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"That ending still holds up."

"It does."

"You're not watching the credits."

"No."

Hakeem's heart was beating in a way that felt new—not the arrhythmic panic of previous encounters, not the adrenaline of suspicion, but something more dangerous. He was thankful that he had decided to stop running and was now lying very still in the place where he'd landed, waiting to see what happened next.

"Antonio," he said.

"Yeah?"

"Turn off the projector."

Antonio reached for the remote without breaking eye contact. The blue light died. The room went dark except for the streetlight coming through the window and the faint warm line of the hallway light under the door.

In the new darkness, Hakeem kissed him.

This kiss was different from every one that had come before.

The doorframe kiss had been an argument. Their last bedroom kiss had been an apology. This one was neither. This was slow and deliberate and unhurried in a way that suggested Antonio had been thinking about exactly this—the two of them horizontal in his bed in the dark—and had decided not to rush a single second of it.

Antonio's hand found the side of Hakeem's face the way it had before, palm against his jaw, thumb beneath his cheekbone. But this time his other hand was at Hakeem's hip, fingers slipping beneath the hem of his shirt, finding the warm skin of his waist. The touch was light. Almost tentative, which was life-altering from a man whose hands usually moved with such certainty. Antonio was asking, with his fingers, a question his mouth was too occupied to say.

Hakeem answered by pulling him closer.

He gripped the front of the shirt and tugged until their bodies were flush from chest to chest, hip to hip, the full warm length of Antonio pressed against him in the dark. The contact drew a sound from both of them. Hakeem's was sharp, caught between a breath and a moan. Antonio's was lower, rougher, muffled against Hakeem's mouth.

"Off," Hakeem said, pulling at the shirt.

Antonio sat up long enough to pull it over his head. The streetlight caught him for a moment—the planes of his chest, the thin gold chain at his throat, the dark line of hair below his navel. Hakeem had imagined this. He had imagined this in specific, humiliating detail during multiple sleepless nights on the other side of the wall, and the reality was worse than the imagination because it was real and warm and waiting for him to respond.

He pulled off his own shirt and lay back. Antonio looked down at him. In the low light, his eyes moved over Hakeem's body with attention that catalogued, noticed, and filed details for later use. Antonio’s gaze was the same. It had always been this. Need and intimacy, wearing the clothes of observation.

"You're staring," Hakeem said.

"I know."

"You've been staring at me for weeks."

"I know that too."

"Are you going to keep staring, or are you going to touch me?"

Antonio's mouth curved in the dark. Then he lowered himself and kissed Hakeem's neck at the exact spot beneath his ear where his teeth had grazed during the doorframe, the place connected to every nerve in Hakeem's body. Of course, Antonio remembered. He remembered everything.

Hakeem arched into him. His hands found the broad, warm expanse of Antonio’s back and pulled him down with a slow, pulling force. Antonio's weight settled over him, and the pressure of it made Hakeem's thoughts go white at the edges. He was hard already. Had been since the projector went off, if he was honest. Since the movie, since the popcorn, since Antonio said for you with a simplicity that had no business being that erotic.

Antonio kissed down his throat and across his collarbone. He kissed along the center of his chest with a slowness that made Hakeem want to scream, and yet he never wanted it to end. His mouth was warm and precise, and he was kissing the same way he wrote—with restraint, intention, and the understanding that what you withheld created as much tension as what you gave. His lips found Hakeem's sternum and pressed there for a moment, lingering, as if he could feel his heartbeat through the skin and wanted to memorize its rhythm.

"Antonio," Hakeem said. His voice had gone somewhere unfamiliar. He sounded more open, stripped of any performance he could hide behind.

"Mm."

"If you keep going that slowly, I'm going to lose my mind."

"That's the idea."