The night is Autumn-chilly as Jesse steps out of Half Note's front door to have a cigarette. Outside is peaceful compared to the cacophony inside—Amos Murray was wailing on his sax last he heard, trying out that something new. The crowd was clamoring for him in a Bacchanalian haze, and Jesse had to nearly fight his way through to the front of the club. Now that he's out he takes a deep breath, crisp air filling his lungs. The whine of sirens from a couple streets over grounds him in the present, familiar sounds of New York City filling his head and clearing the cottony fog that had gathered there.
He has a cigarette hanging from his bottom lip, patting down his pockets for a match, when he hears a sweet voice behind him say, "Need a light?"
Jesse freezes, a squiggly shimmer of surprise in his gut because he thought he was alone out here. However, that voice does something else to his gut, too—sultry, yet innocent, with the curl of a flirt on the question. He turns, and there's a figure leaning against the brick wall bathed in the muted glow from the marquee. He's small, much shorter than Jesse, and probably skinny under his bulky coat. It looks like a hand-me-down, most likely from an older brother. A head of floppy black hair and equally dark eyes that glitter under the soft lights. There's a quirk of a smile on his mouth, a lit cigarette dangling by his side, and his hips are canted away from the wall and straight in Jesse's direction. His other hand holds a lighter out in the air between them.
Jesse has to swallow hard against the sudden lump in his throat. Never in his 38 years of life has he seen a boy so beautiful and so obviously trying to seduce him. And, against his better judgment, it's working—the realization hits him like a runaway freight train.
"Um, thanks," Jesse stammers like an idiot. He forgot his coat, so he rolls the sleeves of his shirt down over his strong forearms. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches the boy looking. Just to show off, he flexes his fingers, knowing exactly what he looks like—he doesn't have a typical piano player's hands; his are strong with wide palms and blunt fingers. He'd have been great at baseball, his mother always said, but his grandfather was a vaudeville pianist and he got the gene.
He still has his cigarette hanging off his lip, but instead of taking the lighter from this strange, intriguing boy, he leans forward and offers the cigarette for him to light himself. The boy plucks it from Jesse's lips and puts it to his own, and Jesse is left gaping like a large-mouth bass as he lights it, delicate hands cupped tightly around the flame. The spark lights up his impish face and reflects in his dark eyes like two burning coals. He places the lit cigarette back on Jesse's bottom lip and he finally closes his mouth, taking a drag hands-free and exhaling through his nose.
"Impressive," the boy says, a tiny smirk on his mouth that Jesse can't stop looking at.
"Thanks," he replies. "I'm Jesse," holding out his hand. The boy takes it, and even his handshake has the barest hint of a flirt.
"Andy," he says, and the combination of their hands touching, engulfed in the catcher's mitt of Jesse's palm, and the sound of his name in the cold air between them makes Jesse feel pleasantly weird in his belly. "I saw you play," Andy continues. "You're pretty good."
"
Pretty good
?" Jesse replies, mock-incredulous. Andy could say he sucked and he'd agree just to spend more time outside with him.
"Are you fishing for compliments?" he asks, smiling, and Jesse feels himself smiling back.
"No," he says. "I just think you're underselling me a bit."
Andy rolls his eyes, but the smile remains. "Don't worry," he says, "I'm sure all the girls are still just as crazy about you."
Shrugging, feeling half out of his mind, Jesse takes a risk and tells him, "That's alright, I don't really care too much about that anyway," ducking his head to make sure he sees his eyes, how honest he's making them. How much he's trying to tell him with that one sentence. Andy's dark eyes meet Jesse's bright green gaze, peering up through his girlish lashes with a coy sweetness that sends Jesse's head reeling.
"You don't say," Andy murmurs softly, playing at nonchalance, but Jesse can see how his fist has tightened at his side like he wants to grab something and there are spots of splotchy pink high on his cheeks. Jesse shoots him a sly smile before taking a sensual drag of his cigarette, blowing smoke to the barely visible stars.
"Bet you've got a pretty girl somewhere hanging off your every word," Jesse says, deciding to tease, daring to meet Andy's eyes out of the corners of his own. He sees Andy swallow hard and shift against the brick wall, smoking in a brief moody silence.
"Not exactly," he finally says, voice low.
"A pretty boy, then," Jesse adds, and Andy looks at him with such a dark, sudden intent that he almost has to take a step back, shocked out of his teasing mood. His head spins with it, and he finds himself saying out loud, "No, you
are
the pretty boy, aren't you?"
Andy's tongue peeks out to wet his lips, a quick flash of pink in the muted marquee lights leaving behind a glistening wetness on his mouth, and Jesse thinks he's going insane.
"Do you like that?" Andy asks, so quiet Jesse has to lean into his space to hear him, which puts him close to his mouth, his endlessly dark eyes, the strong slope of his Roman nose. "Do you like that I'm pretty?"
Jesse can't stop himself—he's overcome by the need to touch, so he threads his fingers through Andy's floppy hair, cupping the back of his head and watching his eyelids flutter. Andy's head tilts closer, mouth parting like he wants to be kissed, and Jesse notes with glee that he would have to bend down to do it—he's always liked his boys smaller than him. It's hard to find, but when he gets it, he's a downright animal. Andy is the perfect size to tuck under his arm as they walk down the street together, to hoist up on the kitchen counter and kiss breathless, to cover with his body in bed, sweaty and youthful and blissful.
He closes his eyes against the onslaught of images, but they don't stop—he imagines how Andy's black eyes would look in a shaft of sunlight; how his hair would tousle boyishly after a long nap, pillow creases on his cheek and t-shirt riding up as he stretched; the sight of him wearing Jesse's clothes, boxers folded over, shirt unbuttoned over his bare chest and a little too wide across the shoulders; his face twisted and frowning in overwhelming ecstasy as Jesse leaned over him and pressed kisses to his neck, his cheeks, his mouth—
Jesse feels a tap of a finger against his forehead and opens his eyes slowly, feeling shy and embarrassed and turned on. His hand is still at the back of Andy's head, fingers tangled in his hair, and Andy is just smiling at him like he did something particularly sweet.
"I see you," he says, voice hushed like there's a spell he doesn't want to break. "I know what you're thinking about."
"And what's that?" Jesse replies in the same quiet voice, resisting the urge to press their foreheads together. Andy leans up and barely brushes their mouths together instead, lips dry from the Autumn cold and dragging against each other.
"You want me," he murmurs against Jesse's mouth. Jesse audibly groans, giving in and leaning his forehead against Andy's. They've probably been out here together for ten minutes, maximum, and Jesse is already thinking of waking up next to him in the morning, rolling over and kissing him until he giggles.
"Come home with me," Jesse mutters, his head spinning with the smell of cigarette smoke and spearmint and something dark and heady. Animalistic, denlike. He wants to take this boy to his bed and fuck him until he screams and cries and falls in love. Something deep down in Jesse's chest, something he's long decided to stop picking at, something cold and hollow—that something suddenly blooms with warmth at the sight of Andy closing his eyes and sighing against Jesse's mouth. His heart beats wildly against his sternum, sent into a frenzy at how
different
this feels, how right it is to hold Andy by his hair and breathe the same breaths.
