“Well,” Ilan said, then drew his hand back, “if that’s all you need, we can resolve that easily.”
Fredric blinked rapidly. “What do you mean?”
There was a heavy pause, then a tense laugh. “Never mind. God, I don’t know why I…”
Fredric reached for him again, his fingers curling over Ilan’s. “What do you mean?” he repeated.
The skin under his hand got warm—then hot—and Ilan cleared his throat. “I mean that I know what I’m doing. I might not have kissed a lot of men, but I’ve kissed more than a few. Your first kiss should be with someone you trust, and I would never hurt you. I would…” He stopped on a harsh laugh. “But I also get why that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever…”
Fredric felt the moment stretch out in front of them, like a thin rope ready to snap. And when it did, things would change. Whichever choice he made, whichever answer he gave, nothing would be the same again.
With his swallow lodged in his throat, Fredric turned slightly in his chair and reached out his other hand. It landed on Ilan’s forearm, and he turned him so they were face to face. The man beneath his touch was so still, Fredric could only feel the faint rise and fall of his breath, and his fingers inched slowly upward. Ilan’s skin beneath his hands wasn’t unfamiliar, but it was the first time he’d ever touched him like this.
It was the first time he’d ever touched anyone like this. With a gentle intimacy that said nothing and everything all in a single, simple gesture.
He trembled, but he didn’t pull away. His palms brushed over the short sleeves of a t-shirt. It felt soft and expensive as he kept going. The curve of the shirt’s collar was next, and above that, the slope of his neck. Fredric’s thumb grazed his Adam’s apple, then touched the soft space just beneath his chin. Ilan’s face was rough with a few days of not shaving, and it felt like a tactile map leading him to something he could never come back from.
He wanted to speak—he wanted to ask if this was okay. He wanted to confess every single sin. He wanted to ask if his feelings for Ilan were going to ruin everything, but he wasn’t brave enough because he knew the answer. It might not be yes, but the unknowing was a risk he wasn’t sure he was willing to take.
But if he didn’t face all of that, if he just closed his eyes instead and leapt…
He moved his hands to either side of Ilan’s face and cradled it. His thumbs brushed the corners of his mouth, finding it wide, lips full and generous. He had never really wondered what Ilan looked like—it had never mattered. It only mattered if Ilan was happy with himself, and he’d always seemed to like his own reflection.
This was a mere glimpse, telling him nothing. There was no mental picture, no image painted with his hands, but he still didn’t want to stop touching. His heart thrashed in his chest, and he licked his lips, feeling a rush of Ilan’s breath against his cheeks as he sighed.
Now or never.
God, it really was now or never.
When his phone rang, his entire body stiffened, and then the thing chimed out, ‘Hudson,’ in that robotic voice.
Fredric had never understood—at least not in a literal sense—how a moment could shatter, but he felt it then. The world dissolving into a billion billion pieces. Ilan moved away before Fredric was actually aware of it. The space in front of him was suddenly empty, and then Ilan was pressing his phone into his hand.
“You should get that,” he said, his voice rough. “I’m going to clean up the shopping bags.”
Fredric tightened his fingers around the phone until his palm ached, and he let it go to voicemail. He knew Ilan was just steps away, but he said nothing at all. Fredric let his heartbeat calm to the sound of crinkling plastic and closing cupboards, and then he felt it when Ilan took a seat two chairs away.
“I’m sorry,” Ilan said when the kitchen filled with silence. “I shouldn’t have…”
“No,” Fredric said. He wasn’t sure if he meant Ilan shouldn’t be sorry, or that he shouldn’t have offered. Or maybe both. But he had to say something because he could not lose this man. “Nothing’s broken.”
“Fredric…”
“Nothing,” he said again, letting everything he was feeling pour into his tone, “is broken.” He didn’t care if he gave himself away in that moment. He just knew he needed to fix it. He would not let the damage be too great.
“Okay,” Ilan said after a beat. “But we can’t…”
“I know,” Fredric interrupted—because he did.
Another moment passed between them, and then Ilan rose. This time, though, he didn’t leave the room. This time, he dragged a touch down Fredric’s arm, then took his wrist and urged him up. “Come on. I’m going to teach you something important.”
Fredric followed him to the counter. “What is it?”
“How to cook breakfast for Hudson, the first morning he sleeps over.”
Fredric felt his heart in his throat and felt himself nod, and he pretended like the world hadn’t just crumbled beneath his feet.
Chapter 15
As his gaze took in the morning sun, Ilan groaned and rolled onto his side, his body aching the way it always did when he didn’t sleep. But the very idea of closing his eyes and letting his subconscious have its way with him after what happened in Fredric’s kitchen…there was no way in hell he was taking that risk.
It had taken all of his self-control to finish out the evening, and he cursed himself for showing up there at all. The day had been going well. Preston picked him up and took him to a nearby bar, and they had drinks on the rooftop patio and watched the tide start to come in. The sun began to sink lower, and Ilan felt himself relaxing and even laughing. And just when they were about to order dinner, his phone rang.
Don’t, he told himself as he stared at Fredric’s name on the screen. But Preston had given him a sweet smile and motioned with his hand to go ahead. So, he did.
He didn’t know if he would have—if he’d had a single clue what was going to happen less than an hour later. Would he have shot this date in the heart for a simple touch? Would he have set fire to any chance he had at falling for someone else for a single moment of Fredric’s hands on him? Would he have ruined a chance for a future with Preston over an almost kiss that could never, ever be real?
That morning, with the sun forcing him back to the present, he knew the answer.
He’d have given all that up—and more. It didn’t matter if the moment was shattered by Fredric’s date. It didn’t matter if Fredric’s face had fallen like it was the worst mistake he’d ever made. It was worth it.
Ilan could still feel those palms, those delicate, careful fingers tracing up the front of his throat, dragging over his mouth, holding him like he was worth being held. He could still feel the warm rush of air from Fredric’s sigh as his lips parted.
He could still feel that single, perfect moment of anticipation as Fredric leaned in.
And he could still feel the pain as that moment shattered.
He’d been a fool for suggesting it. He was filled with self-loathing as he laid there staring up at his ceiling fan. Fredric had panicked—Ilan had been able to see it in the way his fingers faintly trembled for the rest of the night. But he’d begged Ilan not to pull back, and Ilan had made him a promise—not with words, but with dragging him into the kitchen and standing beside him as he walked him through the shakshuka recipe his mother used to make for him Sunday mornings.