by Roan Parrish
Alex grinned. He had no idea how it worked, but had some ideas about how Corbin’s mind worked. He was smart and creative, and if given an opportunity to make connections, he would.
“Tell me how it works, love.”
Corbin shrugged.
“How will you know when we’re safe?”
Corbin shrugged again. “I’ll just know.”
Two days later, Corbin woke gasping in the dark.
His head was spinning and there were spangles in his chest. His fingertips were numb.
“Alex,” he croaked.
“Mmm, you okay, baby?” Alex murmured, still half asleep.
“Alex, it’s today.”
Alex shifted next to him, coming awake at the panic in his voice. “Tell me.”
“Alex.” Corbin pushed off the covers and made for the window. He searched the skies and the treetops and the snow below for signs. He closed his eyes and felt his own heartbeat and the rush of blood through his body. He felt Alex’s heartbeat across the room, as strong and vital as ever.
He stuck his head out the window, taking in great gasps of air, filtering out the earthy smells of winter in search of the ones that could tell him something.
“Alex.”
Alex’s arms came around him, and Alex’s chin came down on top of his head. They were both naked, and Corbin could feel their goose bumps everywhere.
“So we just have to get through today, right? And if we do, you’ll believe that we’re okay?”
Corbin nodded and let himself be led back to bed. His heart was pounding so hard he felt faint. The span of one day stood between him and everything he’d ever wanted, or something that would destroy him.
“Is it midnight, tonight, or do we have to get through until tomorrow morning? Like, morning to evening, or twenty-four hours, or—”
Corbin socked him in the shoulder.
“Should we stay in bed all day? Will we be safer?”
“Aunt Jade’s wife died in her sleep.”
“Okay, should we just go about our business as usual?”
“It doesn’t matter. If it’s going to happen, it will happen.”
Corbin shuddered and Alex drew him close, lying down with Corbin on his chest.
“I know, baby. I meant what would make you feel better.”
But Corbin didn’t know.
Alex went to work as usual, promising Corbin he’d text every hour and be home by four. When he kissed Corbin goodbye at the door, Corbin was shaking so badly his teeth chattered. When their lips parted, Corbin whimpered like a distressed animal and Alex could hardly bear to leave him. But Corbin had told him to go, finally, saying it would be harder to watch him all day, waiting.
Alex texted every hour, as promised—more than every hour. He sent Corbin pictures of pies and croissants, scones and cookies. He sent a picture of himself holding up a loaf of bread and said he’d bring it home for dinner. Corbin looked at all of them, running his fingers over the screen of the phone Alex had insisted he get.
It had two contacts in it: Alex and Gareth. Gareth liked to send him text messages consisting entirely of emojis, which Corbin would read the way he read the signs, and respond appropriately.
As he thought of Gareth, a text from him came through. This one was not in emojis.
If Alex dies, I’ll still like you. And I won’t be mad at you for killing my best friend with your love.
Corbin snorted. Gareth’s combination of fierce loyalty and abrasive honesty had become a welcome part of his life over the past year.
If Alex dies I’ll probably die too and save you the trouble, Corbin wrote back. He half believed it was true. That Alex’s removal from the world would erase him.
You’re an idiot, Gareth texted. Tell me if you want me to come over.
Too restless to draw anymore, Corbin found himself wandering the house in thick wool socks, a sweater, and sweatpants that Alex had bought him, insisting that while he should still please sleep naked, it might be nice for him to have something comfortable to lounge around in. As with most things that Corbin had never considered for himself, Alex had been right.
He paced the hallway, watching dust motes dance and glimmer in the milky sunlight, until finally he pushed open the door to Aunt Hilda’s bedroom.
Corbin hadn’t opened this door since the day his aunts’ bodies were taken away. The room was choked in dust and absence, and as Corbin eased inside, it felt like he was falling through into another time.
The bed where the aunts’ bodies had lain was bare, and it drew Corbin’s eye like a lodestone. He walked around the perimeter of the room, running a palm along the wall as if he was drawing a circle. When he got to the bed, he reached a hand out like a divining rod, but he felt nothing dark lurking there.
Slowly, as if he were a child, he climbed up on the bare mattress, and curled at the foot of the bed, as he had that day and for the days that followed.
The aunts had loved him in their own way. He knew that now, though he had never considered it when they were alive. They hadn’t given him what he needed—he knew that now, too—but they hadn’t withheld anything out of malice or stinginess. They simply hadn’t known. And ignorance was painful, but it wasn’t the same as a lack of love.
They had told him the stories they knew, imparted the beliefs they held dear. They had given him the world as they understood it, and tried their best to arm him for it.
He stayed curled there for what felt like a long while, remembering. Remembering Aunt Hilda’s tenderness for her many cats and Aunt Jade’s trembly laugh. Aunt Hilda’s marshmallow root tea and Aunt Jade’s cinnamon toast. Rainy mornings sitting in easy silence and late nights listening to the aunts talk in low voices when they didn’t know he could hear.
He missed them sharply all of a sudden, like a fishhook to his gut. He let it wash over him, and then he let it ebb. As he left the room with a lingering touch to the carvings of the phases of the moon around the four-poster bed, Corbin thought he felt the air heave a creaking sigh and let something go.
That night, Alex and Corbin were both too on edge to talk much, so they read on the couch in front of the fire, Corbin leaning on Alex, Dreidel leaning on Corbin. Corbin couldn’t concentrate and he lost himself in watching the fire instead, imagining it as a cleansing force, protecting them, burning up all the bad energy and leaving them with only peace. Alex couldn’t concentrate much better and soon abandoned his book to run his hands through Corbin’s hair, twisting it around his fingers and braiding chunks of it in complex braids like he would challah dough.
