Page 1 of After His Eulogy
ONE
REECE
He’s already half-hard against my thigh and he doesn’t know.
That’s the thing I keep coming back to. Here on the couch in his apartment, my hand inside his jeans and his mouth on the underside of my jaw. He doesn’t know.
He came home from the gym an hour ago. He ate the dinner I made. He complained about a seminar reading. He pulled me onto the couch like it was Wednesday — because it was Wednesday, because his body does what it does on Wednesdays. He doesn’t know this is the last one.
I do.
I knew at four-fifteen this afternoon, when Mendez closed the folder on his desk and saidI’m sorry, Reece, the math has changed. I knew on the train back. I knew when I unlocked our door and he wasn’t home yet. Standing in our kitchen with my hand on the counter — knew it then, too. I didn’t cry. I didn’t sit. Didn’t call anyone. I made the goddamn pasta because he likes it and I waited.
He doesn’t know. I’m going to make sure he doesn’t.
“Hi,” he says against my jaw, like he just noticed he’s here.
“Hi.”
“You’re quiet.”
“I’m busy.”
He laughs into my neck and it goes through me. I don’t move my hand. I don’t change my face. He doesn’t notice that I’ve gone perfectly still. He shifts. I feel him hard now, fully, against my hip. His hand finds the back of my neck, where his hand always finds it. His mouth comes up to mine.
I kiss him.
I kiss him with my whole mouth. With my tongue. With my teeth catching his lower lip the way he likes. He makes the small sound I have spent six years learning to pull out of him. I make him make it again. He pulls back half an inch.
“Bedroom?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Here.”
He looks at me. His face does the thing it does when I’ve said something he wants to come back to. Then he moves, fast, certain. He pushes me back against the arm of the couch, gets a knee between my thighs. His hands are at the hem of my t-shirt. His mouth is on my chest before the shirt is even off my arms.
“God,” I say.
“What.”
“Nothing. Don’t stop.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
He works his way down. My chest, my ribs, the dip below my ribs that he has known about for six years and that nobody before him knew about. His hands are at my belt. He undoes it the way he undoes my belt — methodical, looking up at me from under his lashes.
He gets the belt open, the jeans open. He pulls them down with my underwear in one motion. My cock is against his cheek for a second. Then his mouth is on me, and I make a sound Ihave not made in months. I’ve been at Mendez’s office on lunch breaks for a month. I’ve been pulling away from him without telling him. Tonight I’m paying for it. His mouth is hot and tight. His tongue does the thing his tongue does. His hand is at the base of my cock, his other hand on my thigh.
“Griffin.”
“Mm.”
“Slow down.”
He pulls off and looks up at me, his mouth wet, lips red, the small smile he keeps for me. I notice the chip at the corner of his front tooth. He fell off his bike when he was eleven. Told me on our second date, three drinks in, embarrassed about it.
