“Hmmm.” Doctor Mills flipped through the pages on my chart. “I’m going to be honest with you, Archer. I was hoping for more progress.”

I knew he’d say that. I could feel it in my bones, my muscles, my heart.

I sat in Dr. Mills’ office on the paper-covered examination table. It was brightly lit and cheerful, with doctoral posters all over the walls and charts in primary colors.

“So, what does this mean?” I asked.

He set the chart down on the counter and turned in his swivel chair toward me. “Too early to say still. Your leg healed so quickly, I was hoping your arm would be the same. But the breaks in your leg were much easier fixes than your arm, which was broken at a few awkward angles. It probably means nothing, and I don’t want you to worry.”

“Should it be healed by now?”

He tapped his chin but tried to give me a reassuring smile. “Everyone heals differently.”

Which meant yes, it should be healed by now. Or at least be further along.

“Is there anything else I can do to help the healing process?”

“Keep up what you’ve been doing. Resting, putting no pressure or weight on it. Staying healthy and active. Does it give you any problems?”

“Problems?”

“Pain.”

Sure, it still hurt every so often. Some nights shooting pains in my arm would wake me just from shifting the wrong way.

“Sometimes,” I told him.

He nodded and began writing something on his pad of paper. “I figured. I’m writing you a prescription. Go have it filled and follow the instructions. Other than that, all we can do is give it time to heal.”

I barely heard him. That sinking feeling I’d had in the pit of my stomach since they’d removed the cast on my leg but not my arm had become a permanent, persistent fixture.

“But,” Dr. Mills continued, “your leg has healed nearly perfectly. With regular physical therapy appointments and you continuing to rebuild muscle, there’s no reason it shouldn’t be back to near normal some day.”

“Right,” I answered, mind still lingering on my arm.

“You should be able to go home soon. Anytime, really. I’m not sure if you have a family physician or physiotherapist, but I can give you referrals if not.”

This time, he had caught my attention. “What?”

He blinked at me. “You’re able to go home whenever you’re ready. You’re good enough to move without the use of your crutches. Still, don’t strain yourself, but you’ll be fine to return back home.”

“That’s… great.”

I left the doctor’s office and decided, against my better judgment, to walk back to Mallory’s house. I needed the time to clear my mind, and I knew the walk wouldn’t take me over forty minutes at most.

Taking mostly the quieter streets, I made my way back, stopping to grab a coffee from the local coffee shop, and making a brief stop at the supermarket as well.

By the time I was home, my knee was aching and my mind had barely stopped racing. But the house was quiet and the lights were all still out. Outside, the sun was only just beginning to set.

Unable to do much else, I stripped off my boots and jacket, went into the living room, and put the needle to the record Mallory and I had danced to only days before.

---

“Something smells good,” a voice echoed down the hallway.

I stood in the kitchen, dishing up Chinese takeout onto two plates for us.

When Mallory rounded the corner, he saw me, the boxes, and began to laugh.

“Hey,” I said, pointing a fork at him, “I never claimed to be a good cook.”

Mallory unwound the scarf from his neck and flopped it onto the back of the breakfast stool. It was then I noticed the bouquet of flowers in his hand, and my heart immediately sank. Which was unfair of me. And selfish.

Immediately, I stopped dishing food out onto the plates. I tipped my head toward the dozen roses in his hand and said, “Sorry. I didn’t know you’d be visiting your wife’s grave tonight. I should’ve waited until you were home to dish this out. I can put it in the fridge and you can eat when you get back.”

It took Mallory a second to catch on to what I was saying. He glanced down at the flowers, then back up at me. Redness colored his cheeks and his voice was almost shaky when he spoke.

“I’m, uh, not going to visit tonight.”

I blinked at him.

His heavy sigh seemed to vibrate throughout the kitchen. When he rounded the corner and held the bouquet out toward me, my heart almost stopped.

“They’re for you. Sorry if that’s… cheesy. It’s been a while since I’ve done this sort of thing.”

In a daze, I took them from him. They were beautiful and vibrant and fresh, without a petal out of place.

“Really?” I asked stupidly.

“Yes.” He took a step toward me.

I set the bouquet down on the counter, wrapped my arm around the back of his neck, and kissed him. After only a brief pause, he put his palm to my cheek and kissed me back.

---

I took his hand and led him up to his bedroom—the one I now almost thought of as ours. Each night, we held each other as we fell asleep, sometimes laughing, sometimes sharing stories of our past.

Mallory was practically vibrating with tension. I could feel it in the tightness of his grip, the uneasy smile on his face, and the pace of his steps.

“We don’t have to,” I said at the top of the stairs. I turned and pressed my forehead against his collarbone.

“I want to try.” He put both hands on my shoulders. “I’m just nervous.”

“Me too.”

“Yeah?” Now I could hear the smile in his voice.

I looked up at him, our eyes meeting. “Yeah.”

Together, we walked down the hallway. The creaking of the floorboards and the hooting from the owls outside seemed to ricochet against the walls.

Mallory turned on the bedside lamp as I pulled my shirt off over my head, careful not to strain my arm. When he saw I’d removed my shirt, he quickly unbuttoned his and tossed it to the floor with mine.

He came toward me easily, like it was something he’d done every day since the beginning of life itself. When he tipped my chin up and kissed me sweetly, slowly, I melted into him first and then onto the bed. We moved backward until I was under him, my head on the pillows, Mallory above me.

He began running his calloused fingertips over my chest, brushing against my nipples and down my sides. The way he kissed and touched and bit at my bottom lip could’ve fooled me into thinking he’d done this a million times before.

But we were slow and careful, taking the time to touch each other and smile self-consciously. We unbuttoned our own pants, but Mallory pulled both his and mine off.

