Cooper slipped further down in the seat now, so his crotch thrust further forward. His jeans were so worn out from years spent riding the saddle that sweat and good luck were the only things holding them together. Silence fell between them and the hairs on the back of Peter’s neck stood.

Cooper was looking directly at him now. But not like you look at someone when manners forbid you from straying too far from the face, but when the other person is looking the other way and your eyes are free to roam elsewhere with wonder. Except he was doing this knowing full well that he was being watched. Peter’s hands fell to his side and Cooper’s eyes journeyed across his body, his chest, his lips, his crotch and hair, finding beauty in those nowhere places another person would never have even noticed, and loving them, wanting them and longing to make them his all over again. Peter’s throat tightened and Cooper’s gaze fell into his.

“Peter?” he whispered.

“What?” Peter asked.

“Nothin’. I just wanted to hear your name is all.”

The sounds of the apartment and movement of snow at the window vanished, and they were in that secret place only the two of them knew. And that place might’ve been home and the journey back from the boathouse that night they first kissed, when the night sky was reflected so perfectly in the lake’s black mirror, that the canoe wasn’t even travelling across water but through air, cast adrift among the shimmering stars. But wherever they were, they were outside the real world, in a world of their own making where only they existed.

Peter blinked once, softly, to deepen their gaze and Cooper blinked back. They’d be all right. Peter could feel the reassurance of that now, swelling deeply inside him. Cooper would shake the trance from his skin. Peter would make up with Becky. Maybe the pair of them would move in with Dad and Marge would fling the movie theatre doors aside ready to make him assistant manager and everything would be all right just as it was supposed to be.

Cooper pushed the chair away from the table and stood with his arms at his side in a way that told Peter they were about to kiss.

“Where do you go?” Peter asked.

“Huh?”

Peter’s throat tightened. He’d spoken before he’d even decided to mention anything.

“Where did you go when you were standing in the middle of the aisle? I was there today. In the supermarket. I saw you. You were there, but you weren’t there. Where were you?”