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Rye moaned around his cock, and Charlie lost himself to Rye’s exquisite mouth. As his pleasure grew, Charlie clenched his ass and pressed his hips up. The carpet scraped his ass, his muscles tensed, Rye swallowed around him, and Charlie exploded like a supernova, body arching and muscles going rigid as he shook apart.
He felt raw and trembly when Rye had licked the last traces of pleasure from him, and he pulled Rye back into his arms.
“I love you,” he said. Simple and extraordinary.
He said it to Rye every day. He made sure of it. But still sometimes Rye seemed unsure.
When Rye’s face appeared above him, his eyes were bright and wide.
“You do?” he said. Then, before Charlie could even open his mouth to reassure him, “Do you really?”
“Yup.”
A smile started at the corners of Rye’s lips. He swallowed hard, then he caught Charlie in the tightest hug. For a moment, Charlie thought he was crying and stroked his shaking back.
Then he realized Rye was laughing.
“I...what’s so funny?”
“I just can’t believe this,” Rye said. “I can’t believe I’m in Wyoming and that I live here and there are, like, bison here, and that you love me and I love you.”
He buried his face in the crook of Charlie’s neck and squeezed him even tighter.
“I love you so fucking much, Charlie,” he said. Rye was just lying on the floor, naked, giggling about Charlie’s love. Loving him back. Giggling and loving him.
In all the visions Charlie Matheson had over the years—all the visions of partnership and love and romance, because okay, yes, he’d had them—never once had they included this: the kind of love that made you giddy, that made you laugh with the sheer overwhelming joy and surprise of everything that love could be.
They hadn’t included it because he had never been in love so he couldn’t have known. He couldn’t have known that this was the truest thing: he was happier to be in the world when he got to share it with Rye. And Rye felt the same.
Charlie smiled. His smile became a chuckle of pure happiness. He caught Rye’s hand in his and kissed his palm.
“I’m so proud of you.” He said it softly, like a bubble blown from a wand into the breeze of Rye’s laughter.
Tears leaked from Rye’s eyes and he pulled Charlie down on top of him. It reminded Charlie so much of the way Marmot would pounce Jane that he couldn’t help but smile even bigger.
“Are those laughing tears?”
Rye’s arms were around his neck and his legs were around Charlie’s legs.
“Yeah,” Rye said. “No. Both.”
Charlie kissed I love you and I’m proud of you into Rye’s hair and to Rye’s cheeks and to every other part of Rye that his lips could reach while he was caught in Rye’s surprisingly strong grip.
Eventually, Rye loosed his arms and they lay on their sides, facing each other.
“We love each other,” Rye said, voice a whisper.
“We love each other,” Charlie confirmed.
Looking into Rye’s eyes, Charlie grinned. Rye grinned. They grinned and kissed each other and grinned some more.
Eventually, when they could bear to part, they cleaned up a bit, and the cats ventured back into the living room. Rye and Charlie lay on the rug, still facing each other, and Jane and Marmot insinuated themselves into the circle. Marmot spread herself out fully so that no humans in the vicinity could fail to notice that her belly was right there for the petting. Jane sat in a dignified floof. She would accept pets if they were offered but it was beneath her to beg or pander.
Charlie stroked Marmot’s sleek stomach and Rye pet Jane’s magnificent coat.
Both cats had begun purring loudly when Charlie spoke.
“You want that kitten that Van and Rachel brought in today don’t you?”
Rye looked up, kittenish himself.
“So fucking much,” he said sheepishly.
Charlie looked at Rye. His best friend. His love. The person he wanted to do everything with—even housebreak a kitten.
“Anything for you.”
Epilogue
Rye
Eight months later
“River, Godzilla sat in my lap!” Rye called from the foot of the stairs, uselessly brushing white cat fur off his black jeans.
River skipped down the stairs, eyes wide.
“She did?”
“Hand to god.”
“Aw,” River said. “What a good baby. She’ll get adopted, don’t you think?”
River said this like they knew it was a good outcome, but Rye was pretty sure River would be happy just caring for an ever-growing household of cats. They’d been devastated when Milquetoast, a little orange and white cat with a silent meow, had gotten adopted and left the shelter.
“There’ll always be more.”
River nodded. They’d been living in the bedroom above the shelter since it opened, and the difference in them from August to April was palpable. They’d stopped slouching so much, they didn’t muffle their laughter, and they were quicker to speak up and offer their opinion. Just having a space of their own and a purpose had shown them what life could be.
