Page 42 of Vigilante Twink and the Cop

Then something changes.

It moves through him like weather, slow and total, and I watch it happen, the set of his shoulders dropping a fraction, the tightness around his eyes releasing, the particular quality of his attention shifting from the question he’s been trying to ask to something that’s already been decided without needing to be said. His whole body settles differently. The cop steps back. Something older and less armored steps forward in its place.

He looks at me the way he looked at me in the dark before he turned the torch off.

“Be careful,” he says.

Two words. He’s never been less efficient with language in his life and it’s the most he’s ever said to me.

I understand them all at once, every layer of them, the way you understand something you’ve been waiting to hear, because we need to talk was never going to be a verdict, not from him, not after the alley, not after everything.

Be careful means I know. Be careful means I’ve chosen. Be careful means I am giving you something I cannot afford to lose so please, please don’t be careless with it. Be careful means I’m choosing you. Over my conscience, my job, over everything that I am and all that I believe.

I don’t think about it. I don’t do the thing I always do which is calculate and weigh and perform. I just move, around the table and the three feet of space between us, and I put my arms around him and hold on, and his arms come up around me so fast it’s like he’s been waiting to do exactly this for longer than I’ve known him.

He’s warm. He’s solid in a way that has nothing to do with size, just the specific quality of a person who is genuinely, actually present in their own body, and I press my face against his jaw and breathe him in, and something in me that has been braced for a very long time simply stops bracing.

He pulls back just far enough to look at me and then he kisses me, and it’s not like the other times, not the sharp spark of a hookup or the slow heat of a night we both knew was complicated, it’s something quieter and more serious than either of those things, the kind of kiss that says I see you and I’m here and I know what this costs and I’m here anyway, and I feel it from my mouth to the soles of my feet.

We stay there for a while after. On the rooftop with London below us, his coat around my shoulders because at some point he put it there without my noticing, my face against his neck, both of us looking at the city that doesn’t care at all about us or what we’re doing or what we’ve already done, and it’s cold and it’s the afternoon and it’s the most peaceful I have ever felt.

His hand moves slowly up and down my back. Not suggestive. Just present. The way you’d touch someone you wanted to keep hold of, and I close my eyes and feel the city below us doing its city thing and let myself have this for a minute. Just this. Just the weight of him and the sound of him breathing and the specific warmth of another person who is choosing, against every reasonable argument available to him, to be here.

“Micah,” he says quietly, after a while.

“I know,” I say.

And I do. I know all of it, the impossibility of it, the cost of it, what’s coming eventually whether either of us is ready or not. I know all of it and it’s still not enough to make me let go.

He holds on too.

For now, that’s enough. For now, that’s everything.

Chapter twenty

Lennox

Itold him that we needed to talk. But I didn’t talk. Not really. I only told him to be careful. Then I kissed him. And held him. And now somehow we are in his bedroom and we are both naked.

This really wasn’t the plan. It wasn’t what I had in mind when I came over. Not that I can recall what I was thinking, because this feels right. Perfect. Preordained. The way things were always meant to be, and I was stupid to want to fight it. Why would I want to fight this?

Being in Micah’s bed is the closest to heaven I’m ever going to get. It is only right to exult in it.

His body is beautiful, but that’s not what I like about him. This physical perfection cannot hold a candle to the sharp mind and soft heart it houses.

A small voice, deep within me, whispers incredulously, soft heart? He’s a serial killer.

I ignore the stupid, foolish voice. I know what I know. Whatever Micah has done, he is a good person.

I run my hands over him, he shivers, goosebumps rising, and he leans into my touch. As if it is something he is craving. A flower seeking the sun. As if I’m the bright one.

My lips find his, and I kiss him deeply. He melts into it. As he always does. Everything falling away, leaving only the truth. A young man needy for kisses. Desperate for them. Drinking them down like they are sustenance for his soul.

Micah has not been kissed enough in his life, and while that is a tragedy, a dark part of my soul is pleased that I get to be the one to make it up to him.

His lips are so very soft. Full and sweet. Kissing me back with passion. Chasing all my thoughts and worries away. I’m aware I’m not thinking straight, not myself, but I can’t bring myself to care.

I ease my tongue into his mouth and tangle it with his. He moans and presses his entire body closer. Needing more. Deserving more. Seeking more of me.