Page 104

Antonio lasted maybe ten more seconds. His rhythm broke. His hips stuttered forward once, twice, and then he buried himself and came with a sound that was broken and completely uncontrolled, the most honest noise Antonio had probably ever made in this house. His body shuddered against Hakeem's, and his face pressed into his neck. He stayed there, breathing hard, while his hips gave one last slow roll.

They lay there, Antonio on top of Hakeem, both of them breathless against each other.

The world outside the window was quiet in the particular way a city gets when it is very late, when even the city's commitment to constant show finally gives way to something that resembles rest.

Antonio pulled out of him carefully. He wrapped up the condom, cleaned them both with a towel he produced from somewhere with logistical efficiency, and then lay down beside Hakeem and pulled him close.

They lay tangled together in the dark. Hakeem's head was on Antonio's chest, and Antonio's hand was in his hair, tracing absent patterns against his scalp. Their legs were intertwined in a way that would be uncomfortable in twenty minutes and was currently the only acceptable configuration of limbs.

Hakeem could hear Antonio's heartbeat beneath his ear, slowing. It was the steady, measured return of someone coming back into their body after leaving it entirely.

"That was—" Hakeem started.

"Yeah."

"I didn't finish my sentence."

"You didn't have to. I’m in agreement."

Hakeem lifted his head and looked at him. His hair was destroyed. His lips were swollen, and his mouth looked used. He looked like he’d been taken apart and had not yet decided whether to reassemble himself.

"You have a freckle on your left shoulder I've never seen before," Hakeem said.

"You've been looking at my shoulders?"

"I've been looking at everything. I was building a case, remember? The case was very comprehensive."

Antonio laughed quietly. His hand kept moving in Hakeem's hair.

"Can I ask you something?" Hakeem said.

"You always can."

"When you were checking the locks that morning. The morning after… the doorframe. Were you actually doing it for the landlord?"

Antonio was quiet for a beat. "The landlord did ask. But I probably would have done it anyway."

"Why?"

"Because you were in the house. And I wanted the house to be safe." He paused. "I know how that sounds, given the context."

"It sounds like something a Toni Sanchez character would say right before the third act."

"That's because I have no other frame of reference."

Hakeem laughed into his chest. "That's the saddest and funniest thing you've ever said."

"I'm a horror writer. Sad and funny are in the same lane."

They lay there a while longer, listening to the sounds of each other’s breathing. Hakeem realized he was smiling and couldn't stop. He pressed his face into Antonio's chest sheepishly, and Antonio's arms tightened around him. Antonio held him like he was something precious, something he'd decided to keep.

Hakeem woke once during the night and felt his body adjust to a new gravitational center. Antonio was asleep beside him, one arm still draped across Hakeem's waist. His breathing was restful and even. Hakeem lay still and listened.

The house was making its sounds from the old, familiar catalog that had kept Hakeem awake during his first weeks. There was the pipe that ticked, the creak of the old wood against the wind. He heard these sounds a hundred times, in his bed on the other side of the wall, parsing them for meaning. Looking for evidence that something was moving through the house with intention.

Now he heard them differently.

The house was just a house. An old one, with opinions about its structure and a tendency to make itself known at inconvenient hours. The hallway where sound carried was really just a hallway. The window that never fully shut was only a window. The floorboards were simply floorboards. The sounds of the house were those of a building that had been standing for a long time and had learned to talk in its sleep.