Page 102 of Untouchable

He still cannot believe Parker has been thinking about him for weeks in... that way.

“Yeah,” Parker says as he accepts the joint. “Believe me, I was thinking about it then. I was practically trying to telepathically beam it to you.”

Harp laughs and Parker smiles before looking down at the joint between his fingers, seeming suddenly intimidated. “Er, so I just… smoke it?”

Parker wanted to kiss me. Yesterday!

“Um. Yeah, you just… you just smoke it,” Harp says with a shrug.

“Here I go,” he says, and he does as he’s instructed. He inhales deeply and almost immediately doubles over coughing, his throat on fire.

“Oh, crap,” he rasps, looking up at Harp with a smile, his eyes watering. “Oh, I definitely fucked that up.”

"Take a few deep breaths," Harp says, letting his hand rest on Parker's back as he coughs. "It's going to feel like your lungs want to turn themselves out for about a minute, but after that you'll be fine."

Parker nods, and after a moment the feeling abates.

“Can I try again?” he asks.

“Of course,” he says. “Inhale a little slower. Not as deep. Especially since you’re just starting out.”

This time, it seems to go much better, and Parker glances at Harp, holding his breath. After a few seconds, he exhales and grins.

“Hey! I did it.”

Harp smiles and accepts the joint back. The weed is already starting to mute the voices that have chattered on endlessly tonight about how unworthy and hopeless he is.

Maybe, in a minute, when the time is right... Harp can even work up the courage to kiss Parker again.

* * *

They sit quietlyfor a moment and Parker scans his body, waiting for it to kick in. He’s not sure what to expect this time around, but if it’s anything like how it felt last night—before his mood nosedived—he’s looking forward to it.

He watches Harp take another deep inhale from the joint.

Harp realizes that he feels sheepish under Parker's gaze, but he has no reason to.

"Sorry, I don't have any good tricks like blowing smoke rings," Harp says with a gentle laugh and passes the joint back to Parker.

“Well, you didn’t hack up a lung on the first time, so you’re already way ahead of me,” Parker says.

Parker eyes the joint and takes another hit. He nearly coughs at the top of the inhale, but manages to keep it together. He hands it back to Harp and exhales.

“When does it kick in?” he says. “The ice cream was an hour, but you said this is a lot quicker, right?”

"You'll feel it within a few minutes, if you're not already feeling it," Harp explains.

Parker checks in with himself again and realizes he is feeling it, or at least he thinks he might be. He feels present in the moment, but his focus has gone strange, as though everything else beyond what’s in front of him has fallen away, like looking at a tilt-shift photograph. The feeling is gentler than expected—he feels relaxed and in control, full awareness with a rosy filter laid over the top.

He smiles at Harp, a loose, easy grin.

“Okay, this is good,” he says.

* * *

Harp doesn'tbother second-guessing himself this time. He can still almost taste Parker's lips, the memory fresh and vivid.

It takes an awkward lunge to get close enough to kiss Parker, but the startled, affectionate noise Parker makes in response is well worth the strange angle their bodies have to adopt to keep up the kiss.

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