by Jude Sierra
“On the bed,” River said from Erik’s hip. River kissed the bruising mark his teeth and lips had left. Erik’s stomach clenched under River’s splayed fingers when he laid him out on the white sheets. The shadow of an old bruise painted Erik’s collarbone.
“Does this help?” River pinched and then twisted Erik’s nipple
“I told you—”
“You’re a fighter. I know.” River kissed him then, as gently as he could. More gently than Erik wanted, he thought. He kissed Erik’s neck, where his pulse throbbed, and then, with all the sweetness he knew Erik feared, his injury. Erik squirmed away and closed his eyes. He tried to get his hands under River’s shirt.
“Look at me,” River said. He pressed two fingers against the bruise. Erik arched into the touch. River framed his neck, the lovely symmetry of Erik’s bones under his palms. His thumbs fit beautifully into the groove at the base of Erik’s throat.
Erik looked at him, all blown pupils and worried desire. More pressure on a fresh bruise and Erik whimpered.
“I need you here with me,” River said. His kiss was rough, too rough for the push of emotions Erik roused, not hard enough for what Erik needed.
“I am,” Erik breathed. His hands curled around River’s hips. River sat back to pull his shirt off, then shimmied out of his pants.
“Turn over,” River said. He didn’t want Erik’s back against the sheets for too long. He smoothed the edge of the bandage where it was curling away. “What’s your word?”
“I don’t need one,” Erik gritted out.
“I do,” River said, pressing it quietly into his skin, letting the words linger and hoping Erik heard what he was pleading for. We both need to hurt and be hurt. Let me give that to you.
“Fuck, uh—” Erik shuddered when River’s hands wandered farther. “I don’t know. Sh-Shakespeare.”
River pressed a smile against his shoulder, cupped a hand between Erik’s legs and pooled lube—so much and too much and enough to make a mess. There was no ceremony as he fumbled for a condom and pressed his fingers, then himself, in. It was fast enough to make Erik hiss and squirm, inciting delicious sensory confusion—pleasure, pain, something that lived between the two—that River didn’t always want but understood the hunger for. Erik’s fingers curled around the edge of his mattress. He couldn’t hold out in silence long. He resisted breaking, the moment he surrendered into exposed nerves and heart and want.
River spread his knees, wrapped one hand over Erik’s shoulder, and gripped. He bit the back of Erik’s neck hard and moaned the whole time Erik came. River’s name was on his lips. River in broken syllables and his shredding voice, River in his fear and vulnerability.
After, he let River clean him up. Tracked River’s movements through the room. Rolled into River’s space in his bed and somehow gathered his larger body into the frame of River’s arms.
Chapter Thirteen
Erik couldn’t decide if he wanted to ask Desiree or find someone else to lotion his new tattoo for him. He shifted in Gem’s bathroom until he could see the edge of the Svara peeking over his shoulder on the left side. The door opened and closed. A pleasant hum filled the air and Erik instantly rolled his eyes.
“What’re you doing in here?” he asked.
Jadis appeared behind him. Their eyebrow quirked, eyelids dusted with purple eyeshadow. A half smile graced their face and, they rested their chin in one hand, studying Erik carefully. “No non-binary bathroom, sweetheart. And I knew you were in this one.”
“You flirt with everyone as much as me?” Erik smiled at Jadis in the mirror. Despite being annoying, he enjoyed their company.
“Of course.” Jadis scoffed. “Don’t start thinkin’ you’re special, Erik. If I remember correctly, you choked me with your dick. Don’t think I’ve forgiven you for it.”
“Oh, my apologies,” Erik joked. “But if I remember correctly, you told me to.”
Jadis grinned with all their teeth. Their blue eyes flicked to Erik’s shoulder. “What’s that?”
“A new tattoo. Where’s Desiree? Can you grab her?”
“No can do. She’s tending to a bachelor party.”
Erik chewed on his lip. “Can you help me, then? I need to get lotion on this.”
They shrugged a bony shoulder. “Do I get to see you with your shirt off?”
