“Look, do you want to go for a walk? I want to see the town. Eye-level.”

Ransom had me feeling like I was ditching school. When he’d called this morning, it felt like being sixteen again: That sense of excitement, of breaking all the rules, obeying the authority of one’s own interest and desire.

Of course, I couldn’t be too devil-may-care, so my whole morning had been spent gearing up for the big Oceanside Celebrates Ransom Pope project, updating websites and sending out graphics for approval. It was the busiest my job had been in a while, and the house showed it: There were baskets of laundry to be done, there were dishes needing to be washed, and a thousand toys (from both baby and dog) on the living room floor. At least all species had been fed, Isabel had been walked twice, and Jojo had been changed and dressed. A hectic morning, and there was still so much to do.

Yet I was dropping it all for a chance to see Ransom again.

Time alone with Ransom, what would that even be like?

It wasn’t until I heard the doorbell that I realized I hadn’t changed out of the old flannel shirt I’d been wearing since rolling out of bed this morning. Or brushed my hair.

Before I had time to worry too much about my slovenly appearance, though, I’d opened the door. Ransom clearly had put some time and thought into what he was wearing. Either that, or he was just beautiful all the time and couldn’t help it. He wore a thin linen blazer in khaki over a soft open-collar shirt, with a burgundy pocket square, and big sunglasses pushed up so that I could see his icy eyes. I couldn’t imagine getting that dressed up, to go for a walk.

He gave me one glance and smiled. “Am I too early?”

The playful look in his eyes let me know that even though he knew I’d worried about how I looked, he wasn’t judging me, and I instantly relaxed. Well, almost instantly. I couldn’t help but notice the three cars in front of my house, and passers-by beginning to stare.

Letting him in, I said, “You’re lucky I remembered to put on anything. I’m not the most organized person these days.”

“It would have been tragic to see you showing up in your boxers,” he said.

Isabel acted like they were old friends, running up to him and doing a little dance on her hind legs. Jojo was sitting on his blanket, playing with cars. He raised a car in one of his pudgy little hands and said, “Bah!” to Ransom.

“Bah to you too,” Ransom said.

I realized I’d left a basket of laundry on the sofa, and quickly tried to whisk it out of sight. “Sorry about that,” I said.

“A single basket? I don’t want to think about how my place would look if I were responsible for my own laundry. Stop apologizing. Actually, speaking of apologizing: I have something to tell you, and you’re probably going to want to kill me...”

My heart sank a little. “Oh no, do you have to cancel?”

“No, not at all. It’s just, Giselle has asked if she can come with us.”

What could I say? I couldn’t tell him no, without sounding strange and needy. After all, as I couldn’t seem to stop reminding myself, there was nothing actually between us, right?

“As a chaperone?” I asked, trying to keep things light.

That made him laugh. “I didn’t think about it, but that’s a good way to put it. But also, I owe her. We had a little fight last night. Now I’ve got to make it up to her.”

I peeked out the curtain again at the cars, and the little crowd which had doubled in size. “What do I wear, to take a stroll with a supermodel? Should I dig out a suit, or--”

“Don’t change a thing,” he said. “Well, maybe do something with your hair.”

* * *

“I suppose if you didn’t want to do anything, it would be a lovely town,” said Giselle. Her tone of arch amusement kept her words from stinging quite as much as they should’ve, but then, she’d taken such an instant liking to Isabel that it was hard to hold anything against her. She’d scooped up the puppy and called her a darling. Small fluffy dogs were very in at the moment, and I had the oddest sense that fostering Isabel had earned some small point in my favor.

Jojo found Giselle fascinating and kept leaning out of his stroller to get a look at her. Babies must not be very in right now, though, because aside from a vague greeting, Giselle hadn’t had much to say to him.

We were skirting the edge of downtown, where the businesses gave way to neighborhoods and little shops that had taken over houses. I couldn’t help but be conscious of the cars following us, slowly, creeping behind, although Ransom’s security team had done something to make the fans go away.

