My stomach churned as I waited for Ev to say something. Anything. God, I really, really hated this stuff. I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt so vulnerable, and vulnerable was not remotely comfortable.

What I'd said to him was the absolute truth: I was already too into him to turn back, and I’d realized it about ten seconds after my weak-ass bullshit had caused him to flee the bar.

I’d drowned my sorrows in three more beers with Dare, then let him take me home and pour me into bed. I vaguely remembered begging him to get me Reggie’s number, and him laughing in my face and telling me Reggie’s number was the last thing I needed.

Turned out he was right. The next day, I’d woken up nauseous, and not from the beer but from the memory of the expression on Everett's face as he’d walked out. That hadn’t been the face of a guy who didn’t give a shit about me, plain and simple.

And I was a punk-ass weakling who’d hurt a good man because I was afraid I was falling alone.

Maybe Ev was right and I needed to change the way I looked at things, because sometimes lately, it seemed like I put two and two together and got five and a half.

Ev licked his lips and my whole body swayed toward him, just as it always had from literally the first minute we’d met.

I didn’t believe in fate or destiny, but there was something about this connection between us that could maybe change my mind. Every time one of us stepped back, something pulled us together tighter.

“So, let’s just say I was convinced to forgive you,” Ev whispered. He lifted his hands to my wrists where they rested against his waist and neck. “What would that mean?” He swallowed. “For us.”

“Whatever you need it to mean,” I answered promptly. I’d thought of this, too. “I get that you’re here temporarily, and don’t know if you’re ready for a… a relationship, or a friendship, or something in between, but I’ll try to go along with whatever you want.”

“So if I said I wanted to step back? To just be friends?”

Goddamn it. I’d snuck that in there, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

“Then I guess that’s what we’ll be,” I said. I brushed my thumb over his cheek, just memorizing the feeling of it. “We can hang out. Maybe, um… hike and stuff.” I tried for a normal smile. “Watch football, since you seemed so intrigued by it the other day.”

Ev smiled. “Wow.”

“Wow?”

“That’s adorable. You, pretending to make an effort. I’d rate it a B. You’re very sweet, but there’s a distinct lack of enthusiasm.”

“Are you seriously giving me shit for this?” I asked.

His green eyes danced. “I’m just thinking it’s a good thing I don’t just want friendship from you.” He lifted himself on his tiptoes and his mouth was so very close to mine. “I want to go slow because… well, last time I jumped too fast, and I guess I wasn’t ready.”

“Right. Yeah, totally.” Relief flooded my system, filling up all the dark places where my doubts had taken root. “As slow as you want. Just… just as long as I know you’re in this with me. That you feel this too.”

Ev smiled. “Yeah, I'm with you.”

“Good.” I forced myself to release him, to take a step back so I wouldn’t crowd him. Slow, he’d said, and this time I was determined to make sure it happened that way. “So maybe we could get dinner sometime?”

Ev chewed on his lip and studied my face thoughtfully. “What are you doing right now?”

“Uh. Nothing, really.” I looked down at my uniform and then at Ev’s button-down shirt and khaki pants. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well, I thought maybe we could just hang out. Do something relaxing. You look like you need it.”

“Wanna go for a hike?”

His eyes widened. “Uh, no way. Listen, you can say what you like about the disappearances not being connected to the woods, but I don’t think I’ll be spending much time there until John Carpenter and Elliot Marks are found.”

“So where should we go then?”

He smiled, soft and mischievous. “I have an idea,” he said.

* * *

It turned out Everett’s idea involved hanging out at the fenced-in playground right behind the school, complete with a jungle gym, swing set, and merry-go-round. The place was deserted, with every kid eager to flee school for the weekend. The school parking lot was virtually empty, too, since the teachers had also cleared out. It was as private a spot as you could get this close to town, but still…

“Are you kidding me?” I demanded as he sat his ass on a swing and threw me a smile.

“What, are you too cool for playgrounds?”

“Babe, I was too cool for playgrounds back when I was the right age to play on playgrounds.” I ran a hand over the sturdy wood of the play set and jiggled the frame to test for stability before gingerly sitting my bulk down on one of the swings next to him.

