I break.
The orgasm hits fast and sharp, rolling through me in waves. I cling to him, shaking, breath catching on every exhale. Miguel holds me through all of it, steady and warm, murmuring Spanish against my neck until I slump against him.
He kisses my hair. “You okay?”
I nod against his shoulder, spent and a little floaty. “Yeah,” I whisper. “Yeah, I’m… good.”
“Good.” He strokes my back. “My turn for a question.”
I groan. “Haven’t I been interrogated enough for one night?”
“One more,” he says, smiling against my cheek. “It’s an easy one.”
I lift my head.
He looks at me with that soft, stupid, dangerous love he doesn’t always realize he’s wearing. “Do you want to sleep here tonight?” he asks.
It’s so simple.
So steady.
So everything.
I kiss him, slow and grateful. “Yeah,” I whisper. “I always want to sleep here.”
Miguel tugs my hoodie back into place, kisses my forehead like I’m something precious, then pulls the blankets over us.
My laptop is abandoned, and my notes are half-done. Midterms loom, but I couldn’t care less. Miguel’s chest is warm under my cheek, his arms around me secure and loose at once, his breath steady against my hair.
I’m safe.
I’m loved.
So I fall asleep like this, wrapped in him, wrapped in the softest truth I’ve ever held.
THIRTY-ONE
CALEB
Iwake up sticky.
Not metaphorically.
Literally sticky.
There’s this tacky, uncomfortable drag when I shift my hips, and for three blissfully blank seconds I think, “Weird dream,” before last night hits me like a truck.
Miguel’s thigh under me.
His hands on my hips.
His voice in my ear, low and rough.
Spanish that felt like a prayer and a command at the same time.
Me coming in my sweatpants like a teenager the first time someone touched him through his jeans. I try to stay perfectly still, like maybe if I don’t move the embarrassment won’t notice me, but the mess is drying and everything feels gross and my body’s like, “Congratulations, you’re marinating in your own shame.”
Beside me, Miguel shifts. His arm is heavy across my waist, his face buried in my hair, and his breath warm at the back of myneck. He makes this low, sleepy sound, halfway between a sigh and a hum.
