Theo ran his hand along the firm curve of Jack’s leg. “What do you know?”

“You have a tell. You know, when you’re lying.”

He pretended offence, scoffing, “I do not.”

Jack leaned in, nose nuzzling his hair and mouth close to his ear, whispering, “I know every fucking thing about you, Beau.”

His heart seemed to stop, and he growled, “You think so?”

Jack moved closer, ground out in the scalding tone of their former rivalry, “Scared, Theo?”

And he sucked at that spot on Theo’s neck, right over his pulse point.

He was.

“Fuck you, Gardner.”

He swung himself up and over, straddling Jack, thighs holding him tight; Jack’s hands slid up his legs, cupping his ass and pulling him closer, letting one hand wander to the center of his back.

He was breathing hard, and his vision was red around the edges, afternoon light flaring in the corners of his eyes, and Jack’s cock was thick under him, and he was smiling and smiling, two crooked teeth visible and beloved, and Theo hated him, he hated him so much, had hated him practically forever, and he grabbed Jack’s horrible hair in two fists and touched their lips together, finally, and devoured him. And Jack made this small sound.

There was this feeling that he would get in his chest, sometimes, that he thought he must have been born with—some sort of inherent flaw, a curse, like a faltering heart. It was the feeling of Father putting down one of the hunting dogs, just a puppy, for being born too small—the feeling when he’d had a nightmare when he was five and wet the bed, and his mother told him he was too old to be comforted and shamed him. A wrenching, like when Jack had first rejected him, like when Genni had kissed him in sophomore year, and he’d felt nothing, and that nothing ached with the life he thought he should have and now knew he never would.

That was the sound Jack made. The heartbreak sound—the voice of everything shattered. And the sound echoed in his chest, two pains perfectly in tune, this moment on the bench, on Lughnasa, the first harvest before the end of summer.

It was golden like cider, and bitter like anise, and he kept kissing Jack, pulling out these little ugly sounds—and it was so fucking incredible, and he wondered, deliriously, why he hadn’t been doing this his whole damned life.

Jack, under him, thrust up, and Theo ground down, and they moved together there in the daylight. One of Jack’s hands came around and rubbed up against his prick; he pushed into it, chasing that moment, biting and sucking and worshipping that mouth.

“Jesus fuck.” Jack pulled away for a breath, panting.

“Shut up, Jack.”