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“Fuckin’ hell, it’s bloody freezing in here.”
Ross raises his eyes from the book in his lap and smiles at Matty. It’s an unreasonably cold Wednesday night in January and, for once, they have absolutely nothing to do. They’re home, in fact. For a whole week. Every time Ross thinks about it, he can barely believe it.
Hann is on a date with Carly and George is out with his other mates—although Matty has called bullshit because George doesn’t really have other mates—so it’s just Matty and Ross in the flat for the night. It’s pleasant, Ross reckons, to just sit there on the couch with Matty and pretend they’re normal people who don’t have a job that precludes them from having a proper sedentary lifestyle aside from maybe thrice a year. And he knows that Matty enjoys it too, but he also knows that Matty dislikes routine changes of any kind—so naturally he hasn’t been coping very well for the past two days since they’ve been home. He’s been antsy, he’s smoked way too many cigarettes, and he’s looked miserable approximately eighty percent of the time, demanding they’d go out and party at least once a day, no matter the hour. Hann has had to remind him several times that the break was enforced because Jamie had finally realised Matty was slowly but surely losing his mind from having been on the road for too long, and that resting up was basically mandatory if he didn’t want to completely burn out. So they’d all secretly agreed to keep him inside, or at least keep him from having too much fun, so that he could properly recharge his batteries.
Mattysitting, Hann and George call it. Ross doesn’t like that term. He prefers Matty duty.
(Although it isn’t, really. It’s not a duty, it’s more… He doesn’t quite know what he would call it. But ‘duty’ definitely isn’t the right word for it.)
Ross doesn’t think Matty has put two and two together about them taking turns looking after him—or if he has, he’s been purposely quiet about it. He has complained day in, day out about them all being boring old men, threatening to take off without them and go get wrecked somewhere with some way more fun people he might meet along the way, but in the end Ross suspects that Matty’s own body might have reined him in, because he has never once delivered on his promise. Or maybe it was meant to be a threat. Whatever it was, it was hot air, because Matty’s still here. Sitting on the couch next to Ross, with a Burroughs book in his lap and a beanie covering his head. And now, he’s shivering.
“Do you want me to go get my blanket?” Ross suggests, pressing his thumb between the pages of his own book to keep track of where he is.
Matty shakes his head. “I just want the heating to work.”
“The repairman is coming tomorrow morning.”
“I know, you told me. But I want him to come now.”
Ross quirks an eyebrow and makes a show of pulling his watch out of the sleeve of his jumper. “It’s… 9:25 PM, mate. Pretty sure he won’t.”
“I just want to feel warm again.”
“Have a bath?” Ross suggests, reaching for his bookmark on the coffee table behind him. He senses the situation is going to require some proper handling.
Matty scoffs. “Don’t wanna get wet.”
“I’ll go fetch my blanket, then,” Ross says, unfolding his legs from underneath Matty and moving to get up—but Matty grabs his forearm and looks up at him with pleading eyes.
“No,” he says, in a small voice. “Stay.”
Ross fleetingly glances across the living room at his bedroom door. “My room is just—”
“I know,” Matty interrupts. He furrows his brow, but then seems to change his mind. His face smoothens, and his eyes turn from cross to sweet. Supplicating, even. “I just don’t wanna be alone. Please?” Matty’s grasp on Ross’s arm tightens a touch, until Ross nods and sits back down. Taking in the forlorn look on Matty’s face, Ross starkly realises that his chest feels incredibly full and painfully hollow at the same time. There’s an ache somewhere inside him that he can’t quite place. It’s familiar, old as time, but also new. It’s something he hasn’t felt in years.
“Alright,” he says, settling back on the couch and trying not to think too hard.
But then Matty says, “Come closer,” and Ross feels the walls of the dam inside him cracking. And then Matty says, again, “please,” and the flood comes.
Ross was eighteen when he finally realised that Matty would never love him back. Well—not in that way.
