Mitch had to resist the urge to call Jonah the minute he walked out the door.

He resisted that same urge an hour and a half later, when it was clear he wasn’t going to be able to get any more sleep, especially since his sheets and pillows still held the faint scent of cologne, shampoo, and soap that Mitch’s nose could always identify as belonging to Jonah.

Around lunchtime, Mitch stopped unpacking for long enough to eat the leftovers from Rocket and picked up his phone to call Jonah, but hesitated before he could dial the number.

Was it too soon? It had still just been a few hours since Jonah had left in a hurry, clearly feeling guilty for having spent the night with Mitch.

Would it seem needy or desperate to call now? Would Jonah even want to talk to him?

And okay, so the last part might have been a little dramatic, but the rest was valid, wasn’t it?

Mitch was pretty sure it was, in fact, valid. So he didn’t call then, either.

Now, though, looking at the clock and doing some quick mental math, he realized it had been nearly ten hours since Jonah had left, and surely that was enough time to warrant a phone call.

Plus, Mitch had a legitimate reason for inviting Jonah over this time. Mitch wanted to pick up a few things for the house—rugs, curtains, those little pillows to put on the couch—and he didn’t have the slightest idea of where to begin.

Jonah would know, though. It was right in his wheelhouse.

The thought of the two of them spending the afternoon decorating together made Mitch smile.

That wasn’t desperate or clingy, was it?

Whatever.

Mitch was pretty sure Jonah would appreciate the idea.

He picked up the phone and called Jonah’s number before he could talk himself out of it again.

“Hey,” Jonah answered on the second ring, sounding a little breathless. “I didn’t expect you to call so soon. What’s up?”

Mitch froze.

I didn’t expect you to call so soon?

What did that even mean? Was he happy that Mitch was calling? Upset? He was clearly surprised, but that could go either way.

“I, ah…” Mitch cleared his throat as he tried to come up with some words that wouldn’t sound as anxious as he felt at the moment. “I was just calling to make sure everything was okay when you got home this morning. I know you were worried about staying over and all…”

Perfect. Not only was it the honest truth, but it was a completely neutral topic. Mitch exhaled, pretty satisfied.

“Oh, yeah,” Jonah laughed. “I should have sent you a text or something. Pop was fine, of course. He said I should go out more often, in fact.”

“I agree with him one hundred percent, as usual. Especially if it means more nights like last night.”

Oops.

So much for neutral topics. But could Jonah blame him? Spending time with Jonah had always been one of Mitch’s favorite things, no matter whether they ended up getting undressed or not.

“Yeah,” Jonah said. “I wouldn’t mind more of that, either. I know we’ve both sort of got a lot going on, but I’m really glad we were able to reconnect. Maybe if you get some time in the next week or two, we can, um—”

“How about Friday?” Mitch interrupted, silently cursing himself for not being able to play it cool. But he was pretty sure there was no way he was going to make it a couple of weeks without hanging out with Jonah again. That was basically all the time they had left. And anyway, hadn’t ten years apart been enough? “I know that’s only a few days away, but there is some decorating that really needs to get done around here and I thought… well, I probably should have asked if you already had other plans first.”

“Oh, yeah, I could definitely help with that,” Jonah answered. At least he didn’t sound put off. In fact, Mitch was pretty sure he could hear the smile in Jonah’s voice. “I’ll check with Pop to make sure he doesn’t need me for anything then, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be an issue. He seems to be more keen on me getting out and dating than I am.” He paused, then added, “Not that it’s going to be a date. Just, um… you know.”

“Yeah, of course,” Mitch said.

But he didn’t know.

Dating?

That was a term that didn’t usually come up with Jonah.

Sure, they had briefly discussed it a couple of times back in the day, but it had been pretty much impossible for Mitch to come out then, especially while he’d been living at home.

Now, still living in a house his father owned, openly dating a guy wasn’t high on Mitch’s priority list. Besides, didn’t he and Jonah already have all of the perks of dating without any of the drawbacks?