“There was always plenty to do,” said Ransom. “It’s the ocean. Swimming, fishing, just hanging out, we always found stuff to do.”

“That’s not what you said when we were kids!” I countered, and that made him laugh.

“Do people still go out to the Rock?” he asked.

“Not people my age,” I said. The tall finger of stone, rising from the water a few dozen yards from shore, had always been a point of fascination for us as kids, the subject of countless dares and double-dares. “Although I read in the paper a couple of weeks ago that some tourists swam out to it, but then got trapped when the tide came in.”

“It was a graduation night ritual,” Ransom explained to Giselle. “You’d get a few six-packs and swim out to the Rock. There was just enough room for a few of you to stand up and drink, and then hopefully swim back before the tide changed.”

“But that’s horrible!” she said. “Did you throw the plastic rings away properly, or did you toss them in the water like a turtle-killing heathen?”

“Of course, Ransom never actually graduated,” I said, “so he was spared that ethical dilemma. I never went out there either. The rip tides are bad on that side of the beach. It’s funny how much mental space certain things take up when you’re a kid. I thought about the Rock all the time when I was little. You heard so many warnings about it, growing up. Someone’s always daring you to swim out to it, or calling you chicken when you won’t do it...then suddenly one day you’re in college and you realize you haven’t thought about the Rock in months. You’ve officially become too old to worry about it.”

I watched Giselle extract a cigarette case from her small purse, but before I could say anything, she glanced at the stroller and put it away.

“Where did you grow up?” I asked her. “Probably somewhere a lot nicer than this.”

At that, Ransom burst out with a laugh, and Giselle glared at him.

“Not one word, Ransom Pope,” she said.

“Did I say something wrong?” I asked.

Disregarding her warning, Ransom grabbed my arm and pulled me close. “The fabulous Giselle Richter, internationally known supermodel, is slightly less European than one might think.”

“I should have brought a nondisclosure agreement with us on this walk,” she sighed.

“Gracie Richter, as she’s known on her birth certificate, is from the excitingly cosmopolitan land of Ohio,” he said to me. “Keep that in mind the next time she disses Oceanside.”

“Is it wrong to want something better than the land of one’s youth?” she asked, clearly feeling injured and ready to strike back.

“Better, or just more flashy?” Ransom said. It almost felt like they were about to fight, and I was glad Jojo had dozed off on the walk.

“Hey look, it’s the school,” I said, grateful for the distraction.

“Whoa,” said Ransom, staring down the street at the old brick building. He suddenly stopped walking, and we were all a pace ahead of him when we realized. “It’s like deja vu, except I’ve actually been here before.”

Giselle gave him a skeptical look. “I think they call that memory.”

“It looks exactly the same,” he said. “Somehow I thought it would be run-down. Abandoned. Haunted.”

“Still in use,” I said, gesturing at the cars in the parking lot. “Some of our teachers are even still there. Mr. Hastings just retired last year; he went to Arizona to live with his sister.”

“Ugh, I hated that man,” said Ransom. “Although suddenly I can’t remember why.”

“Because he was always trying to get you to read, and you found that really anti-intellectual.”

That brought a broad smile to Ransom’s face. “What a dumb kid I was back then.”

“You weren’t dumb,” I said. I almost said I wouldn’t have fallen for you if you were dumb, but I couldn’t, not in front of Giselle. Did she know anything about that time? I was sure she didn’t.

“He certainly reads these days,” she said. “Every review that comes out, he reads and memorizes, so that he can torture you with it later.”

“You know whose class I really hated, though,” he said. “Mrs. Abnagale, geometry.”

An involuntary shudder went through me. “Proofs,” I said with horror.

“Class,” Ransom said in a high-pitched voice that sounded almost demonic with his raspy throat, “given that point M is the midpoint of line segments AD and BC, which form two triangles, prove that Ransom is bound to fail this class.”

“She was so mean,” I said. “You could tell she longed for the days when teachers smacked kids’ hands with rulers.”