“Well, you’re hanging with me now, babe,” he teased. “And I’ve never been cool.”

I laughed and inhaled a deep lungful of the warm autumn air. It smelled like fresh cut grass and reminded me of years spent playing football over at the high school, or kicking a soccer ball with Matty in our backyard.

“So, listen. I have a really important question for you,” Ev said somberly. “And, uh… as much as I like you, your answer to this could really impact the future of this relationship. Are you ready?”

“I guess.”

I’d heard from my mom that she’d invited Everett to the memorial thing she insisted on planning for Matty’s anniversary, so I figured it could be about that.

Or maybe he wanted some level of exclusivity in our relationship, which I was sure I could handle. It felt like a long time since I’d thought of anyone but him anyway.

I steeled myself. “Ask.”

He leaned his head on the chain of the swing and watched me steadily. “If you had to pick three people to be on your team for the zombie apocalypse, who would you pick?”

The breath whooshed out of my lungs. “What?”

“Which three people…”

“I heard you! I mean… that’s your important question?” I narrowed my eyes. “Are you insane?”

“Are you saying that the zombie apocalypse isn’t important? Because, honestly, Si, I was hoping you were smarter than that.” He shook his head sadly.

I blinked in disbelief and he smiled, bright and wide and challenging, all that light and life just inches from me, warming me through.

I scratched the back of my head. “Well, Bruce Campbell, the guy who played Ash in Evil Dead, obviously.”

Ev snorted rudely. “Too obvious.”

“Obvious for a reason. God. You want a job done, you hire an expert.”

“Uh huh. Not impressed,” he said airily. He pumped his legs to make himself swing higher. “Who else?”

I thought for another minute. “Do they have to be real?”

“Like Ash from Evil Dead is real?”

I grinned at his sass and let myself swing slightly. “Fine. Lancelot.”

“From the Knights of the Round Table? Why?”

“In case the bullets run out, obviously. He’s good with a sword.”

Ev made a gagging noise. “That’s gruesome!” he complained.

“Because zombies aren’t gruesome?” I retorted, turning his earlier tone on him.

His laughter rang through the air. “Okay, and number three?”

“That’s tough. But I’m gonna say… Dwight Schrute from The Office. Because he’s a farmer.” I tilted my head and smiled innocently. “So I’ll have food, just in case it takes Ash a minute to kill everyone.”

“He farms beets!” he said. “I’d rather let the zombies get me.”

“Beets are delicious. And anyway, who would you pick? Since clearly you’ve given this considerable thought and done all kinds of research.” I leaned back, making my swing go higher to match his.

“I haven’t, actually, I just made it up right now,” he said, his eyes on mine as he swung faster. “But clearly the only correct answers are Alexander the Great, Dracula, and McSteamy from Gray’s Anatomy.”

I laughed out loud. “Those are the correct answers?”

“Alexander the Great for, you know, strategy. Dracula because they can’t kill him if he’s already undead…”

“And McSteamy to patch up your ouchies?”

“Uh… Yes. Yes, Silas, let’s say that I picked the iconic hot doctor for purely practical medical reasons.”

“Oh, I see how it is. Oh, Hot Doctor McSteamy! The world could end tonight!” I simpered, fluttering my eyelashes. “I don’t wanna die un-fucked!”

He giggled, a light, free sound as he swung higher and higher. “No shit! I’m no idiot. But listen, good luck to you and Dwight. I’m sure you’ll make the most of whatever time you have, also.” He cocked his head. “I wonder if he's a top or a bottom.”

“That's… not… ugh.” I shuddered and he laughed.

“Lancelot might be gentler,” Ev said, deadpan. “If you’re into that kind of thing.”

My mind stuttered, wondering if gentle was something Ev was into… or not.

“There’s only one way to settle a deep, intellectual debate like this one,” I told him once my brain was back online. I swung myself higher and the chains above my head creaked.

“You mean…?”

I nodded. “Playground rules.”

He looked at the flat, open space in front of us and then back to me.

“Whoever jumps the furthest wins? Jesus,” he muttered. “You do remember that I just bruised the shit out of my knee a couple of weeks ago?” But he, too, started swinging higher.

“Oh, shoot, I forgot.” I grinned at him evilly. “Does that mean I win?”

