Vince
I woke up to the unfamiliar sensation of being curled up against a warm body in a strange bed. Looking over at the man next to me I smiled with the memory of last night. Strangely enough I didn't feel any remorse at what we had done. Quite the contrary. Once I had time to think about it I was sure that would change, but right then, in that moment, I felt a weight lifted that I had carried my entire life. I felt free.
Next to me Jack shifted slightly and gave an unconscious grunt of pain. I very carefully slid out of bed, smiling as he grumbled in his sleep and tried to hold onto me, and found some aspirin and a glass of water. The noise of the faucet running must have woken him because his eyes were open when I returned.
He looked at me, frowning blearily. "Hi."
I tensed. Was he going to be angry? Would he regret it? After all, he was oh-for-one when it came to this sort of post-sex situation. Come to think of it, did he even
remember
? Maybe he had hit his head harder than I thought.
Well, in any case, at least he couldn't run away this time.
"Hi." I replied. "How do you feel?"
He laughed, and then cringed at the pain. "Like I got hit by a truck. But other than that, pretty fucking fantastic. You?"
I smiled back in relief at the absence of any imminent freak out. "Like I got well fucked."
"Good." He pulled himself into a sitting position, moving much more stiffly than last night. "God, I'll trade you." I handed him the water and aspirin.
"Maybe next time." I half expected him to get cagey at the suggestion of another encounter, but he showed no surprise. "So," I asked, both relieved and scared at the implications, "not a one night thing then?"
"Hell no. I don't know about you, but I don't think I could do that just once."
I simply nodded. "So, we're in this together?" I mirrored his words from last night.
"Sure are."
I didn't ask yet what 'this' was, though I knew we would be discussing it soon. But for the first time in my life I felt right in my own skin, and I wasn't ready to let the feeling go.
Any 'moment' was quickly over when Jack asked, "So, granted you aren't exactly a master chef, but can you manage some eggs? I'm starving, but I can barely fucking move right now."
Actually, so was I. We had never gotten around to dinner last night. "As long as you don't mind scrambled."
I went to the kitchen, which was about ten feet from the foot of the bed in his tiny studio apartment, and got to work on breakfast. Meanwhile Jack spent five minutes just getting out of bed, splitting the time between stretching out his bruised limbs and following my every movement with a sexy smirk. I realized that we were both still naked. I just grinned to myself and let him watch.
Eventually Jack limped over to the window while I cooked the four eggs I had found in his tiny under-counter fridge. Which, I noted, was nearly empty. "Snow plow's been through," he commented. He sat down at his laptop and checked the university's home page and his email. "And no cancellations. Looks like we're going to school. Lucky we only have afternoon classes, but we need to hurry if we're going to get there on time."
He sat down as I served the eggs. Which, I realized as I took the first bite, I had somehow rendered the texture of rubber. "Gleh!" he spat. "God, you weren't kidding about always ordering out." He covered his eggs with pepper. "No more cooking for you."
"Well, so much for the honeymoon phase, huh?"
"Seriously? If you expect me suddenly to be all sweet and cuddly just because I'm tapping your ass, you've got another thing coming."
I laughed and shook my head. No pretenses. That's what I loved about him.
I wore the same pants from last night but Jack lent me some underwear and socks, and a shirt that was only a size too small. I looked at the shirt and then back to Jack, but before I could open my mouth he read my mind.
"Don't worry, I never wear it to school. Nobody'll know it's mine." It was the first verbal acknowledgment of the reality of what we were doing, but was quickly forgotten.
We were pretty much ready to go, except Jack didn't have anything on over his tee shirt. I picked his coat off the ground where he had left it last night and grimaced. Covered in tears and blood stains, it had definitely lost the fight with the pavement.
"You know," I offered, "I have a couple old coats at home that might fit you."
He gave me an odd look, then shrugged and pulled a hooded sweatshirt off his cinder-block and plywood shelf and pulled it over his head. "Nah, I'm good. I'll patch it this weekend."
The coat didn't look salvageable, but something about his tone told me not to argue.
We didn't have time to dig out both cars, so we took mine, knowing without saying so that I would be back that evening.
Jack
I went through the first part of the day in a haze, only partially caused by the bump on my head. My brain was ready to chew my ass out over last night. That I had let it happen in the first place was bad enough. But the kicker was that I had every intention of doing it again. I was sick and tired of running away from this thing between Vince and me, and after last night it would be torture to continue trying. I just wasn't going to do it anymore, no matter what it would cost me down the road. If that made me an idiot, then I was an idiot.
When it came time for Constitutional Law Vince sat next to me in the front row, as he frequently did before our falling out. I smiled to myself when he sat gingerly on the hard seat, wincing almost imperceptibly. My eye caught Julian's a few seats down. He had seen it too. And he definitely wasn't smiling.
Shit.
Julian was waiting for me in the hallway after class.
"Hey Jack. How're you doing? You look pretty beat up."
I shrugged. "I'm really fine." I had been a broken record with that all day. Not saying so in a macho way, but this was nothing. Even after having been away from home for close to seven years I was still surprised how squeamish people were, even though I realized that it was my perception that was off, not theirs.
"You really scared me you know," he continued. He actually looked like he hadn't gotten much sleep last night, which made me guilty.
"It was stupid. I should have watched where I was going. I'm really sorry for freaking you out man."
"Yeah, well..." He stood silently examining his shoes. He was working up to something. He pulled me away to a quiet corner, but still didn't say anything.
"So," he said at length.
"So," I repeated.
Another long pause. "So. You and Vince, huh?"
