Page 28 of For Real

Sex.

Ever.

I grin at Laurie, and he glances away, blushing.

“I’m sorry,” he starts. “I’m… I…”

But I shut that shit down hard. “Seriously. Don’t. It’s fucking perfect.”

When I’m pretty much done getting my clothes on, he gets out of bed and wraps himself in the dressing gown he was wearing last night. Wow, it’s fluffy. I hadn’t realised that then. I don’t think you’d go for something that soft unless your life was like substantially lacking in hugs.

Poor Laurie. If only he was mine.

I’d hug him and hurt him. And save him too.

We troop downstairs together. In the hall, he touches my cheek lightly. “You’ll be all right, won’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you. For today. And yesterday.”

I try to smile. “You really don’t have to thank me. I was totally up for all of it.”

His eyes go sliding away from mine. “Sorry. It’s…a polite habit, I suppose.”

Habit? For some reason my brain catches onto the word and won’t let go. Like I’m recognising something. Something he’s maybe trying to offer me or ask me for. Something that’s meant to be mine.

“For breakfast,” he says.

“Uh-uh.”

He still won’t meet my gaze, so I reach up, catch his chin, and make him. He flinches, and then, well, it’s not quite a sigh, but the rhythm of his breathing changes. Slows. His eyes soften slightly, and I realise it’s how he looks when he’s at my feet.

He swallows. Then whispers, “Thank you, Toby, for letting me kneel for you.”

And, holy shit, if I hadn’t just come all the come in the universe, I’d probably be coming right now. My cock actually sort of staggers like a punch-drunk boxer who doesn’t know when to stay down.

My touch has become a caress. And, somehow, we’re leaning into each other. So close. If I angle my face just right, I know he’ll kiss me. I know he will.

But if I let him, I’ll be lost. My heart can’t take it.

The kiss he’s about to give me, I need it from someone who’s not about to chuck me out of his house and never see me again.

So I pull away.

I don’t know what to say. So I open my mouth and, “Uh, well, byeee,” plops out.

And that’s how I leave.

On byeee.

Just…fuck my life.

5

Laurie

I couldn’t tell if it was a sort of irony that my life had been not once but twice bisected. First into Robert and After Robert. And then into Before Toby and After Toby. It seemed a rather harsh fate, to live always in aftermath. That Robert, who had shared my life for over a decade, should have affected me seemed right. Even fair. But Toby Finch, who had burned like a comet for half a night and half a day? That was simply maddeningly cruel.

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