Theo holding his face, whispering, “You’re so fucking beautiful,” and Jack knowing, for once, that it was true—

Theo as he clenched, sucking him in farther, giving a broken cry, his whole body jerking as he came between them, and holy fuck, it was so hot, Theo’s come wet on their stomachs, and the tender fucked and fucked-up gaze, and Jack coming with such excruciating pleasure that it was exquisitely painful.

Like his whole heart shot forth from him, unbound. Like he’d stay there, in him, forever, if asked.

After, Theo looked—he looked like he couldn’t believe this had happened, that Jack had wanted to be with him, as if he were unaccustomed to being touched and terribly surprised that it was Jack, someone made precious in this still morning light, who had touched him. His face was pink and open and shy and wondering.

It made something in Jack’s chest hurt. It was familiar. He closed his eyes against it and buried his head in the delicate arch of Theo’s neck.

“You’re still getting the coffee,” Theo mumbled as he drifted off toward sleep.

Jack held him and kissed his shoulder and yawned. “’Course.”

The sun rose. The first sunrise they shared.

Not the last.

Chapter Sixteen

Theo had not expected to feel like such an idiot for so much of his life.

He’d made a lot of personal progress. He was a better person now.

It seemed really unfair.

Jack had, in fact, emailed him. Asking for help finding an apartment. And now he was stuck, because he was too fucking weak to shut Jack down and bury him for good. Just a few words, and Theo was his.

He was a fool.

But he texted Genni, asking—without naming Jack—if she had any good properties with a lot of room (presumably, he’d want bedrooms for the children) and she’d written back right away, because of course she had.

Which led him to today, standing here in front of one of the more modern developments at Harbor East, waiting, as always, for Jack.

The scent of the water was familiar, something a little bitter and rotting and salty, and Theo could see a glimmer of light in the slow undulations of the Inner Harbor. Fall was here, trees clinging to brown and ochre leaves, and a few seagulls cried out. This was the shiny part of the city, constantly redeveloped, the place that politicians wanted tourists to see, and it seemed just as false as it was beautiful. So many secrets hidden, a constant decay, reinvention hiding something darker. And yet the ground beneath him vibrated with a sort of history, and the water whispered of times long past, and he felt lulled into this, Baltimore, a story, a song.