Summer froze just inside the door as their gazes met, Summer’s eyes widening briefly as he made a startled sound, before smiling shyly. “Oh—hi.”
Don’t smile at me that way.
Fox looked away sharply, lowering his gaze to his hands, and realized he was practically crushing the bell pepper between his palms. He set it aside on the cutting board and picked up another, plunging it under the stream of water and only hoping the cold water would cool the flush of aching, longing need building up inside him.
Don’t make me want you like this.
“I wasn’t expecting you back,” he said neutrally. “Should I make dinner for two, then?”
“Oh, um... I...”
Even not looking at him, Fox could hear the blush in Summer’s voice. The sweet hesitation, that way he had of being so guileless, so open with his feelings, with his warmth, with a neediness that seemed to sit so much more comfortably on him than it did on Fox.
“I finished at Mom’s early,” Summer said. “And I wanted to have dinner with you. I can have dinner with Mom any time.”
...don’t remind me that I’m just going to leave you.
Even if Summer hadn’t meant it that way...
It hit hard.
Their time together was short.
And it was all because Fox was too afraid to let it be anything else.
So it would seem Summer, too, was making the most of what they had, while they could.
Fox closed his eyes, his fingers stilling against the slightly rubbery skin of the bell pepper clasped between his hands, no sound between them but the rush of the water pouring from the faucet, the sound of the spray striking the metal sink with hollow drumming noises like rain.
He took a deep breath, trying to center himself, trying to just...
Detach.
Somehow.
Because if he didn’t now, it would be that much harder later.
“Go wash up,” he made himself say, as he set the second pepper down and opened the refrigerator to pull out a third and fourth, since he was now doubling portions. “I won’t have you at dinner looking like you’ve been rolling in the dirt like the overeager puppy you are.”
Summer’s laughter was soft, startled...so very sweet.
As sweet as the feeling of his lips, as he slipped into the kitchenette and brushed his mouth to Fox’s cheek. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll try to be fast so I can help you finish up.”
Then he stepped away, leaving behind only the scents of earth, of grass, of Summer himself.
While Fox stared into the refrigerator without breathing, without moving, save for the drift of his fingers, rising to touch his cheek.
Summer made this look so simple, so easy.
While for Fox, the idea of having this and then losing it...
Suddenly didn’t feel so easy at all.
Summer didn’t know how he managed to smile, as he finished toweling off his shower-wet hair, dragged on a clean pair of jeans, and stepped out of the bathroom to join Fox in the kitchen.
When he’d walked in the door and Fox had gone so stiff, looked at him so strangely, then turned away as if nothing was wrong...
Maybe Summer was reading into things.
But he’d felt like he’d run face-first into those stone walls again, the cracks in them sealing over to shut him out.
He lingered in the bathroom doorway, propping his shoulder against the frame and watching Fox chop vegetables as swiftly, efficiently, and methodically as he did everything else. He seemed calm, relaxed, that initial tension gone as if it had never happened, and Summer tried to tell himself he was imagining things. He was tired, and he’d probably just startled Fox when he’d come back unexpectedly.
This was still such a new thing, after all.
But it felt like a knife slid between his third and fourth rib and twisted, every time he remembered he’d never get the chance to make it an old thing, a familiar thing, a thing steady and forever and true.
Damn it.
He couldn’t do this to himself right now.
So he pushed the thoughts down, held on to his smile, and pushed away from the door to join Fox, stepping into the kitchen and pulling the refrigerator door open.
“All clean,” he said. “What do you want me to start with?”
“For starters,” Fox said tartly, “you can finish dressing yourself, you heathen. Then you can put some rice on, if you actually want to be helpful.”
Summer grinned, closing the fridge and pulling open the pantry cabinet instead, but not without stopping to briefly lean his bare shoulder against Fox’s arm. “I don’t need a shirt to cook rice.”
“You don’t need a shirt to end up with oil burns when I put the stir-fry on, either,” Fox retorted. “Dress yourself, you unruly, uncivilized monster.”
“Am I a monster now?” Summer turned his head and bit down lightly on Fox’s shoulder, tugging at his shirt in his teeth. “Grawr.”
“You absolutely insufferable—” With a strangled sound, Fox lightly smacked Summer on the nose with a cold, wet-beaded stalk of celery, glaring at him with narrowed eyes and twitching lips. “Shirt. Now.”
Summer just laughed, pulling away and heading into the bedroom to find one of the button-down shirts that had somehow ended up staying here instead of in his own suite.
But there was a raspy ache in the back of his throat.
Because he hadn’t missed the slightest pause, the faintest moment of hesitation before each of Fox’s reactions, as if he was choosing what to do, holding himself back behind something careful that created just enough distance for Summer to feel it.
And Summer didn’t have the heart to push him about it.
Not right now.
Not when pushing might mean losing what little time he had.
Having something was better than having nothing at all, wasn’t it?
...wasn’t it?
He asked himself that again and again, as he slid into his shirt and worked his fingers up the row of buttons.
But
