Rory's hand pressed his hip down. Didn't stop. Didn't pull away.
Neil came with a sound that started as Rory's name and lost its shape halfway through. When his breathing returned, he found Rory, still hard. The imperfect grip, the awkward wrist. Rory groaned into his hip and came in Neil's hand.
After. Legs tangled. The floor hard. Rory's weight half on him, arm across his chest, hand resting on his ribs.
He should get up. Reassemble.
His hand found Rory's forearm. Thumb against the serpent's tail at the wrist. A small contact. An admission, not incidental.
Rory shifted onto one elbow. Looked at Neil with everything stripped, the charm, the banter, the public face. What was underneath was quieter.
Rory sat up. Ran his hand through his hair, pushing it off his forehead.
‘Maybe we should take a week off this.’
Five words. The room got smaller.
Neil’s hand stopped on the ridge of dried paint. ‘Right.’
‘I just think...’
‘No, you’re right. It’s sensible.’
‘That’s not...’ Rory looked away. Picked at a dried smear of paint on the drop cloth. His jaw worked once. ‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘What did you mean?’
Nothing. Rory’s mouth opened and closed and opened again and what came out was: ‘I can’t keep doing Fridays.’
Worse. That was worse. Neil was already sitting up, already reaching for his shirt, the retreat so practised it had its ownchoreography: shirt, socks, shoes, car keys, the flat in forty minutes, the silence for the rest of the weekend.
‘Neil...’
‘It’s fine.’
‘It’s not fine, I’m saying it wrong.’ Rory’s voice cracked on the last word. Not performance. Frustration. The voice of someone who could read a body on canvas and couldn’t manage a sentence on a studio floor. ‘I don’t want to stop. I want more than Friday. I want...’ He stopped. Swallowed. ‘I’m not built for casual. That’s what I’m trying to say. I’ve been trying to say it for three weeks and every time I open my mouth it comes out as something else.’
The silence changed shape. From ended to open.
When Neil looked away, his heart was hammering. The paint under his fingers was ridged where the knife had scraped. He kept his thumb on one ridge and did not move it.
He didn't answer. Couldn't. The word for what this was, somewhere between want and need and terrifying, he didn't have it yet. Or he had it and couldn't say it. Same difference.
Rory got up. Moved to the worktable. Came back with a rag, paint-spotted, chemical-sharp, the studio's version of a flannel. He wiped Neil's hand without ceremony. Then his own stomach. Practical. Unashamed.
‘Tea?’ he said.
‘You're offering me tea.’
‘I'm offering you tea. Or coffee. I've got wine too. And a packet of digestives that Kieran hasn't found yet.’
‘Tea's fine.’
Rory disappeared. Neil lay on the studio floor and listened to the kettle boil in the kitchen. The domestic sound, the hiss, the click, arriving through the wall into a room where he'd just had a man's cock in his mouth and the contrast was so vast he laughed. Once. Short, without humour.
Rory came back with two mugs. Sat on the floor beside him, back against the wall, legs stretched out. Handed one over.
‘Milk, no sugar,’ Rory said. ‘You take your tea like this. I've been watching.’
