Milo woke up slowly, sunlight flooding in through the wide windows. He'd never gotten around to getting curtains when he'd moved in three years ago, and now he was just used to the blinding assault on his usually hungover eyeballs in the morning.

He rolled over, and the mattress shifted strangely, the weight distributed in an unfamiliar way—

Milo's eyes flew open, and suddenly he was wide awake as the memories of last night came rushing back to him. He sat up and looked over.

And yes, there was Rory goddamn Fisher, still fast asleep in his bed.

Over the course of the night, Rory had taken up most of the mattress and all of the covers, and now he was sprawled on his stomach, arms and legs spread like a starfish, mouth slightly open. His breathing was deep and rhythmic, his eyes fluttering behind closed lids.

Milo ran a hand through his hair and sighed deeply. Last night had been… weird.

Good.

Weird.

He sat there for a moment, watching Rory sleep. Rory's face was relaxed and open, like he'd never encountered a single worry or problem in his entire life. Normally, if a guy had fallen asleep after hooking up, Milo would have woken him up and kicked him out—but last night, he hadn't.

And now, he couldn't bring himself to disturb Rory's peace.

What the fuck? he asked himself.

* * *

The previous night, Milo had been set to drown his sorrows in alcohol again when there was a loud knock at the door.

He ignored it, but the knocking persisted.

"Open up, Milo," said Kit. "I know you're in there, fucker."

Kit and Milo had been best friends for years. Kit, who was a few years older, had been studying fine arts at Bellamy, and Milo and Kit had quickly bonded when they'd been partners in a group project in a rudimentary computer programming class that all Bellamy students were required to take, regardless of interest or ability. Kit had graduated but still lived in Linfield, where they spent a lot of time rummaging through recycling bins and dumpsters for reclaimed material to turn into rather stunning installation pieces.

Milo frowned and lugged his body off the couch and down the stairs. He opened the door a crack, glaring out at his best friend, who glared right back at him.

"Let me in," Kit said, pushing the door open and breezing past Milo up the stairs. "You've been ignoring my texts."

"Astute insight," Milo said flatly, following Kit back up into his living room. He threw himself back down on the couch, and Kit stood over him, arms folded.

"No way," Kit said, nudging at Milo's knee with their foot. "We're going out tonight."

Milo threw his arm over his face and let out a dramatic sigh.

"Kit, can't you just leave me to waste away in peace?"

"Milo," Kit said, and their sharp tone made Milo open his eyes and look at Kit. Kit was frowning, and Milo quickly glanced away. He didn't want pity, he didn't want sympathy—he just wanted to be left alone. "I'm really worried about you."

"I'm fine," said Milo, who was not fine.

"Milo."

Milo sat up.

"So I'm having a bit of a mental breakdown," Milo said. "So what? It'll pass. I just need a little time to lick my wounds."

"It's been almost six months," Kit said, and Milo gritted his teeth.

The truth was, as time passed, things weren't getting much easier. Milo felt like he was at the bottom of a muddy slope, with happiness at the top—he tried to claw his way up but no matter how much progress he made, he kept slipping back.

"I really don’t feel like going out," Milo said.

"You never feel like going out. I know it's been rough, but at some point, you're going to need to start living your life again."

"Kit," Milo said. He meant to say it with exasperation, but it came out as a sad little plea.

"I'll make you a deal," Kit said, and Milo looked up at them, raising an eyebrow.

"What kind of deal?"

"I'll stop pestering you to go out if I look at your phone and can see you haven't been stalking Ryan on every possible social media platform."

Milo looked away.

"I'm not making that deal," he grumbled.

"Why not?" Kit persisted.

"Because… you know why not," Milo said, folding his arms over his chest.

It was like a scab he couldn't stop picking at, a toothache he couldn't stop worrying—he spent all his time, all his energy scrolling through post after post of the happy couple, posting cute pictures of trips to the coast, date nights, Sunday brunches. Camilla was very devoted to cultivating her social media presence, and it gave Milo plenty of fodder for tracking how disgustingly happy Ryan apparently was without him.