Having spent the better part of five years pining over Matty and not having found the courage to tell him how he felt, he’d resolved to get especially drunk on his birthday and pull Matty to one side and just kiss him. It felt like the perfect plan, back then: he wouldn’t have needed to say anything—his actions would have spoken for themselves. He would have kissed Matty, Matty would have kissed him back, and somehow everything would have gone as planned. Except, of course, it didn’t. Because Matty got drunker than Ross did, and faster, and then some girl grabbed him and didn’t let go of him for the rest of the night. The last thing Ross remembers seeing before retiring to bed—too early, at his own birthday party—is a tangle of limbs on the couch, Matty and that same girl making out like the air around them was toxic and the only way they had to survive was to breathe each other in. Ross hated Matty, then. But more than anything, Ross hated himself. For wasting time, for hoping too hard, for being blind, for not seeing the signs. But on that night, he did see them. On that night, he let go.
So why is he, on this night, thinking of giving in?
“I dunno,” Ross replies, and he immediately realises how weird it might sound to Matty, because it’s not like they’ve ever been shy when it comes to displays of affection. They hug all the time, they cuddle on the tour bus; they ruffle each other’s hair and they kiss each other’s cheeks; they sleep in each other’s laps. But tonight, somehow, it feels different; wrong, even. Tonight feels like all that Matty wants is warmth, and that Ross is the chosen one just because he’s the only one there. Just because Matty couldn’t be bothered to go out and find somebody else. Tonight sounds like Ross will get his heart broken again. So he shakes his head and says, once more, “I dunno. I think—”
“Please, Ross.” Matty whispers. “I’m so cold.”
Ross sighs and minutely shakes his head, trying not to let out even an ounce of the dread inside him. He can’t say no, can he. He can never say no to Matty, no matter how painful it might be to acquiesce. How much wiser it would be to just step away, get into his bedroom, and put on his big headphones, pretending to have fallen asleep.
“Okay,” he simply says, rearranging himself and Matty on the couch so that he’s practically lying on top of Matty, only holding himself up onto his elbows. And then, from that position, he can feel everything. Every inch of Matty against him. Matty’s sharp hipbones pricking the bottom of his stomach. The shape of Matty’s body, lithe and lank and scarily skinny but also so incredibly soft, letting Ross’s frame overflow from his sides. Matty’s quiet breathing pushing back against his chest through several layers of cotton and wool.
Matty’s all coiled, one leg closed around Ross’s waist, the other half-hanging off the side of the couch. He can’t be comfortable, Ross reckons for a moment—but then, when Ross looks up at him and takes in the now very different, very content expression on his face, he realises that Matty might well be. Because there’s a glint of something in those eyes. Something close to wickedness that doesn’t really feel malicious. Something just promising and wonderful.
“Hi,” Matty says, wriggling and trying to get his arms out from under Ross’s body. Ross leans backwards a bit and lets him. Matty’s hands are cold, but Ross burns when they touch his face.
“Hi,” he replies—alight, airless, agonising. “Is this better, then?”
For the first time all night, Matty actually smiles. “Much better.”
“Yeah?” Ross asks, trying to ignore the thumping in his ears. They have been this close before, but it’s never been like this. This is different. This feels like it means something.
This is too much.
Matty’s thumb trails down on Ross’s cheek, settling onto the corner of his mouth. “Yeah.” He sounds slightly strained as he lets out his affirmation, and Ross immediately realises he might be struggling to breathe.
“Am I crushing you?” Ross asks. “Sorry, I’m so heavy,” he says, and without waiting for a reply, he moves from leaning on his elbows to leaning on one hand, giving Matty space.
“No, wait,” Matty says, one hand moving to clutch Ross’s shoulder and coaxing him back down. Ignoring the voice in his head screaming no, Ross goes without protesting. “It’s nice,” Matty explains. “I like it.”
“You like being crushed?”
“Not by anyone,” Matty says, the hand on Ross’s shoulder trailing upwards until it’s cupping Ross’s face again. “Just you.”
“Just me,” Ross repeats, and it should be a question but it isn’t. It’s an acknowledgement. An incredulous assertion. Something so simple and yet so intricate, incomprehensible. Just him. Just Ross.
“Yeah,” Matty says, nodding slowly. Again, he pulls Ross a little closer still, until their foreheads gently collide. “Just you. Always you. No-one else.”
Before Ross can reply, Matty tilts his head and presses his nose into Ross’s cheek. And then, when Matty’s lips brush against his own, Ross feels a thrill going through his entire body, before something inside him pops. It’s like a short-circuit—nothing works anymore. His limbs, his brain, his heart, his eyes. Only his mouth gets spared; he can taste black tea and chocolate Hobnobs on Matty’s lips. Some voice inside him reminds him that’s exactly what he always thought Matty would taste like.