“It was bad enough for her to tell you how badly you were going to fail at life if you didn’t understand triangles. That was the class that convinced me I couldn’t do math. I bombed everything after that.”

“Too bad you didn’t stick it out,” I said. “Mr. Reynolds in Algebra was so much better.”

I paused, a little embarrassed. Of course he didn’t stick it out. He left. When I looked at him, though, he seemed lost in thought, staring at the old building.

The sound of a camera shutter snapping interrupted his reverie, and he looked over at Giselle who had just taken his picture. “More pictures for the gossip sites?” he asked.

“No, just trying to entertain myself on this jaunt down memory lane. Isabel understands. Look at her. She’s bored to tears.”

In fact, Isabel seemed to be worn out by this walk. I knelt down and picked her up. She was pretty small, and we’d come a long way.

“I wonder if I should take her home,” I said. “Between her and Jojo, most of my household is dozing off.”

Suddenly, at the idea of being free from this walk, the ice seemed to melt from Giselle’s tone. She was almost convincingly gracious when she said, “It was lovely to see you again, Cave. Your little dog, too. And the baby, of course.”

“I’ll walk you back,” said Ransom.

“Thanks,” she said, “but I think I’ll take one of the cars.”

He laughed. “I was talking to Cave.”

She rolled her eyes and patted him on the shoulder. “I should have known you weren’t going to be chivalrous with washed-up old me,” she said. “I’ll go nag Toby for a while.”

“Alone at last,” he whispered, waving as she got in the car.

* * *

“Your voice is sounding better,” I said. “Do you want some tea?”

“Do you have coffee? My manager is being very stingy with the caffeine.”

We were back at the house, and he joined me in the kitchen as I measured out coffee grounds. “Does it really sound better? I wonder if it’s the sea air,” he said, touching his throat.

“You’re not whispering, for one thing,” I said. “Still a little hoarse, but you’ve been sounding like one of those guys who makes obscene phone calls.”

“I’ve been singing, if you can call it that. I sound like I’ve been smoking three packs a day since I was eight years old.”

I looked over at him. “Could be an improvement though, right? A soulful, sultry voice?”

He laughed and accepted a cup of coffee from me. “An improvement? Are you saying you don’t like my usual crystalline tones?”

“Well, I, um...”

“And that was officially too long a pause for the answer to be a happy one,” he said.

“No, I just--”

“I mean, I’m a professional, Cave, I know not everyone likes my music. It doesn’t hurt me at all to know that you don’t. It doesn’t stab me right...here...in the heart,” he said, poking himself in the chest with his finger.

“I’m not sure that’s your heart,” I said. I reached over and moved his finger closer to the center of his chest. “There.”

His hand closed over mine. “I’m really glad to see you again. I’m sorry if it was awkward with Giselle.”

I was happy and confused at the same time. The moment I was alone with him, the questions started echoing in my head. His hand on mine, for instance. That wasn’t part of catching up. That wasn’t walking the town, talking about old times. What was it? My hand was against his chest. His heart was beating fast.

So excited, yet part of me didn’t understand. I didn’t understand what was going on with Giselle. The fact that we had managed to reminisce about everything but our relationship felt strange to me, as though by some unspoken agreement we had agreed to hide it from her. Who was she, to him? He’d said earlier a distraction, but what did that mean? What about all the girls he’d been with, the long string of them who had slinked through tabloid after tabloid?

I didn’t understand what was going on, yet I felt like if I asked a question about it, I might break the spell. He might pull away, his hand slipping from mine.

I wondered if I could get away with kissing him. Just once. It was so wrong. I was setting myself up for so much hurt, wasn’t I?

Before I could stop myself, I leaned slightly towards him towards him. But I was saved by a familiar sound at the kitchen door.

Jojo was in the doorway, his face fallen, beginning to sniffle. His favorite car was in one hand, and one of its tires in the other. “Bah?” he said, his eyes welling with tears.

“I know that look,” said Ransom, sweeping the baby up into his arms. “That’s the look all the girls in the audience get when I announce my last number!”