Milo felt physically ill thinking about it.

Kit sighed and dropped down onto the couch beside Milo, putting a hand on Milo's knee. Milo glanced over at his friend.

"Please come with me?" Kit asked, batting their eyelashes. "You don't have to stay the whole time. Half hour, tops. After that, if you're still having a bad time, I'll take you home."

Milo drew a long, deep breath and exhaled slowly to express his irritation.

"Fine," he said after a moment. "Thirty minutes. I'm setting a goddamn timer."

"Perfect," Kit said brightly, bouncing up off the couch. They looked back down at him. "But you're definitely going to need to shower and change first. You look like you just crawled out of a garbage disposal."

"Thanks," Milo said flatly, but he allowed Kit to shepherd him down the hall and into the bathroom.

Milo hated to admit it, but he did feel slightly better once he'd showered and they were on the way. Kit had promised there'd be an open bar, too—they were going to some art show opening, the kind of event Milo would have jumped at the chance to go to a few months ago.

But that was before Ryan and Camilla got engaged, before Ryan went off to start his new, perfect life with his new, perfect girlfriend—or rather, fiancée—leaving Milo in pieces behind him.

After a mere twenty minutes, though, Milo had made himself miserable enough dwelling on the past that he couldn't stand being around people anymore, couldn't stomach having conversations he didn't care about with people he didn't care about.

He told Kit he had a migraine. Kit had given him a long, penetrating look, before saying they hoped he felt better soon.

And then Milo fled.

He meant to go back home, but suddenly his small, cluttered apartment seemed claustrophobic. Too many bad memories, too much time alone to think and make himself miserable.

Instead, he went to the grimy little bar near his house.

And somehow, he had ended up in bed with Rory goddamn Fisher.

* * *

Last night, after Rory had gotten him off, Milo had felt a well of emotion so strong his eyes began to prick. Terrified, he'd ducked into the bathroom.

He stood in the bathroom for a long time, hands braced on the sink, forehead pressed against the cool glass of the mirror, listening to the rush of the water with his eyes squeezed shut.

Don't cry, don't cry, you fucking fuck—

Milo was not a person who cried. He hadn't cried when his childhood dog died, when he broke his arm falling off his bike his junior year, or when he'd found out Ryan had gotten engaged to someone else four days after they'd last fucked.

But it had been so long since Milo had felt anything but that acidic anger eating away at him day in and day out, and Rory had been so kind and unsure and earnest—

Finally, Milo had gotten himself under control. He wasn't even sure what that emotion had been—not sadness, really, or happiness. It'd simply been an excess of feeling, the product of a respite, however temporary, from constant pain.

When Milo had gone back into the bedroom, he'd been prepared to kick Rory out. Rory—sweet, virginal Rory—somehow still hadn't figured out what an emotionally unavailable asshole Milo truly was, and it was best to send him on his way before he got hurt.

But then Milo had found Rory curled up under the comforter, sleeping serenely. Milo pulled his underwear back on—he felt emotionally exposed; he didn't need to feel physically exposed, too. Rory was fast asleep, and he didn't even shift as Milo got into bed beside him.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd actually spent the night with someone. His apartment felt warmer, almost—fuller, less lonely—with Rory in his bed.

It was… nice.

* * *

Sun-drenched and golden, Rory made a sleepy little noise and rolled onto his side, stretching out like a cat. His eyes slowly opened, and he grinned up at Milo.

"Morning," he said.

"Morning," Milo said.

"Sleep okay?" Rory said, sitting up slowly and yawning. He seemed totally oblivious to the fact that he was naked in Milo's bed, taking up all the covers.

Milo had made a promise to himself, though, after everything with Ryan had happened—anything he did with a guy would be purely physical, little more than an elaborate form of masturbation that involved another person. No feelings, no tenderness, and definitely no sleeping over.

