At some point the kissing slowed, becoming gentle presses of lips on lips, then on cheeks, necks, and shoulders. Ryan knew he should probably leave now, but warm and comfortable and loving the intimacy of their contact, he had no desire to go.

Johnny settled with his head on Ryan’s shoulder, drawing ticklish circles on Ryan’s chest with his fingertips. Ryan breathed in the scent of his silky hair and tried to deal with the ache of longing that was building in his chest. It swelled and grew, stealing space in his lungs until he knew he couldn’t contain it anymore. Surely Johnny had to feel something for him? The bond between them was tangible. Although it was based very much on the physical there was already more to this than sexual attraction, there was vulnerability and trust, and Ryan believed there was the potential for so much more.

But it had to begin with honesty.

He had to tell Johnny about his feelings, even if he didn’t know exactly what he wanted to come of them. As Johnny’s weight grew heavier and his breathing changed, signalling sleep, Ryan started planning the words he needed to say. Johnny dozing off gave him the time he needed to work out how to broach the subject. If Johnny would agree to be exclusive, to make this into something more official, then surely he would be prepared to give Ryan time to adjust. He didn’t have to come out to everyone immediately, make a big announcement. They could start with telling a few friends first and take it from there. One step at a time.

The weight in Ryan’s chest lifted with the decision made. He was ready to be honest. If Johnny didn’t want more, that would hurt, but at least he’d know. Ryan couldn’t deal with the uncertainty anymore and it had to be better to get things out in the open. He tightened his arms around Johnny, fear and excitement warring at the thought of the possible outcomes. He risked losing Johnny completely if he didn’t feel the same, but he couldn’t carry on like this. When Johnny woke, he’d tell him how he felt. But for now he was going to enjoy this moment in case it was the last time he got to hold Johnny like this. The thought of that was like the twist of a knife in his stomach. His eyelids felt heavy, so he closed them, giving into the urge to doze—just for a little while.

Ryan jerked awake at the chime of a phone. It wasn’t an alert tone that he recognised. He lifted his head and opened his eyes to darkness and heard the sound of deep, slow breathing beside him. Ryan could feel the warmth of another body. As the fog of sleep lifted, he realised he must still be in Johnny’s bed.

“Johnny?” he whispered.

The rhythm of Johnny’s breathing remained steady. He was lost in a sleep so deep Ryan would have to shake him to get a reaction. Maybe Ryan should get up and go home, but the light by the bed had still been on when Ryan fell asleep, so Johnny must have woken at some point and turned it off. He’d let Ryan stay, so was presumably okay with him sleeping there. Ryan didn’t want to move, and he still needed to talk to Johnny. He let his head fall back on the pillow and closed his eyes.

They could talk in the morning.

As he was drifting back into sleep, the phone chimed again.

With a huff of irritation, Ryan sat up, making the bed springs creak. “Johnny?” he said a little louder. “Want to turn the sound off on your phone?”

Johnny stirred and made a snuffling sound, but nothing intelligible.

The phone chimed again.

Casting his gaze around the room, Ryan spotted the glow of the screen on Johnny’s desk. He got up and carefully picked his way through Johnny’s room in the darkness. Luckily Johnny had an iPhone like Ryan, so it would be easy enough for Ryan to flip the switch to put it on silent. As he reached out to pick up the phone he noticed it was nearly two in the morning. Then he saw the notifications on the screen and his stomach lurched.

Three of them. All from Grindr, telling Johnny he had a message.

It wasn’t as if Ryan didn’t know they weren’t exclusive. Hell, on Sunday he’d basically given Johnny his blessing when they’d had that stupid abortive conversation up on the Hoe, because he hadn’t had the balls to be honest. But seeing the evidence in front of him again hurt. Just because Johnny was technically allowed to hook up with other people, it didn’t make Ryan feel any better about it.

Surely if Johnny had feelings for Ryan he wouldn’t be hooking up with randoms just because he could? There was no way he could feel the same as Ryan did.

Cursing his stupidity for getting his hopes up, Ryan crept around in the darkness, gathering his clothes, and dressing as silently as he could.