Jojo sniffled but did not launch into a full-blown cry. Instead, he reached down and grabbed the pocket square from Ransom’s blazer. “Gah…. dah?” he asked, studying the square of material carefully, rubbing it between his pudgy fingers before deciding to give it a tentative taste.

“How did you do that?” I asked, grateful for the interruption to whatever had been about to happen in the kitchen.

“Do what?” said Ransom.

“He hates it when his car breaks. How did you calm him down...instantly?”

He looked at Jojo. “Can this be true? You’re not a crier, are you, little man? Somebody as happy as you?”

When he poked Jojo’s belly, baby-laughter filled in the room. This was seriously amazing. It was like discovering a whole new technology of babies.

“You’re a natural,” I told Ransom.

“I’m very popular in the 0-1 demographic,” he said, ruffling Jojo’s fine hair.

I brought the coffee into the living room, while Ransom sat with Jojo on the loveseat, Jojo unfolding the pocket square, while I watched in amazement. Isabel had come in from the kitchen and curled up nearby. She was exhausted from the walk, but still wanted to be near us.

“If you ever leave music, you have a bright career in babysitting waiting for you,” I said.

“I guess I have to leave since my music causes you actual physical pain.”

“You should see a doctor about that wounded ego,” I said.

He grinned mischievously at me. That playful light in his eyes woke something in me, something I hadn’t even realized had been asleep. It brought back so many old memories, but memories that were sensations rather than pictures, like the way my biceps had felt that one time when he’d fallen into my arms unexpectedly at the beach, and I’d stumbled back, finally falling into the sand, laughing. It made me feel alive. I wanted to leap on him, to wrestle, to pull him down to the ground.

Of course, the fact that he was holding my baby put a damper on that. It also made it weirder, put all kinds of domestic ideas in my head. He really looked right holding Jojo. What would it be like, having Ransom here full-time? How would he fit into the little family picture I had in my head, me and Jojo (and Isabel, at least until her two weeks of foster-hood was up)?

Now that we were half a room apart, it felt safe enough to ask him about his girlfriend. “So,” I said, not sure how to begin. “Giselle? Your...girlfriend? That you said was a distraction?”

“Is there an actual question there, or are you just lilting your voice after every few words?”

I looked around the room as though some object I spotted might imbue me with the bravery to ask the question. Finally, I just blurted it: “Are you actually together? You didn’t hold hands or touch at all unless there was a camera out. Is that an impossibly awkward question? I’m sorry.”

“It’s hard to talk about,” Ransom said. He looked down at Jojo, and said in a sing-song voice, “Sometimes, when mommies and daddies are very famous and don’t have time or interest in real relationships, their managers will arrange a boyfriend or girlfriend, and the whole world comes to see them and take their pictures.”

Jojo enjoyed this explanation, and clapped his hands happily, before deciding he wanted his cars again. Ransom set him on the floor.

“You’re not actually going out with her?” I asked.

He shook his head. “She’s an assignment. An arrangement. Something for the world to chew on so they’ll forget how bad my voice has become.”

I sighed and rose from my chair. Even with our history, I wasn’t sure how to ask what I needed to know. I found I couldn’t face him right this second, and I walked over to the window to glance out.

“Wow, those people are all back,” I said, suddenly distracted. There were only two cars out there now that Giselle had taken one home, but the crowd had returned. They varied in age, but it seemed like all of them had either a camera or a phone pointed at my house. I quickly shut the curtain.

He had risen and joined me by the window. He brushed the curtain aside an inch and glanced out. “Occupational hazard,” he said. “Don’t worry, as soon as I leave, they’ll forget you ever existed.”

“Cheerful thought,” I said. My entire body was aware how close he was to me. Did he feel it? He couldn’t, I thought. No way my presence was as exciting as his was. My arm nearest him seemed to tingle, the hairs rising. He was like a lightning strike right next to me. And as soon as he left...would he forget I existed?

I had to say it. I had to ask my question. It was a valid question, after all, he’d asked to come see me, it wasn’t the other way around. I wasn’t being stupid, was I?