He laughed, breathless. “No fucking way. You’re stronger but I’m lighter. Even odds.”

“Okay, count of three then, lightweight.”

He pumped his feet, frantically gaining height as I counted and then finally, at three, we both let go and flew…

And fell.

I landed on my hands and knees, with Ev sprawled inelegantly on his front a few feet away — in a nearly dead-even tie, not that either of us cared.

The whole situation was so absurd — Officer Silas Sloane, thirty-eight years old, trying to win a zombie debate by playground rules — that I flopped over on my back, stared up at the blue, blue sky and laughed so hard I cried. I couldn’t remember the last time I laughed that hard or that long, just completely giving myself over to it… unless maybe it was the night we met, a few weeks before.

We lay on the grass sniffling and chuckling a few minutes later, watching the clouds roll by and the tops of the trees become gilded by the sinking sun. The whole world glowed.

“The golden hour,” Ev said softly, and I knew he meant the light and the atmosphere, but…

This time was exactly what I’d needed and not known I needed. This interlude where I could just relax and remember why I loved this town and the peace that could be found here.

I couldn’t have achieved this on my own. I’d needed Ev to bring me here. I reached a hand across the cool grass and let my pinkie brush his. “Thank you.”

“For what? Beating your ass at playground rules? Pfft. Anytime.”

I chuckled. “Okay, you didn’t win. It was a tie. At best.” I took a breath as he giggled. “I meant for bringing me here. For being exactly what I needed. If the zombie apocalypse comes tonight, this was a cool way to spend my last day.”

He rolled onto his elbow facing me and edged a tiny bit closer. “Silas?”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, Silas… The world could end tonight…”

I shifted my head to watch him warily.

“I really don’t want to go home right now,” he said. And then he leaned toward me slowly, so slowly that I could see the golden light play off his beautiful green eyes and memorize every single flicker of emotion I read there. Caution and hope and affection and want.

His lips met mine for a second before he pulled back to watch me, like he wasn’t sure how I was going to react. It would have been comical if I’d been capable of laughing in that moment.

“Come back to my house,” I blurted, but we both knew that I was offering more. Offering everything.

Hell, he could have any damn thing he wanted, all he had to do was ask.

But all he said was, “Okay.” And then he stood up and reached down a hand for me.

I let him help me to my feet, then wrapped my arm around his waist and led him to my truck, which was parked on the side of the road by the school.

We walked slowly, and I helped him in slowly, just as I had that night a few weeks back. I drove us back to my place slowly, and drove slowly down the driveway to park right in front of the garage. I wanted to give him every opportunity to think, to rethink, to test all of his suspicions and superstitions and come to a decision.

Because once I got close to him again, I didn’t think I’d be able to go slowly at all.

“Come on.” I nodded at the garage. “I have something to show you.”

I climbed down and unlocked the garage door, then rolled it up to reveal the mostly-disassembled pieces of what had been my grandfather’s pride and joy.

“What is it?” Ev said, stepping forward to run his hand over the primer-coated quarter panel. “A sports car?”

“Mmm hmm. A 1984 Porsche 944. It used to be orange. My grandmother used to call it my grandfather's midlife-crisis-mobile.”

He smiled. “And you're restoring it?”

“Kinda,” I acknowledged. “I haven't touched it in a while. I like knowing it's here. But, uh, here's what I wanted to show you.”

I nodded at the box in the shadowy back corner.

He looked from the box to me, then back again, and frowned. “Are those… mine?”

“Your art supplies, yeah. I drove over to Rushford and grabbed them out of your car last week before it got junked, just in case you wanted them.”

“This is what you were going to show me Saturday night?”

I nodded. “Before I got called out.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head, but a small smile played over his lips like he was pleased and surprised. “Are you likely to get called out tonight?”

I shrugged. “I don’t think so, but I never know. It could happen.”

“Well, I really, really hope that doesn’t happen, Silas.” He stood and stalked toward me. “I want you.”

“Are you sure?” I couldn’t help but ask. “Be sure, Everett.”

“Positive.”

That was all I needed to hear. I grabbed his hips and hauled him against me, loving the way the breath huffed out of his lungs at the contact. He smelled like green grass and sunshine, and I savored it.

