“Inside a sentence about patience.”
“I didn’t plan the delivery.”
He puts down the biscotti. Puts his hands back on my face. Kisses me once, slow, his mouth tasting like anise and the coffee he hasn’t finished and the specific taste of a man who has been smiling so hard his lips are warm from it. Then he pulls back and looks at me and the look on his face is the look of a man who just heard the thing he’s been waiting to hear and heard it inside asentence about my patience and would not change a single thing about that.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.” The word sits between us lighter than it’s ever sat. Easier than the night of the reckoning, when the smallness of it was the first thing that felt easy in weeks. Easier than I knew a word could be.
From the living room, Parker chirps once, a sound that communicates she has assessed the emotional temperature of the apartment and is ready for the humans to resume activities that involve her.
“Bedroom?” Teo says against my mouth.
“We just left the bedroom.”
“And now we’re going back. The morning is circular.”
“That’s not how mornings work.”
“It is when I’m in charge of the morning.”
Parker watches us pass through the living room with the composed assessment of a creature who has observed this particular migration before and has already reclaimed the warm spots on the bed we’re about to reclaim from her.
“Out,” Teo says from the doorway.
She blinks. Stretches one paw forward. Begins what will be an unhurried departure.
“Parker.”
She takes her time. Crosses the bed at a pace that makes her position on the matter very clear, drops off the far end, and exits with the dignity of a cat who is leaving because she has decided to, not because anyone suggested it.
Teo pulls me down onto the bed. His hands push my sweats off and I kick them free and his mouth is on my stomach and I lie back and let the morning hold us.
“I have a theory,” he says against my skin.
“No.”
“About mornings.”
“Your last theory was about Tuesdays. You never finished it.”
“This is related research. A continuation of the Tuesday thesis.” His mouth moves lower, his breath warm on my hip. “Mornings are underrated for the same reason. No pressure. No expectations. Whatever happens on a Wednesday morning is pure.”
“Is it Wednesday?”
“I have no idea. That’s the point.” He wraps his hand around me and holds, the heat of his palm, the sure weight of his grip. “Good?”
“You know it’s good.”
“I do. But I appreciate the data.” He strokes me slow, his thumb dragging through the wetness at the head, and my head drops back and I feel the warmth of his hand and the warmth of the morning and the ease of being touched by a person who is in no hurry because there’s nowhere either of us has to go.
“Rating?” he asks, because the man will never stop being the man who rates things, and the consistency of that, the reliable absurdity of being asked for a score while his hand is on my cock, makes me laugh. The full one. The one Guy says changes my whole face.
“I’m not rating this.”
“Just a preliminary score.”
“Nine.”