Thankfully, it seemed that Jonah was just as apprehensive about the whole dating thing, too. Especially since he’d gone out of his way to make sure Mitch knew that whatever they were going to do on Friday wouldn’t be a date.

Which was fine.

Great, actually.

New York to Texas would be a hell of a strain on any relationship—even if both partners were fully committed to the idea.

“Awesome, so it’s a date,” Mitch said, feeling his stomach drop to the floor as soon as the words left his mouth. “Not a date, I mean. Just some decorating. As friends.”

Jesus, he was making things worse by the second. At this rate, he was going to have to hang up the phone before he accidentally proposed.

“Right,” Jonah said, laughing. “Just a friendly… decorating… whatever. I’ll talk to you between now and then to figure out a time that works for both of us.”

Thank God he was laughing. Of course, that was mostly just because Mitch had somehow managed to shove his entire foot into his mouth after about point-five seconds of talking.

“Okay, perfect.” Just hang up. Don’t say anything stupid. Anything else stupid… “I’ll talk to you later. Have a good night, Jonah.”

Mitch slumped down onto the couch as they both hung up the phone.

Shit. How had that clusterfuck of a conversation taken such a left turn? And in such a short amount of time?

It had to have been the dating thing. It was just so unexpected. It wasn’t what he and Jonah did.

Was it?

No. It wasn’t.

Not right now, anyway. They had only seen each other once in ten years—and that had just been last night. There was no way Jonah was actually hinting he wanted to bring up the subject of dating, was he?

He said himself that he wasn’t excited about the idea of dating anyone. Mitch was almost certain that was what he had said, anyway.

Surely Jonah had to know that if Mitch was going to date a guy, it would be him, hands down.

That had to be obvious, right?

But one thing was for certain. The idea of Jonah dating someone else made Mitch’s stomach hurt, and Mitch wasn’t even the jealous type.

Or maybe he was… hell, he wasn’t sure about much of anything anymore.

He knew he wanted to see Jonah, knew he wanted to spend as much time as possible with him before they had to be apart again.

Even if they weren’t actually dating, that had to count for something.

Maybe.

Hopefully.

It was the best he could do for now.

Mitch folded his hands behind his head on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling.

He couldn’t get Jonah off his mind… a problem he’d had for years. Still, tonight was different. It was one thing to tell himself that he was fine with keeping everything he’d felt for Jonah as a kid buried inside, nothing more than a warm—slightly erotic—memory to pull out and hold onto when life got a little rough, but it was something else entirely to be lying in bed not with distant memories, but much more recent ones.

Hot ones.

Ones that had his head and heart spinning, and his cock—

Mitch huffed out a breath that was half-laugh, half-groan. His cock had been so hard all night that it had been literally aching by the time he’d finally settled into the bed. Still, that problem was going to be easier to deal with than the other.

Because now? Now Mitch wasn’t laying in the dark pulling out buried feelings, but ones that suddenly felt as fresh and powerful as the ones he’d convinced himself that time and nostalgic memories had inflated into something more than they’d really been.

But nope.

Now, between the earlier phone call and the scent of Jonah that still lingered in Mitch’s room—that still lingered in his mind, instantly recognizable and right there ready to spring open everything inside him a decade later—there was no way Mitch was going to be able to get to sleep anytime soon.

If he was honest, finding Jonah actually here in Hidden Creek was exactly what he hadn’t let himself hope for when he’d decided to come back. Decided it was home—or at least that he’d like it to be.

Mitch had known, or at least been pretty sure, that Jonah wouldn’t be in Hidden Creek anymore, though, and he’d even convinced himself that it was for the best. But the fact that Jonah was here—even though that was just a temporary situation—changed everything.

Mitch frowned in the dark, a heaviness he didn’t want to think about settling on his chest. Because that wasn’t really true, was it? Jonah being here changed nothing. The world may have changed a bit in ten years—become a little more accepting, a little more inclusive—but Mitch didn’t just live in “the world.” He was a Davis, and he still lived under the dark cloud of what that meant.