Ev surged forward so his lips pressed against mine, but I pushed him back just slightly.

“We don’t have to rush anything, Ev.”

“We don’t have to go too slow, either,” he whispered. He trailed his hands down over my chest, finding my nipples through the soft cotton. “It’s okay, I promise.”

There were still so many things I wanted to talk to him about, shit that I wanted to get sorted in my mind. Like, we still hadn’t exactly talked about why he’d cried after the first time we’d done anything physical, and I wanted to be sure he was really okay.

And… what exactly did he want from me, besides not-friendship? The irony of being on the other side of the coin, wondering if the guy I was into wanted something besides a friendly hookup was pretty fucking un-funny.

It felt so good and so right to have Ev beside me, but the ghost of that vulnerability I’d been feeling earlier… hell, that I’d been feeling since Saturday, if I was being honest… still clogged the back of my mind.

He grinned up at me and shook his head like he could sense my hesitation. “I can practically hear you thinking. It feels like a weird kind of role reversal. I thought I was the suspicious overthinker. There are no squirrels here to eat us, Silas.”

I huffed out a laugh.

“What was it you were saying last weekend? Not everything needs to be a struggle? Don’t make things harder than they need to be?”

He was right. After a week of worrying that I’d fucked things up beyond repair, he was in my arms again and he wanted me. Why the hell was I hesitating?

I laughed and ran my hands down over the curve of his ass, squeezing his cheeks and pulling him against me again. “Why don’t you tell me how hard they need to be, Everett?”

He moaned.

“Why don't you tell me everything you'd like to have happen right now,” I continued, whispering in his ear. “Just to make sure we’re on the same page.”

“T-tell you?” he stuttered, rubbing himself against me. He was getting hard already and fuck, yeah that turned me on. I felt my own cock respond with a happy throb.

“Exactly,” I replied, tracing the seam of his ass through his khakis. “You’re the artist. Paint me a picture.”

“Don’t stop doing that,” he breathed, clutching my shoulders.

“Then start talking.”

He licked his lips. “T-tell you one of my fantasies? About you?”

“Is there more than one?” I rucked up his shirt in the back, slowly pulling it from his pants, eager to get my hands on his skin.

It occurred to me that I hadn’t really ever touched him, not anywhere you wouldn’t touch a casual friend, and I needed to rectify this immediately.

His cheeks became ruddy and his eyes dilated.

“There are several. I think about, um… blow jobs.” He punctuated the word with a tiny thrust of his hips, like he couldn’t help himself from seeking friction.

“And?”

“Uh… You coming into the hardware store, all pissed off like you were the other night at the meeting, with your blue eyes blazing and your jaw clenched.” He lifted one hand from my shoulder to trace my jaw and his eyes met mine. “And you take it out on me by fucking me over the counter.”

“Jesus.” I ran both palms over the smooth, hot skin of his back, but it wasn’t enough to feel it. I wanted to see it, to taste it, to mark it.

“But my favorite one is about… your truck.” His breath stuttered and my hands stopped roaming.

I looked over Ev’s shoulder, through the open door of the garage, to the driveway where my truck sat innocently reflecting the yellow-orange glow of the setting sun. “What about my truck?” I growled.

“The first night we met you…You made that stupid comment. Do you remember?”

I shook my head. “Something dumb about…”

“About strapping me down… in the bed of your truck. Yeah.” He swallowed. “I’ve never done anything like that before, but… it kinda got me thinking.”

I looked down at his fever-bright eyes and the flush that had spread down his neck to the open collar of his shirt. Fuck I loved that. Loved that he was turning himself on even as he turned me on. All of the available blood in my body rushed south.

I pushed him away from me abruptly, almost violently. “Get inside, Ev,” I said, pointing a finger at the little red door that led from the driveway into the kitchen. “And I’m warning you right now, unless you’d like to make that fantasy a reality, right now and in front of my neighbors, do not stop at the truck. Do not look at the truck. Try as hard as you can not to even think about the truck. Understand?”

He nodded, eyes wide.

“Move!”

He scurried out the door with me hot on his heels, but he hesitated as we passed the driver’s side door, and he let his fingers trail over the sideview mirror.