“Ransom...are all these girlfriends fake? Are you straight? Bi? The curiosity is killing me.”

He burst out with a laugh so loud it woke Isabel up. Jojo looked over at us a little nervously.

“Oh god, Cave. Have you been sitting there this whole time worrying if I’m straight?”

“Honestly, I don’t know! I get such strange vibes off you! You have to admit, there is a long, long string of supermodels in your wake.”

Ransom shook his head, smiling. “Dude, it’s brand synergy. Everybody wins. The women I’m with get a lot more visibility for their careers, and I...”

I looked at him. “Your voice trailed off there.”

“And I don’t have a lot of gay rumors swirling around me. I think that’s the phrase. The rumors are always described as swirling.”

“What, would that be the end of the world?”

“Honestly? For me, it might be. Fans are weird, Cave. They have to be able to maintain a plausible fantasy about you.”

What I was feeling right then was complicated. My plausible fantasy about Ransom had involved him admitting he was gay, sure. Watching him on the news with all his women, I’d worried that our time together back in school had been nothing but experimentation. Still, it was one thing to worry that someone was straight, quite another to find out they were...lying? Was that even the right word?

My reaction must have been plain on my face because he reached out and touched my arm. “Okay, something’s going on in your head,” he said. “I can tell because of all the frowning. What’s up?”

“Doesn’t it bother you at all?” I asked. “Do you date any guys, or is it all this...this brand synergy?”

He touched my chin. “I can’t tell if you’re jealous or morally offended.”

“I guess it’s all new to me,” I said. “Keeping secrets, stuff like that. So if we ever went out on a date--”

“Do you want to?”

“Do I what?”

“Want to go on a date. An actual date. Just you and me. No offense, Jojo.”

“Jojojojo!”

“Well, I mean...”

That made him laugh. “I love this,” he said. “I missed you.”

Glancing up, I said, “That’s not the reaction I expected.”

“You were always the most thoughtful person I knew,” Ransom said. “I was always talking about honesty and integrity, being up against a world of fakers, but you were the person who actually thought about things. I love that you have trouble with my lifestyle. You should! It’s so artificial and weird from the outside! To me, it makes perfect sense, and it’s part of the sacrifice I make to be able to make music.”

I had to laugh at that. “So it doesn’t bother you that I feel a little weird about all this?”

“Dude, if you didn’t feel weird, if you were just like, I’m gonna date a star!, then I would be worried. Because it wouldn’t be you anymore.”

His fingers moved to my jaw. They were electric. It was all I could do not to grab him. Why can’t you? I asked myself. Fear, maybe? Or was it just that I’d become unaccustomed to a man’s touch, over the past months?

Maybe it was because I couldn’t tell the difference between temptation and desire. Did I want this because I wanted it, or did I want it because it was forbidden to people like me?

Can’t let fear stop you. Can’t let being unaccustomed stop you, either. I kissed him.

Last time, it had been the briefest, softest thing. A little fond goodbye kiss.

Not this time.

I drew him close to me, away from the window and the world of prying eyes, and felt his arms slipping around my shoulders. When our lips touched, my entire body was lit up. I was so hungry for him. He responded in kind, his eager tongue finding mine, his fingers caressing the back of my neck. I had not felt so focused in so long, the entire world darkened except for us. All. this pent-up desire, struggling to release itself in this contact of finger to throat, chest to chest, lip to lip to cheek to chin.

When we parted to take a breath, our foreheads touched, and he nuzzled me. “Don’t be afraid of this,” he whispered.

“I’m not,” I said, and I meant it as a promise rather than a statement: I won’t be afraid of this.

My naked desire for him was so obvious. My cock strained against my jeans. I longed to pull him down on top of me, to feel the touch of his bare skin.

The doorbell brought me back to reality with a crash. Almost like we’d been caught, we both dropped our hands and stepped away from each other, at the same time laughing at that old instinct.

Ransom glanced guiltily over at Jojo, who wasn’t paying a bit of attention to us but was rolling his car around for Isabel. “Hope you weren’t scarred for life just now,” he said to Jojo.