"Fine," Milo said.

"Are you okay?" Rory asked.

"Yes."

Rory pressed his lips together for a moment, looking at Milo, and then he got up and headed into the bathroom, still completely bare-assed.

He did have a great ass, Milo noted as he pulled on last night's clothes.

Milo glanced up as Rory came back into the room, and again he couldn't quite believe Rory was real—he looked like a sculpture, all perfectly chiseled muscles and a frankly gorgeous cock.

Rory, seeing Milo fully dressed, seemed self-conscious, and he avoided Milo's gaze as he stepped into his underwear and began looking around for his clothes—sweatpants and an old Bellamy University t-shirt, of all things to wear to a bar.

Milo had taken home a guy who went out in sweatpants.

"I should probably go," Rory said.

"You probably should," Milo said, and Rory flinched. He followed Rory out into the living room, but Rory paused when he reached the top of the stairs, looking back at Milo.

"Did I do something wrong?" Rory asked, and the tone of his voice—unsure, a little plaintive—felt like a punch to Milo's gut.

You're being an asshole.

Unfortunately, he didn't know any other way to be.

"No," Milo said briskly. "I just have a lot of stuff to do today."

"Is this—is this because I didn't, you know, blow you—"

"God, no—" Milo said in horror.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and sighed, and when he opened them, Rory was looking up at him with that vivid blue gaze that seemed to bore right through Milo.

"You didn't do anything wrong," Milo said in a measured tone. "I had a good time. But I'm not looking for anything more."

Rory was chewing on his lip like he was deciding whether or not to believe Milo.

"Okay," Rory said finally. "Well… See you around, I guess.

Milo watched Rory go down the stairs, and when the door shut behind him, Milo collapsed down on his couch with his head in his hands.

Milo had gotten what he wanted—Rory was gone, the bridge was burned, and they'd probably never see each other again.

So why did Milo feel so guilty?

* * *

>>JAMIE: u coming today?

Milo blinked at his phone. It was Sunday morning, a full twenty-four hours after he'd had kicked Rory out of his apartment. He was lying in bed, tangled up in the sheets, crisp morning sunlight flooding the room. His pillow still smelled like Rory's shampoo.

>>JAMIE: its fine if ur not up to it but wed love to see u

Milo groaned and sat up. Jamie still had an ancient brick of a phone and his texts messages were always charmingly garbled. It would be easy to come up with an excuse to skip the brunch Jamie and his boyfriend Bennett regularly hosted.

Milo had accidentally become friends with Jamie, who was a senior at Bellamy now, because of Kit. Jamie was kind and relentlessly optimistic, and though Milo, as a rule, steered clear of people who were that happy, Jamie was the kind of person one couldn't help liking.

Milo had been coming up with a lot of excuses to avoid hanging out with Jamie in the last few months. Being around Jamie, who was totally love-struck, was painful, and being around Jamie and Bennett, watching the two of them interact, had been absolutely intolerable.

Jamie had been Bennett's teaching assistant last fall, and they'd started dating in secret, though Jamie hadn't done a very good job of hiding it. Jamie's face had lit up every time he mentioned Bennett, and he'd always seemed to find a way to bring Bennett up in conversation—Professor Marlowe this, Professor Marlowe that—

After Ryan, though, Milo couldn't stomach being around people in love anymore. And poor Jamie, who was far too sweet for his own good, would never have understood that Milo was just an asshole who couldn't handle his friend being happy, so Milo had gotten very good at avoiding him.

Milo was still staring down at his phone, trying to decide if he was up to seeing them, when his phone lit up with another text message, from Kit this time.

>>KIT: don’t even think about skipping this brunch

>>KIT: I know you hate love now etc etc etc

>>KIT: but we miss you

Milo groaned in irritation and tossed his phone aside, lugging himself out of bed and into the shower. He loved Kit dearly, but he also deeply resented how readily Kit called Milo on his self-destructive bullshit. He knew he should go and see his friends, who, for some bizarre reason, loved and cared about him.

