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As soon as Josh settles in the kitchen, slumping against the counter with the straw to his Baja Blast between his teeth, Tyler thinks, Oh, there he is. He’s home. It almost feels too good to be true, listening to Josh laugh at something Jenna says—not through the speaker of his phone or his laptop, but in real life, right in front of him. Tyler doesn’t even mind the awful squeak of Josh’s straw against the plastic lid. That’s a lovely sound, too.
“I know Tyler’s super excited to have you back in Ohio,” Jenna says, bringing Tyler into the conversation by placing her hand on his chest. “You can stay with us however long you need, okay? Until you get everything sorted out.”
“What if I don’t get everything sorted out?” Josh asks, but he’s laughing, and Jenna’s laughing, and Tyler says, “I guess you’d have to stay forever.”
Forever—Tyler wanted that, wants that; and Josh, chewing on his straw, smiles at Tyler. It’s sweet. It’s so sweet.
*
It’s just the two of them on their first night together, sharing the same couch on Tyler’s back porch. They’re listening to crickets and watching fireflies blink, their arms touching, their thighs. It’s hot outside, but Tyler’s in a pair of sweats, a hoodie, his slippers on his feet. It’s all sticking to him, and he’s melting as a result—into Josh.
Josh doesn’t seem to notice. “I’m worried about overstaying my welcome,” he says.
Tyler, more lying than sitting, more on Josh than on the cushion, waves his hand. “Don’t worry about that. You’d never—”
“Let me say it, though,” Josh says. “Give me that peace of mind.”
“Okay.” Tyler looks up at Josh. The porchlight behind Josh’s head spotlights his curls, frizzy now from the humidity. Josh is trying to contain it under a hat.
With a swat of his hand, Tyler flicks Josh’s hat off his head. He keeps his eyes on Josh as the hat flies off somewhere, only determining the distance to be the stairs based on Josh’s chin tilting up, his own eyes away from Tyler—and wet.
“God, Tyler.” Josh shakes his head. He refuses to look down at Tyler. Instead, he runs his hands down his legs, like he’s dusting himself off. “I really missed you.”
“You’ve already said that.”
Josh turns to Tyler now, the frizz around the crown of his head a halo. “Lemme have this, dude. Come on. You’re ruining the moment.”
“We were having a moment?”
Josh’s laugh echoes defeat, like a huff of smoke in winter air. He’s amused—Tyler reads it all over his face, from the soft crinkling around his eyes to the deliberate swipe of his tongue across his lips. “You’re an asshole,” he says, leaning forward just a moment, making a move to stand, but Tyler takes this moment for himself.
He slips his arm through that tiny gap between the cushion and Josh’s back and rounds his other arm over Josh’s stomach. He’s still half-lying, half-sitting, and this action forces him deeper into the cushions, stretched out on his side as he hides his face in Josh’s hip.
Josh relaxes in Tyler’s arms. With his eyes closed, Tyler feels Josh breathe, give another quiet laugh, and then the couch creaks, wobbles, and Tyler hangs on as Josh swings his legs up on the couch with them and yanks Tyler up the length of his body. All that friction—Tyler shivers so hard, nearly twitching.
“That’s better,” Josh says, once Tyler is lying on top of him. “That’s so much better.”
Tyler steadies himself on Josh’s shoulder, his hand a resting place for his cheek. This close to Josh, Tyler smells the swaying effects of whatever deodorant he swiped on this morning, mixing with the grass and a bonfire some neighbors are having on the other end of the woods. Tyler doesn’t know who they are, doesn’t care to know them. This place, this spot of land, it’s all his.
When Josh works the hair tie from Tyler’s hair and begins to massage Tyler’s scalp, Tyler knows it’s over for him. So, he pushes himself up, anchoring himself on Josh’s thighs before he worms his way into standing.
“Let’s go inside,” Tyler says. “It’s hot out here.”
“Take off your clothes.”
“You’ve gotten lazy with your foreplay, Josh.” Tyler grabs his phone and anything else of note from their surroundings—a portable charger he didn’t end up using; Josh’s hat, which he puts on his own head; an empty can of Red Bull; even Josh’s crushed cup of backwash and dregs of Baja Blast. This is sticky, too, getting all over Tyler’s hands as he waits for Josh to open the door for him.
When Tyler walks past Josh, Josh sets his hand on the small of Tyler’s back. It feels instinctual. It feels like a kick in Tyler’s engine, sparking him to life after that lull on the couch. He fights to forget what it felt like to have Josh’s fingers along his scalp, but it’s useless. It follows him, pinching the nape of his neck like a dying nerve.
In the kitchen, Tyler rinses out the cup and the can, preparing them for recycling later.