Once he was dressed, Ryan stood for a moment and listened to the soft sound of Johnny’s breathing, rising and falling like gentle waves lapping the shore. His heart was a heavy weight and emotion formed a tangled ball of regret, anger, and humiliation in his belly. He’d been stupid to think this was more than casual fucking. Thank goodness he hadn’t tried to ask Johnny for more; that conversation would only have ended in disappointment and Ryan didn’t think he could have handled Johnny letting him down gently. Ryan’s eyes burned and he blinked, trying to force back the tears that threatened.

He left, treading softly over the threshold before pulling the door closed behind him with the barest of clicks. The stairs creaked as he made his way down but other than that, the house was silent. Tension left him in a whoosh of breath as he finally stepped out into the night. Rain was falling hard and the street was slick and shiny with puddles. Pausing on the street between their two houses, Ryan looked up into the blackness of the sky and let the rain fall on his face. As the rainwater trickled down his cheeks it was hard to tell whether any tears escaped to keep it company. He stood until his clothes were soaked through and his teeth were chattering, only then did he go and let himself into his house.

In his room, Ryan stripped down to his boxer briefs and crawled into the refuge of his bed. He shivered, locked in physical misery to match his distress. Willing his mind to empty he tried to breathe slowly, counting his breath backwards from 100 until he got to zero, and then started all over again. He got to zero four times before his shivers stopped and he fell into a thankfully dreamless sleep at last.

The next morning, Ryan woke early and briefly experienced that moment of peace between sleeping and waking before the memory of the night before lurched into his consciousness like an unwelcome drunk at a party demanding attention. The evening had been so perfect, until….

“Ugh.” Ryan curled in on himself, stomach clenched with anxiety and unhappiness.

Like he didn’t already have enough to be stressed about with his exams less than a week away. The last thing he needed was to be constantly thinking about Johnny. He needed a clean break, to draw a line under everything that had happened between them and move on. Better to get out now before he got even deeper. Better to keep his focus on his studying, on his future. Johnny wasn’t going to be part of that and Ryan obviously couldn’t handle the distraction. What had started as a fun diversion had become a source of stress; Ryan needed to take responsibility and walk away.

He forced himself out of bed and into the shower, then down to the kitchen where he managed to eat some toast even though it felt like cardboard in his mouth and his stomach protested at the invasion. Two cups of coffee banished the sleep fog from his brain and he went back up to his room ready to concentrate on work.

The sound of a text alert broke his focus after a couple of hours, but he ignored it, pushing on with the facts he was cramming until his phone buzzed again ten minutes later.

Looking at his screen, Ryan ignored the little flip of his heart as he read the words from Johnny:

Last night was great :) hope you slept well x

Then the second message:

Are you okay this morning?

As he looked, a third pinged in:

Want to meet again soon? Let me know. I’m working late today but you could come over after nine.

It was so tempting to say yes, to go and indulge in the inevitable physical pleasure of whatever the evening would bring. But no. Steeling himself, Ryan typed:

Sorry, not tonight. I’m behind on revision and need to catch up.

It wasn’t entirely a lie. There was always more he could do, and Johnny had been a distraction recently.

No worries. Good luck with that. Maybe tomorrow then?

Ryan hesitated. Maybe he should end it now, tell Johnny he was done. But telling him by text rather than face-to-face seemed like a dick move. So he replied with: Maybe. I’ll let you know.

Okay x

Ryan didn’t feel bad about being evasive. It wasn’t like Johnny was going to be short of company. He could hook up with one of his Grindr buddies after all. He sighed and set his phone aside, and then turned back to his revision.

* * *

On Thursday afternoon Johnny looked back at the message thread on his phone. Ryan had said he’d let Johnny know about tonight but hadn’t been in contact since. At first Johnny hadn’t worried. He’d been working the last two days so hadn’t had much time to dwell, and he knew Ryan was busy with studying for his exams. But now doubts were creeping in.

Ryan had left on Tuesday night without waking him. After the intimacy of the evening that seemed a little odd. Johnny thought Ryan would have at least been the sort to leave a note, or text, for him to wake up to. He re-read the messages. It was hard to judge the tone but Ryan had been quite short, not chatty, and hadn’t added any smiles or kisses. But again, maybe he was just busy and stressed and Johnny was reading too much into his lack of enthusiasm.

