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Theo knew he was supposed to leave.
That was the unspoken rule after things like this. after a drunk-driving accident, after a father who vanished into twisted metal on a stretch of desert highway. You didn’t stay in the house where everything felt paused mid-breath. You didn’t sit with it.
His bag was open on the bed.
Boris noticed immediately.
“So,” Boris said, nodding toward it. “You run.”
Theo folded a shirt too carefully. “I’m not running.”
Boris raised an eyebrow. “You are packing.”
Theo didn’t answer.
The house hummed with the air conditioner, rattling like it was about to give up. Larry’s keys were still on the counter. Theo hadn’t moved them.
Boris wandered in, kicked off his shoes, dropped onto the bed backward like nothing had changed. “They will come soon. People who ask questions. You don’t like questions.”
Theo sat down slowly at the edge of the mattress. “I can’t be here.”
“I know,” Boris said. Then, after a beat: “But not tonight.”
Theo looked at him. “Why are you so sure?”
Boris rolled onto his side, propping his head up on his hand. His expression had gone serious in that rare, unsettling way. “Because tonight you are empty. If you leave empty, you stay empty.”
Theo let out a shaky breath. “I was going to catch a bus.”
“Yes,” Boris said. “Terrible idea.”
Theo huffed a weak laugh despite himself. “You don’t get to decide that.”
“No,” Boris agreed. “But I get to ask.”
Theo stared at the bag, then zipped it shut… not all the way, but enough.
“One day,” he said.
Boris smiled, quick and relieved. “Good.”
——————————
They ended up drinking later, because Boris always found alcohol, and because it was easier than sitting still. They climbed out the window onto the roof, the desert night warm against their skin, Vegas glowing in the distance like a dare.
Boris talked, as usual…too fast, too much…about nothing important. Theo listened, half there, watching the lights blur.
“You are very quiet,” Boris said finally.
Theo shrugged. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel.”
“Yes,” Boris said. “That sounds right.”
They sat close, shoulders nearly touching. Theo could smell cigarette smoke and dust and something unmistakably Boris. The world felt tilted, like if
he leaned the wrong way he’d fall right off it.
Boris nudged him lightly with his knee. “Hey.”
Theo looked at him.
It happened quickly, almost carelessly. Boris leaned in and kissed him, more impulse than intention. It was clumsy and strange and over almost before Theo could react.
Boris pulled back immediately, eyes wide, like he’d surprised himself.
“Oh,” he said. “Sorry.I…”
Theo stared at him, heart pounding. The kiss hadn’t been dramatic, but it had landed somewhere deep, like a dropped stone.
“It’s fine,” Theo said, too quickly.
Boris searched his face, then nodded, forcing a grin back into place. “Yes. Fine. Just…being idiot.”
They didn’t mention it again.
But when Theo leaned sideways a moment later, letting his shoulder rest against Boris’s, Boris didn’t move away. He stayed perfectly still, like he was afraid of breaking something.
They sat there until the air cooled and the city buzzed below them, neither of them saying what the kiss meant…if it meant anything at all.
Theo didn’t leave that night.
And years later, he would remember that kiss more clearly than the arguments, more clearly than the fear. Not because it explained anything.
But because it was the moment he realised staying had already begun.