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Twice Given is, by now, probably Henry’s most precious project. There are his Instagram poems, which will always have a special place in his heart for how much recognition they brought him, and his first-ever idea, after seven years still unnamed, that he will get published one day, but Twice Given feels personal in a way the others don’t. They’re all chips of his soul in one way or another, but this one might as well be his beating, red-raw heart spread out on several hundred pages.
“I still don’t get why you won’t let me read it,” Alex, sprawled across Henry’s new couch and nursing his second beer of the night, says with a pout. “You did with all the others.”
He has a point and an extremely valid one at that, but Henry just cannot bring himself to hand over his computer to any of his friends, much less Alex, whose mere presence seems to be enough to set off an ache in Henry’s soul, something that he’s been resolved to for a long time as something far beyond platonic.
“It’s just—it feels too personal,” he answers absent-mindedly, trying to remember any other word to use instead of adequate, which he seems to have used three times in the last paragraph. He might be on the verge of becoming a published writer but his master’s degree is very determined to prove he actually has no writing ability at all.
Alex scoffs and when Henry turns away from the hopeless mess that is his thesis to look at him, he finds his eyebrows raised high. “But not too personal to have millions of people read it in less than a week?”
“You’re exaggerating,” Henry says, in a futile attempt to redirect the conversation. “There’s no way so many people will read it.”
“Despite still not getting to read it,” Alex, firmly undeterred, says, “I have utter confidence in your writing ability, H. Whatever you’re hiding away in there has got to be brilliant and people are going to see it.”
“Books about women loving women are historically not known to do well," Henry reminds Alex, and more than that himself. This book is important to him; it is likely not going to mean that much to the rest of the world.
“Which is why,” Alex, a law school student on and off the clock, counters as he comes up to Henry’s side with another beer in hand, “yours is going to be the first.” He offers the beer to Henry, nudging his socked foot into Henry’s bare one. His smile is teasing but a little bit soft at the edges, too. “Now turn off that computer and come watch Shadow and Bone with me.”
It’s moments like these that make Henry ache for Alex. Not when he obliterates anyone who tries to argue with him and not when he jokes around with Nora and June—although they both make Henry’s heart go all warm and soft—but these quiet nights just the two of them share at Henry’s brownstone or Alex’s flat. Alex puts on his glasses, lets his hair go wild, curling over his temples, and makes a shape of himself that’s somehow as soft as it is bright and loud; this is Alex at his most comfortable, as at home in Henry’s space as he is in his own but never large enough a presence to push past Henry’s limits. It’s become so familiar it hurts.
Henry shuts down his computer and takes the beer from Alex, pushing down the urge to hold onto his hand when their fingers brush. They flop down on the couch together, fighting for the remote even though they both want to watch the same thing, and end up falling into each other, Henry’s elbow in Alex’s ribs and his fingers caught on his knee. It isn’t so out of the ordinary—Alex likes to get up in people’s space or just keep himself close with a hand on the back, a press of thigh against thigh—which is what makes it hurt so bad, but a way that tastes honey-sweet; Henry wants more, but this is already so, so much.
*********
The thing about Alex is: Alex is it. There have been guys and before them, there was that one girl whose smile still wasn’t enough to make Henry feel anything, and the guys were fine, some of them even great. His life did become better after he let himself bask in their laughter or burrow into their warm arms. In the awkward mornings-after, Henry found his resolve, in the wordless nights, ways to press affection into skin, print it out over muscular thighs, curve it over sharp hipbones and knead it into broad shoulders. With them, Henry found ways to forgive himself for wanting to be, dug up reasons to go on beyond his mother’s broken smile and the way Bea’s ribs pressed out of papery skin. It was something; but it wasn’t all that it could be.
And then came Alex, a flurry of motion and unbridled, unapologetic passion on Henry’s first day in the first class of his first semester abroad. Nothing lovely is supposed to exist at seven AM on a Monday morning in a lecture that takes a page out of the book about medieval torture techniques and applies it with fervour and yet, Alex was. Alex with his dark, determined eyes and quick-witted mouth, whose presence seemed much, much bigger than himself, so painfully alive in a way that seemed alien to Henry, locked up inside his own pain. His love language with everyone is pretty much regularly getting on their nerves, but Henry has learned with time that Alex is, at his core, more heart than blood, than bone and muscle, all the warmth of the Texan sun with none of its burn, with kindness that belies each of his sharp words beating, work-strong, under his skin. Henry can’t get enough of him.
