side of the bed, where there was a small electric kettle on a tiny shelf jutting out from the wall, and filled it with tap water.
He chuckled, asking, “Only one sandwich?”
“It’s for you.” I plugged the kettle in, then sat beside him. “But I’ll take my Snickers.”
Calvin passed the candy to me before unwrapping his sandwich and taking a bite. “Mm. Nothing like day-old, mass-produced deli sandwiches to remind you of college.”
“I was more of the chicken-tenders-and-french-fry diet.”
“School cafeteria?” Calvin asked between bites.
“Meal card,” I agreed. “Had to get the most bang for my buck.”
“I lived off bodega food. There was a sweet spot of about twenty minutes in the evenings where the owner would sell me any leftover sandwiches or bagels at a discount.”
“We’d have been friends in college, I think.”
“Except you were in grade school when I was studying constitutional law.”
“Okay, but when you’re really vague like that, our age difference comes across as weird.” I stuffed what was left of the Snickers in my mouth, grabbed the cup of ramen, and went to the kettle.
“It’s true, though.” Calvin started flipping through what sounded like infomercials once again.
“Let’s have age comparison guidelines.”
“Like?”
“Like the threshold is my first hand job.”
“Why is Ethan Cohen your threshold?”
I returned to the bed, stirring the unappealing noodles with a plastic fork. “I think if I was old enough to have my junk touched by someone else, it’s less weird.”
“All right.” Calvin ate a piece of pastrami that had fallen out from between the bread, looked at me, and said, dead serious, “I was getting shot at overseas when you experienced your first dick-chafe.”
“Only compare ages since we met?”
“Good idea.” He gave me a quick kiss.
I took a shower afterward, and had just finished brushing my teeth and taking out my contacts when Calvin said, “There’s… a problem with the bed.”
I fumbled, grabbed my glasses, and put them on as I turned. Calvin was lying on the bed, now in a horizontal position, with his feet hanging over the end. I snorted.
“Sebastian.”
I cleared my throat and climbed onto the bed. I was practically on top of Calvin because there was simply not enough width for two full-grown men to lie on their backs side-by-side. “I don’t think you were their ideal clientele when they were conceptualizing this place.”
Calvin was frowning. He raised his hand and pointed a finger at me. “Don’t laugh.”
“I’m not.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I know you’re going to.”
I shook my head and managed to mostly swallow a second snort.
“I will spank your ass so hard, you won’t be able to sit comfortably on tomorrow’s flight,” he warned.
“Is that a promise?”
Calvin growled. He held my waist, yanked me closer, and kissed me hard. He slipped his hand underneath the hem of my T-shirt, his fingertips feverish—the whorls of his fingerprints all but burning their pattern into my flesh. He drew one leg up, slid it between mine, and rubbed his thigh against my dick.
I ran my fingers through Calvin’s thick, still-damp hair before giving it a light tug. I asked between kisses, “Is this the honeymoon part of the trip?”
“You better believe it.” Calvin shifted, using his bulk to move me onto my back.
“You don’t want to wait until we’re in Los—oh my God!” I yelped as I’d rolled with Calvin’s motion… then kept rolling right off the side.
Calvin grabbed my bicep and jerked me toward him just before I crashed to the floor. He pressed me against his body, muttering, “This pod is like trying to fuck in an obstacle course.”
“I’m not all that limber, plus I failed gym class in high school,” I said, tilting my head in order to meet Calvin’s eyes. “Let’s hold off until we have considerable more real estate to roll around on.”
Andrew & Liam
—
After The Mystery of the Bones
POV: Sebastian Snow
—
Louis Armstrong’s trumpet began to play on the record player in the front room, followed by Ella Fitzgerald’s scatting, and then quite possibly the most beautiful and perfect duet in jazz history began to sing “Dream a Little Dream of Me.” I adjusted the volume a bit, then returned to the kitchen, where the polar opposite musicians could be heard just right. Calvin had been cooking all day in preparation of Thanksgiving, and the limited counter space had been cleared so he could work in relative ease. Despite the holiday being us and my father, who was due to arrive in an hour or so, you’d have thought Calvin was feeding an entire damn platoon.