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“Stop talking yourself out of it before anything’s happened,” Antonio said.

The warmth of the touch lingered in Hakeem’s arm, a stubborn, misplaced heat.

He stared at him. “You cannot just manhandle me into hope.”

Antonio’s eyes dropped, briefly and disastrously, to Hakeem’s mouth before coming back up. “That wasn’t manhandling.”

“Felt like it.”

Something shifted at the edge of Antonio’s face then. Something lower, rougher. Hakeem had the vivid sense that if Antonio ever did decide to manhandle him in any capacity, his odds of survival would become genuinely difficult to calculate.

He cleared his throat. “Anyway. It probably wants somebody whiter and sadder.”

Antonio’s expression flattened. “That’s a stupid sentence.”

Hakeem blinked. “Excuse me?”

“It is.” Antonio leaned back in the chair again, though his voice stayed firm. “You’re insulting yourself before anyone else can.”

Hakeem stared at him.

“You don’t know what they want,” Antonio continued. “You know what the listing said. Those are different things.”

A siren rose somewhere far off and thinned into the night. Hakeem sat with the force of Antonio’s attention on him and felt, with deep irritation, that he was being taken seriously in a way he had not prepared for.

He made a face because it was safer than reacting honestly. “You’re very bossy for a person on my porch.”

Antonio glanced around. “This is also my porch.”

Hakeem looked at him for one beat too long. “You really think I should?”

Antonio held his gaze. “Yes.”

Hakeem looked away before the sincerity of it could do any more damage. His blood felt strange, newly present under his skin, as if his whole body had shifted closer to the surface.

He folded his arms. “Well. Great. Now if I don’t submit, I’ll have to live with you knowing I chickened out.”

“Correct.”

“You make everything worse.”

“I make things clearer.”

“That is sometimes worse.”

Antonio gave another not-quite laugh. Hakeem realized he liked being the cause of them.

For a minute, they sat in the porch light with the city humming around them, the house warm at their backs, the dark yard breathing softly beyond the steps. Hakeem could feel the whole night sitting close to his skin: the exhaustion, the humiliation, the small, stupid bloom of hope Antonio had pressed there with one shoulder nudge and a few intolerably straightforward sentences.

It was dangerous, really, letting someone touch the thing you wanted before you had safely buried it again. Antonio, apparently, had a habit of reaching straight for the worst possible places.

“I’m going inside,” Antonio said.

Hakeem tipped his head back against the chair. “Congratulations.”

Antonio looked down at him. “Try not to spiral before bed.”

Hakeem let out a short laugh. “That feels targeted.”