*********
Twice Given comes out at the beginning of the finals week, which both Nora and Alex have grumbled Henry’s ear off about, but it’s not like he chose the date. So, it’s not odd that Alex is pretty much radio silent, save for a few sporadic selfies and short messages that boil down to him reconsidering his going to law school, which Henry knows for a fact to be—in the words of his dear grandmother—utter poppycock. He jokes often about taking up one of the many, many modelling offers and living a comfortable, luxurious life, but they both know he’d probably end up tearing down the door of his mother’s Senator office within a week to bother her about giving him something to do. One of the selfies is Alex pressing Twice Given to his cheek with his face scrunched up, which allows Henry to discover that Alex can indeed still split something inside his chest without using any words.
In general, the book does pretty well; it’s no best-seller—yet, Alex reminds him during one of Henry’s anxiety-ridden rants—but overall, the response seems to be amazing, both from his long-standing fans and those that have picked up any of his writing for the first time. What little Tumblr time he allows himself reveals that people are already making edits and fanart of Rina and Ivy, which just blows him away. The tight knot in his chest loosens considerably and he goes to sleep calm for the first time in a week.
Until, in one of his awake waves, he checks his phone and sees a text from Nora. should i congratulate you on the size of your balls or look up first flights to helsinki for you to book
In the framework of history, it is not the oddest text Henry has received from her, but still, it’s always nice to have some context with her and her wire-fast brain.
What do you mean? he writes back.
Nora, who sleeps about as much as Alex and Henry do but functions better than the two of them combined, replies immediately. how ivy and rina are literally you and alex in female form
And the knot snaps back into place. Henry would just like to point out that this is, from Nora, who is studying to help solve problems not bloody create them, a very low blow.
His phone’s screen lights up when he doesn’t reply for five minutes. first flight to helsinki: jfk 8am tmrw
*********
He tries to brush it off and sleep, he really does, but sleep is an effort even when he isn’t agonising over the fact that he might have just accidentally written 400 pages worth of fanfiction about himself and Alex and then published it. He convinces himself that it’s impossible, that there’s no way he was that obvious, but then he climbs out of bed and opens the book and there are passages like Ivy can never understand all the papercuts Rina wears like pearls over her skin, can never truly know the depth of how tired her wayward soul is. But her own heart has always been a little bit chained, often chafed with strings stretched thin over the years of waiting, of reaching after something that is too far away, and she knows that whatever beats inside Rina’s is made of the same stardust as Ivy’s, forged so tightly into her essence it would be impossible to rip her away without breaking them both down to particles and fitting each of them into a new mosaic.
And then there are declarations like In all my life, no one has ever looked past my decorum and my standing and my parents and said: When you take all of that away, who are you? When you have nothing to lean on, what keeps you standing? Not until her.
More than that, there are these small moments tucked between Rina and Ivy, moments that are so painfully the Alex and Henry that Henry has no idea how he’s managed to overlook it at all; sitting in comfortable silence while they both do their own work, long calls on sleepless nights, sharing a pair of headphones in the library, writing each other dramatic emails when their phones are right there to text. And yeah, he has to concede Nora’s point. It is accurate, which, as one might expect, is not something Henry was hoping for. He picks up the phone and dials the second number he thinks of.
Bea answers on the third ring because it’s already morning there and she’s probably in the middle of her run. “Are you alright?” she asks, just a little bit out of breath, but her footsteps remain rhythmic and quick.
“Yeah, yeah, just—you know me,” he says, taking a deep breath. Even all these years later, he and Bea still understand something so acute about each other, that glimmer of shared pain and rock bottom, that he misses her every time he talks to her and then doubly so when they hang up. “Can I ask you a question?”
There’s a pause. Then, “Is it about your book?”
“Yes.”
He hears her steps slow down and her breathing slowly even out. “Is it about how similar it is to you and Alex?”
Henry sits up in his bed, a vicious wave of nausea clawing its way up his throat. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not.”
“Bea.”
“I thought you knew!”
“That I wrote an entire book based on my non-existent relationship with my best friend?” Henry says incredulously; now that he’s formed actual words around the thoughts, it becomes so very real and much more painful. “Even if I did, when would it ever be a good idea to publish something like that?”
“I thought Pez was your best friend,” Bea says weakly.
“Would you mind staying on the relevant part of this conversation which is that I just basically confirmed I’m in love with Alex over four hundred pages?”