“What a madhouse!” said my mom, hustling into the house the moment I unlocked the door. “I was scared I wouldn’t be able to make it up the walk.”

“Sorry about that, Mrs. Mathis,” said Ransom. “I guess that’s my fault.”

“Ransom Pope,” she said fondly. Even though she’d never known what happened between me and Ransom back at school, she’d known we were friends, and that I was sad when he left, so he’d counted as a Good Person in her mind. “You’ve done awful well for yourself, haven’t you. But can’t you make all those people out front go away? I’m worried they’ll scratch my car.”

He laughed. “I worry the same thing. Give me a sec, I’ll talk to my security guys. They’re good at getting crowds to move.”

“A security guard!” she said, chortling. “Just like I was a famous movie star! Oh, Cave, we’d better enjoy our brush with fame while we can!”

I was still a little shaken by the interruption. “What’s up, mom?”

“Can’t a mother--a grandmother--stop by and see her two favorite boys? But I didn’t realize you were having famous company! How are his teeth?”

“Jojo’s?”

“No, dear, I’m asking about Ransom’s teeth. Of course Jojo’s.”

“He’s been doing pretty well today. He napped a little on our walk. I think the ibuprofen is helping.”

“You’re over-medicating that child. Ice and chewing, that’s all he needs.” She glanced over at Ransom, who was peeking through the curtain and talking on his phone. “Do you need me to babysit, so you can catch up with your friend?”

I tried to hide my excitement. “Oh, if it’s no bother...”

“No, I was just on my way to the store and thought I’d drop by and see what you needed. Pack him up, he can go with me.”

Maybe I packed a little too fast, because she watched me with an amused look on her face, buckling Jojo into his carrier while I gathered the diaper bag and toys.

“Have a good time with Grandma,” I told him, and he laughed and clapped.

“And you boys have a good time too,” she said. “It must be nice, catching up on old times. All my friends stayed in Oceanside their whole lives, so we have nothing to catch up on!”

She patted my cheek as she left. Within seconds, a man in a black suit with dark glasses had a hand on my mom’s shoulder, guiding her safely through the crowd to her car.

The minute the door was closed, we were back together. Not even time for a quip or joke. I went straight into his arms, throwing my head back as he kissed my throat.

“Finally, I get you to myself a little while,” he said.

But we were not going to be allowed an uninterrupted moment. His phone began to buzz urgently. At first he ignored it, as he attacked me with his lips and tongue, but after a moment it became clear that whoever it was, would not leave us alone. “Maybe you’d better get that,” I said, my eyes still closed.

He stepped away and took the call. “Yeah? I’m at my friend’s house. Yes, Cave, that friend. Well of course there’s a crowd, Toby. Look, I’m sure Giselle is mad, she’s bored out of her skull. Find something to entertain her. No, something other than me. For fuck’s sake, Toby. Oh, come on. Nothing like that would even happen.”

By the time the call ended, he looked like wanted to throw the phone across the room. Far from having calmed down since our last kiss, I found myself drawn to his intense, angry expression. There was such strength in him, I pictured him taking out his frustrations by ripping my clothes off. I was immediately hard again.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

He opened his mouth as though to tell me, then shook his head and turned away. “It’s complicated,” he said.

“Who was it?”

“My manager. He’s all freaked out that there’s a crowd outside taking pictures.”

“It’s a lovely house,” I said. “Who wouldn’t take pictures? I picked out the bougainvillea myself.”

He wasn’t in a joking mood. No playfulness now. “Giselle told him she feels abandoned, she had a dreadful time on our walk, I’m not paying any attention to her.”

“You’re not leaving, are you?” I asked.

He was already halfway to the door. “I have to. Toby’s furious, and there really are way too many people out there, and--”

I was faster than him. I got between him and the exit. “Stay,” I said.

He stopped and gave me a lopsided grin. “I want to, but I can’t.”