When they part and Matty rests his head back on the cushion underneath him, Ross still keeps his eyes closed for a half-second. It’s quick, and it’s unconscious, and it allows him to maintain some kind of grasp on something that most definitely hasn’t just happened. Because the idea, no, the fantasy of kissing Matty belongs at the bottom of a cardboard box stuffed somewhere deep inside his mother’s dusty attic back in Macclesfield. The concept of Matty kissing him is just the delusion of a madman who has started actually believing in his own utopian version of reality.
“Ross,” Matty whispers, after a short while, and that’s when Ross opens his eyes. Matty’s own are half-closed too, crinkled into a smile that lights up his entire face. His mouth is open, his chest is rising and falling quicker, and his heartbeat underneath Ross’s ribs feels like it’s changed gears. He looks ever so slightly flustered. He’s never looked more beautiful.
“Matty,” Ross says, in a shallow, almost noiseless breath. “What’s happening?”
Matty chuckles softly as he plants another ephemeral kiss on Ross’s face, on his cheekbone this time. “What do you think is happening?”
Not really taking any time to think it through, his lips still stinging from a kiss that most certainly happened inside his head, Ross replies, “I’m lying on top of you.”
“Yes. And?”
“And I’m kinda crushing you.”
“Yes. Aaand…”
“And you… like it?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why do you like it?”
“Because I like you.”
“No,” Ross replies, pulling away a bit more so he can look at Matty’s entire face again.
“No?” Matty echoes. He is smiling, but he also looks quite puzzled. Like he’s thinking of a hundred different things at once.
Instantly, Ross feels himself flushing. His breathing quickens, his hands on either side of Matty’s head close into fists. Silly fool. Stupid idiot. Why did he say that out loud?
“I mean… You like girls.” Oh, God. This is even worse.
Thankfully, Matty seems to find it endearing because he laughs softly, breathing out hard through his nose. “Correct,” he says, one of his hands landing back on Ross’s cheek. “But I also like you. A lot. A lot more than I like anyone else.”
“Is that…” Ross trails off, shaking his head and pulling away from Matty a little more, until he’s on his knees between Matty’s spread legs. Until he isn’t close enough to breathe Matty in anymore. Tea, chocolate biscuits Heavy eyelids, a hazy smile. No. No. There’s a knot in his throat that feels like it belongs there. Nostalgic as summer nights and cheap vodka and youthful optimism. Eighteen, hopeful, devastated.
“What?” Matty asks, crossing his legs and sitting straight, his eyeline barely reaching Ross’s chest. He looks smaller than ever. More fragile, more vulnerable. Needier. “What is it?”
“Is that…” Ross starts again and then stops, breathing in sharply and scratching the top of his thighs through his jeans. The silence is loud and the noise is jarring. He hates the sound nails make as they scrape against denim. And he also hates the sound of silence. “Is that why you kissed me?”
Matty reaches both hands out to touch Ross’s chest and Ross briefly wonders if his heart is going to leap out. “No,” Matty says, simply, with a small smile.
“No?” Ross echoes, his chest inflating against Matty’s palms. No?
“No,” Matty repeats. “I… I kissed you because I needed to.”
At that, Ross’s heart doesn’t leap out of his chest: it sinks to the bottom of his stomach. “You needed to.”
“Yeah. I needed to.”
“Because you were cold,” Ross provides, awfully close to tears.
A quizzical look blooms on Matty’s face. “Because—”
“You were cold and needed me to warm you up. I get it. Well, I hope you feel better. I think I’m going to head to bed now, goodnight,” Ross says, in what feels like one single breath, before rising so he can unfold his legs from underneath himself and get up. But before he can step away from the couch, Matty grabs his wrist and gently pulls him back down. And before he can compute what’s happening, Matty is kissing him again—firmer, fiercer, noisier, deeper. Matty’s hands are in his hair and Matty’s chest is pressed against his chest and Matty’s taste is in his mouth, tea, chocolate biscuits and, somewhere in there, something that vaguely feels like sincerity. So, once more, because he can’t really control what he wants, Ross lets himself believe. He closes both hands on Matty’s hips and pulls him closer still, and then he opens his mouth and Matty’s there, too, sweet and bitter but not bittersweet. Tea and chocolate biscuits.