They went to bed soon after, early, eager for the day to end.
Corbin was so exhausted from being anxious all day that he didn’t have the energy to put his fear into words. He didn’t have the energy to look into Alex’s eyes and say I love you. I didn’t even know what love was until I loved you. I’m so afraid I might lose you. Please don’t let this be the last kiss, the last touch. Hold me all night, please don’t let go.
But it didn’t matter, because Alex already knew those things. He knew Corbin’s love as he knew his own, and he pulled Corbin to him in the dark, skin against skin, and held on tight, drifting to sleep on Corbin’s tempestuous seas.
They woke in a cocoon of warm breath and tangled limbs. Outside, snow had been falling heavily for hours, feet of it, grinding the world to a halt.
It was early morning, the sunlight shining through the falling snow.
Corbin came awake slowly, then jerked upright. He pushed at Alex and pressed a trembling hand to his chest.
“You’re alive.”
Alex’s eyes stayed closed, and he grumbled as he batted Corbin’s questing hands away.
“Alex. Alex!”
Alex blinked sleepily. Then he saw Corbin’s grin, as pure and bright as a beam of sunlight.
“I’m alive.”
“You’re alive. Alex.”
Corbin’s smile trembled, and then he burst into tears, great wracking sobs that shook his
shoulders.
Alex smiled. Corbin’s emotions were so close to the surface that sometimes they overflowed. Alex was honored that he was allowed to witness it.
He wrapped Corbin in his arms and pushed him down to the bed, then he lay on top of him. It was the way Corbin felt safest—held down, enveloped, overwhelmed. He smiled as Corbin scrabbled at his back and finally got his arms around him where he wanted them. He smiled as Corbin’s sobs turned to soft snuffles and then the occasional shuddering breath. He smiled as Corbin went boneless beneath him.
He smiled because, though he hadn’t known when the day would come that Corbin would trust in this completely, he’d been waiting for it. Now that it was here, he felt as light as the falling snow.
Corbin was whispering nonsense into his neck, and Alex pressed his stubbled cheek against Corbin’s smooth one.
“I love you,” he said into Corbin’s ear. “I will always love you.” And Corbin shuddered beneath him. “I love you,” he said again, and felt Corbin’s relief spark into arousal. It happened for him sometimes—the strength of one feeling transmuting almost instantly into another.
Alex ran warm palms over Corbin’s body beneath the covers, stroking his chest and stomach, his arms and fingers, his hips and thighs. Corbin never opened his eyes, just kept whispering nonsense and whimpering as the spark between them burned hotter and hotter.
“AlexAlexAlexAlexAlex” poured from his lips, and they came together effortlessly, Alex sliding inside Corbin and feeling like he had finally come home. Corbin’s potent imagination often turned sex into something transcendent and magical, and Alex treasured those times.
Now, though, it felt like Corbin was there with him, so present he was like a shard of glass. They locked eyes, and Alex moved them with his thrusts, powerful and insistent. He rocked inside Corbin and the pleasure washed over him. Corbin threw his head back and cried out. They grabbed at each other, fingers digging in, hips thrusting, mouths meeting and tongues tangling, until they were one body—blood and bone and sweat and come, surging together like a tidal wave.
Corbin whimpered as he came, his limbs seizing up, his body quaking, and then going boneless, and Alex’s orgasm burned up the base of his spine and then exploded as he drove himself deep inside.
It was what Corbin always wanted—what Alex always wanted to give him. To be taken over entirely by Alex, every empty space filled up. To feel Alex inside him everywhere and forever.
After, they kissed lazily, hands finding each other. Then they drifted, as the snow fell outside, hearts beating in rhythm, arms and legs braiding together as morning turned to day, day turned into night, and night gathered itself toward another morning. Another, and another, and another.
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My first thanks go to Riptide, for inviting me to be a part of their annual holiday charity collection. I’m grateful that my words might go some small distance to materially impacting things in a positive way.
To my agent, Courtney Miller-Callihan, who, when I texted her, What if I were doing something kind of bonkers, and described it, merely replied, That sounds insane and potentially amazing. Thank you for always being willing to see the amazing side.
To my editor, Sarah Lyons. Many thanks for your enthusiasm about this project, and for helping to make it the best version of itself. Thanks also to the team at Riptide, for all your support, and specifically to Natasha Snow, for the lovely cover.
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Last and most, to my sister, who knows why. You’re the fire.
Middle of Somewhere series
In the Middle of Somewhere
Out of Nowhere
Where We Left Off
Small Change
Heart of the Steal, with Avon Gale
Short Fiction
Mayfair (in Lead Me Into Darkness: Five Halloween Tales of Paranormal Romance)
Touched (in Follow Me Into Darkness: Five Tales of Carnivale Romance)
Company (in All In Fear: A Collection of Six Horror Tales)
Roan Parrish lives in Philadelphia, where she is gradually attempting to write love stories in every genre.
When not writing, she can usually be found cutting her friends’ hair, meandering through whatever city she’s in while listening to torch songs and melodic death metal, or cooking overly elaborate meals. She loves bonfires, winter beaches, minor chord harmonies, and self-tattooing. One time she may or may not have baked a six-layer chocolate cake and then thrown it out the window in a fit of pique.
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