Jay grabs his phone from the nightstand and scrolls through, looking for the number. While he's doing that, I climb out of bed and dig through my overnight bag for a clean pair of sweatpants. We both pull on pants and when I straighten up, Jay is looking at me standing there shirtless, his eyes traveling over my chest and stomach in a way that makes heat pool in my cock.
"We're a mess," he says, but he's smiling.
"We're decent enough for the delivery guy. That's all that matters. Besides—" I gesture at him, equally shirtless, his hair wild, his lips still slightly swollen from earlier. "You're not exactly ready for a photo shoot either."
"Fair point."
The pizza arrives twenty minutes later. Jay answers the door, pays the delivery guy in cash, and brings the boxes back to the bed. We settle against the headboard, the pizza between us, and dig in like we haven't eaten in days. Which, in Jay's case, might not be far from the truth.
"I used to imagine a scene like this. Finding you, I mean." I pick at the crust in my hands, not quite meeting his eyes because this feels vulnerable. "I used to lie awake at night in my room at the Reyes house and imagine all the different ways it could go. All the different versions of you I might find."
Jay shifts closer, his leg pressing against mine. "What did you imagine? Tell me."
"Everything. Every possible scenario I could think of." I take a breath. "Sometimes I imagined you'd be doing great. You'd have a good job, a nice apartment, stability. Maybe you'd have a girlfriend or even a wife who made you happy. Maybe you'd be in college, or working your way up in some company, or running your own business. I'd imagine walking up to your door and you'd open it and you'd be happy and you wouldn't need me at all."
"A girlfriend or a wife? Really?"
"It never crossed my mind you might be into men or me." I finally look at him. "Not until last weekend. So yeah, sometimes I imagined you with a girl. Sometimes I imagined you'd gotten married to someamazing woman who took care of you the way you deserved. Sometimes I imagined you'd have kids."
"You imagined me with a whole life? A family? What would you have done if that was true? If you'd found me and I had all that?"
"Anything." The word comes out without hesitation. "I would have done anything to be part of your life, in whatever capacity you'd let me. Even if you were married. Even if you had kids and a wife who didn't understand why this random guy from your past kept showing up. I would have been—I don't know, the world's best uncle or something. The guy who shows up for every birthday with the most ridiculous presents. The one who takes your kids to the park and teaches them how to ride bikes and catches them when they fall. The one who babysits whenever you needed a night out with your wife. Whatever."
I stop, embarrassed by how much I've revealed, by how pathetic it sounds.
"You would have done all that?" he asks. "Even if I was with someone else? Even if there was no place for you in my life except the edges?"
"Hell yes, I would've. I spent years looking for you." I shake my head. "I wasn't going to find you and then just walk away because your life didn't look the way I imagined. No matter what your life looked like, no matter who you were with or where you were living or what you were doing—I just wanted to be near you. However, that worked. Whatever scraps of time you could give me."
Jay reaches over and takes my hand, his fingers threading through mine and holding tight. "I'm so glad I'm not married with a bunch of kids. I'm glad there's no one else. I'm glad it's just us."
"Me too." I squeeze his fingers, feel the calluses on his palm from years of working with tools. "Really, really glad. I'm not sure how well I could've handled seeing you with someone else. Even though I would've tried."
"This—us—the physical stuff we've been doing." He's not looking at me now, staring at our joined hands instead, his thumb rubbing circles on my knuckles. "Are you doing this because you want to, or because you think I want to? Because you feel like you should? Like it's what I expect from you?"
"What?" The question catches me off guard. "Why would you think—"
"I need to know that you're not just going along with this because you think it's what I expect. Or because you feel obligated somehow. Or because—" He stops, shakes his head. "I need to know this is real for you. That you actually want me."
I set down my pizza and turn to face him fully, pulling my hand free from his so I can cup his face with both hands. "Look at me."
He does, reluctantly, and I can see the vulnerability in his eyes, the fear that I'm going to confirm his worst suspicions.
"I want this that we have," I say firmly, clearly, making sure every word lands. "I want you. More than I've ever wanted anything in my life. More than I've wanted my next breath. Do you understand me? I'm not molding myself to something I think you want. Pretending to be gay would be a little much, don't you think?"
"But how do you know? You said you've never felt this way about anyone before. How do you know this is real and not just—I don't know, nostalgia or—"
"Jay, listen to me." I lean in closer, making sure he can see my eyes, see that I'm telling the truth. "I spent a week taking cold showers twice a day because I couldn't stop thinking about you. I spent every night lying in my bed touching myself and thinking about your hands on me, your mouth on me, all the things I wanted to do with you. I've been losing my mind wanting you since the moment you stepped out of that bathroom in a towel last weekend."
His breath catches and I see relief flood his eyes.
"Trust me, this is not me going along with anything. This is not me being polite or obligated or confused." I stroke my thumbs across his cheekbones. "This is me finally getting something I didn't even know I was allowed to want. This is me being selfish and desperate and completely obsessed with you in a way I've never been with anyone else."
"Okay. I needed to hear that. I needed to know I wasn't pushing you into something you weren't ready for."
I let out a laugh. "Trust me, you're not pushing me into anything. If anything, I'm the one who's been desperate this whole week, countingdown the hours until I could see you again." I lean in and kiss him. "I want you. In every way possible."
"Good, because I feel the same way," he says.
