The Sensible One (boyxboy) ✓

Chapter Sixteen

[Max's POV]

So there we sat on my leather couch, together under my blanket, eating directly from the pizza box like we were children and watching a movie I would never have touched on my own. The lighting was a little dimmer than usual, I had a dimmer switch so I'd lowered it enough that it wasn't a nuisance.

My mind wandered back to Weston even as I tried to stop it. Just reminding me exactly how similar this scene was.

Back then I'd come over to his place and sat down on his couch, watched television with him. He'd always welcomed me into his space and so we'd ended up in pretty uncomfortable positions, getting hot and clammy on one side during those hot summer days with the porch door open.

Memories that were slightly awkward but still pleasant became tainted after he broke up with me. Instead of putting them aside I went over them, opened up the memory file and made all sorts of notes, how I might have been too persistent at times, how much that one expression must have conveyed dislike for me. He must have show me so many signs and I had just ignored them...

Those memories still had all those notes attached, and ungluing them was hard.

Now he was in a relationship with a man, publicly, being invited out to meet his friends... Was it all a lie? Was there an explanation besides it being a lie?

What if I asked angrily why he had told me what he had told me and found that I was not being justifiably upset. What if I had been forcing myself on him and he had just found a one off attraction to a man later in life?

That thought didn't help, though, and I sat there, with this weight in the bottom of my chest, soaking up all of the comfort I could from the pushy stranger I just invited into my home.

He was surprisingly easy to talk to though, small talk flowed easily between the two of us, as though we had known each other for a long time, as though I had met him before somewhere, despite it being practically impossible for our paths to have crossed once before. I would have remembered if I ever saw anyone so unearthly attractive.

I leaned back.

"Well, this definitely isn't Captain America. I'd have remembered that scene from the comics."

"Hm?" I looked up at Lowell to realise he was looking down at me before he quickly turned to look at the screen. The movie he put on and wasn't even sure which one it was. "Why's that?"

I raised an eyebrow, trying to ignore his hand tickling the skin on my hip as his fingers slipped half an inch under the waistband of my underwear. I should have said something, but no matter how much I tried to dislike it I just didn't. It was pleasant, sitting up against him, in a sort of embrace that felt so casual. "Well unless one of Captain America's secret abilities is turning into a werewolf..." I pointed at the screen.

He leaned back. "Right yeah," He laughed awkwardly. "It's okay either way right?..."

He seemed to pull me back against him, either by accident or on purpose, and as I leaned back it should have felt awkward, too far from the laptop or too close to him, a veritable stranger. Instead it felt warm and cosy.

Since when was this couch so comfortable.

I continued to watch the movie quietly, the speakers loud enough to give me second thoughts despite knowing the neighbours would have no way of hearing it, as I made some leeway through my next slice of food, setting the box back on the table.

In the quiet between us I looked up at him and back down at the little space between us. I could smell that scent again, whatever cologne he was wearing was more than delicious. I wanted to move closer to breathe it in, but I was aware how odd that was, and remained still.