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“Darling, you’re from Texas. You should be able to handle a little heat.”
Henry said it from the shade of their porch swing, iced tea in one hand and one perfectly sculpted brow arched in that unbearable way that made Alex want to kiss it and punch it simultaneously. Possibly both.
Alex, standing several feet away in nothing but swim trunks and pure, sweaty indignation, threw a dramatic hand over his heart. “First of all, I am handling it. Heroically. Second of all, I don't know what kind of British cryptid you are that thrives in one-hundred-degree hellfire while looking like a walking Ralph Lauren ad, but I—” He cut himself off mid-rant, squinting through the haze of heatwaves rising off the lawn. “Okay, are you seriously not sweating? What are you, a sexy desert mirage?”
Henry took a slow sip of his tea, legs crossed like he was judging a polo match and not slowly melting in a Texas backyard. “I’m perspiring,” he replied, in the most regal drawl imaginable. “Elegantly. Like a gentleman. Unlike someone who’s currently dripping on our peonies.”
Alex looked down. His chest—tanned, toned, a bit too proud of itself—was indeed glistening. His curls were sticking to his forehead in a way that was probably illegal in some states. But Henry’s eyes? Still on him. Slowly traveling downward like he was reading Alex’s abs like a very interesting novel.
Alex grinned. “Checking me out, baby?”
Henry didn’t blink. “You make it remarkably easy, sweetheart.” “Oh my god.” Alex dramatically fanned himself. “You’re not helping the heat situation, Your Royal Highness. You keep looking at me like that, and I’ll have to report you for inciting a public indecency. In our own backyard.”
“I’ll write you a very sincere apology letter,” Henry replied, setting down his tea and standing—shirtless, sun-kissed, and thoroughly smug. “Possibly in verse.”
He was in navy trunks and nothing else, lean and golden and so annoyingly fit for a man who claimed to hate physical exertion. As he approached, Alex’s smirk faded into something slightly dazed.
Henry tilted his head. “What’s that face?”
“You,” Alex said, pointing vaguely at his entire being. “Are illegal. Objectively illegal. And I’m a lawyer, so I know.” Henry stopped just close enough for their toes to almost touch. “Then arrest me, darling. Put me in handcuffs. Read me my rights.”
Alex blinked. “I—are you flirting with me using criminal procedure?”
Henry smirked. “Would you prefer tax law?”
“Oh, you dirty talker.”
And then they were kissing, which wasn’t particularly helpful for lowering anyone’s body temperature, but they were both too far gone to care. Alex grabbed Henry’s waist, still slightly damp from the condensation of his glass, and Henry pulled him in with that sigh he always gave when Alex kissed him first—like he was exhaling every other life he could’ve lived before this one.
A cicada shrieked from somewhere in the distance.
The sprinkler kicked on, watering the grass with the lazy rhythm of suburban contentment. Henry broke the kiss first, breathless.
“I meant to tell you, your briefs are drying on my latest manuscript.”
Alex laughed into his neck. “Your novel about tortured queer poets during wartime?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” Alex murmured, licking salt from Henry’s jaw, “they’ve suffered enough.”