“I’d say it’s really something like a hundred and fifty pages.”
“Even one page is too much,” Henry says, flopping down onto his bed, tension building up in his chest and twining up his throat. He sighs in a futile attempt to get it out. “How am I supposed to look at him ever again?”
“Well,” Bea ventures, “you could just tell him.“
Henry takes a deep breath, pressing a helpless hand to the corner of his mouth, where, as Alex keeps telling him, all of his stress seems to gather up. “What if I—if he asks—what if I just tell him that he makes me more adventurous than I’ve ever been and that the things I’ve done with him were my biggest inspiration?”
Impossibly, Bea manages to convey her scepticism across a few thousand miles. “That’s your way of framing it platonically?”
“What do you want me to do?” Henry asks, pressing two of his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “It’s out there. The only thing I can do is buy a one-way ticket to Helsinki.”
“You’re being dramatic,” Bea says primly. “Besides, you’d never survive in Finland. You get cold too easily.”
“Bea.” Henry hopes she can hear the hopelessness in his voice because he is not too keen on actually verbalising it. “What should I do?”
Bea’s voice softens when she says, “Tell him, H. I have a hard time believing he won’t be over the moon, but even if he isn’t, he’s not going to throw you out of his life. It’s Alex.” It really shouldn’t mean as much as it does but it is Alex. The guy once spent fifteen minutes chewing out Henry for the way he pours the milk over the cereal—which Henry will go to his grave saying is the more sensible option, why on Earth would you put the milk before the cereal—but Henry knows that he’d show up with a shovel in the middle of the night if Henry called him about a dead body and probably bring some bleach, too. Still, this isn’t something Henry can just take lightly. There’s a pause on Bea’s end before she adds “I love you.”
“And yet, you don’t support my moving far, far away.”
The call disconnects, pointed and deliberate, and Henry doesn’t sleep for the rest of the night.
*********
In the morning, as soon as the hour is about appropriate, he calls June. In true Alex fashion, he starts the conversation with, “How oblivious is your brother?”
There’s a pointed silence on the other end. Then June says, “About you? A lot. About your book? Not so much.”
Henry groans. “Is it that obvious?”
“My brother is a dumbass, but he is, despite his constant efforts to prove otherwise, quite quick. Especially when he has it written down point-blank. I love the book, by the way,” she adds, as if she hasn’t just defined the crucial part of why it will be Henry’s downfall.
“Yes, thanks,” he mumbles, hardwired politeness kicking in.
“Can I put in my two cents?”
“Is there any way I can stop you?” Henry asks with a helpless little smile.
“I am a journalist so no.”
June isn’t much like Alex on the surface, most of the time, but her usually quiet determination shows up in glimpses when the occasion calls for it, a different shape than her family’s but just as strong. It makes Henry huff out a laugh.
“Alex adores you,” June says, some of that determination tapering off into the familiar, gentle lilt of an older sister lecture. Strangely, it works just about as well as Bea’s. “The idiot has the attention span of a goldfish but he’s been laser-focused on you since day one. He’s been doing it for so long I don’t think he even notices anymore.”
“But he will notice this!” comes Nora’s muffled voice. Then, even quieter but still just discernible, “At least, I hope he will.”
“But the point is,” June goes on, somehow managing to fit in a shushing noise at Nora as well, “he will be happy to know you feel the same. Really. Actually, you should probably tell him how you feel before he starts reading the book. You’ll save him a lot of trouble.”
“What she means is, just fuck already,” adds Nora, this time louder but no clearer. From the sound of it, she’s eating something.
Henry sighs. “Don’t you have finals to pass?”
“Which I obviously will. I can multitask.”
“Anyway,” June says, obviously exasperated, “y’all are dumb. There’s this thing called communication. Give it a go.”
“Mm, thanks.”
“Bye, Henry!” Nora shouts just when June hangs up.
Five minutes later, his screen lights up with Alex’s text. don’t get too caught up in your head
Henry chokes on a laugh. Only Alex would know to text him at the exact same time he’s having a breakdown with him at the centre-point without having any clue that it is happening at all. And then Henry thinks—or rather, allows himself to think for a very limited amount of time—that maybe that’s for a reason.