He'd wait a while before responding, though, because he hated admitting when Kit was right—and, unfortunately, Kit was often right.

Milo didn't bother waiting for the water to heat up—his apartment had no air conditioning, and it was already hot and humid inside. He stepped into the cool stream of water to rinse away the last of his hangover.

Rory goddamn Fisher.

Milo had a revolving cast of men he slept with, though he tried not to sleep with the same person too many times—that never ended well. It wasn't hard to find a willing partner, either—he just had to feign interest as some guy drunkenly tried to explain why his art, usually some exhaustingly masturbatory post-modern performance piece about someone that wouldn't fuck him, was totally revolutionary and different.

If there was one thing Milo had learned after spending several years immersing himself in the Linfield creative scene, it was that very few people had new ideas, and fewer people still had new ideas that were actually good.

Still, he fucked those guys because they were interested in him and because they were easy to get into bed.

Rory had been… different. Like Ryan, Rory had that jock bro vibe that Milo was a sucker for, the kind of guy who relied on nepotism to get through life and never stopped wearing his fraternity t-shirts after graduation. Unlike Ryan, though, Rory was actually thoughtful. Kind. Considerate. Sweet.

He thought of how Rory had hesitated at the top of the stairs, like he still couldn't quite believe Milo wasn't playing some prank on him. He'd been so earnest and easily embarrassed—no posturing, no ego, like so many of the ones that had come before.

Jesus fucking Christ, Milo thought as he scrubbed shampoo into his hair with unnecessary force. Milo was deeply unsettled by whatever strange spell Rory apparently had him under. In the entire time Milo had lived in this little upstairs apartment off of Chestnut Street, he'd never allowed a guy he slept with to stay the night, except for Ryan, who rarely slept over anyway.

That was the kind of thing that led to caring, and caring led to getting hurt.

Milo didn't know how to act, who to be, around someone as nice and good as Rory. Milo was used to guys who were assholes, who had no interest in getting to know Milo, and who Milo had no interest in getting to know either.

But Rory—Milo knew he'd only end up hurting someone like Rory, and Rory deserved better than that.

He'd already hurt Rory, he knew, by being so cold, so distant, that morning after—

But that was in the past. There was nothing he could do about it now.

Milo rinsed himself off one last time and shut the water off. And with that, he vowed that he wouldn't think about Rory. Standing in his room, his towel wrapped loosely around his hips as his hair dripped into his eyes, Milo responded to both Kit and Jamie, telling him he'd be there.

It was time to start living his life again.

* * *

Milo, as much as he hated to admit it, was having a good time at brunch.

As soon as he'd walked through the door, a mimosa had been shoved in his hand and he'd been dragged into the kitchen, where bacon was sizzling loudly on the stove and people were crowded around, laughing and talking.

"Coffee?" Bennett said, flashing a smile.

"Yes please," Milo said, and Bennett laughed as he poured Milo a mug. The kitchen was light and airy, sunlight streaming in through the many windows, and Milo still couldn't quite believe he was in Professor Bennett Marlowe's kitchen. Bennett was an award-winning journalist, and when Milo had seen him around the writing department, he'd always been incredibly intimidated by Bennett, who was handsome and brilliant and a little terrifying.

"I'm glad you made it," Kit said quietly, standing next to Milo and smiling faintly at him.

"Yeah, yeah," Milo grumbled. "Baby steps."

"You'll get there," Kit said, nudging his arm.

"God, I always forget how tall you two are," said Peter, Bennett's best friend, who was almost a foot shorter than Milo and Kit. He glared up at them. "Giants, both of you."

"Where's Mo?" Milo asked, referring to Peter's husband. Peter put a hand to his forehead and sighed dramatically.

"Still in surgery. He sends his regards to all of you, though."