“Everett,” I growled.

“It’s like not thinking about elephants,” he wailed. “You tell me not to think about the truck, and all I can think of are all the ways you can bend me over it!”

I picked him up around the waist, total battering-ram style with zero finesse, ignoring the little eep noise he made, and ran him up to the door. I unlocked the single lock in what had to be record time, and had him with his belly pressed against the inside of the door in five seconds flat.

“Jesus! Your neighbors are scandalized!”

“I seriously hope Mrs. Daley was looking out the window right then,” I growled. “The poor woman needs some excitement in her life.”

And I really didn’t want to talk about Mrs. Daley.

I moved my mouth to the side of his neck and licked a stripe up the side at the same moment that my hand found the button of his waistband.

“Tell me more about being strapped down,” I instructed.

“I don’t… I…” He shook his head like he was trying to clear it, like he was too excited for words. Perfect. “You tied my hands behind my back and pushed me down and I kept struggling.”

I snorted as I flicked his button open. “What a strange fantasy. You, argumentative?”

He shot me a glare over his shoulder that melted into a slack-jawed moan as I rubbed my hand down the front of his underwear. The side of his head thunked against the door as he gave himself over to it.

“You were struggling uselessly,” I prompted. “And…”

“And you… put me over your shoulder and tied me down in the bed of the truck with my arms spread wide.”

Fuck.

“And then what?” I demanded, stroking him through the cotton while I wedged my own erection against the curve of his ass. Too fast, too fast, I kept thinking, but with him talking this way I didn’t, couldn’t, care.

“I-I don’t know,” he whispered.

I pulled him off the door and spun him around to face me. I could just make out his eyes in the fading light. “Bullshit. Tell me.”

He shook his head, bit his lip. “I don’t know.”

“Everett…”

“I came before I got to that part,” he admitted in a quiet voice, looking somewhere over my shoulder. “I’ve never played that way before. I don’t know what would happen next. I don’t know how it ends.”

God, this man. He made me want things.

“I have an idea,” I said, giving him the same soft, mischievous smile he’d given me earlier, in his classroom. “Come on.”

I led him down the hall to my bedroom, bypassing the tiny living room with its stone fireplace, the dining area, and the bathroom. If I got my way, there would be plenty of time to give him a tour later. I flipped on the light switch as we entered and shut the door behind us, locking us in this little space closed off from everything.

He stepped around me, looking around at the iron bed frame, the plain wooden dresser and end tables, the comfortable quilt. “This is not what I would have pictured,” he said quietly. “But I really like it.”

Not nearly as much as I liked having him here. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d brought a man home. Years, maybe. And I was glad of that. Glad, because it made Ev special.

“Take your shirt off,” I told him, pushing back all the other stupidly real shit that threatened to spill out of my mouth. “You want to go fast? Do it now.”

He blinked once, slowly, and his mouth curved into a smile.

“I don’t know why your bossiness is doing it for me right now,” he said suspiciously. “When you ask me to do that, like the beginning of some bad porn…”

“Everett? I wasn’t asking.”

His smile fled, his eyes flared, and his fingers moved to unbutton his shirt very, very slowly.

“Pants too,” I said, and this time he didn’t argue, just kicked off his shoes and socks, undressing until he stood there, nearly naked and completely delectable.

His stomach was flat and lightly muscled, with three little beauty marks scattered just above the waistband of his boxers, like some tiny constellation guiding me home. I reached out a single finger and traced them, watching his cock jump behind the red cotton that restrained it.

My poor cock, which hadn’t been remotely satisfied by last week’s blowjob after weeks and weeks of drought, was so hard it was damp, and I prayed for the patience to hold out long enough to finish this.

“Let me see if I remember the circumstances,” I said, adjusting myself as I walked behind him. I took off my belt and left it on the dresser, kicked my shoes into the corner, and pulled off my shirt and pants until I was nearly as undressed as he was. “You were trying to handle something you couldn’t handle. I was afraid you would get hurt.”

He huffed out a half-laugh that was nearly giddy. “I’m hurting right now.”

“We can’t have that,” I said. “Get on the bed.”