Matty kisses Ross like he’s trying to make a point—long, hard, breathy, handsy, coming back for more every time they’re forced to pull apart for air.
Ross kisses Matty like he’s always wanted to—soft, delicate, heavy with meaning, somewhat unbelieving.
He knows there’s a lot more he should say to Matty; a lot more he should ask, too. He knows this is probably not right. That it’s circumstantial, fortuitous. That it could have been anyone else, if Ross hadn’t been there. That Matty is lying when he says he likes Ross more than he likes other people. Why would he? Girls are pretty and they smell nice and they do whatever Matty asks them to. Hann is older and cooler and a more accomplished musician than any of them. And George, well: George is a genius. George creates the circumstances. George makes his own luck. George is… George is so much better than anybody else—Ross very much included. Because Ross is just Ross. Ross is an underdog, and he’s always been okay with it. And the fact that Matty is now trying to lie to him about what Ross means to him is quite cruel, really.
And yet, in that moment, none of it seems to matter. The thoughts are there, floating around inside Ross’s head and around it, too, like a swirling cloud, thick and heavy and slate grey. The cloud is moving in, closer and closer and faster and faster but, somehow, it’s not showing any intention of actually raining. It’s just there, looming over him, over them, their wet lips brushing together and the softness of that beanie that soon gets discarded and the hypnotising coils of those perfect curls erupting from between Ross’s fingers and the softness of the skin of Matty’s lower back giving in under the pressure of Ross’s splayed palm. It’s there, and it’s menacing, but it’s also so not important. Because Ross is kissing Matty and Matty is kissing Ross and Matty said he needed to, wherever that means—and that, for the time being, is more than enough.
“Ross,” Matty says, at some point, just when it feels like if they don’t stop kissing they will never, ever be able to. “Ross.”
Opening his eyes again, Ross feels like he’s woken up from an endless sleep. “Matty.”
“I want you to know… I didn’t mean it like that.” He pauses for a moment, visibly awaiting an interruption. And Ross feels that too: it’s stuck in his throat, a huge lump of an interruption struggling to get out—but he doesn’t let it, so Matty is free to continue. “It’s not like you said. It’s not like that.”
“Like what?” Ross asks, because, for what feels like the first time in ten years, Matty seems to need a nudge to let the words out.
“I didn’t need to kiss you because I was cold. I needed to kiss you because I needed to know if you would kiss me back. Because I do. I really, really like you, and I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to figure it all out, but I’m here now, and I’m sure, and I’m—”
“Okay,” Ross interrupts him, surprised at his own directness and assurance. To punctuate his meaning, he presses another lingering kiss on Matty’s lips, cradling Matty’s face in both hands. “Okay.” The most absurd thing he’s ever had to accept. And yet the easiest.
“Okay?” Matty echoes, confused.
“Yeah. I get it now, and I’m sorry. I just… I thought you would never, you know.”
“That I would never what?”
“Like me back.”
“Oh,” Matty lets out, his eyebrows raising in realisation. For a while, it looks like he’s watching a film of their life, trying to piece it all together. But then he asks, “How long?”
“Since the first day I met you.” Ross leans in, pressing his forehead into Matty’s temple. It’s a way to be closer to him; it’s also a way to hide his face. “I’m sorry I never said anything.”
“Hey, hey,” Matty says, holding Ross’s face in both hands and forcing eye contact again. “I’m sorry for not making you feel like you could. It’s been a while for me, too, by the way.”
Despite the gravity of the moment, it all feels a bit silly. The years, the anger, the fear, the rancour. Nothing matters anymore. Just Matty, now, telling Ross what Ross never thought he’d ever hear. So Ross just shakes his head and laughs, softly at first, and then a little louder, and soon enough Matty’s laughing too, and he’s kissing Ross again, more carefully now, as if he was trying to preserve Ross, preserve the moment, preserve them.
“I need you,” Matty whispers, between kisses, the tips of his fingers sinking into Ross’s beard.
“I need you too,” Ross replies, pushing him back down on the couch.
As they kiss again, Matty smiles—and Ross finally understands what it’s like to get what he needs.