'Terrible system.'
'Best system there is.'
Rory set his wine down. Crossed the studio. Three steps. Both hands on Neil's face, paint-stained, the fingertips on his cheekbones. The grip he'd used the first night in the hallway. The grip that said:I've got you.
'I've been attracted to you since the staff meeting,' Rory said. 'Since you sat in the third row and took notes while everyone else was half asleep. Since you wrote MURAL, CAVANAUGH, TBC in capitals too large. Since your pen pressed into the notepad and left a mark. I saw the mark, Neil. I saw the indent from three rows away.'
'That's not possible.'
'I'm a painter. I see marks. I see the pressure behind them. And yours was... you were holding on. To the pen, to thenotepad, to the desk. Like everything would fly apart if you let go.'
'It would have.'
'I know. That's why I noticed.' His thumbs moved on Neil's cheekbones. Slow circles. 'I've wanted you since you called my paintings honest. Since you dropped Art History and the loss showed on your face every time you looked at a canvas.' He paused. 'I see what's on faces.'
'When did you know? Actually know.'
'The reprographics room. The life-saving comma. You laughed and your whole face changed. The eyes opened. Half a second. Then the mask went back on.' He touched Neil's cheek. 'I wanted to paint the half-second.'
Neil's throat closed. The man standing in front of him had been watching him with the accumulated attention of eight months.
'You're ridiculous,' Neil said. Roughly. His eyes burning.
'I'm a painter. Ridiculous is the job description.'
He kissed Neil. Slow and thorough and tasting of wine and the weekend.
Rory's bed. The bed that had held both of them for months and that felt, tonight, different, not in the sheets or the mattress but in the air above it.
They undressed slowly. The unhurried removal of clothes by two people who knew what was underneath and wanted to see it again anyway. Neil's jumper over his head. Rory's shirt, button by button; Neil did the buttons, his fingers on the familiar terrain of Rory's chest, each one freed with the care of a man unwrapping what he'd nearly lost.
The T-shirts. The trousers. Rory's belt, the brass buckle, the thick leather, the hiss of it sliding through the loops. The bedroom, lamp on, curtains open to the April dark, and they looked at each other.
Eight months of learning this body. And still, each time, this was new.
'Stop looking at me like that,' Rory said.
'Like what?'
'Like you're seeing me for the first time.'
'I'm seeing you for the first time as someone I've told.'
'Told what?'
'That I love you. Keep up.'
Rory laughed. The low one. Neil pulled him to the bed. Pulled. Rory's hand in his, leading him backwards until Neil's calves hit the mattress and they folded onto it together, Rory's weight coming down on him, and Neil did what he'd never done before.
He didn't shift. Didn't adjust. Didn't angle his hips to reduce the pressure or create space. He pulled Rory's full weight onto his chest and held him there.
Rory braced. Instinct. Arms on either side, taking some of his weight, the consideration he'd built into himself, bigger body, learned care.
'Down,' Neil said.
Rory hesitated.
'I'll crush you.'