I waited until he’d laid himself face-down on my bed, like a starfish — a sight I knew I’d relive every time I walked in this room for the foreseeable future — before kneeling on the bed to straddle him and pushing his hands into the bed on either side.

“Was this what you were imagining?” I curled his hands into the edge of the mattress.

“Y-yeah…” He swallowed. “This is better.”

“Everett, you’d better hold on. If you move those hands I’m going to be mad.”

He shivered again, like this was part of the fantasy, too, or maybe even better, and I swear to God, I felt like a king.

I had never played this way with anyone. I’d never felt so… focused and so free with anyone. What the fuck was it about this guy that had changed everything I wanted from one heartbeat to the next?

I sat back on my heels and ran a hand down the red cotton of his boxer briefs, tracing his crease.

“Ohmygod,” he breathed, grinding himself into my mattress, which was so hot I could barely stand it. “Hurry, hurry, hurry.”

But instead I slowed down, taking my time palming and squeezing the muscles of his truly delectable ass, snapping the waistband hard when he whimpered at me to speed up. I pulled them down oh-so-slowly, unwrapping him like a present, thrilling with every inch of skin that was revealed. In this moment, he was mine.

He turned his head on the pillow, his cheeks hot and temples damp, one hot, angry eye meeting mine.

“Are you just about done?” he demanded. “Because I’m dying here.”

“Not quite,” I said.

He huffed out a breath and it was so adorable I had to lean forward to brush a kiss over his lips.

He shifted beneath me, giving up his grip on the mattress entirely and turning his torso over to kiss me better.

“Was this the fantasy?” I asked.

Ev shook his head. “Fuck the fantasy. In the fantasy I wasn’t kissing you, and I really, really want to kiss you.” He looked surprised by his own admission, but I was pretty damn happy.

I lifted my hips so he could turn over fully, and when I leaned back down again, our cocks rubbed against one another, separated by only the thin layer of my boxers. Fuck. I couldn’t remember anything feeling so good ever. And then he ran his hand down my back, pushing my underwear down to my thighs so he could grip my ass in both hands. He pulled me more firmly against him while he lifted his hips to rub mine.

“Just like this,” he whispered. “Better than the fantasy, Silas. Kiss me.”

So I did. Tiny laughing kisses and long drugging ones, tiny nips at his jaw and my ear punctuated by Everett’s sighs and my groans. I rocked against him like a teenager with no skill at all, just joyful and wide-eyed and alive to the sensation. And when his breathing hitched and he said, “Holy shit. I… I’m close,” like he couldn’t believe it, I swear to God, it felt like the first time I’d ever done this; stunning and artless and natural and beautiful.

It was a novel experience to think that this was the first time with Ev. In the past, I’d never considered that it was the first, because I hadn’t cared whether there would be a follow-up. Ev was my first first.

I wanted to laugh, but it came out closer to a sob, and I let more of my weight fall on him and rocked myself against him more firmly. I let my hand coast down his side to grab both our cocks, messy with precum, and shuttled my fist over them, jacking us together. I could feel my orgasm building at the base of my spine, unstoppable as a freight train, and I moved my hand faster still, needing him to come first.

“My God. Silas!” he yelled, and then he came, his release spilling on his stomach about five seconds before I did.

With my underwear still tangled around my damn legs.

I buried my face in the crook between his neck and shoulder and chuckled.

“Okay. That was,” he panted. “That was… some very good porn.”

I laughed harder and reached down to smack the side of his ass. I felt his grin against my cheek.

Then I rolled off to the side, taking him and the mess we’d made along with me. He lay with his head on my chest for a long minute, staring out the window as the sky turned pink and then purple-gray. But as far as I was concerned, it was still the golden hour. Heavy and fated and a tiny bit magical.

If you believed in that stuff.

“If you’d told me on the night we met that this would happen, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Ev said finally. The sky had darkened so completely I couldn’t see his eyes. “I didn’t know I could feel this way again.”

“What way?” I asked, and I wondered if he was going to say something crazy, something ridiculous, something impossibly fast, something I’d never wanted to hear from anyone else. My stomach flipped with something that wasn’t quite fear.

“I feel… happy,” Ev said, leaning up to kiss me.

And I told myself that was good enough.