Milo liked Mohammed, although they hadn't interacted all that much. Mo was a doctor at one of the hospitals in Linfield, and though he was usually quiet—an amusing counterpoint to his exuberant husband—Mo was one of those people that exuded good energy. Being around him was like taking a warm bath or getting a hug from your grandmother, Milo thought.

Milo tipped the rest of his mimosa back before he started on his coffee and tried to let himself have a good time.

* * *

Milo had known for a long time that he hated most people in Linfield, most people at Bellamy. It hadn't always been that way, of course. For a long time, he'd loved his program, loved Bellamy, loved the life he'd created for himself. But the last few years, Milo had felt stagnant. Because his parents were both affiliated with the university, Milo's tuition had been free, so he'd ambled his way through his undergraduate career, taking the minimum required courses each semester. He'd meant to use the spare time to work on the portfolio of poetry and short stories for his MFA thesis, but instead he'd ended up secretly writing a sprawling science fiction epic he'd been too embarrassed to show anyone in his program.

Linfield, which had undergone a major renaissance in the past few decades, had an up and coming arts scene that Milo had been excited to be a part of. And Milo had done everything right—he'd gone to the gallery openings and loft parties, he'd made connections and networked, he'd done his own readings and gotten involved where he could.

But time and time again, Milo found himself feeling out of place, having cardboard conversations with cardboard people that sounded like they meant something, but didn't really.

Kit was different, of course. And through Kit, Milo had become friends with Jamie, and with Jamie came Bennett, and with Bennett came Peter and Mo. And standing there, in Bennett's kitchen on a sunny Sunday morning, Milo finally felt like he'd found people who were really listening to him.

And yet—he still felt a strange distance, like they were his friends' friends rather than his own, like he was perpetually on the outskirts no matter how much they tried to include him.

Sometimes Milo wondered if he was physiologically incapable of just enjoying things, as if he'd been born with wires crossed that made it impossible for him to simply have an experience without overanalyzing it to hell and back.

* * *

"How has your semester been?"

Kit elbowed Milo, and he realized the table was quiet—everyone was looking at him, waiting for him to answer.

"What?" he asked blankly.

"I was just asking how your semester has been so far," Bennett repeated. "You're teaching again, yes?"

"Oh, yes," Milo said. He took a sip of his coffee and tried to collect his thoughts, wondering how long he'd been staring off into space, completely absent from the conversation. "Intro to Fiction Workshop. It's… interesting."

Bennett laughed mildly.

"Mostly freshman, right?" he asked. Milo nodded and made a face.

"You two are so elitist," Jamie said, swatting Bennett on the arm, and Bennett laughed.

"It's not that they're all bad writers—" Bennett started.

"Most of them are—" said Milo.

"—I just don't have the patience to remind them that ninety-nine percent of their questions can be answered if they just read the damn syllabus. Besides, they're all so… bright-eyed."

"Hey," said Jamie, rather crossly, who they all regularly teased for being exceptionally bright-eyed.

"I like it when it's you, darling," Bennett said, and for a moment, he and Jamie just looked at one another fondly.

Milo wanted to vomit.

"So I have another gallery opening this fall," Kit said, coming to Milo's rescue. "I'd love for you all to come."

"Wait, really?" Milo said, looking at Kit.

"I definitely told you about it," Kit said, a little archly, and Milo felt a stab of guilt. He'd been so caught up in his misery that year that he felt like he was coming out of hibernation, blinking and bleary-eyed, with no idea of what the hell had been going on in the past few months.

"Tell us about it," Peter said, leaning across the table towards Kit.

"How much of it came out of the garbage?" Jamie asked, grinning.

"A lot of it, thank you very much," Kit said primly. "It's another mobile—the gallery space is just fantastic."

Milo listened to Kit explain their latest project. Kit's art, much like Kit, tended to be larger than life, ethereal, and highly ineffable. Milo made a career of working with words, and he still found himself at a loss to describe the scope of the kind of things Kit made.