Alex loves like wildfire; reckless, all-consuming, the antithesis of what Henry thought for a long time he was supposed to be content with. Henry doesn’t doubt that he is a part of that very select demographic that gets to feel its effect, but sometimes, he isn’t so sure he deserves it. It seems so stupid to even think it but he’s allowed such traitorous thoughts when he’s all alone, with that familiar feeling of emptiness poured in too full, and no way to draw it out. He’s trying his best, he really is, but it’s hard to keep himself in check when it all starts to gather up on the outskirts of his chest, pressing in too tightly, giving him no space to breathe. It’s hard to conjure up any reason why he’s worthy of it when he really gets into it, but Alex is good at getting him out of his head, even without explicitly knowing about it. But Alex is currently, for a multitude of obvious reasons, not the ideal person to reach out to. So, Henry is left to deal with it all on his own. It’s better that way; Alex doesn’t need all that stress on his shoulders with what he already has and especially not some cosmic joke of an angst-ridden fanfiction that he is apparently the star of.
Sometimes Henry wishes he could love the way Alex does. Most of all, he wishes he could begin to see what exactly makes him, Henry, worthy of it.
He takes a deep breath and pulls up the conversation with Alex, starts typing and gets as far as, I need to tell you something, before he presses the backspace furiously and writes out, I’m not. I’m worrying over my debut novel a healthy amount. instead.
sure thing sweetheart
Henry’s heart does a ridiculous stunt in his chest, which is beyond unnecessary and also incredibly stupid. He throws his phone onto the bed and tries to groan his way into forgetting this whole mess. David, curled up on his dog bed in the corner, eyes him sideways.
*********
Pez, having carefully planned out his philanthropic responsibilities around Henry’s book, arrives in the evening, takes one look at Henry and goes, “Let’s get you a drink.“
God, Henry has missed him.
He drags Henry to his room and makes him put on the brightest things he can find in his closet, which, given Henry’s wish to perpetually blend in, match the brightness of a solar eclipse pretty well. After, they go down to the bar they frequent as a group and Pez orders him a strong gin and tonic.
“So, talk Pezza through this,” he says, sipping his own mojito, and watches apprehensively as Henry gulps down his drink faster than is probably strictly acceptable. There’s a smile playing at his lips but it’s lined in genuine concern, which always makes Henry want to drown himself in a spoon for having dulled the brightness that is Pez. “The guy you’ve been pining after for years probably inadvertently knows you like him and you have it on good authority that he feels the same. What’s the problem here?”
“I—I don’t know. He wasn’t supposed to know and if I had known it was so obvious I would have—” He shrugs.
“You would have what?” Pez challenges, squinting. It really makes his eyeliner stand out. “Scrapped the entire thing and thrown it in the trash? Hidden it in the backyard, dead and buried? Henry,” he says, gentling out the disapproval in his voice. “Writing is meant to do exactly that. You’re supposed to put your heart on those pages, not your façade.”
“But not like this,” bursts out of Henry, louder than intended, unexpected even to himself. He clenches the glass in his hand. “I’m supposed to decide what goes on there, not some bloody subconscious part of me. I’m fine with having my struggles with my sexuality in there, and my family troubles and my depression. But not this. Not Alex.”
“Alright,” Pez says slowly, his mouth thoughtful. Belatedly, Henry realises they could have found a better setting for this conversation. “Why not?”
Henry looks at him over the table. His hair is growing out again, the dark roots already shading out of the silver he’s dyed it, flash-bright against his neon jacket, and that’s just how Pez is. His hair colour changes by the month and his outfits faster than the fashion can keep up with him, but he has always remained steadfast, a bright beacon in an aching, endless sea. If no one else, Henry can trust him with this.
“Because he might feel that way now—and that’s only according to the speculations of others—but what about in a month? Or a year?” Henry says, too loud for his ears but the music is booming and no part of him ever wants to admit these words again. “We’re friends. Good friends. I was … not in a good place when I came here but he—for the first time in my life, I felt like I was enough. I don’t want to lose that and I know it’s not supposed to be tied to just him but it is, at least a little bit.” He draws in a shallow, shaky breath, just enough air to get out what he needs to say the most. “I don’t want to lose him.”
Pez takes a considering sip of his drink, then reaches out a hand to squeeze Henry’s shoulder, his long fingers familiar and gentle and his smile even more so. “Don’t you think you should let him decide that, babe?”
He’s right, of course, because, out of all the things Pez does well, he does nothing better than being right all the time. It’s infuriating but it’s always good to have him on the team.
“I need another drink,” Henry says with an exhale of breath.
