His hands find the button on my jeans. He pauses, looks up, and I nod.
He works them open, slides them down my hips, and I shiver as the air hits my legs. He follows, running his hands up my thighs, mouth trailing behind.
We move together, slow and awkward, but the nervousness burns off with every touch. He explores, learns, adapts. When he hesitates, I guide his hand; when I freeze, he whispers reassurance, patient and certain.
At the edge, when the sensation is too much, I gasp, and he buries his face in my neck, riding the wave with me. I feel him shake, his own climax hot against my stomach. The pure joy of the moment ripples through every inch of my body.
After, we lie side by side, catching our breath. Aaron drags the comforter over us, his arm curled around my shoulders, my head tucked under his chin.
We don’t talk. We just breathe, bodies pressed close, the only sound the distant whir of the fridge and the soft, steady beat of his heart.
He traces lazy circles on my back, fingertips barely touching skin. I let my eyes close, the weight of the last week dissolving molecule by molecule.
For the first time, I feel real and solid, held together by the gravity of someone else.
When sleep comes, it’s not the restless, jittery kind. It’s the sleep of people who know, at least for now, that they are safe.
That they are home.
—ΠΩ—
Sara’s apartment is alive in a way that defies physics, biology, or any discipline I know. The walls are a patchwork of paint swatches and color tests, every surface colonized by art supplies, thrift store finds, and mugs with half-slogans scuffed off by too many dishwasher cycles. The air is thick with turpentine, brewing coffee, and—beneath it all—the citrus bite of the candles she’s scattered across the shelves and floor. Each flame sends its own lopsided light, pooling across canvases and bare wood like spilled syrup.
Aaron and I stand on the threshold for a minute, shoes in hand, watching as Hunter and two girls I barely recognize from around campus debate the finer points of “AI in social media.” In the kitchen, Sara hums to herself as she arranges crackers on a plate with the precision of a NASA engineer prepping a lander.
We slip in, dropping shoes at the door, and make our way through the gauntlet of art projects. Someone’s half-built a sculpture out of coffee stirrers and hot glue, and the table by the window is an archaeological dig of failed ceramics. The only clear surface is the couch, currently occupied by Hunter, who lounges like he’s waiting for a camera crew to film his intervention.
He clocks us instantly. “Look who brought his boyfriend along,” he says, voice pitched for the whole room.
I flush, but Aaron only grins, dropping onto the couch with enough force to jostle Hunter’s solo cup. “Damn straight,” he says. “You got a problem with that?”
Hunter rolls his eyes, but the smile is genuine. “Best scheme I ever pulled off,” he says, raising his cup in a toast. “To campus infamy.”
Sara appears behind us, wiping her hands on a paint-stained towel. “You made it!” she says, wrapping me in a one-armed hug and squeezing Aaron’s shoulder like she’s checking for structural defects.
She eyes us both, then grins. “You hungry? I made snacks. And by ‘made’ I mean I bought them and put them on a plate.”
The kitchen is a chaos of half-used ingredients and sticky cutting boards, but Sara has managed to arrange everything onto three trays: cheese cubes, crackers, and a bowl of something that might be hummus, or possibly spackling paste. She gestures for us to help ourselves, then leans in and drops her voice to a whisper. “You good?”
I nod.
She studies my face, then nods, satisfied, and turns back to the main room. “Everyone!” she announces. “This is Aaron.”
He gives a little wave, self-effacing. “Hey.”
Sara pours us drinks—beer for Aaron, something fizzy and violet for me. We settle in, Aaron perched on the edge of the couch, me on a paint-spattered stool pulled from under the table. The conversation turns to classes, then to the next round of campus memes, then to the rumor that someone’s started a Reddit thread dedicated to “Deadpool’s Secret Lover.” Hunter reads a few out loud, adding his own commentary, and the whole room dissolves into laughter.
The door buzzes and Aaron’s friends arrive. There’s a beat of tension—two different species meeting in the wild, neither sure whether to fight or run. But Malik breaks the ice by immediately critiquing Sara’s beer selection, and within ten minutes the two groups have merged, swapping stories about Aaron’s gym fails and the time I nearly set a beaker on fire in Chem 101.
I watch Aaron as the night unspools. He’s in his element here, but not the way he is at frat parties or in the gym. He laughs harder, listens more, lets himself be teased. When he catches my eye, his expression is soft, private. Like the room is just the two of us, even with twelve people arguing about the proper pronunciation of “GIF.”
At one point, he moves from the couch to the stool beside me, our knees touching under the table. He leans in, breath warm against my ear. “You happy?”
I nod, and this time it feels like the word is enough.
We pass a bowl of chips back and forth, Aaron’s hand finding my thigh under the table. I let it stay there, tracing invisible circles just above the knee. When Sara calls everyone to the kitchen for a toast, I stand and let him pull me close, arm around my waist, the world narrowing to this single moment.
Sara raises her glass, blue hair glowing in the candlelight. “To new beginnings,” she says. “And to not letting the internet define them.”
