“But I haveno ideawhen I’m going to stop feeling so numb.”
Doyle kissed Larkin again. “I’d be out of my mind to not want to have sex with you all the time. You’re absolutely gorgeous. And the only thing that’s hotter than you yanking me by the tie is shoving me on the bed.”
Larkin cracked a reluctant smile. “Yes, I concluded a while ago that you enjoy a partner who’s a bit more dominant.”
“Sure do.” And it was Doyle’s turn to smile. “But you get what I’m saying, right? If I need to blow off steam right now, I’ve got a hand that works just fine. Sex is entirely different.”
Larkin mirrored Doyle, caressing his bare chest where the wrinkled shirt fell open. He noted how Doyle leaned into the touch a little. “I’ve never dated a man like you. I suppose I tend more toward… pretty, and not the ruggedly masculine.”
Doyle’s laugh was sweet and a little smoky, like the aromatic top notes of whiskey. “Is this because of my stubble?”
“You really should use a one-millimeter guard with more consistency, Ira.”
“Noted.”
Larkin rubbed Doyle’s chest hair against the grain, then smoothed it back into place. “I am attracted to you, though. It sounds shallow, but you’re one of the sexiest men I’ve ever laid eyes on. And I fantasize about waking you in the middle of the night and….” Larkin shrugged one shoulder and left the thought unfinished.
“Don’t leave me hanging.”
“I want to wake you at midnight and make love to you until the sun comes up.”
“Can I get that in writing?” Doyle asked.
Larkin snorted. “I know you’re beautiful. And I hear these thoughts I have. So it scares me, that my body still won’t respond. But I actually felt it today—in the car. It was like, when you wake up before your alarm, and your eyelids weigh a hundred pounds and you know you’re going to fall asleep again, but for that brief second, you’re conscious and aware of the fact.”
“You have to give yourself some grace,” Doyle murmured. “Your body has been through a lot of abuse and needs time to heal.”
Larkin rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “I’m afraid I’ll disappoint you.”
“How so?”
“Man’s will was born out of a need to give purpose to the senselessness of suffering. The purpose of suffering is guilt. And guilt seeks blame to the point of inexplicability. It doesn’t matter if my fear is irrational,” Larkin continued. “For eighteen years I’ve sought reason for my brain injury. For Patrick’s death. Because I can’t cope with the idea that it was happenstance. So I surmised that it was the only way in which my path could be altered to such a degree that at 9:44 a.m. on March 30, I would find you sitting in my desk chair—I would find a partnership that poets spend a lifetime trying to put words to. And then I realize, in my mind, I’ve killed Patrick so I can be happy. I feel nothing but guilt—and it keeps growing into this monster that has me in such a vise lock that I come to believe that my actions have disappointed everyone in my life—my parents, Noah, even the memory of Patrick—and so I’ve given reason to my suffering once again. And around and around I go.” Larkin put a hand over his face, pressing lightly against the bandage, the dull pain an anchor in a moment of tumultuous chaos. “Sorry. I hate being this delicate.”
Doyle shifted on the bed beside him, and then he was draped over Larkin’s body like a weighted blanket—his heat and closeness surprisingly not oppressive in that moment. He had his phone propped on Larkin’s chest and was scrolling one-handed before saying thoughtfully, “I figured that was Nietzsche….”
Larkin dug his fingers into Doyle’s hair and rested his hand there.
“I’ve been reading more of his writing lately,” Doyle continued.
“Why.”
“To keep up with you.” He scrolled a few more seconds. “Ah. Here it is. Nietzsche also said man is both creature and creator, and that the body suffers so that the mind can create something beautiful from it.” He met Larkin’s eyes. “I think that’s nice.”
“You think Nietzsche’s existentialism isnice?”
Doyle chuckled. “I think, even if the body is ‘bruised, forged, stretched, and roasted,’ knowing that the ‘sculptor’ inside us—our self-will—is wielding that like a tool so we might become greater than before—that gives man incredible resolve to keep going in the face of adversity. It makes you far more tenacious than you give yourself credit for.”
Larkin plucked the phone from Doyle’s hand, set it aside, and rolled them so he was on top.
Doyle murmured, “I’m not trying to romanticize or belittle your trauma—”
Larkin kissed Doyle again, effectively bringing the conversation to an abrupt stop.
“You kiss like the world is coming to an end,” Doyle said, breathless.
“Nothing about life is promised but for its inevitable conclusion.”
“Then I guess we’ll keep kissing with the expectation of no tomorrow.” Doyle was guiding Larkin into another kiss when his phone rang. He glanced to his right and blindly groped for the cell. “Hold that thought.”
