Page 49 of Set Fire to This Cardhouse

When Mike tugs him closer, their chests pressing together, Toby doesn’t fight it. He comes easily, parting his lips for Mike while he slips his hands under Mike’s T-shirt, tracing a path up Mike’s back until his fingers come to rest below the sharp arches of Mike’s shoulder blades.

“Toby.” Mike shapes the name against Toby’s chin, just before swallowing a potential reply. Toby lets him, pushes his own tongue into Mike’s mouth, running it along the line of Mike’s teeth. He feels rather than hears Mike groan, and that, the fact that he’s still holding back, makes Toby suddenly angry.

He tears his mouth away. “Stop pretending you’ve got it all under control.” His voice comes out harsh, slightly deeper than usual.

Mike stills, eyes narrowing in on Toby’s face. His muscles are corded tightly.

“You brought me to a beach that you visited with your parents. I know how they died when I shouldn’t know the first thing about you. So don’t pretend.” Toby slides a leg between Mike’s thighs, jerking closer. “Don’t pretend you’ve got this under control.”

Mike’s fingers clench around Toby’s bicep, digging into the muscle. “I’ll stop when you do.”

“I’m not—”

Toby’s protest gets cut off when Mike pushes him flat onto his back and rolls on top, Mike’s weight trapping Toby against the ground. Mike’s eyes are dark. “You want this. You want me. Fuck the rules.”

It’s not about the rules.

Toby isn’t sure when it stopped being about the rules and became about so much more—but of course Mike wouldn’t get it. He’s never been in a relationship, never cared to try, so he couldn’t possibly understand how much it can fuck you up when it all falls apart.

“We’re courting disaster,” Toby hisses. And yet. And yet. He’s aware of the way Mike’s hip bone presses into his stomach, the shadows beneath Mike’s cheekbones and the gray hint of stubble. Toby wants to run a finger over it, feel his nail catch on the fine hairs.

Mike stares down at Toby as if waiting for something. Anything. His voice is morning-rough. “You’re a coward.”

He just really doesn’t get it.

Toby sucks in a badly needed breath. “And you don’t give a shit about consequences, do you?”

There’s a moment, frozen in time, when neither of them moves. They’re staring at each other, so close, the glow of the morning sun painting everything golden.

Mike rolls away in an abrupt shift of muscles.

He sits back against a tree, legs propped up and slightly apart, providing Toby with a clear view of the bulge in Mike’s shorts. Fuck, Toby wants him. He wants to get his hands on every part of Mike, take his time while the morning wraps them up, while the heat of the day is starting to settle in. God, he wants. All of it, all of it, every damn little thing.

He retreats to the opposite corner of the blanket and takes the sleeping bag with him. Flattening his tongue against his palate, he hides his hands under the sleeping bag, digs the nails of his left hand into the palm of his right. Calmly, he meets Mike’s eyes.

There is no discernible emotion on Mike’s face, his features wiped carefully blank. Toby can’t tell whether he, like Toby, is applying tricks that he picked up to make it through training.

A long minute passes in silence. The waves move in counterpoint to the rush of noise in Toby’s ears.

“I don’t get you,” Mike says. “At all.” His voice is perfectly controlled, and yeah, the thing is, he doesn’t. He couldn’t.

Looking away, Toby shakes his head. He pushes the sleeping bag aside and rolls to his feet, avoiding all eye contact. “We should head back,” he tells the empty space between them.

Mike doesn’t move for another second, two. Then he nods, blurred motion at the edge of Toby’s vision. “Yeah. Guess we should.”

Toby gets up. He pokes a blackened branch from last night with a toe, closing his eyes briefly before he begins to shove the remaining ashes closer together so that he can toss sand over it—make sure it can’t catch fire again after they’re gone.

***

The plane descends through a cover of clouds, the dazzling brightness of the sun making room for a gray-hazed world. They collect their baggage quietly, moving towards the taxi stand together even though all they exchanged on the journey back were the bare essentials.

It doesn’t mean Toby didn’t stare for too long when Mike finally fell asleep on the flight. It doesn’t mean their gazes didn’t cross when the stewardess addressed them both at once, asking whether they wanted wine or something else. It doesn’t mean Toby felt reassured that he made the right decision. But then, it’s not as if he’s ever sure about Mike.

Mike’s hotel is nowhere near Toby’s apartment. As Mike doesn’t know that, he won’t notice that it doesn’t make sense for them to share a taxi, that it merely prolongs the inevitable. A light drizzle fogs up the windows of the car, distorting the familiar roads.

Toby doesn’t watch Mike disappear into the hotel. There’s no point.

IX. Newark, U.S.

---