Rowan doesn’t tell him that it’s been over a year since he last bottomed, and even longer since he really enjoyed it.

EACH TIME his phone vibrates or lights up with a message from Mal, it gets Rowan’s heart racing. Standing in line at the grocery store, winding down from a run, folding laundry… normal, everyday things are made all the more enjoyable when he sees Mal’s name on the screen. Every conversation throughout the week is a tiny sip of Mal that Rowan drinks in like a man lost in the desert—tiding him over long enough to make it to the oasis of Saturday night but never enough to fully quench his thirst.

[RC] You ever been fisted before?

[MS] what the fuck

[MS] why

[RC] Sorry, just read something about it and was curious

[MS] once

[RC] No shit?? Did you like it?

[MS] fact that i only did it once should speak for itself man

[MS] but no not really

[MS] wasn’t that bad i guess. the stretch felt kinda like a big toy, but the guy kept wiggling his fingers and it was weird as fuck

[RC] Jesus

[MS] that’s not something you wanna do is it?

He can practically hear the grimace in Mal’s tone, and it makes him smile.

[RC] Fuck no

[RC] The gaping aspect can be kinda hot, but I don’t like it to that extreme

[RC] Reminds me of this guy with a prolapsed anus we had to drive to the ER once

[MS] you know you fucked up if it don’t go back in on its own

And was that a… joke?

Like an actual, unprompted, ha-ha joke?

God, Rowan likes him so much.

DESPITE HIS best efforts to keep himself under control these past few weeks, Rowan’s blossoming… whatever on Mal is so embarrassingly obvious that even Addison has picked up on it and hounds him relentlessly because of it.

She catches him texting Mal on one of their rounds, turning his phone out of her view so she can’t see the photo of the new vibrating plug that Mal bought.

“That your ‘booty call’ again?” she asks, not even trying to hide the smugness in her voice.

“Shut up,” Rowan tells her, because he is a mature adult fully capable of keeping his emotions in check and not a hormonal teenager.

“You’ve been seeing this guy for, like, a month now, Rowan. That’s not a booty call anymore.”

“We fuck once a week. Saturday at eight. That’s a booty call.”

“Uh-huh, and me and Char are just roommates.”

“You’re married to them. And that’s different,” Rowan shoots back.

“Domestic partnership,” she corrects. “But no, the point stands.”

“We’ve only fucked, like, five times so far. It’s nothing serious.”