Josh hangs behind him, slumped against the counter again. He’s also chewing on a straw again, an extra one that came with his meal earlier. Half of the wrapper is still on it, just the tip exposed and poking into Josh’s cheek.
Tyler squirts soap onto his hands and rubs away all the soft drink residue the cup left behind. He swallows. His skin burns.
And after he whirls around, towel in his hands, and finds Josh gone, he panics for a split second, like Josh is his kid, someone he was meant to be protecting, and that thought makes more than just his skin burn. It prickles throughout his body, igniting in his gut and springing up to his head, right in the space between his eyelids.
He tosses Josh’s hat onto the counter and takes a step out of the kitchen, trying to consider places Josh might have scurried. He thinks if Josh needed to use the bathroom, Josh would have told him. The same goes for heading to bed. Tyler and Jenna had made up the spare bedroom for Josh, but Tyler knows Jenna wouldn’t mind sharing their bed. She hasn’t minded before.
Tyler’s exploration doesn’t linger long. Josh makes his presence known: he pokes at Tyler’s piano, the notes he presses unpleasant to the waking ear.
Tyler sprints to the sound, sliding across the floor and stopping at the edge of the area rug.
At the piano, Josh sits. He looks pleased with himself, his lips pressed together and his eyes narrowed behind his glasses. In greeting, he plays another note, this one somewhat familiar.
Tyler leans over and smacks his hands on top of Josh’s. “It’s late,” he whispers, as if that will help matters. “People are sleeping.”
Josh’s fingers wiggle. He pushes down on that key again. “Tell me something, girl,” he sings, a little off-key. “Are you happy in this modern world?”
Tyler lurches forward, taking Josh’s head in his hands and kissing his forehead. “Dude, you’re gonna serenade me now? When everybody is asleep?”
Josh taps another key. “Or do you need more? Is there something else you’re searching for?”
Delivering another kiss, Tyler maneuvers behind the bench, situates himself around Josh, who, after his own squirming, scoots up to help Tyler get comfortable. After Tyler is seated, Josh returns into place, his back to Tyler’s chest and his fingers on all the wrong keys.
“If you’re gonna insist on doing this,” Tyler says, slowly prying his hair tie off Josh’s wrist to push his hair into a bun, “at least play the right notes.”
“Teach me,” Josh says, so Tyler covers Josh’s hands with his own and guides him down the keyboard, one note at a time. It’s slow, methodical. Tyler should have taken off his hoodie.
Josh mumbles as he sings now, suddenly insecure so close to Tyler. “I’m falling… in all the good times, I find myself longing… for change, and in all the bad times, I fear myself—” Tyler feels the signs of Josh freezing, but his hands still trail off Josh’s to continue playing the next part of the song. In this moment, Josh takes the chance to hold Tyler’s hands. “Isn’t it, like, messed up that he died—in the movie? I know it was foreshadowed or whatever, but… it’s so messed up.”
“That wouldn’t happen in A Trench Is Born,” Tyler says. “They would live happily ever after with the only conflict in their relationship being who gets to be the little spoon.”
Josh’s smile spreads from ear to ear. “I’m the little spoon now,” Josh says, removing his hands from Tyler’s, his touch lingering. Tyler fights for it to stay. He grabs Josh’s hands, leans his head on Josh’s shoulder.
Like this, like how they were outside, Tyler becomes intoxicated with Josh’s smell—his body odor; the fabric softener on his t-shirt; the last few traces of body wash for sensitive skin, the same brand Tyler uses.
He has been with Josh for years, although now, of all times, with Josh here with him, does he grow self-conscious over these human experiences, emotions, how it all comes over him like surprise raindrops and scabbed-over tattoos. He burrows his face in Josh’s neck, encompassing himself in Josh’s body heat and how it flushes over his own skin, so desperate, so—
Without looking, Tyler carries Josh’s hands over the slender keys. He switches to a new song, a song in a similar vein, and waits to sing until he reaches the chorus. By then, Josh catches on to the repetition of the beat and is able to replicate it without Tyler guiding him. And by then, with Josh pressing into the keys, Tyler is free to lift his hands and place them on Josh—his left on Josh’s thigh, the right up to Josh’s neck.
“I want your love,” Tyler sings into Josh’s skin, “and I want your revenge.” He runs his tongue up to the shell of Josh’s ear; he tastes goosebumps, sweat. “You and me could write a bad romance.”
“Do the French part,” Josh whispers, his hands faltering over the keys in an attempt to remember what Tyler had shown him—and has no desire to show him again, not when his hands are busy elsewhere: turning Josh’s head to the side, dipping in between Josh’s legs.
“Please,” Josh says. “Can you sing in French?”
