The Pairing(46)

Sometimes when I’m on top of Kit, when I’m making him sigh and shiver and beg—when I’m fucking him like this—I feel more present in my skin than I ever have. All the pieces in their right places. I wonder if anyone else in the whole blackberry-jam galaxy has ever loved someone so much that it made their soul feel fixed in their body.

Then, in a heartbeat, I’m not in the desert anymore.

I’m with Kit, but we’re inside a restaurant with stained glass windows. I’m atop a wooden table at the center of a feast, surrounded by overflowing dishes of melting chocolate and ripe tomatoes and fruit in spiced syrup. Kit sits on a chair between my parted legs, devouring an apricot, nectar glistening on his lips and chin.

He throws away the pit and brings me to his mouth, and I—

I wake up to a yell on the street.

Fuck.

I’m—where, again? Spain. Barcelona. A hostel near La Rambla. In a single bed, next to Kit.

Only, I’m not next to Kit. I’m wrapped around him, my face on his chest, my arm thrown over his waist, his arm around my shoulders. And I suspect, from the way one of his thighs is pinned between mine, I’ve been grinding against him in my sleep.

Fuck. Fuck.

Sunlight presses on my eyelids, but I’m too afraid to lift them. This is what I get for going to sleep horny—and for bringing up our camping trips, which were mostly an excuse to have sex in creative new locations. One of our memories got out of the vault, and now I’m having wet dreams.

Kit’s breathing is deep and slow, so at least he’s still asleep. If I can manage not to wake him up, he never needs to know.

Carefully, gradually, incrementally, I disentangle myself and roll away toward the other side of the bed.

Just when I think I’ve made it, Kit lets out an unhappy grumble and turns onto his side, pulling me back into his chest.

When Kit and I were together, his body became so familiar that I stopped sensing it as separate from my own. Every inch came as naturally as the slice of my hand through water. Now, I can feel all the subtle changes: his longer hair brushing my skin in new places, the impression of a new scar on his knee. All those hours kneading dough and throwing around sacks of flour—and poets, I guess—have added a layer of lithe muscle to his chest and shoulders.

His hips shift against me. My heartbeat skips as I realize: He’s hard.

He is not, I tell myself, hard for me. It’s a bodily response, like goose bumps, or a sneeze. But if he was hard for me, if he woke up right now and pressed himself against me and scraped his teeth over my pulse, I know I wouldn’t stop him. I’d welcome it. I would send this creaky, too-small bed to the big Ikea store in the sky.

I have to get the fuck out.

I try wriggling away, but with every inch I gain, his body instinctively closes the gap. He’s making unconscious sounds of frustration, whimpers that do absolutely nothing to strengthen my resolve. Every time I feel him hard and heavy through our thin layers of fabric, I have to concentrate on how mortified he would be if he knew what he was doing. I’m saving both our dignities here.

Or at least that’s what I’m trying to do when we tip over the side of the mattress and crash to the floor.

Kit startles awake with a shout that could be a mixture of English and French or just a bunch of affrighted vowels. His arms momentarily tighten around me, and then he goes absolutely still.

“Theo?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. Oh, no. Oh God, did I—?”

“No, nothing happened, you’re fine,” I say as Kit releases me and scrambles backward.

He looks like he wishes he had been born a slug, which is obviously how you want a person to look after they’ve spooned you. I think I might start laughing. “It’s not a big deal. It’s, like, muscle memory, and I think I started it anyway.”

“I’m sorry,” he says miserably. “I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s okay!” I am laughing now, hysterical, insuppressible hiccups.

“Why are you laughing! I’m embarrassed! This is embarrassing!”

“Sorry!” I gasp. “I’m sorry, I’m just—I’m so glad it’s not me.”

“Theo.”

“Who were you dreaming about? Was it the chocolatero?”

“I—” Kit begins, but he’s cut off by the blaring jingle of his phone alarm. I take it from the nightstand and toss it to him, wiping a tear from my eye as he shuts it off.

“I guess we’re awake,” he says.

“I guess so.”

“Can we please,” he says, “pretend this never happened?”

I look at him, wide-eyed and crumpled against the wall in his underwear, his hair mussed from sleep and falling into his beautiful face. I want to smooth it away with my hands. I want to keep laughing forever. I want to pretend nothing happened, but only because he does.

“Yeah,” I say. “Of course, Kit. Of course.”

He fixes me with a plaintive look. “You mean it?”

“Kit. Come on. It’s us.”

At last, he smiles weakly.

“It’s us.”

He gets dressed to head upstairs, already talking about Sagrada Familia, how he’s read an entire book about it but pictures can’t do it justice. Once he’s gone, I walk over and slide the window shut. My reflection is full of color, my eyes dilated like I’ve had too much to drink. On the street below, two people are kissing.