Davis men weren’t gay… a fact that had been driven home forcefully back when he was a kid.

Mitch shoved the thought away with an effort, unwilling to let it ruin his night—not when there were so many more pleasurable things to think about.

The way Jonah’s green eyes still seemed to sparkle with that extra something when they looked Mitch’s way, the extra something that always made Mitch’s breath catch.

The way Jonah’s breath always hitched when Mitch had him in his arms. And the way he tasted, especially the warm skin that Mitch loved to feel fluttering against his tongue, right at the base of Jonah’s throat.

And damn, while he was letting himself catalog the taste of Jonah, he was really, really hoping he’d get a chance to taste even more of the man. Touch more of him. Refresh every memory he had and make some new ones—

Mitch groaned, adjusting himself with his hand over the bed sheets. It was both not enough and almost too much, as keyed up as he was with thoughts of Jonah, and it only took a moment for “adjusting” to turn into slow, deliberate strokes over the throbbing length of his cock.

Mitch closed his eyes, imagining Jonah’s touch instead as he brought his free hand down and let it roam over his chest. He let his fingers graze across his nipples exactly the way Jonah had taught him to like—discovered with him, all those years ago. The erotic sensation made Mitch’s cock strain against his palm, and he groaned again, suddenly overcome with the insane desire to race over to Jonah’s Pop’s house and replace imagination with the real thing.

Or text Jonah and beg him to come here, where they’d have the privacy they’d always hunted down so jealously as teens.

Or hell, Mitch would even be happy to meet in the middle somewhere—

He laughed huskily, his cock jerking against his hand through the too-many-layers of blankets that reduced the friction he needed. Those thoughts were crazy. Lust-fueled and impractical, even though it was fucking tempting, finally being so close to what he’d tried not to want all these years again.

So close to Jonah.

Still, even if Mitch couldn’t justify waking Jonah up in the middle of the night just because Mitch was suddenly yearning for him, clearly, this over-the-covers shit he was torturing himself with wasn’t going to cut it, either.

Opening his eyes again, Mitch shoved the covers away from his upper body and kicked at them until they were tangled around his legs. His cock strained even harder against the thin fabric of his boxers, as if it was anticipating what was coming next just as much as he was.

He grinned in the dark, letting himself imagine—just for a moment—that his cock had missed Jonah just as badly as Mitch had. But then he raised his hips just enough to slide his boxers down around his thighs, finally freeing his Jonah-Missing cock, and realized that it wasn’t all that far from the truth.

Because honestly?

Mitch had done his fair share of jerking off over the last ten years—and yeah, a lot of that had included some Jonah-memory-inspired moments—but right here, right now, with the visceral memory of just how fucking amazing it had felt to slide his cock against Jonah’s gorgeous shaft… the particular friction that wasn’t like anything else… the taste of Jonah’s breath in his mouth as he came and the feel of Jonah’s hard thighs under his—

“Oh, fuck,” Mitch muttered, wrapping a hand around his cock as it pulsed with need.

His cock definitely missed Jonah.

Desperately.

Mitch would swear that the silken skin he’d touched a million times was ten times hotter to the touch as he let himself fall even more deeply into a full-blown Jonah fantasy. A clear drop of precum was already pooling at the head as he thrust against his palm, and a low moan escaped his lips as he slicked his thumb over that spot, rubbing it in and using it as lube while he stroked.

Even though it hadn’t happened in years, it was so easy to picture Jonah kneeling between his legs again, to remember how it felt to have Jonah’s hands on his cock… teasing his balls… stroking his body.

What Jonah’s warm mouth felt like, swallowing Mitch’s cock down to the base.

“Oh, fuck,” Mitch growled, getting totally lost in the fantasy that played out in his head as his hips thrust up to meet his fist. “Fuck yeah. Jonah.”

