I could be an
axe murderer,” he pointed out.

“That’s true.”

“Or a rapist,” he added, punctuating the air with his biscuit for

emphasis. “A drug addict or a convict on the run.”

“It’s definitely possible.”

“I could be waiting,” Jamie elaborated, mildly disturbed by Shea’s

lack of alarm, “to follow you back down to your car, where I’ll attack
you and leave you for dead while I assume your identity and go on the
run.”

Shea’s lips quirked into a smile. “Your humanities education is

showing.”

Jamie scowled. “You’re taking this too lightly,” he muttered,

tearing the edge of the biscuit into small pieces. And he knew, saying it,
that he sounded like the foolish one. All of those comments yesterday
about Shea’s picket-fence life, and now he’d decided to encourage Shea
right back to it? But even so—

The straw squeaked against the lid of the cup as Shea absently

toyed with it. “It’s risky,” he agreed finally, gazing down at the cup, and
his smile was tinged with sadness. “But everything’s risky. Sure, you
might be…well, any of those things you said. But if you’re not, and if
everything I felt last night was real, what will I risk losing if I leave?”

Driven to distraction by the sound of the straw, Jamie covered

Shea’s hands with his own to stop them from moving. Surprised, Shea
glanced down, and a small smile touched his lips. “Your hands are
warm,” he said simply. Before Jamie could utter a reply, though—and
water is wet, Sherlock—the smaller man glanced up, gaze both earnest
and melancholy. In that moment, Shea seemed impossibly young and
knowing all at once, and the sight stilled any response on Jamie’s tongue.
“In the hospital before he died, all my dad could talk about was the
cabin. How much he regretted selling it, how much he regretted all the
things he didn’t do.” The words obviously came with difficulty; Shea
turned his gaze down to the table again and fell silent for painful,
lingering moments.

Jamie didn’t know how to respond, and didn’t wish to dirty the

honesty of the moment with false words of comfort. So he simply kept
his hands where they were and waited, and after a few minutes Shea

cleared his throat and spoke again. “All I know is that I would regret
leaving here without getting to know you more. Without finding out what
I really want and what I need. I’d regret it if I went back to a life where I
assumed that making a good choice meant making the least risky one.”
He lifted his eyes and offered a shy, hopeful smile. “And that’s all. I
want to stay here at least for the weekend. If you don’t mind sharing,
anyway.”

“You mean if we don’t get kicked out by whoever the hell owns

this place,” Jamie felt obliged to point out. Shea laughed, and the mirth
banished the traces of sorrow from his face. The sight lightened Jamie’s
mood; he finished the biscuit and drained half the orange juice over
Shea’s protests that he was thirsty. “And what happens after this
weekend?”

He didn’t know why he asked. Curiosity, he told himself. That was

all.

Shea leaned back in the old kitchen chair in response, balancing it

precariously on two back legs as he gazed at the ceiling. “I imagine,” he
theorized, “that I’ll know a lot more about what I want.” The chair
landed back on all four legs with a thump; he directed a surprisingly
intense gaze at Jamie that was tempered by the obvious lightheartedness
in his eyes and the smile that curved his lips. “And I’ll make choices
accordingly, even if it means risking the things that make my life
comfortable.”

The words felt both like a challenge and a promise, and Jamie felt

a smile of his own touch his lips in response. “There might be hope for
you yet,” he said lightly, and trusted Shea to understand the sentiment
behind the words as he tossed the crumpled wrapper from his breakfast
into the garbage can. Across from him, Shea nursed the remainder of the
orange juice, and for the first time Jamie noted the faint bruises blooming
on the pale skin of his throat and his collarbone from demanding kisses
and bites. He felt seized with the sudden urge to run his tongue over
them, to map out the intriguing terrain of last night all over again, and
told himself it could wait for now.

You have all weekend. Maybe more than that.

Jamie didn’t want to think about why the thought brightened his

mood so much. And he didn’t want to think, either, of what this might
mean for the hurts he kept hidden and all the words he didn’t know how
to say. Nor of what Shea’s choices might mean for his future, and the
comfortable—if more subtle—routines in his own life. Instead, he
reached out and caught Shea by the hand, tugged him bodily out of the
chair. “Up, now. Up, up.”

Shea staggered along willingly, still clinging to the orange juice

until Jamie kissed him, tongue lapping the sweet-tart from his mouth; he
promptly dropped the cup where it rolled along the floor before coming
to rest against a cabinet. “Hey,” he said breathlessly when the kiss
broke. “What’s that for?”

“Risk demands reward,” Jamie murmured against his ear, and

thrilled to the way Shea curved instinctively against him, tangled arms
around his neck. “And a busy night deserves a shower in the morning.
Want to share?”

“Water’s cold,” Shea mumbled, but he smiled against the soft

material of Jamie’s shirt. “So only if you can keep me warm in there.”

Jamie forgot his promise to himself to wait and lowered his head

to the red mark on Shea’s throat, traced it with his tongue and then
sucked gently. The gesture drew a satisfying whimper from Shea, and
Jamie gave up all thoughts of starting off for the shower entirely as the
smaller man drew him back down again into another kiss that made the
first seem insignificant.

Behind them, a ladybug tracked a slow path across the table to

investigate the empty food wrappers. The fractured sunlight that
streamed through the broken windows fragmented into prisms along the
floor, illuminated the dark walls with rich golden light as squirrels
played in the trees outside. And Jamie breathlessly lifted his head from
the kiss to look down into brilliantly blue eyes, to Shea’s features alight
with desire, wonder, and—to his surprise—trust. “I’m happy,” Shea
admitted honestly. His fingers tightened on the sleeves of Jamie’s shirt.
“That I came here and that I’m here now.” Somehow he managed not to
sound ridiculous spouting such sentimental bullshit; Jamie, aware that his
language fluency extended largely to sarcasm, didn’t trust himself to say
something as honest or meaningful. Instead, he spoke in the only way he

knew how, and brushed the back of his hand against the softness of
Shea’s cheek, a touch that he hoped would say everything he couldn’t:

You’re odd. You’re smart and special. And I’m glad that you

chose to stay.

Shea’s smile said that he understood, and together they started for

the shower. As they argued about the water temperature, the relative
virtues of fast food for breakfast, and the possibility of spiders hiding in
the corners of the bathroom, Jamie found that he felt uncharacteristically
hopeful. Who knew what might happen, or what might come from this?
Maybe something new and different. Maybe something amazing.

Today was a new day, and anything could happen.