I put my hand over his chest, an echo of the gesture from earlier. “You can do anything you want to. Do you want to stay?”

“You know I do.”

It was my turn to give him a playful look. I reached behind me and turned the deadbolt until it clicked. “There. Now you’re trapped with me.”

“But dude, all those people outside--”

I slid my hands under his blazer until I could feel the muscles of his back. “They can wait. Look, I heard your tone of voice when you were talking to your manager. This might really be it. You might walk out the door forever. Again.”

“Nah, I’ll call you, we’ll set something up--”

I pulled him close. “Stay. Just a few minutes. Soon enough you’re going to leave Oceanside, and I’ll never get this chance again. I’m not asking for much. Just...stay.”

He didn’t require any more convincing. His fingers found my shirt and began to unbutton it, top to bottom, right there by the door. I was nervous, I had to admit it, but as he slid the shirt off my shoulders, a look of appreciation spread over his face.

“Damn,” he said. “They must have some good gyms in Oceanside.”

“Picking up toys is a lot of exercise.”

I led him to the bedroom. I hadn’t really thought of how tiny my bed was before, but frankly, at this point, I was too excited by his presence to care. He shed his blazer, and I helped him out of his shirt, before pulling him down onto the mattress. Our legs entwined as we kissed, and I let him take the lead he so clearly wanted to, letting myself lay back as he ran his hand down my chest, my eyes closed as his lips touched me.

He explored me with those lips, slowly moving down my midline, his hands ahead of him, further down, now finding my cock, squeezing it through my jeans. Then he chuckled, which surprised me. “Do you remember that time in the locker room?” he asked.

“What, back at school?” I said, opening my eyes and looking down at him.

“We were supposed to be changing after gym, but somehow we were the last two guys in there after the bell rang to change classes.”

My head fell back on the pillow. “I remember that. We were so...what’s the word, furtive. Seeing you with your towel wrapped around your waist, I couldn’t help but touch your cock, even though I was terrified we’d get caught.”

His hand slipped into my jeans and found my cock.

“You were already dressed,” he said. “Had on your cute little preppy clothes, your khakis, and a polo shirt, all tucked in and ready for class. We knew we had maybe three minutes alone before someone showed up. You pushed aside the towel and started blowing me, right there in the locker room.”

He unbuttoned me and pushed my pants down. I had the strangest sense of being in two places at once; in bed with Ransom, but also, somehow, back at school.

“I couldn’t get enough of you back then,” I said. I still can’t, I thought, feeling his warm hands toying with my hard cock.

“You were sucking so fast, and I had my hands on your head, just fucking your mouth as hard as I could. You loved that, you always wanted me to be a little rough. But then, just as I was starting to come, we thought we heard somebody, and I backed off.”

“Except you were already coming,” I remembered. “You stepped back, but your cock started spurting. God, there was so much of it, all over my nice new shirt, dribbling down onto my pants, it was like you wouldn’t stop spurting.”

“I couldn’t help it, the danger had me so turned on,” he said. “You were such a fucking mess.”

When his lips found me, back here in the present, there was no more talking. His tongue was so hot against my shaft, and I lifted my hips, wanting him to suck me off.

I’d changed back into my gym clothes back then, shoving my school clothes into one of the sinks, trying to get everything clean, but it was just impossible. I ended up claiming someone had stolen my clothes and wore my gym shorts and t-shirt the rest of the day.

With anyone else, it might have been embarrassing, humiliating, but not with Ransom. With him, it was always worth it. Now, as his tongue worked back up my shaft, and he began to take my cock into his mouth, it felt right, almost destined, that he should be here with me. My fingers entwined in his hair, and I pressed myself forward, going deep into his mouth, the way he used to do with me.

As much as I wanted him to suck on me, though, I couldn’t bear not to see him, not to see all of him, and I sat up, reaching forward to unbuckle his belt. He came off my cock just long enough to help me. I slid downwards, nuzzling the dark hair between his legs, my tongue finding his cock, even as he returned to mine.