“Je veux ton amour et je veux ta revanche.” Tyler nips all the way down Josh’s neck to the spot where his neck curves into his shoulder. “Je veux ton amour… I don’t wanna be friends—”
Tyler bites Josh—hard, maybe too hard. Josh smashes his hand down on the piano, his other coming up to cover his mouth, like the noise had erupted from his vocal cords, rather than the instrument in front of them.
This surge breaks Tyler. He pulls his hands from Josh’s body, instead hovers them over Josh’s biceps, ready to comfort if requested.
“Josh, I’m sorry, I—”
Josh shakes his head. “It’s fine, more than fine—just, holy shit.” He runs his fingers under his glasses, covering his eyes for a minute.
Trembling in time with Josh’s ragged breaths, Tyler replaces his hands on Josh’s body—his waist, this time—as he turns to look at the doorway. He anticipates Jenna coming to check on them, though the longer they sit here together, breathing and sharing side glances, the more Tyler realizes they won’t be disturbed.
He’s careful twirling a few of Josh’s curls around his fingertips, sweeping them out of the way to kiss the skin underneath. Quietly, he asks Josh, “Is this okay?”
Josh nods. “Yeah. Uh, you—you can put your hand around my neck again, too, if you want.”
Tyler does, tentatively, and studies Josh’s face, the way Josh’s eyes close and his cheeks shift to the prettiest pink color Tyler has ever seen. The contrast of his eyelashes, the faint line of his glasses frame—Tyler leans in to kiss Josh’s cheek.
“Do you want me to choke you?” Tyler lowers his left hand between Josh’s legs again, popping out the button, dragging down the zipper.
“Maybe,” Josh says. “I haven’t decided yet.” And he laughs, a quiet chirp of a thing that makes Tyler lose it. He has to stick his mouth back in the crook of Josh’s neck to drown out the giggles that threaten to kick out the last of the dominance in his body.
“Well, tell me if you make up your mind.” Tyler edges closer to Josh, digging his hips into Josh’s lower back. “Whatever you want, I’m good.”
Josh’s hands—he reaches behind him, between his body and Tyler’s, as if he can’t believe Tyler’s already this hard for him and has to feel it for himself. And when he does, he shivers, like Tyler did outside, remembering all that friction that came from their clothes rubbing together just from Josh initiating that hug.
Tyler sits back, just for a second, and rips off his hoodie. He kicks off his slippers, pulls his legs up onto the bench and wraps them around Josh’s waist, long enough to give Josh a full-body squeeze that brings Josh forward; he sets his hands on the piano, above the keys, in position like he’s about to do a push-up.
He laughs. “Jesus, Ty.”
“I just love you a whole lot.”
“I love you, too.”
And they’re back—Tyler grabbing Josh’s throat, fishing out Josh’s dick; Josh leaning into Tyler, bucking his hips, gasping and gasping—“Please,” he begs. “Please—”
Tyler sticks his fingers in Josh’s mouth. He doesn’t need to tell Josh to suck on them; he already does, coating them with drool that drips all over his pants and down Tyler’s wrist.
“Filthy boy,” Tyler tuts, wrapping his fingers around Josh’s dick and giving a slow pump of his hand. “Look at me.”
Josh turns his head, looks at Tyler, and Tyler—Tyler spits in Josh’s mouth.
Josh blinks. “Oh,” he says, swallowing. “Oh, God, why did I like that?”
Tyler kisses him, open-mouthed, hungry, and Josh shoves closer, even hungrier, somehow, hooking his fingers in the collar of Tyler’s t-shirt and scratching at the skin along Tyler’s collarbones.
“Okay,” he says, against Tyler’s mouth, “maybe you can choke me a little—just, like—hold me in place.”
Tyler gives Josh’s mouth another kiss, short-lived, and squeezes, slowly pumping both of his hands.
Josh shakes under Tyler’s grip. When he begins to droop, Tyler squeezes the hand around Josh’s neck harder, giving his own shake to straighten Josh up. “Look at me,” Tyler says, easing the hand on Josh’s neck and feeling the harsh inhale of breath Josh sucks in. His eyes, Josh’s eyes are huge circles, the moon in the night sky, and he stares at Tyler like Tyler is the sun.
It’s almost too much for Tyler. He has to take his hand off Josh’s neck completely and wave it. The pins-and-needles feeling isn’t one he expected to find here, but now that it’s plaguing him, Tyler discovers it all over his body, from his feet, all the way to his fingertips. He sits there, inspecting his hands, while Josh, wiping his eyes, says, “Guess we can’t be as rough as we used to be.”
“Yeah, I guess we—well, we were always in hotels, weren’t we? The back of the van—”
“I swear,” Josh says, “they must have heard us. We weren’t exactly quiet.”
“Oh, they definitely heard us.” Tyler runs his hand down Josh’s back, pinching small bits of the dark fabric to let in gulps of air for Josh’s skin. If Tyler is burning up, Josh must be in Hell.