I lifted my hips as he kissed my neck, pressing my erection into the curve of his hip. He groaned and reached down past the waistband of my underwear and took me into his palm.

It was barely seconds later that I was completely hard, my own hand pulling more and more frantically at Mallory’s cock. We rutted against each other, losing our breath together, trying to sate something we both wanted with a touch that wasn’t quite enough.

“Archer,” Mallory moaned into my ear. “I need more.”

I would give Mallory everything in the universe, if only to solidify the way he said my name in crystal and keep it forever in my breast pocket.

I stole a quick kiss and then pointed toward the edge of the bed. “I grabbed… stuff. From the store.”

He pulled away to lift an eyebrow at me. “Yeah?”

I felt heat rise to my face. “I was—am—hopeful.”

He outstretched over the edge of the bed and grabbed the bag, his thick thighs still encasing my hips. When he reached in, he pulled out a box of condoms and a new bottle of lubricant.

I watched the expression on his face when he broke the tape on the box of condoms. His face was flushed—nervous, like I was—but there was something else about the slight curve of his lip and the way his eyes kept flickering to me.

He squeezed some lube onto his hands and finger and then leaned forward again to kiss me. My dick jerked at the smoothness of his palm when he ran his hand down my length. Still, he moved lower, over my balls, trailing past the smooth skin there, and then to the small opening even lower.

“Can I?” he asked huskily.

“Yes.”

The tips of two fingers slid in slowly, gently, but in one fluid motion. I gasped, my voice hitching, my body responding to the unfamiliar sensation.

He pulled his fingers out just as slowly as he’d pressed them in, and then again buried them inside me up to the third knuckle.

My throat burned when I said, “Thought you’d never done this before.”

He nipped my earlobe. “Never with a man.”

I laughed, my voice skipping like a warped record. Mallory continued to press and pull as he watched my face and kissed my chin. “I didn’t know it would feel like this.”

He stopped immediately. “What?”

I looked up at the crease between his brows. “I’ve never been with someone… like this.”

Mallory groaned and pulled his fingers from my body. He took the wrist of my good arm and pulled it high above my head. His touch was gentle when he ran his hand from the tips of my fingers, down my arm, then neck, then chest, and to my stomach.

“I’ll go slow,” he said, reaching for a condom.

He tore the packet open and rolled it on. My heart began to beat impossibly faster as I watched him slick himself with more lube. And then, in no time at all, he was above me again, his light eyes meeting mine, neither of us able to look away.

The tip of his dick pressed against me, seeking entrance. With one more kiss to my cheek, Mallory’s hips moved and he pushed his way inside.

I made a noise halfway between a gasp and a cry. He was slow and careful but didn’t stop until he was all the way inside me.

His grip on my hip was tight enough to bruise but the sweetness in his voice melted some of my tension out of me. “Okay?” he asked, his voice strained.

I breathed heavily. “Yeah. Just different.”

There must’ve been something in my voice because he remained still. He began petting me, running his hand up and down my flank.

“Do you know how beautiful you are? And not just this.” He traced his finger along my jawline, the tip of his thumb brushing my bottom lip. “You’ve got this old soul, and it’s serene and hushed and reminds me of the smell when it’s storming outside.”

“Mallory.”

Because that was all the world was to me from that point on.

Mallory.

With all of his troubles and his strength and his magnificence. And the imperfections that came with it.

He began rocking into me, slow, smooth strokes. I gasped and gripped the headboard with one hand, flattening the back of my head against the pillows and closing my eyes.

A soft curse flittered through the air, though I couldn’t claim it as my own or his. He moved closer into me, grabbing under my thighs and lifting, bending forward.

The tip of his erection pressed against the spot inside me that made me pant for air and beg him to do it again and again. And he did. He was unrushed and steady, grasping my thighs tightly, saying words to me I could barely remember from one second to the next.

Mallory leaned forward enough to lightly take the hand of my healing arm and kiss my palm. Then he reached down between us and took my dick into his hand, the lubrication and motion of the movement forcing a moan past my lips.

I ran my fingertips over the smooth wood finish of the headboard, feeling the slight bumps and grooves of the wood frame against my skin. I tried to focus on the feel of it, memorizing each and every fiber of its grain the same way I was memorizing the feeling of Mallory inside me.

He shifted slightly, lifting me a little higher, and I opened my eyes to look at him. His chest and neck were coated in a light sheen of sweat. He smiled when our gazes met, then drove hard against the spot that made my eyes water and my lungs desperate for more air.

My chest rose and fell to the rhythm of his thrusts. I clutched the headboard desperately, my blunt nails digging into the finish of the wood.

Mallory said my name one more time and it was enough. I burst like a shaken bottle of champagne to the sound of Mallory saying my name, the feel of uneven wood beneath my fingertips and my lover buried inside me.

The moment I felt the warm, sticky fluid touch my stomach, Mallory let go of my thighs, leaned forward to cover me entirely, wrapped his arms around my shoulders and back, and thrust into me twice more. He came with the same intensity as I had. His body went rigid and he panted loudly into my hair. I felt the warmth of his orgasm inside me beneath the thin layer of latex.

I released my tight grip from the headboard and placed my hand on his back. My fingers moved over the curves of his muscles, the few scars I planned to one day ask him about, and up the back of his neck.

Mallory carefully rolled off from on top of me, kissing me briefly before he stood and walked into the adjoining washroom. He came back with a small cloth and wiped us both down before crawling in next to me. Without a word, he pressed against my back, reached over, and turned off the light.

There was a lifetime of things I wanted to say to him. And a lifetime more I wanted to ask him.

And yet, I couldn’t find the courage to speak a single one.

So, I closed my eyes and tried to engrain to memory the feeling of his arms around me, his breath against the back of my neck, and the smooth finish of the wooden headboard beneath my fingertips.