For Christmas last year, Kit had actually made Milo a smaller scale version of his favorite mobile of Kit's, a shimmering, ethereal network of glass that now hung in the corner of his kitchen. When the morning light slanted in each morning, it sparkled as brightly as the sun on ocean waves.

"What about you, Milo?" Peter was asking, and this time Milo had actually been working to pay attention to the conversation. "Are you doing another reading any time soon?"

"Yes, actually," Milo said. "In a few weeks."

"Be sure to give us the details so we can be there," Peter said.

"What are you reading?" Jamie asked.

Milo made a face.

"I suppose I should… get around to writing something," he said, and Jamie snorted.

Milo had been writing a lot, actually, but none of it had been worth reading. Over the past few months, Milo had written a lot of stories about male writers who'd been wronged by people they lusted after, which wasn't exactly the kind of piece the world was in short supply of.

He was frustrated by himself. Milo hated that he'd given Ryan so much power, had let this thing take over every aspect of his life, like an invasive weed curling its roots deep, deep into the soil, everything else lost in its chokehold.

A little while later, Milo excused himself onto the back deck to smoke. Fall was his favorite season. Milo had once told someone he liked the fall because everything was dying, but that wasn't true at all. On the contrary, Milo had always secretly felt that fall was the season when things felt most alive, the light long and golden, the trees a riot of fiery colors, the sky an impossible, almost aggressive shade of pure blue. Fall was the last brilliant reminder of life before a long winter.

After a moment, Milo heard the door open behind him, and he expected it was Kit coming to check on him. That was another thing Milo was frustrated about—he hated that he'd become a person who needed to be checked on, someone so fragile and unstable that his friends constantly felt the need to keep an eye on him.

Their consideration for him meant the world to Milo. He just wished he didn't need it.

But instead, Peter appeared at Milo's side. The pack of cigarettes was still sitting on the railing, and Peter extracted one and lit it. For a few moments, they stood in silence next to one another, plumes of smoke carried away into the autumn morning.

"Isn't your husband a doctor?" Milo said at last.

Peter smiled wryly.

"Yes," he said. "But I've found if I don't occasionally give my vices an outlet, they tend to take matters into their own hands."

Peter hopped up lightly so his small frame was perched on the wooden railing of the porch. Bennett's small house was on a hill, and the yard sloped down sharply away from the deck, but Peter seemed unconcerned.

"It's good to see you again, Milo," he said.

Milo shot Peter a look.

"Did they send you out here to talk to me?' Milo asked flatly.

"The world doesn't revolve around you, you know," Peter said, raising his eyebrow as he took a slow drag of his cigarette. "We do talk about things that aren't you when you're not around."

"Point taken," Milo said, a little contritely. He paused, picking a stray thread at the hem of his shirt. "I… My fuse is a little short these days."

They lapsed into silence again. Milo finished his cigarette and lit another one, not quite ready to go back inside.

After a while, Peter stubbed his cigarette and hopped lightly off the railing. When he reached the door, he stopped and looked back at Milo.

"It's okay to not be okay, you know," he said, his normally expressive face strangely inscrutable. "You're allowed to let things get messy. Especially around us."

Milo said nothing, and Peter disappeared back inside.

Milo frowned. Messy was the exact opposite of the image he wanted to project. Messy was for his living room, his handwriting, or his closet, not his emotions. He'd made an identity for himself out of distance and impassivity, of ironic detachment.

It had started as a protective shield, an aloof exterior to keep others at arm's length, so only he could decide who got close to him. But lately, Milo had felt like an egg cracked open, all the yolk drained out. Whatever softness he'd been trying to protect was long gone now.

He'd been right to push Rory away. In a way, that was the kindest thing he could do for him. Rory wasn't the kind of fuck him and forget him guy that Milo was used to. Rory was the kind of person made for slow, lazy Sunday morning sex, for laughing at cheesy horror movies with, for holding hands across the car console on a roadtrip—

Milo shook himself.

He'd vowed not to think about Rory again. He stubbed out his cigarette, annoyed with himself, and went back inside.