Feeling lonely and fed up, Johnny stayed up late watching Netflix in bed that night. It was only when he got a Grindr message notification that he realised his normal default on a night like that would have been to hook up, but it hadn’t even occurred to him. He’d been ignoring messages since he’d met Carl, and he didn’t bother to open this message either. Instead, he jerked off thinking about Ryan and lay awake feeling unsettled. Maybe he should try to talk to Ryan again, but his last attempt at a serious conversation hadn’t gone well. And with Ryan’s exams approaching, now probably wasn’t the best time. He’d sit tight and see how things felt after Ryan’s exams were over.

By the time he left work on Friday, Johnny was in a terrible mood. The shop had been busy and he’d had more than his fair share of arsehole customers for one day. Despite being run off his feet, he’d spent way too much time obsessing over Ryan and the lack of contact, which only made him more fed up. He’d nearly lost his shit with the last twat of a customer who’d tried to return something that had obviously been worn on a night out around smokers and then yelled at Johnny when he refused to accept it back. Fortunately Johnny’s manager had intervened and saved him from saying something that might have cost him his job.

To make matters worse, it was raining again—the weather had been awful this week—and it was too windy for an umbrella. Johnny didn’t wear sensible things like raincoats or hats, so by the time he turned the corner into his street his hair was plastered to his head, his skinny jeans clung to his legs like a second skin, and water was trickling unpleasantly down the back of his neck.

All in all, it was the worst possible timing for him to literally bump into Ryan who was running in the opposite direction.

Heads down against the wind and rain, they didn’t see each other till it was too late. Johnny caught a flash of Ryan’s surprised expression as he rounded the corner before they collided. Throwing his arms up instinctively, Johnny grabbed Ryan’s biceps to hold himself upright.

“Shit. Sorry!” Ryan gasped breathlessly.

“Fucking hell. You nearly knocked me over.” Johnny regained his balance, but kept his hands on Ryan’s arms. His muscles were thick and solid beneath the thin compression top he was wearing under a short-sleeved layer. Hoping that maybe this would be a turning point in his shitty day, Johnny grinned at Ryan. “So, how are you? I’ve missed you.”

Ryan’s gaze slid away from Johnny’s eyes evasively and he stepped back, lifting a hand to wipe a curl of wet hair off his forehead. “Not bad thanks, busy… you know. Just out for a run.”

“So I see,” Johnny said, acid creeping into his tone at Ryan’s coldness. “Well don’t let me stop you.” He didn’t mean to sound bitchy, but he couldn’t help it. This sudden distance between them was hurtful. He knew Ryan needed to focus on his exams, but with Ryan right in front of him and barely able to look him in the eye, the avoidance felt personal as well as practical. Something had changed and Johnny didn’t know what, or why. He couldn’t resist pushing. “Am I right in assuming you won’t want to hook up this weekend? Revision taking priority again?”

“Yeah. Um….” Ryan flicked his eyes up to meet Johnny’s for a moment and the regret in them was stark. It hit Johnny like a punch in the gut because he knew what was coming. “Actually I think it’s best if we just leave it. Stop seeing each other. It’s been fun, but it’s too much of a distraction… meeting so often. So can we call it a day?”

The icy chill down Johnny’s spine was nothing to do with the rainwater now. He didn’t know why Ryan had turned it into a question, when his mind was clearly made up.

“Of course.” Johnny shrugged, his voice curt. “If that’s what you want.”

Ryan stared at him, looking pretty fucking miserable for the person who was doing the dumping. “I think it’s best. Feels like it was taking up too much of our time for something that was supposed to be casual, and neither of us wants anything serious, do we?”

Again with the questions. If Ryan had asked Johnny what he wanted before he’d told him he wanted to break up, then Johnny might have been honest. But now his pride made him reply quickly, “Yeah, no. Course not. We knew that from the start.”

Ryan seemed to be searching Johnny’s face for something, and Johnny hoped his emotions weren’t showing because on the inside he was crumbling.

Hurt, rejection, humiliation, misery.

This was why he’d avoided relationships for so long, because these feelings were unbearable. Johnny had spent so long protecting himself from them but Ryan had broken through his defences. Using the last bit of his willpower, Johnny fought down the wave of unwelcome emotion and said, “Well, I wanna get out of the rain because it’s fucking horrible out here. So I’ll see you around, I guess. Good luck with the exams.” And with that he shoved his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t be tempted to try to touch Ryan, and hurried past him to walk away without looking back.