That sense of utter rightness returned, as we sucked on each other. He tasted so much the same. I think his cock had gotten bigger in the intervening years, but I had memorized its rise and curve, the way even at his hardest, the flare of his head was soft beneath my tongue. The salty taste of his little slit as my tongue ran across it. Such a strange mix of urgency and nostalgia right then, as though the past had come rushing forward.

Still, he was sucking on me so eagerly, so hungrily, it was hard not to focus entirely on that. I got a hand behind his ass and pressed, urging him to shove himself into my mouth. He obliged, and my hand felt the tension in his hips as he thrust forward, letting his cock hit the back of my throat. I had that old sensation of being half-overwhelmed by the size of it, before beginning to suck and swallow and meet his thrusts with eagerness.

If I could have drawn the moment out forever, I would have. But how? It had been a long, long time, and his expert tongue was hot against my cock head, and there was just no holding back any longer. With a groan, I let him fall from my mouth, at the same time I jerked forward, shoving my full length between his lips, feeling my climax overcome me. There was no control to it, instinct had taken over, and I was fully fucking his mouth, my come pouring out of me as he drank it down. I whimpered and cried out, clutching onto his ass and thigh to steady myself as my orgasm shuddered through me.

I fell back, eyes open, mouth open, staring at the ceiling, letting the little aftershocks tremble through my hips. “Oh my god,” I whispered.

He crawled up the bed until we were face to face. That playful look was back in his eyes. “I remember this other thing we used to do,” he said, his knee pressing gently, separating my legs. His cock, needing its turn, stood firm, ready to fuck me.

“I remember that too,” I said, almost unable to talk.

“Where do you keep your stuff?” he said.

I think my laughter startled him. “My stuff,” I said. “Oh, god, Ransom.”

“You know, like your rubbers and--”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s just...I haven’t slept with anybody in a year. I don’t even have any lube, at this point.”

He looked down at me, almost sternly. “No condoms? No lube? What exactly were you expecting to happen here?”

“Um...catching up on old times, remember? I didn’t think I’d actually be able to get you in bed, let alone get fucked by you!”

He chuckled and came down, lying with half his weight on me, his cock pressed against my leg. “Got any plastic bags, maybe some olive oil?”

“Do you need me to call our old Health class teacher and get him to explain to you why plastic bags aren’t an adequate substitute for condoms?”

Before he could answer, I rolled him onto his back. I didn’t give him a moment to protest, just worked my way right back down to his hard cock. I licked it, from the very tip down to below the base, letting my tongue lave his full, ready balls.

Now that my own need had been satiated, I could give him my full attention, and that’s exactly what I did. I remembered that spot, just beneath his sack, that used to drive him crazy if you pressed on it while blowing him. It was like some perfect muscle memory, this combination of hands and mouth, going down on him, making him groan and strain and toss his head from side to side. “Fuck, Cave, you remembered the spot,” he said, his voice almost gone.

I was in control. No face-fucking from Ransom this time, just me remembering every little move he used to love, the spiraling of my tongue, weaving so that every inch of him got licked and sucked, while his fingers grabbed at the sheets, and a sheen of sweat appeared on his chest. We’d always done this, giving control back and forth, in our desperate desire for each other, desperate to learn what we liked best. He’d taught me so much of what I knew about pleasing someone else, and all those lessons had returned.

By the time he was thrusting upwards, his balls tight, shooting his come, I was swallowing him deeply. I was being swallowed too, in a dark ocean of memory, a warmth I had worried had been lost forever. Pleasuring him, bringing him to this pounding orgasm, letting him fill me with his seed, it was like my entire life had collapsed into one perfect moment. That old sense of being immortal, of being absolutely invulnerable; you lose it as you get older, without really realizing it, until it’s nowhere to be found.

He had given me that feeling back, and as we collapsed into each others’ arms afterward, I realized I never wanted this feeling to end.

There would be time to be rational about it, later. There would be plenty of time for us to admit this had to be temporary, that it couldn’t last, that it was one brief fling.

But for right now, I had him in my arms, and I was not going to let go.