He clears his throat, quickly shifting to a topic that feels a little less like swallowing hot coals. “Do you wanna start planning our scenes more?”

Mal takes a deep breath and shifts his gaze to the side, like he’s considering. “Not sure that would’a helped. Let’s just stick with what we’ve been doin’.”

Business as usual, then.

They’ve talked about it, cleared the air a bit, but for all intents and purposes, they’re gonna sweep this shit under the rug.

Pretend it never happened.

“HEY,” ROWAN says as they’re approaching the club, nudging Mal with his elbow. “Text me if you need anything, okay? Or call, whichever.”

“Yeah,” Mal replies, though there’s a flatness to his voice. He kicks a pebble on the ground, hands stuffed in the pockets of his joggers as they’ve been during the whole walk back.

“I’m serious. Doesn’t matter when.”

“I know.”

Rowan tries to catch his eye, but Mal’s gaze remains firmly downcast. And when they reach the front doors, Mal immediately turns to head to his car.

“Mal,” Rowan says quickly, catching his shoulder before he bolts.

Thankfully he doesn’t, and lets himself be turned around to face Rowan. When he finally meets Rowan’s eyes, there’s nothing there, and it makes something inside Rowan shrivel.

He doesn’t know what more to say. How to express that Mal can still talk to him, especially if he drops because of this, and that he really does still want to keep seeing him. But his body knows what to do, pulling Mal in and wrapping his arms gently around his shoulders. Mal stiffens instantly, only relaxing after a long exhale. Even in the sticky summer heat, the warmth of his body is a comfort Rowan didn’t know he needed after a tense night.

Mal doesn’t hug him back, but Rowan feels one hand slide from his waist to his hip, settling for a beat before dropping back down. A little pleased thrum manages to squeeze itself in among the tangled knots in Rowan’s chest, but he takes that as his cue to pull away.

“Text me,” he says again.

Mal nods. Clears his throat. Mutters a “Later” and heads straight for his car.

Rowan stands alone on the sidewalk, lit only by the glow of the Menagerie’s marquee lights, watching until Mal drives away.

THE NEXT morning, Rowan finds that he’s far more rattled by the kiss than he thought he’d be. Well. Truthfully, he thought if they ever got to kiss, it would be something as simple as Mal saying, Hey, I’m cool with kissing and shit now. You wanna? and that would be that.

No biggie.