The urge to put his arm around Cosmo suddenly overwhelmed Micah. His pulse throbbed, fingers numb at the sudden realization thatthiswas the moment. This hour, this interaction, was when he was supposed to kiss Cosmo. Except… It should have been late evening, and they shouldn’t have been watchingHellraiser.
Cosmo stared at a blank spot on the wall, his mouth parted. “I have that strange sense of premonition again. Do you feel it? It’s like déjà vu. Only it’s not ‘already seen.’ More like presque vu: ‘almost seen.’ The movie is wrong. It’s supposed to be–”
“Psycho.”
Cosmo’s eyes widened. “Yes. And we should be drinking wine. It seemed too early right now to open the Merlot, but I thought some OJ with a splash of vodka would be perfect after what happened at the gallery.”
“This is so weird.” Déjà had told them not to push the sense away, so Micah focused on it instead. It was indeed a feeling of having done something before, but in a way just different enough to be noticeable. It was disorienting, like knowing you set your cup of coffee on the desk moments ago and having it suddenly be gone. “Are we agreeing that these are Other Micah’s memories? Other Cosmo’s? Whatwouldhave happened to them had I not intercepted you last night?”
“More like, what’s currently happening to them. They’re still at their point on the timeline string. And us changing the events didn’t create a ripple effect that goes through the future, it snagged out a little thread from the string.” Cosmo clapped and grinned at Micah. “How’s that for a parallel universe theory?”
Goosebumps erupted on Micah’s arms, the hair on the back of his neck tingling. The implications of that were hard to fathom. “If you’re right, then we’re feeling not past or present, but timeadjacent.”
Believing Cosmo was a ghost haunting his studio had been so much simpler.
“I wonder if we’ll continue to run parallel, or if the timeline is trying to course-correct. To get us back to where we’re ‘supposed’ to be.” Some of the tension left Cosmo’s face. “If the thread is being integrated back into the string, that could mean I’m always destined for a future away from Identical Dog. Perhaps even if Déjà hadn’t pulled me out of the bar and stayed with me afterward, I would have texted Simone at Night Gallery and asked for a position anyway.”
If that thought gave him comfort, Micah wasn’t going to dispute it. However, if this was indeed the kind of spacetime fuckery they were dealing with, it could also mean Cosmo was destined to keep working for Identical Dog despite clearing out his things and upsetting both Royce and the gallerist. Being drawn back by a predestined future. Ice water flooded Micah’s veins. That wasn’t the kind of course-correcting they needed.
“Micah?” Cosmo tugged on a lock of his hair, a shy smile playing on his lips. “I said, I think you’re supposed to put your arm around me. Wearetrying to get the timeline back to the way it should be, right?”
But what if the way it “should” be was something they didn’t want? How big of a snag in the thread of the future could they make?
Cosmo was still watching him expectantly, and if he kept up this train of thought, he was going to miss the opportunity for something hedidwant. When this had happened originally, he wouldn’t have been preoccupied with the “presque vu” ability. They’d been watchingPsychoand drinking wine, the connection and moment perfect enough to draw them together.
He slid his arm across Cosmo’s shoulders and tugged him close. Cosmo’s strong scent of berries, bergamot, and clove surrounded Micah, and he nuzzled closer. Cosmo’s hair teased his cheek, his throat so close to Micah’s lips that he could feel the heat.
On screen, trees rustled in the breeze before a sunset-painted sky to an accompaniment of ominous music. It didn’t matter if this moment wasn’t exactly the same. And there was something comforting in knowing that no matter what universe they were in, every Micah and every Cosmo would fall for each other.
He ran his fingers across the tendons in Cosmo’s hand. He stroked the valleys of his knuckles. These were hands he’d drawn in detail but never caressed. Glittery bangles clacked together on Cosmo’s wrist as he brought Cosmo’s hand to his lips. He softly kissed the channels of veins winding under his skin, then the creases of each finger. Cosmo pulled in a sharp breath and turned toward him.
The lime eyeshadow at the edges of his agate eyes shimmered in the light, and a faint trail of mascara had dried on his cheeks. Micah kissed it away. Cosmo’s fingers drifted across his jaw and into his hair. He arched his neck and guided Micah there. When Micah’s lips pressed against his throat, Cosmo let out a small groan and twisted closer.
Micah peppered kisses across his skin, and the longer he lingered in one spot, the harder Cosmo clutched him, his breath whistling through his nose. He looked up, then pressed his lips to Cosmo’s. Pleasure snapped through him, all his joints reduced to gelatin. Cosmo’s teeth grazed the corner of his mouth as he kissed back, hungry and urgent. His tongue darted between Micah’s lips, trailing the taste of spiked fruit.
Oh, fuck. This absolutely felt more than just wet.
“I’ve wanted this so bad.” Cosmo’s hands slid over Micah’s stomach and across his chest. He pulled Micah’s sweatshirt over his head, then pushed the bracelets off his wrists and dumped it all on the floor. Spirals of hair mutinied from his thick curls, his pupils wide and lips parted. His voice was breathless and expectant, the same as it had been on the phone when Micah asked him to describe himself. “What are you waiting for? Kiss me again.”
Micah did. He called back the memory of that striped sweater with the oversized neckline, and how warm Cosmo’s flesh had been when he first touched him, believing he was a ghost. He’d watched that recording so many times, advancing it frame by frame.
His lips brushed Cosmo’s ear as he said, “You’re vibrant and strange and you smell like frost-kissed berries in a dark, leaf-littered forest. One misstep, one turn the wrong way, and I’m hopelessly lost.”
“Oh god.” Cosmo pushed up the back of Micah’s shirt, then dragged his fingers down, his nails sending an electric tingle through Micah’s skin.
“You taste like overripe fruit that’s fallen from the tree. Your flesh is sweet, warm, and soft, and you intoxicate me.” Micah nipped at Cosmo’s throat. “You make me delirious. I want to sink my teeth into you. I want to consume you.”
Cosmo moaned. He slid his hands down the back of Micah’s jeans and squeezed his ass. “More. Tell me more.”
He wanted to tell Cosmo how much he wished they could do this in Micah’s apartment. The couch still smelled factory-new, but the only one to make a depression there was Micah. His kitchen was clean, filled with more than enough dishes for him alone. The bed was made, and big enough for two.
The threshold of his door looked exactly like Cosmo’s, a dented strip of dust-caked metal. But it was an impenetrable barrier, trapping Micah inside and keeping everyone else out. He needed Cosmo to sit on the couch, to use his dishes, to lie on his bed.
Blinking through the sudden blear, he said, “The door of my heart is wide open for you. Please come inside. You don’t even need to wipe your feet first. Leave tracks all over me. Come inside and stay.”
Cosmo pulled off his shirt so vigorously he might have popped a button. Above his nipple was a tattoo of a dagger piercing a paint palette, framed by a banner that saidKILL YOUR IMPOSTOR SYNDROME.
“Oh. Uh.” Micah pressed his teeth into his bottom lip and pulled back.
