The moisture in the air was thick. The humidity was awful and Andy thought the only way he would be able to appreciate it was if he were in a swimsuit and on sand. For air to be this wet, there needed to be a beach somewhere and a drink with a little umbrella in it. He smiled, thinking about a daquiri.
“You look like you’re thinking about Hawaii.”
Andy opened his eyes at the sound of Leonidas’s voice above him and tried to pretend his breath didn’t catch in his throat at the sight of him. Leonidas’s dark curls were tied back, but a few fell loose around his face, and Leonidas pushed them behind his ear while he waited for Andy to answer him. He wore a tight black shirt that stretched across his broad chest, the v-neck a little deep, exposing the top of the field of curls that spanned Leonidas’s sternum.
“I was thinking about daquiris on the beach,” he answered, lowering his feet onto the ground and making room for Leonidas to sit.
“In Hawaii?” Leonidas bent over and brushed their lips together before sitting down in the spot Andy had made for him.
“Generic island destination,” he answered.
“You should go,” Leonidas pointed toward Andy’s coffee. “Can I have a drink?”
Andy pushed it toward him.
“You don’t strike me as the island type,” Andy said.
“I’m from an island.”
“Tropical island,” he corrected. “Like Hawaii.”
“I have no interest in that kind of island,” Leonidas agreed, taking a drink from Andy’s coffee and setting it back down. “Nor was I suggesting that I go with you.”
Leonidas’s statement stung, and Andy frowned, unable to hide the way it abraded him, but Leonidas only laughed softly and reached forward. He cupped the back of Andy’s neck with his hand, still damp and cool from the condensation on the coffee cup, and hauled him close, pressing their foreheads together and letting their breaths mingle.
“It’s okay, you know?” Leonidas dragged the question across Andy’s mouth with his lips.
“What is?”
“To go.” Leonidas pulled back and waved off in the distance with his hand. “Wherever. Without me.”
“I know it’s fine,” Andy countered, still frowning.
Leonidas pressed the tips of his fingers against Andy’s mouth to silence him, and Andy exhaled loudly. How could something like that be okay? What future existed if they didn’t do things and have those kinds of experiences together? Andy thought about Luke, who had moved twice in a year to follow Cameron, and Eddie, who ended up in Cherry Creek on accident, staying with Charlie now. And he thought about Levi’s brother Simon, who'd jaunted off to California with his new boyfriend.
That was what people did, what was expected. If you were together, you weretogether, and while Andy was closer to giving himself permission to loving the man in front of him, he was further away from understanding what that love could mean to the rest of his—to their—lives.
“I would like to see you tonight,” Leonidas said, pulling away and reaching again for Andy’s coffee.
“You can see me whenever you want,” Andy told him.
“That’s terribly accommodating for someone who likes to be in charge. Do I have an open door with you?”
Andy had spent most of the morning thinking about the fluid and graceful way Leonidas fell to his knees at his command, fighting against his urges to not strip him bare and ride him until their bones were weak from pleasure. He licked his lips and took his coffee out of Leonidas’s hand.
In short, the answer to Leonidas’s question was yes.
He’d come around the globe, and Andy wouldn’t turn him away.
“What did you have in mind for later?” he asked instead of answering the question.
“I talked to Greyson. He said for me to normally use the space in the morning, but he’s not teaching today, so I can use it whenever. I figured we could make some more art.”
Andy’s blood heated at those words, at that memory.
“It’s not illegal to have your dick out in an alleyway here, is it?” Leonidas smirked and looked around.
“It’s illegal everywhere.”