As it turns out, he actually needs another few drinks, and he’s really feeling the effect of all of them when he and Pez finally make their way out around two. The world is kind of topsy-turvy and Pez seems to be the only steady thing in it, which is ironic considering he really went all out once he was done giving his sage advice.
They barely make it to the brownstone, laughing and arms slung around each other as Pez tells him all about his crazy weekend, the way they were at Eton before Henry’s world went upside down and Pez crossed half a globe to be there for him. With him by his side—and several shots of suspicious alcohol in his system—it’s hard to have any fears at all. Henry gets the door unlocked after more tries than he cares to admit to and they stumble inside, Pez to the kitchen to get them water and Henry to the bathroom.
Once he’s done and walking out, he makes the mistake of checking his phone screen. His eyes skip past the mentions on Twitter and Instagram and automatically zero in on Alex’s name.
[55 minutes ago]
finally done with my business law exam and relaxing by breaking this baby open
Henry does not need to see the attached photo to know what it is. He barely makes it back into the bathroom before he throws up. It’s probably the alcohol.
*********
Alexander the Average
May 14, 2021, 9:46 AM
wow zero reaction
are you too good to answer me now that you’re an author or what
May 15, 2021, 11:51 AM
H
are you alive?
May 16, 2021, 8:32 PM
Henry
will you please just answer me
May 18, 2021, 3:15 PM
i’m having dinner with my parents and june tonight
i’ll stop by when we’re done
3 geniuses without the Alex
May 18, 2021, 3:21 PM
June
Think long and hard before you reply, Fox
If you cancel on him without a reason I will take all of your special edition Jane Austen books
And I will dog ear them
All of them
Nora
i’m not above helping her hide a felony
*********
Alex’s text is not entirely unexpected, but it still does wonders to vault Henry off his bed. leaving now be there in 20, it says, which gives Henry approximately seven minutes to change into something presentable and take care of his hair and then spend the rest of the time alternating between pacing the length of the living room and rearranging the throw pillows his mother bought him as a moving-away present. He considers, briefly, throwing himself out the window. The pavement probably won’t soften his fall, though, so he doesn’t entertain it further.
There’s a knock on the door, and then Alex is opening it and coming through without waiting for anything. He’s loosening his tie as he goes and as if that isn’t already one of the cornerstones of Henry’s sexuality, he has his sleeves rolled up too, revealing smooth brown skin, veined with life down to the strong hands holding onto Twice Given. His jaw is set and his eyes are bottomless-dark and even though this is what’s got him in this awful, painstaking predicament in the first place, Henry wants to write an entire book about it. So, basically, he’s learned nothing and this might kill him, one way or another. If it doesn’t succeed, there’s always Alex to finish the job.
Alex’s messenger bag, slung off his shoulder, ends up thrown on the couch, the book with it, and before Henry can ask, can even begin to form a question or utter gibberish, maybe, Alex is in his space, crowding him back against the wall, hands fisting in Henry’s sweater, his body springtime-warm.
“Alex—” Henry starts, but there is no breath left in his lungs and the name tapers off, lost in the press of Alex’s hands.
Alex’s eyes are searching his, but Henry can only drink in the sight of him, the wild-curling hair over his forehead, the curve of his determined mouth, the dimple in his chin, above the corner of his mouth. Henry wants to taste him on his teeth.
“Did I read it wrong?” Alex asks.
“What?”
“Did I read the book wrong?” Alex says, one of his hands slipping up to the curve of Henry’s neck, his thumb ghosting over the hinge of his jaw. “I don’t know what your objective here was but I’ve been going fucking crazy for a week over it and then you didn’t answer me almost at all, which, by the way, you obtuse fucking asshole, was a dick move—” He breaks off, swallowing. “Henry.”
A knot in Henry’s chest, the one usually making its way up his throat, loosens and his whole body melts with it. He reaches out his hands, cradling Alex’s face in them; his fingertips sink into the soft hair at the nape of Alex’s neck, his ring resting against Alex’s pulse-point, thrumming–wild.
“I didn’t intentionally write it that way,” he says but brushes his thumb over Alex’s cheek to settle him and keep him there—and maybe himself, too. “But I think you maybe read it the way you were supposed to.”
Alex’s mouth curves up and he’s the most beautiful thing Henry has ever seen, dressed up in the dim light of his apartment, an answered prayer for a faithless man willing to go down on his knees for him. “Good,” Alex says and then he’s against Henry all over, mouth against mouth, teeth over soft skin.