“Stop humping my leg. Jesus.” He couldn’t help but laugh as he pulled the long sleeve shirt over his head. “Yes, you do. Does your thirst actually work on people?” Jadis slid forward, and he handed them a tube of non-scented lotion.
“You tell me,” Jadis purred. They stuck their tongue between their teeth when they smiled, and smoothed warm, lotioned hands over Erik’s tattoo. “Is this by that River guy? The one Desiree says is stealing all your time?”
“Yes,” Erik said. “It is. And he’s not stealing all my time. We’re…”
“Dating?”
Erik tilted his head back and forth.
Jadis chuckled. “Sleeping together?”
“Yes.” Erik cleared his throat. “And it’s good. Really good.”
“The sex or him?” Jadis caught his eye in the mirror.
He chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Both, honestly.”
“No wonder my tricks aren’t working.” Jadis leaned in close and whispered, “I can’t compete with Cupid’s arrow, huh?”
Erik didn’t understand their teasing at first, but a second later it sank in. Jadis wiped their hands off with a paper towel and gestured to the large dragon on his back. “Well, he does good work, whoever this mystery lover is, and he’s got good taste.” Jadis winked.
Erik’s expression was tight and combative. It was too soon and too good and too easy to ruin. He wasn’t in love with River. He couldn’t be.
Could he?
“I’m not…” The words curdled in his throat.
“Course not,” Jadis sang. “Guys like you are too mean to let their hearts have anything worth a damn.” They smirked, eyes alive and toxic. “Call me if you need another dose. Or anything else.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
“Oh, I won’t.” Jadis stopped in front of the stall. “You’re good at breaking things, Erik. Be careful with the things that matter.” Jadis tapped their chest. “You coming out with us tonight?”
Erik didn’t answer. He shouldered the bathroom door open and walked behind the bar. Desiree was leaning forward, flashing a grin at a group of heart-eyed boys. One wore a hilarious sash that said Future Bride, except “bride” was crossed out and replaced with “groom” in Sharpie. She glanced at Erik, then at the bathroom, just in time to catch Jadis slink toward the pool tables.
“Oh, you didn’t,” Desiree said through a groan. “Tell me you didn’t, Erik.”
“Of course I didn’t, c’mon,” Erik said. He filled glasses with ice and lined them up in front of her as she shook a cocktail over her shoulder. “You don’t think I’m that kind of guy, do you?”
“Do I think you’re the kind of guy who’d misinterpret the amazing relationship he’s in and randomly hook up with someone?”
“We’re not in a relationship.”
The bachelor party gave a low “ooooo” in varying dude-bro octaves.
“Shut up,” Desiree teased, and pushed their cocktails toward them on the bar. She turned back to Erik and pinned her cold, smart eyes on him. “You shut up, too. You honestly think you’re not in a relationship?”
Obviously, they were in a relationship. It was the order of it that bothered him. Erik had met River, slept with him, slept with him again, and now he was regularly eating with him and sleeping with him, and sleeping next to him and learning him, and being learned by him, and—
Erik decided to play along, a poorly executed attempt at hiding the truth. “Yeah, okay, fine. What if I said, hypothetically, that we were exclusive, or he was my partner? So what?”
“So, that hot piece of ass”—Desiree pointed at Jadis; the dude-bro bachelor party whipp
ed around to follow her finger—“is off-limits.”
“They’ve been off-limits,” Erik said. “It was once, once, and you two won’t let me live it down.”
One of the dude-bros yelled, “Hi, hot piece of ass!”
Jadis grinned as they aimed their pool stick.
Desiree rolled her eyes and adjusted her cropped leather jacket. “We’re going out tonight—all of us. Bring him.” She saw Erik’s expression harden and sighed. “Bring him, Erik. Come out with us. Have fun with us. Don’t hide him.”
River wasn’t the one being hidden. Erik had always assumed that he’d evolve into the sketch he’d drawn of himself years ago, and when he was fighting or with Desiree, drinking and using and being used, Erik was the Erik he assumed he’d always be. With River, he was different, and he didn’t know how to feel about that yet.
