The Pairing(45)

“But what?”

“Remember how, if I get too sweaty in my sleep, I’m really cranky the next day?”

“Yes, vividly.”

“So,” I say, “I was gonna sleep in my underwear tonight.”

Kit nods several times in rapid succession. “Yeah, that’s—of course that’s fine. We’re friends. It’s your room, you should be comfortable.”

“Cool,” I say, also nodding. Just two friends with a normal dynamic, nodding and nodding. “And you too, of course, if you want to.”

“Yeah, it’s—it’ll be warm, with both of us.”

“Okay. So, I’m gonna . . .”

“Sure, me too.”

I turn around and tug my sweats off, trying not to listen to the creak of the mattress when he shifts, the whisper of his clothes coming off. I leave my tank on, but from the waist down, I’m only wearing a pair of soft boy shorts.

I feel an unspoken agreement settle between us. This time won’t be like the breakwater in Saint-Jean-de-Luz. This time, we’re going to look.

Ninety-nine days out of a hundred, I love my body. I like my long legs and strong thighs, the bands of muscle in my back and shoulders, the hint of what could be abs, if I tried. I know what I look like in my underwear, and I enjoy watching people experience it for the first time. Kit has seen me so much more naked than this.

Still, when I turn to face him, my heart is thrumming.

His shirt and joggers are folded neatly on the nightstand. He sits on the same spot at the edge of the mattress, wearing only a very small pair of black boxer briefs. The lamplight touches the highest points of his shoulders and chest, the tops of his spread thighs, the dimples of his knees. Shadow pools in the dips of his hip bones. Every bit of him. That elegant, graceful body I knew.

He’s looking at my body in the way only Kit can look at something, like he could eat the world up with his eyes. It’s not just that I want him. It’s that he taught me what wanting was. Anyone would have a weakness for that.

It occurs to me that if I want to have sex with Kit—if I have sex with Kit—it doesn’t mean I love him. Sex doesn’t have to contain love. Those things don’t even need to be in the same room.

“Hey,” Kit says, “there’s your third tattoo.”

I blink a few times.

“Oh!” My hand moves automatically to the spot on my left side. Part of it is still hidden by my underwear, but my third and biggest tattoo runs from my hip down the outside of my upper thigh. “Yeah. It’s sick, isn’t it?”

He peers through the low light. “Is it a snake?”

“It’s a rattlesnake.” I move closer so he can see the details of a western diamondback coiled around a coupe glass. “And look, his cocktail has a little orange slice for garnish.” When I look up, Kit is biting back a smile. “What?”

“Nothing. Just, you said it wasn’t an ass tattoo.”

“What—it’s not!”

“It kind of is.”

“It is an upper thigh tattoo! It’s on my—my—my haunch!”

The laugh he lets out is so delicious I want to swallow it whole. “Your haunch? Are you a pony?”

Maybe it’s the heat, or all the skin, or his laugh, or his attentive pen strokes and the ink stains on his knuckles, but in this moment, I want to find out what he’ll do. If he’s as close to the edge as I am. If he’ll back away from it.

I take his hand and place it right over the ink.

“Does this feel like my ass to you?”

His laugh subsides.

“No,” he says. “No, I guess not.”

He doesn’t take his hand away, but he doesn’t move it either. It just stays, his palm flush and warm against my skin, the tip of his thumb nearly brushing the elastic of my underwear. His eyes hold on to mine. I imagine him pulling me into his lap and parting his lips, think of his fingers and oil and the wet, red flesh of a cleaved tomato. Spit pools in my mouth.

He does nothing.

I shove his shoulder hard enough to play the whole thing off as a joke.

“Move over,” I say. “And stay on your side.”

He makes a sound in his throat and rolls off toward the wall as I climb into bed.

“That’s the plan,” he murmurs.

I switch off the light and crawl under the sheet, hooking my leg over the side of the mattress to anchor myself as far from him as possible. Behind me, Kit settles in. I wish my body didn’t still recognize the exact pitch of the mattress sagging under his weight.

“Good night, Kit,” I say, instead of screaming into my pillow.

A long moment goes by before Kit says, “Good night, Theo.”


I’m in the desert.

We’re on a blanket in the back of my car with the seats folded down, the hatch open, our boots lined up in the dust by the back tire. These deep summer days in the valley are so long, but Kit wanted to wait up for the Milky Way. He once said it was like a huge butter knife had spread the galaxy across the sky, swirls of stars like blackberry jam.

He tips his head back to moan. I see stars in the shine of sweat on his throat.

His legs are around me. I’m gripping his waist with one hand while the other works him, my hips against the backs of his thighs, his mouth already open when I bend to kiss it. He’s so pretty like this, coming apart. His body follows mine like a disciple.