Sure, he’d kept himself busy all day, but if he was really being honest, he’d known this was how he’d end the night. Hell, he’d been waiting for this moment all damn day, trying to convince himself that he wasn’t already missing Jonah like crazy—not the low-level, back-of-the-mind missing that had been a part of him for years, but a primal, needy, blazing hot urgent kind of missing, now that he’d been reminded of just what it was like to have Jonah in his arms and in his bed again.

And now, alone in his room with nothing but his thoughts and his throbbing cock in his hand, there was really no denying it. Mitch’s cock missed Jonah. Mitch missed Jonah. And even just thinking about Jonah was going to be enough to make him come.

Fast.

Mitch could already feel the orgasm building inside of him, threatening to overtake him as he stroked himself faster and faster… as he gasped out one short breath after another… thrust into his fist harder, chasing the kind of orgasm that shouldn’t have been possible all on his own.

One that already had his balls tightening.

One that had his world shrinking to the thrust, the heat, the electric tension that coiled inside him, sparking like the light in Jonah’s eyes.

Mitch was going to come hard, and he was going to come fast, and as he got closer and closer to the edge, there was only one thing on his mind.

“Fuck… Jonah…”

Mitch’s free hand tweaked a nipple hard, exactly the way Jonah had when he’d wanted to push Mitch over the edge.

It made him moan again, loudly enough that it would have caused problems if he’d still been in the Corps, still been in the barracks. Mitch didn’t care. That life was behind him now, and nothing existed in this moment but what he wished was really happening.

The man he wished was here… the one whose firm hands and hot mouth and panting, desperate breaths would drive Mitch there all the faster, but which would also give him the motivation to hold on.

To see just how much of what Mitch was feeling, he could make Jonah feel, too.

To make Jonah come the way he always had so fucking beautifully, with Mitch’s name on his breath.

“Jonah,” Mitch gasped, so close now—the feeling so intense—that he was starting to feel lightheaded.

Almost like he was floating.

Like nothing existed except the pleasure building like a tsunami inside him as he skimmed his hand down his chest, down his abs, down past his cock that he was furiously pumping with his other fist, to grab his balls and massage them a little—to roll them around in his hand the way Jonah had always done, to give them a gentle squeeze—

“Oh, fuck,” Mitch gasped as that last touch pushed him right over the edge.

His eyes snapped open and he raised his head off the pillow to look down at his cock just as the first hot jets erupted, spilling over his fist and streaking across his stomach… up his chest… splattering on his chin.

“Fuck fuck fuck,” he panted as his body shuddered with the force of it. As he milked the last of it with slow, firm strokes… and then lighter ones. Until he finally had to twist his free hand in the tangled sheets next to him and just let the climax subside into the warm afterglow that was all the better for the intensity with which he’d just come.

Finally, the tension washed out of him completely and he fell back against the pillow, completely spent. Not thinking. Blank, but not empty.

Still filled with the memory of Jonah.

The reality of Jonah, who’d come right here in this very bed less than twenty-four hours before.

Mitch’s lips curved up into a contented smile as he smoothed a hand over the empty sheet next to him in the dark, listening to the sound of his own heavy breathing in the darkened room. That and the sound of his heartbeat were the only things that existed in the stillness, and all the tangled, erupting thoughts of Jonah—all the feelings—were clear.

Not gone—Mitch knew that they were never going to be far from the front of his mind, especially not as long as Jonah was here in Hidden Creek, too—but at least Mitch’s release had settled him enough to stop rolling them over and over in his head. In fact, he was finally exhausted enough to close his eyes and keep them that way.

To sleep.

Which was all the more tempting for knowing, even as his spent body pulled him deep into slumber, that his sleep would be filled with the kind of dreams that might actually come true.

For a while, at least. For as long as Jonah was in town… which may not be long at all, but—since any time at all was still a hell of a lot more than Mitch had thought he’d ever get with the man again—would be enough to satisfy this yearning that had reawaken for him.

It would have to be… right?