The story started after the sex.
Nico woke with one sock on the lamp, his shirt under the desk, a bite mark on his shoulder he could feel without looking, and the smell of coffee coming from his own kitchen.
He smiled before he opened his eyes. Then he remembered the night, in order, and stopped smiling and put a pillow over his face.
Julian was twenty-nine. Nico was twenty-seven. They had spent six weeks doing the modern version of pretending they were not dating. Instagram Story reactions that came too fast. A Reel sent at 1:14 a.m. because it had a joke only the other person would get. Julian liking a photo from eight months back and then texting:
okay that was embarrassing
Nico replying:
how far down were you
Three dots. Then:
legally i cannot answer
Dinner last night had been the first thing either of them called a date. It lasted three hours. At Nico’s door Julian stopped letting the evening be ambiguous.
“I don’t want this to be a polite first date,” he said. “I want you. If you want me too.”
Nico did.
Here is what the pillow was about.
Julian’s watch had caught in Nico’s shirt buttons in the hallway and they’d had to stop kissing and stand there like two idiots while Julian unhooked it. Nico had backed into the lamp and the lamp had wobbled and they had both lunged for it, and that’s where the sock ended up, eventually, though Nico didn’t remember throwing it.
What he did remember: Julian on his knees at the foot of the bed, still in his good blue shirt, unbuttoned, looking up at Nico like he’d been waiting six weeks to do exactly this and had planned it. He took Nico’s cock in his hand and kissed the head of it, almost polite, and then wasn’t polite at all. Nico had grabbed the duvet in both fists. Julian kept checking in, a glance up, a “this okay?” with his mouth wet and his voice wrecked, and every time Nico said yes Julian took him deeper, until Nico was saying yes without being asked, just saying it at the ceiling over and over.
He remembered pulling Julian up by the shirt before he came because he didn’t want it to be over. Remembered the shirt finally coming off. Julian’s chest, the soft dark hair down the middle of it, the way Julian laughed when Nico bit him and then stopped laughing when Nico did it again lower.
He remembered Julian over him, inside him, condom and too much lube because Nico had grabbed the bottle and squeezed like it was ketchup, both of them laughing at the noise it made. Then Julian pushing in slow, his forehead dropped to Nico’s, saying “you okay, you okay,” until Nico grabbed his ass and pulled him the rest of the way in to shut him up. Julian fucked like he texted, a little too eager and then very sincere about it. Nico came first, with Julian’s hand on him and Julian’s mouth on his shoulder, which explained the bite. Julian came a minute later saying Nico’s name like it was a question he already knew the answer to.
Six weeks of screen-sized flirting had finally turned into somebody warm and loud and heavy in the same bed. Nico’s judgment had not survived the upgrade.
He walked into the kitchen wearing Julian’s blue shirt and nothing else.
Julian turned from the stove in his boxers. “Breakfast.”
“You cook?”
“Eggs are not cooking.”
“Correct.”
A plate was waiting beside a mug of coffee made exactly the way Nico liked it, which he had mentioned once, in a DM, in August. That was when he got nervous. Sex was easy to classify. Breakfast suggested continuity.
Julian saw it on his face. “Too much?”
Nico thought about it. “No. Just new.”
“We can eat eggs without defining civilization.”
Nico laughed, and they did, standing up at the counter because Nico’s apartment had two chairs and both of them had clothes on them. Halfway through, Julian reached over and pushed the collar of the shirt aside with one finger to look at the bite.
“Sorry.”
“You’re not.”
“I’m not,” Julian agreed, and kissed it.
The eggs went cold. Nico ended up sitting on the edge of the laminate counter next to the stove with his knees spread around Julian’s waist, the blue shirt pushed up to his ribs. Julian stepped between his thighs, slicked his thick cock with the lube from the bedroom, and guided his swollen head to Nico’s tight, aching hole. With one slow, heavy press of his hips, Julian slid all the way in, burying his hard shaft balls-deep.
Nico gasped, fingernails digging into Julian’s broad shoulders as the full morning stretch hit his prostate. Julian fucked him slow and steady, hips grinding in rhythmic circles against the counter, his calloused hand reaching down between their bellies to wrap around Nico’s leaking cock, stroking him in sync with every deep thrust. The coffee pot clicked as it cooled. Julian kept his eyes open the whole time, looking directly into Nico’s face with a quiet, devastating focus that Nico found almost unbearable. He leaned down, lips brushing the fresh bite mark on Nico’s shoulder, and said low against his neck:
“I’ve thought about this counter.”
“Since when?” Nico breathed, hips lifting off the laminate to meet his thrusts.
“Since the photo of your pasta. In July. I zoomed in on the counter.”
Julian picked up the pace, his hips slamming against Nico’s ass with wet, sharp cracks. Nico arched back, groaning as hot ropes of cum erupted from his cock across Julian’s knuckles and his own stomach. Seconds later Julian shoved all the way in, burying his cock to the hilt, groaning into Nico’s neck as he pumped a heavy, burning load of cum deep inside Nico’s ass, both of them trembling and sticky in the kitchen at 8:40 on a Saturday.
“I’m going to need the shirt back eventually,” Julian said.
“Unlikely.”
Julian’s phone buzzed while Nico was rinsing the plates. He glanced at it. “My friend wants to know if the date was good.”
“What are you telling him?”
Julian took a photo of the two coffee mugs on the counter. Not Nico. Not the bedroom. Just two mugs, Julian’s hand visible at the edge. He looked at Nico before sending it.
“Too much?”
Nico understood exactly what the picture would say. “No.”
Julian sent it privately. No soft launch. One trusted friend getting the answer.
He left for work in the clothes he’d shown up in, minus the shirt, plus Nico’s gray hoodie. Nine minutes after the door closed, Nico’s phone lit up: a photo from the elevator mirror. Julian, in the hoodie and also, Nico saw now, Nico’s jacket, which he must have grabbed off the hook on the way out.
apparently stole this
Nico typed:
keep it til friday
The typing indicator appeared immediately.
friday?
Nico stared at the word. The next date was suddenly not hypothetical.
yes
A heart. Then:
breakfast again?
Nico looked at the counter. The sock was still on the lamp.
let’s not get reckless
