“No? You don’t want it?” Oliver asks, feeling just how much Leo wants it, hard and insistent against his hand.
“I want you,” he says.
“You’ve got me,” Oliver promises.
“I want you to fuck me,” Leo clarifies, throwing the arm Oliver isn’t nestled against over his eyes, like he’s overwhelmed in the same way Oliver is. Earlier he would’ve said no, it’s too soon, don’t say anything you don’t mean, not again. Now, he can’tthink of anything he’s ever wanted more, except for maybe on that first night when Leo kissed his shoulder blade as his body gave way to the impending stimulation.
“Okay, sweetheart,” Oliver says, endearments spilling out of him. “Let me look at you, then, yeah?” Leo emerges from the crook of his elbow and blinks at him like he’s staring into the sun. Oliver brushes one stray lock of hair off his forehead and watches the resulting brightness in Leo’s eyes; his smile drives him wild, beyond reason or rationality. He turns Leo over, onto his elbows with half his face in the pillow, and when he tugs on his ankles, bringing him down the bed, Leo laughs so happily that Oliver is tempted to stop the whole affair and redevote his attention to causing that sound and getting to hear it.
“I thought you wanted to look at me,” Leo says, muffled into the sheets.
“Trust me,” Oliver replies, splaying his fingers across his sacrum, mesmerized by the shape of his big hand on the small of Leo’s back, holding him perfectly in place without using any of his weight. “I’m looking. You look so good, Leo.”
He keeps looking better, when he’s pinioned between the sheets and Oliver’s fingers, crooked just so, and then approximately four hundred heartbeats later, when he pushes in, one hand over Leo’s shoulder and his lips behind his ear, Oliver is doing more than looking, making a noise like he’s been shot and feeling the embarrassing, irrepressible pinch of tears in the bridge of his nose.This is it,he thinks, through the haze enveloping them both, fog rolling in over London and only covering one building on Regent’s Park Road.This is the happiest I’m ever going to be.
“Oh, wow,” Leo says helplessly, almost laughing on the exhale. “So that’s what it’s like.”
“Getting fucked?” Oliver asks, rolling once on his haunches and seeing pops of light at the corners of his eyes.
“Getting fucked byyou,” Leo moans. “Keep going, don’t you dare stop.”
Being inside Leo is the hottest, tightest feeling he’s ever known; it’s so visceral it’s almost painful. Every thrust makes his legs shake. Leo clenches against him once, driving himself downward against Oliver and pushing his own cock into Oliver’s waiting hand, and the slick heat feedback loop makes them both gasp.
“Stop that,” Oliver says. “It’s going to all be over if you keep it up.”
“Ican’t,” Leo laughs. “It’s too good. Give it to me, Harris, I know you can.”
He could never back down from a challenge like that, and Oliver wants to give Leo everything; he’s delighted to know that he can, that he’s the only one who could, and that it’s his privilege to do so.God,he loves fucking him, he loves the things they can do together with their bodies, what they can give each other when they move in tandem, just like they do when they’re wearing Camden green. It’s perfect and Oliver wouldn’t change a single second of it, not even the fact that it ends after five minutes.
• • •
Leo’s side of the bed is empty and unmade when Oliver finally becomes conscious, taking advantage of the rare off day by sleeping so late that by the time he wakes he’s groggy and somehow exhausted all over again. When he goes to rub the sleep from his eyes, there’s a sticky note stuck to his forehead. Someone, presumably the artist he keeps sleeping with, has drawn on the little neon paper an extremely unflattering portrait of what Oliver looks like while he’s sleeping, including a cartoon speech bubble indicating snoring. There’s also a ransom note readingMake coffee first thing.Stumbling downstairs in pursuit of the demandedcoffee and maybe a kiss, Oliver spots Leo from the stairwell window, outside in the garden.
He’s barefoot, wearing one of Oliver’s old shirts, holding his phone to his ear with one hand and absentmindedly juggling a football with one foot. Oliver can see the morning dew clinging to every surface, can practically smell it, late spring and damp grass.
He makes two cappuccinos and seeks out another window, settling into the bench seat and keeping his eyes outside. Even from behind, he can sense Leo’s smile from the way he’s gesturing his free hand in time with the words, punctuating his sentences with each bounce of the football. Even when he’s not in motion, his athleticism is undeniable; Oliver is struck by the differences in their bodies, compatible but dissimilar. Leo’s frame is slight, but he’s firmly built regardless: his leg muscles are larger than Oliver’s, the center of gravity lower in his hips. Sometimes when Oliver looks at him, especially like this, especially when there’s grass and a ball in focus, he wonders if he’s actually gay or straight or nothing at all, maybe something else entirely: sexually obsessed with football. He wants to tackle Leo, wrestle him to the ground, and kiss him all at once. He’s jealous of the strength in his body even as he wants to show off his own longevity, the lithe stamina in his height. How much of an overlap is there between desire and competitiveness, anyway? Is there a word for feeling both?
When Leo turns back toward the house and catches him snooping, he gives him an anxious look, likehe’sthe one who was caught at something. Oliver holds up the second mug in explanation and Leo waves him down toward the garden reluctantly, as if Oliver needs inviting anywhere in his own house.
On the patio, Leo reaches for his coffee and greets Oliver with one sharp tug to the earlobe. Oliver saw it coming and tried tododge, but Leo can be treacherously speedy, a tricky fucker when he wants to be, which is often.
“I got your note,” Oliver says, rubbing at his ear. “Who was that?”
“My mum,” Leo replies, licking a stripe of cappuccino foam out of his fuzzy morning mustache and rattling on. “That woman gets more done before noon than I do all week. You call your parents to brag about your incredible ascension as a professional athlete, and you know what they say in response?” Oliver nods, familiar with this feeling—Nicola’s usually saved two or three lives before he’s laced up his boots. “Dad says, ‘You looked wonderful out there! Must run in the family, we’ve just run down to Patacona and done some laps in the sea.’ ”
Oliver can’t help but laugh, vaguely picturing the parents that Leo described donning matching jogging shoes and running right into the Mediterranean, but Leo looks nervous still.
“You want to run to the coast, then?” Oliver teases, gently, hoping he can put them both in the same morning mood. “The Thames will put you in the sea eventually. Might make it back before the Sunderland match.”
“Right, let’s go, then. If you’re game,” Leo replies distractedly, until Oliver actually starts running for the back gate. This works: he can hear Leo in pursuit, so he relents and allows himself to be caught, a fair trade for Leo winding his arms around his waist from behind, tethering them back to chest. He lays one gentle kiss between Oliver’s shoulder blades. “Let’s stay here instead,” he says.
“Hmm? And do what?” Oliver spins in the embrace, adding his own arms to the mix, so they’re face-to-face and holding on to each other.
“Use the massage gun,” Leo replies honestly. Oliver pushes him without force, sending him backward toward the house. Asthey approach the door, the question that’s prickling at Oliver spills out, the one he’s not sure he really wants the answer to.
“Did you talk about us? With your parents?”
Leo freezes on the top step and replies without looking at him.