“Another time,” Erik said.
Desiree pouted but didn’t press him.
He left after that and thought about Jadis’s uncharacteristically wise words—be careful with the things that matter—about Desiree’s suspicion, and mostly about who he was with River.
Erik never imagined this trust, intimacy—love, maybe. He’d always assumed that the primary components of happiness would slip through his fingers.
But here he was, holding on to River.
…
The next week brought February to his doorstep. The cold was relentless, making sure to brand the city before spring chased it away.
Erik smoothed lotion over his rib cage where the tail of his Svara curved across them. He pressed down harder. A whisper of pain unfurled.
Do you need it, too, then?
River’s voice had been even when he asked, steady in a way Erik couldn’t fathom being. He’d bitten Erik hard, used those long, elegant hands to unapologetically control him. Pain in the ring was one thing—brutal, primal, dismantled pain. The kind that was born out of rage and hopelessness. The kind that came with running from ghosts. But this pain… He pressed on the tattoo again and remembered River guiding the ink into his skin, remembered River’s body and his voice and how he’d plucked Erik open with nimble, sharp precision. This pain was different.
Knuckles rapped the front door. Erik glanced around the apartment as he tugged an old band T-shirt on. He’d bought a plant, a big green fern, and set it on the windowsill. With River coming over more, Erik figured he should try to make the apartment livable.
“Hey.” Erik stepped aside after he opened the door.
River wore a coat over jeans and a long-sleeved thermal shirt. He poked Erik’s chest with the edge of the pizza box in his hands. “Artichoke hearts, peppers, and prosciutto.”
“I said pizza, not fancy pizza,” Erik teased.
They ate on the bed instead of the couch, because there wasn’t room for a table or chairs. Neither of them seemed to mind. River talked about the tattoos he’d done lately: a sleeve full of watercolors and abstract geometric animals, matching skulls on someone’s kneecaps—Erik cringed at that one—and a batch of wildflowers a girl had gifted herself for her eighteenth birthday. Erik told River about the bar, the gaggle of bachelors, and how Pete wanted them to order new quirky liquors.
“Habanero tequila?” River’s brows shot up. “That sounds either amazing or absolutely disgusting. No middle ground.”
“I think it’ll be good as a mule, you know? Ginger beer, lime, something sweet to counter the spicy.”
“Listen to you.” River set the pizza box on the ground beside the bed and draped his legs over Erik’s thighs. “You actually sound like a bartender who might be able to make a decent drink.”
Erik traced the thin line where River’s shirt was bunched above his jeans, showcasing a strip of skin. He leaned forward to grab River’s legs, dragging him across the bed until he was seated in Erik’s lap, thighs wide around Erik’s hips. “I can make a decent drink, asshole.”
River’s palms caressed his cheeks. He flexed his feet, shifting until he was nose to nose with Erik. “Sure you can,” he said softly. His smile grew into a grin, the private, loose kind that Erik had gotten used to. A laugh followed, gentle, barely there, and Erik still wanted to bottle the sound. “I don’t know how I missed that bathtub last time, but holy shit. I’ve never seen an actual claw-foot tub before.”
“I bet we can both fit,” Erik said, chasing River’s smile when he tipped his head back to glance over his shoulder.
“I don’t know. Me and my giant Irish boy—” River stopped. His mouth hung open over the unspoken word. Boyfriend. It twisted the space between them, a question neither of them had asked, and a term neither of them had ever used. “We’d probably get water everywhere,” he added quickly.
Erik licked his lips. He thought about saying it. Call me your boyfriend. Do you want that? Are we together? But before he mustered the courage, River cleared his throat. He leaned over to grab his drink off the nightstand and made a surprised noise.
“Who are these people? You’ve got pictures of them stashed everywhere,” River said.
Fuck. He didn’t put the photograph away last night.
