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Ford had never called him that. Not once, not in the dark, not in the week they’d had the house to themselves. And he’d just said it standing in the spare room with his boots on, like it was a plain fact about his morning.

“Your boyfriend,” Cole said.

“That’s what I said.” Ford set a hand flat on Cole’s chest. He wasn’t pushing. He was just there, warm through the shirt, waiting. “You going to sit down or not?”

Cole sat on the edge of the bed. His hands weren’t steady.

Ford came down with him. He kissed him first, slow, one hand on Cole’s jaw, and Cole felt the last of the morning’s caution go out of his shoulders. Ford’s mouth moved to his throat. His hands went under Cole’s shirt and up his sides. He pulled the shirt over Cole’s head and dropped it on the blanket.

Then Ford went to his knees on the floor between Cole’s feet and looked up at him, and Cole’s breath stopped.

They’d had a week of this at New Year’s. Ford with the blinds open and nowhere to be, Ford taking his time, Ford looking at him exactly like this. Two weeks of school nights and Cole already missed that man so much it was hard to breathe. And here he was, on his knees on the spare-room floor, looking up.

Ford pulled Cole’s sweatpants off his hips, and Cole lifted for him. He was already hard, and Ford looked at him a moment before he touched him, and Cole felt that look everywhere. Then Ford wrapped a hand around him and stroked once slowly, root to tip, thumb dragging over the head, watching Cole’s face while he did it.

“Ford.”

“Mm.”

“We don’t have time for you to go slow.”

“Then don’t be quiet about it.” Ford bent his head and took him in his mouth.

Cole’s head went back, and Ford’s name came out of him at full volume. He’d been keeping it down for two weeks, and the sound of his own voice in the house shocked him. Ford hummed around him like he’d been waiting to hear it. He worked the head with his tongue, then took Cole deep, then came back up with his lips tight and his hand following his mouth. Cole’s hips jerked up off the mattress. Ford laid a forearm across his stomach, pressed him back down, and swallowed him to the root.

Cole wound both hands into his hair. It was still cold from the walk in from the truck. He held on and watched Ford’s head move. He watched his own cock slide wet out of Ford’s mouth and back in. He watched Ford’s eyes come up to his and stay there, and something in his chest went wide open. His thighs started to shake.

“I’m not going to last.”

Ford pulled off long enough to say, “Good,” and went back down.

Cole came with Ford’s forearm across his stomach and both hands fisted in his hair, saying Ford’s name and other things he didn’t hear. Ford swallowed and stayed on him until Cole’s hands went slack. Then he wiped his mouth on the inside of Cole’s thigh, sat back on his heels, and looked up at him, pleased with himself.

Cole reached down and took him by the belt. He wanted his mouth on him. He wanted to give him back some of what he’d just been given.

“Stand up.”

Ford stood. Cole opened his jeans, shoved them down, and wrapped a hand around him. Ford was hard, already leaking precum. His breath went out of him when Cole’s mouth closed over the head of his cock. Cole took him as deep as he could, and Ford’s hands came down on his shoulders and dug in hard enough to bruise.

Cole felt him go tight all over. Ford came with one low sound through his teeth and Cole’s name after it.

Ford pulled his jeans up and sat on the edge of the bed beside him. He didn’t say anything for a while. Then he leaned over and set his forehead against the side of Cole’s head.

“I missed that.”

Cole turned to look at him. “What?”

“Hearing you.” Ford stayed where he was. “Two weeks of you whispering.”

Cole’s throat closed. He hadn’t known Ford had been counting too. He ran a hand through Ford’s hair and left it there, and neither of them moved until they had to.

Cole was fourth in the pickup line with the heat going when the bell rang.

Charlotte came out the side door with her coat open and her backpack on one shoulder. She scanned the row of vehicles, found his, and her whole face opened up. He’d been doing this pickup for two months, and that look still landed in the middle of his chest every time. The woman who came out behind her wasn’t Mrs. Pruett. She was younger, with a lanyard that said SUBSTITUTE, and she had a sheet of paper. She walked Charlotte around to the passenger side. Cole heard the back door open, the booster seat creak, the door slam.

Then she came to his window. He rolled it down.

“Field trip,” she said and handed the paper in. “The twenty-third. Just needs a signature, Dad.”