Henry loses the feel of anything else but him, kissing him like he’s finally realised he can, the wild, settling squeeze of Alex’s fingers in the dip of his waist. Suddenly, it’s like all the words Henry has written find a place to go in a single press of heart against heart, curving over Alex’s skin where Henry touches him, sinking through his sweater, dripping from Henry’s tongue straight down his throat. Forget pages and books and bestselling shelves; this is where his writing belongs, fitted, puzzle–safe, behind Alex’s ribcage.
Alex breaks away from him, hair mussed from Henry’s fingers, his sweater bunched up at his hips and Henry aches to get his hands back on that sliver of exposed skin. “Good,” he says, “good, you know, I just wanted to know.”
Henry gapes at him, chest strangely constricted all of a sudden. “Alex—” he starts but then he catches the glint in Alex’s eyes, the quirk of that smart, foul mouth and he can draw in air again. “Prick,” he breathes, catches Alex by the back of his neck and pulls him in.
Alex falls into him, breathless laughter spilling out of him, firmer than any oath, and Henry swallows it down, down, down to a place where it settles like a home.
*********
Henry wakes up with the incessant vibrating of a phone on the bedside table. He groans and reaches out to turn it off, but a warm body presses up against him, a voice murmuring, “It’s okay, sweetheart, I got it.”
Henry opens his eyes to see Alex’s hand swiping off the phone and he pulls himself up to squint over Alex’s shoulder, unable to keep up with the rapid-fire of June’s texts coming in.
Alex huffs and throws his phone back onto the bedside table, and Henry glances at the clock to see it’s just past six AM.
“Doesn’t she sleep?” he asks, burrowing deeper under the covers. He doesn’t think he has ever slept this well and he’s anxious to get back to it. “It’s too early.”
“Clubbing,“ Alex says by way of explanation and then he’s above Henry, pressing kisses along the line of his shoulders, down the curve of his wing bones, and it makes warmth spread all the way down to Henry’s toes, a soft, pulsing delight that goes beyond the feel of Alex’s body all over his and sinks deeper with the way they talked until neither one of them could keep their eyes open anymore, with Alex’s hands that stayed on him even after they finished, with his voice that wrote itself in the current of Henry’s blood, a pulsing, unbreakable seal all on its own.
Henry smiles into the pillow. His previous thoughts seem ancient and far away now, eroded away by Alex’s determination to keep him around. They’ll figure it all out—together.
“Hi,” Alex whispers into the centre of his back, still a bit sleep-soft, the rest of it all Alex-warm.
Henry turns onto his back and beams up at Alex; Alex kisses the corner of his mouth, then presses another, firmer kiss to his lips. “Morning, love,” Henry murmurs against his mouth, then weaves his fingers through his curls and deepens the kiss.
Alex settles across him, languor rolling off of him in slow waves, seeping into Henry’s body with a gentle certainty, showing up in the same slivers that Alex seems to show up in Henry’s morning: his tie, resting on the bedside table, his shirt, slung over the foot of the bed, his slow, scratchy voice giving life to his adoration.
“I’m taking you to dinner tonight,” Alex murmurs into the dip of Henry’s chest and Henry can only breathe in as his hand tightens in Alex’s hair, the sting of Alex’s teeth enough for Henry to forget most of his thoughts entirely. “To celebrate your success. But you’re paying.”
Henry bursts out a laugh and Alex smiles with him, his chin fitted just below Henry’s ribs. “Is that how you Americans do it?” he asks and lets his hand drift down to Alex’s cheek, tipping his thumb into the corner of Alex’s mouth; Alex nips it.
“That’s for all the grey hair you caused me this week,” Alex counters, with nothing but teasing in his voice; it still makes guilt spike up Henry’s spine.
“I’m sorry,” he says, soft and measured. “I got caught up in my head and I hurt you with it.”
Alex’s smile turns soft and he crawls up Henry’s body to press kiss after kiss to his mouth, keeping them short and sweet, all calm reassurance. “It’s good, baby,” he whispers, catching Henry’s bottom lip between his teeth, “it’s all good.”
Henry breathes him in and lets himself get lost in him, the whispered confessions of love and the swallowed pleasure and all the shades in between. There are a million words to describe it, but Henry has time to find them all later when he can fill up a whole book with them and he gets to dedicate that one, front to back, to him.