“Your...mouth?” Cooper guessed doubtfully, and wondered if the word mouth had always sounded unerotic or if that was a recent development. “And your...fingers? Am I hot or cold?”

Park sighed, unfortunately not in an Oh Cooper, the skeptical tone you use when talking about my body really does it for me way. “You’ve been hotter.”

“We suck at this.”

“We?” Park repeated innocently.

“No individual grades on the group project,” Cooper protested.

They drifted into silence again and he shifted uncomfortably, staring at himself in the mirror. He suddenly felt ridiculous. He looked ridiculous. Alone in a too-big, too-bright bedroom, his boxers rapidly deflating, a phone pressed to his ear.

It was strange to feel so utterly, shamefully shit at this. Cooper was a grown man hurtling toward the end of his thirties. He had a varied and solid amount of sexual experience under his belt, plus a knowledge of both his and Park’s sexualities and how they worked together that went deeper than any other relationship in his life thus far. And yet somehow there still existed unforeseen pockets of sexual bewilderment and awkwardness, waiting in the shadows to trip him up and send him sprawling flat on his face. Who knew.

“What are you doing right now? Be honest,” Park added swiftly. “Don’t act like you’ve rigged yourself up to the headboard with a couple of dildos and a blindfold or whatever.”

Cooper snorted. “So that’s what does it for you, huh? Honestly, right now I’m sitting on your bed bench thing, looking at myself in that big haunted mirror of yours, trying to remember if I’ve ever actually had sex before, and if so, did I like it.”

“You have. You did. I did, too.” Park’s tone was very conversational, like they could be talking about anything. “In fact, you’re very good at it. So much so that sometimes it’s all I can think about. The way your scent changes when you want to fuck. The way you look at me across a room like I belong to you, like you know all you have to do is crook your finger and I’ll come running over, begging for it. The satisfied little grunts that turn to whimpers when you just start to lose control. The way you taste right before you come down my throat.”

Cooper exhaled a little shakily. In the mirror, his reflection was wide eyed and clutching the phone now with both hands.