He kisses Josh’s shoulder, then rests there. He dares not close his eyes—until Josh comes around and scratches at his scalp.
Tyler hums. “Stop that.”
“Make me.”
Tyler doesn’t, but Josh stops on his own accord. He taps the piano keys again, one at a time. Under his breath, he goes, “I’m off the deep end… watch as I dive in—I’ll never meet the ground…”
The notes don’t match the rhythm of the lyrics, though at this point, Tyler can’t care less. He hugs Josh around the front, a palm flat against Josh’s stomach as the other drops down to Josh’s cock again. “Keep going,” Tyler says when Josh ceases playing. “I didn’t tell you to stop playing.”
As Tyler moves his hand, Josh becomes more frantic to come up with other melodies to play, anything, anything—and it’s cute, hearing Josh bump out “Mary Had a Little Lamb” as he attempts to maintain Tyler’s touch on him, so cute that Tyler sits up from the bench, pushes Josh up with him, and bends Josh over the piano.
“You had me over your drums like this once,” Tyler says, working his fingers into the waistband of Josh’s pants. He tugs them down.
“You had bruises all over your ribs,” Josh says, his voice soft.
“I’m gonna fuck you like this, just like you fucked me. Do you remember what you said to me as you were fucking me?”
“If you come on my drums, I’m kicking you out of the band.”
Tyler smiles. “If you come on my piano, I’m gonna do more than kick you out of the band.” Then, he pauses. “I need to, uh, get some stuff.” He clears his throat, tries to act tough by jabbing Josh squarely in the spine. “Don’t you dare move.”
Yet, Josh laughs at him, says, “Roger that.”
Tyler kisses Josh’s cheek before leaving the room, moving upstairs.
The orange glow of nightlight bulbs stamped in outlets around every corner show Tyler the way, a kind of breadcrumbs to aid him; but even in the dark, he would know where to go, how fast to go—like his section of the woods in his backyard, this is his house.
And when he’s with Josh again, covering his body, his neck, his mouth—Tyler removes their clothing, Josh eagerly helping when he can, and Tyler covers him again, marking him up: lips and teeth and nails and tears; Tyler hates how overwhelming this all is, Josh with him like this—together, in Ohio, for the long term—maybe even forever.
And when he’s inside Josh, holding Josh’s hands and listening to Josh begging for Tyler to let him come, Tyler thinks, This is it—this house is finally a home.
*
It’s just the two of them on their first night together, sharing the same towel in Tyler’s bathroom. Josh is dripping wet, just like he likes it, and Tyler is diligent in patting himself dry.
Josh stands in front of the mirror, twisting clumps of his hair into ringlets. He tells Tyler, “C’mere,” and begins to do the same to Tyler’s hair, slow and calculating.
“I guess you get to stay in the band,” Tyler remarks. He presses the towel to Josh’s skin, meticulous. Though they were standing under a hot stream of water for ten minutes, Josh’s skin has cooled. Tyler loops the towel around Josh’s shoulders, ties it off.
“Thanks for the piano lesson,” Josh says, hoarse, all smiles. “It was very enriching. Do you think we can do it again sometime?”
“Maybe—if you give me a scalp massage.”
They’re quiet in the bedroom, pulling on clothes and climbing onto the mattress next to Jenna. She’s stirring at Tyler’s appearance, welcoming Tyler in her half-asleep embrace, which he returns while Josh gets comfortable on the other side of him.
“You smell nice,” she says, lightly tapping the side of Tyler’s head as she rolls onto her stomach.
“Thanks, babe.”
She has one of Tyler’s pillows beneath her, hugging it, so Tyler steals one of hers, one with a silk case on it. He presses his finger to his lips, shushing Josh; this is their secret.
Josh sticks out his tongue at Tyler and swoops Tyler up in his arms.
As a last measure of his strength, Tyler sets Josh’s glasses on the nightstand, next to their phones. He kisses the bridge of Josh’s nose, a small peck that Tyler thinks will hold him over until morning. For now, he needs sleep. He’s sluggish, dead weight. He would feel sorry for deflating against Josh like this if Josh hadn’t been the one to pull Tyler right on top of him.
He’s so capable. He presses his fingertips into Tyler’s scalp, right at his temples, and draws circles in the caverns inside Tyler’s mind. He’ll be the light in here when everything else has gone out.
Tyler closes his eyes.
Jenna moves her leg across the sheets. She lightly kicks Josh’s leg and freezes. “Oh, Josh is here.” It isn’t an annoyed tone, isn’t tired or frustrated; it’s relief, in a way—it’s normalcy, expectation, just as sweet as Tyler’s heart humming in his chest.
“Yeah,” Tyler says, snuggling in close, “Josh is here.”