library next to the shaded window. It didn’t feel like much of a life, and sometimes—on mornings like this—he thought about how different things could be.
He thought about the stranger he’d met in the alley the night Max whisked him away on the back of his Vespa. It had been a shitty night full of insecurities and a near miss of being roofied by some asshole jock at the campus bar. An older, ridiculously hot man had saved his life, and an even hotter one with eyes like fireworks and a phoenix tattoo on his forearm had talked to him after.
It was such an innocuous, pointless moment, but it had stayed with Xan the way nothing else had. He didn’t even remember the man’s face anymore. It had been mostly obscured by the shadows of the alley anyway, but he had a laugh that sent trembles up Xan’s spine, and he had thought about him even as Max’s lips met his for the first time. For his first real kiss.
It was strange. It was strange that his Big Moment with a man he’d agreed to marry was haunted by the ghost of what might have been. What would his future look like if he’d followed that man back into the bar and left Max on the street waiting. He knew his fiancé well enough now to know that Max wouldn’t have stayed long. He would have scoffed and driven off and maybe flipped Xan off the next time he saw him on campus.
But it wouldn’t be a thing.
Xan wouldn’t be in that bed now trying not to stretch too wide, because the last thing in the world he wanted was to deal with Max before his coffee.
“If you’re going to have some fucking crisis,” came a sleep-rough voice from his left, and Xan winced, “can you at least get the fuck out of bed? I got home at like three am last night.”
Xan wanted to snap at him—to tell him he wouldn’t be so tired all the time if he came home after work like a normal person instead of getting wasted with his co-workers every night. But they’d had that fight already. Max had walked out, Xan had packed a bag, and somehow, they came back together in spite of Xan knowing he wanted it all to be over.
He just wanted all of this to stop.
“I’m not having a crisis. I’m thinking about…” He had no lie at the ready, and he didn’t want to tell him he was fantasizing about what his life might be like if Max had never come into it, “…getting a dog.”
“Fuck no,” Max snapped. He rolled onto his back and scrubbed at his eyes with the heels of his palms. “We’re not getting a dog.”
Xan wrinkled his nose and pushed up, swinging his legs over the bed. If Max was up, it meant he wasn’t going to have time to shower before he had to leave, but he wasn’t the one that smelled like the inside of a cheap vodka bottle, so it was fine. “What’s wrong with a dog?”
“Nothing, except you’d be useless at taking care of it,” Max grumbled. He rolled onto his side and pulled the comforter around him like a cocoon. Xan thought about how he might have found that cute once, even with insults pouring from Max’s lips. “Just like you’re useless at everything else.” He laughed like it was a hilarious inside joke, and Xan pretended like it didn’t hurt.
“Whatever. Neither of us have time for a dog. I’d like one someday though. My parents…”
“Jesus,” Max groaned. “Can we have one conversation that doesn’t turn into the poor me, I’m an orphan song? Fuck.”
Xan said nothing. He rose from the bed and walked to the bathroom, closing the door with a soft click. That might have made him cry once. Hell, it had made him cry before. Max was all sympathy and soft touches and easy kisses for the first few months, but those turned into backhanded compliments and sharp barbs and eventually open hostility whenever Xan mentioned his parents. So he rarely did. There were just moments—the occasional slip of his tongue—and he always walked away from it.
It wasn’t worth the fight.
He splashed water on his face and brushed his teeth. He tried not to stare at the dark circles under his eyes. They were coming up on another anniversary. Four years. Four years and one engagement and no talk of an actual marriage. He felt