“She’s pretty,” River said. He relaxed in Erik’s lap again, and while River studied the photo, Erik studied him. Light caught the gold in River’s eyes. He watched the curve of his lips, the dimples beneath his short stubble, and the way questions formed a tiny line between his brows. “And he’s cute.”
“That’s Beverly,” Erik whispered. His throat rebelled against the next name, but he said it anyway. “And Lee. They’re friends from high school.”
River stared at the photo. His features were uncomplicated and beautiful, like always. “Why don’t you ever talk about them?”
“Because Lee’s dead.” Erik kept his composure when River whipped away from the photograph, eyes wide, apologies building behind his lips. “It’s fine,” Erik cut him off before he could say anything. He took the picture and slid it into his nightstand. Despite his racing heart and tight chest, Erik managed to fake a smile. “I wouldn’t mind getting water all over the floor with you.”
“I…” River leaned his forehead against Erik’s. His mouth hovered open, his eyes searched Erik’s face, looking for cracks and broken pieces. “Erik…”
“Don’t, okay?” Erik tilted his head until their lips brushed. “It’s fine.”
River kissed him. It tasted like an apology, maybe. Or something else. River kissed him slowly, deep, long passes of breathlessness that made Erik wonder again about trust and intimacy and love. How all those things could be present in a kiss like this, and how greedy Erik was to swallow them. He swiped at the lamp on his nightstand until the light went out. They spent the night wrapped in each other. Nothing hurt. River kept his eyes open, settled on Erik as he straddled his waist, riding him slowly. He slid his fingers into Erik’s hands, pushed them above his head, and leaned down until their lips touched.
Erik didn’t know what this was. He wouldn’t call it making love, because god-for-fucking-bid. But it could’ve been.
River gasped against his mouth, and Erik wondered if love could be that, too. That sound. Those hands. His laugh. He wondered if love could be here, with them, if it was a place or a person, a poison or a weapon.
Whatever it was, Erik felt it. He felt it in his goddamn bones, and it terrified him.
Chapter Fourteen
Seattle breathed, heavy and pregnant with promised rain. Moisture and cold punched through each of River’s layers. He bundled his hands into his pockets, curling bloodless fingers to try to warm them while cars shushed through old puddles on perpetually damp streets. His phone vibrated. River didn’t have to check to know it was his sister, which meant he was probably two minutes late.
Less than two years his senior, with River well into adulthood, his sister would always feel graced with the authority to be his boss. River loved her like crazy even when she drove him to the edge of it.
“Valeria,” he sang, sneaking up behind her at the diner counter. He
bussed her cheek, one hand on her back to steady her when she startled.
“You ass,” she said through a laugh and swatted at him.
“New ’do?” River tucked her hair behind her ear. Perfectly streaked highlights and lowlights in gold and brown fell in a sleek shoulder-length cut. Val was every inch pressed and put together. Her peach silk shirt was tucked into expensive high-waist slacks that matched her three-inch black heels. It was all painfully tasteful. Val spoke volumes even when perfectly still. She was everything River wasn’t; she was everything he knew he couldn’t be. She was corporate and made shit-tons of money. She’d been in a steady relationship for years and owned her own home.
Val was some sort of American dream; River, some beautiful other.
Growing up next to her, he’d felt like a tarnished penny. He’d been the photo negative, the inverse, everything Not-Val. He’d grown out of it, mostly, but he would never tell her that he’d felt like that. Val loved River for who he was. None of his anxieties were her fault. She was who she was. She encouraged him to be who he was, always. When he dropped out of college, she’d stood by his decision. When he’d decided to become a tattoo artist, she’d celebrated his happiness, the fact that he’d found a place to call home, to be himself.
River loved his life, and he liked who he was, even if in her presence, he still had to work to keep himself out of her shadow.
“You like?” Val ran her hands through her hair self-consciously.
“You’re always beautiful. You know that.” He pulled a plastic-coated menu from the stand to his left.
“No, I don’t. But thanks.” She nudged him with one patent shoe. “So, how’s work? Any good pieces lately?”