Melting - Sean Ashcroft Page 0,47

and again, for as long as he’d let me.

I stroked him in time with my hips as I felt him teetering on the edge, kissing his neck, whispering nonsense about how good he felt and how close I was and how much I liked this.

Wes made the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard when he came, and that alone was enough to drag me along with him, fireworks bursting behind my eyelids as I buried my face in his hair and rocked us both through it.

Okay.

Thirty really wasn’t so bad.

21

Wes

I’d never get tired of the way Hayden made me come.

“Happy birthday,” I murmured into the pillow I was still cuddling, smiling as he traced patterns on my back with long fingers.

I’d had a lot of hookups over the years, but none of them were like this.

“Thank you,” Hayden said, kissing behind my ear. “For everything.”

“You keep thanking me.”

“I’m very grateful,” Hayden said. “I—umm. I want…”

I waited for him to finish, but when the next words never came, I rolled over to face him.

“You can tell me,” I said, reaching out to run my thumb over his lips. “At absolute worst I’ll call you a pervert and probably agree to it anyway.”

I expected him to laugh, but he didn’t. He just kept looking at me with those stormcloud-grey eyes.

I could almost see the storm moving in them right now.

“It’s not anything like that,” he said after a heartbeat. “It’s just… I want to make you dinner.”

“You’ve made me enough dinners, it’s your birthday, you’re taking a break.”

“No,” Hayden said, and it should have sounded either playful or stubborn, but it didn’t. It sounded lost. “No, I… I want to make you dinner,” he repeated, swallowing.

A flash of memory hit me, Hayden telling me that he’d made dinner for his ex-boyfriend every night even though he’d spent all day in a kitchen because he loved him.

And making dinner was how he’d expressed that.

I didn’t know how to respond.

I loved him. I knew I loved him, I knew I couldn’t stop that now, as stupid as it was.

And I knew he was telling me that he felt the same way. That it’d taken a lot to say that, to let me know, to show me a part of his heart that was bruised and sore and still healing.

But he didn’t want a clumsy I love you. I didn’t think he cared a whole lot about hearing the words.

Hayden, I was pretty sure, liked to be touched. We’d done a thing in that Psychology of Love class I’d taken way back in college about love languages.

Hayden’s was touch. Mine was… well, I’d never really decided what mine was.

Whatever it was, Hayden spoke it. Without even trying.

I kissed the tip of his nose, letting our foreheads rest together, then searched for his hand between us, ghosting my fingertips over it.

“Can I hold your hand while we sleep?” I asked.

Hayden’s whole expression changed, eyes widening, lips parting in wonder as he looked at me.

I wanted him to look at me that way every single day, forever.

“Like otters?” he asked.

“Like otters,” I said, pressing the softest, sweetest kiss I was capable of to his lips, letting our noses brush together as I pulled back. “So we won’t lose each other.”

“Wait, hold on, slow down.”

Huh?

It was still dark when I blinked myself awake, maybe only a handful of hours after we’d fallen asleep.

Hayden was on his phone, fingers still linked with mine. I squeezed them gently to let him know I was awake, and he squeezed back and met my eyes.

In the harsh light of his phone screen, the lines of his face looked like they were etched into stone.

“Broke his foot?” Hayden asked, pausing to move his phone away so he could look at the screen. “It’s a little after five in the morning.”

I couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, but my stomach sank as I watched Hayden’s face run through surprise, concern, and then finally resignation.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, voice tiny.

I squeezed his hand again, for moral support this time.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay,” Hayden said. “Listen, I’m happy for you, okay? And tell Omar I’m… happy for him, too, except for the foot thing, which I hope doesn’t hurt too bad. Text me details and I’ll send chocolate.”

Another pause.

“Then he’ll just have to fight you for it,” Hayden said, breaking into a tired, but warm smile. “And I know you’d win even if he hadn’t broken his foot.”

I could hear laughter on