When we reach my building, I nod to the doorman and he lets us up. We step into the elevator, and I hit the button. Neither of us speak all the way up. The charge in the air feels electric and dangerous, a crackling heat that could burst into flame at any moment.
I unlock my apartment door, and we step inside. I’ve imagined him seeing my place so many times, but now that he’s here, it doesn’t feel as special as I thought it would. I wonder if he thinks it’s too much, if he thinks I’m showing off, if he feels bad about his little life in Arkansas while I have all this. In my fantasies, I always liked that, but now, I don’t want him to feel small. I want him to feel powerful, to shove my face into the pillow and make me say his name while I cum.
“Damn,” Colt says. “I haven’t wanted a drink in years, but I kinda do now.”
“Why?”
“Maybe I am nervous.”
“I make you nervous?”
“A little,” he admits. “You aren’t?”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
Without turning on the light, I take his hand and lead him to the bedroom. Plenty of light spills in through the floor-to-ceiling windows that make up one wall of the living room and bedroom. When we get there, I release his hand, and he goes to the window.
“Damn,” he says. “This is quite a view.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I wanted to see my empire.”
“You’re the king of Manhattan?”
“Not yet,” I say. “Maybe one day.”
“Damn,” he says again, shaking his head.
I allow myself a moment of smug satisfaction. His family has money, but they don’t have this. I slide my arms around him from behind. “You like it?”
“It’s impressive.”
I lay a kiss on the side of his neck, letting my lips linger, breathing in the scent of him—coffee and cigarettes and the night outside andhim. A ripple of fire races over my skin. I remember that scent all too well. “I’m going to freshen up,” I say. “Make yourself at home.”
In the bathroom, I try to get my head on straight. Now that he’s out of sight, the nerves he was talking about find me too. I’m probably making a huge mistake, but it’s too late to turn back now, and I don’t want to. I’ve learned not to be so impulsive, so reckless. I pride myself on my self-discipline. I’m responsible when it comes to my health, from my eating habits to exercise; from sex, choosing partners wisely, and getting tested regularly to going to therapy and breaking my self-destructive patterns.
This is the first bad idea I’ve indulged in so fucking long… And it feels so fucking good.
So good I wonder if it’s going to destroy me.
When I leave the bathroom, Colt hasn’t moved from the window.
“You having second thoughts?” I ask, moving toward him slowly.
We didn’t use together much, but we were in each other’s lives when we were both at our worst. Maybe he’s worrying this will make him relapse, or that itisa relapse—a step backwards, into the complication and torment of our old selves, the ones who didn’t know who we were or what we wanted or how to get it.
I realize I know all that now, and my fears melt away as quickly as they came.
I take another step toward him.
“I can still see a star,” he says, staring out at the sky, now the darkest blue as morning creeps closer.
I don’t want to think about that. About him leaving.
“Making a wish?” I ask, so close I could reach out and touch him.
“I might be.”
“What’d you wish for?”
