Our Strange Love

Part 6 - Chapter 26

For some reason, holding and touching hands made things easier.

Before Riley started dinner, Eran came into the small kitchen and stopped in the doorway. He looks like he's about to give me an order? Riley thought as he finished rolling up his sleeves. Out of nowhere, Eran caught Riley's hands and brought them to his lips. Not quickly or slowly, Eran kissed each of his fingers. The whole action was rough but sweet.

Those are the words that describe him, Riley thought, 'rough yet sweet.' "What are you doing?" Riley asked.

Eran looked up at Riley, but didn't make eye-contact. "Holding back." Riley's heart throbbed and Eran left the kitchen as suddenly as he had come.

Talking was also a distraction. They talked about school and work. Riley would actually listen as Eran would explain what projects he was working on or teaching, and their age gap didn't feel like an issue even when Eran would relate to Riley's high school stories. What they didn't talk about were their lives before they met one another. Riley decided it could wait. He had... hopefully, the rest of his life with Eran to reach that point.

Later, Riley sat at the coffee table with his notes and book neatly organised in front of him. Eran moved between the couch and the coffee table, his notes and books spread haphazardly in both areas. At one point, without looking up, Eran randomly said, "I'm not your tutor anymore."

You were never my tutor, really. "Right. Wouldn't want you to get in trouble with only a few weeks left to go."

Eran smiled cynically. "So you do understand?"

"Of course I understand... So then, what are you?"

Eran was quiet for a moment, and then he looked up and asked, "What do you want me to be?"

Riley took Eran's hand and kissed the underside of his wrist. "Mine." He glanced at Eran who then turned away, which Riley learned meant he was embarrassed and possibly blushing.

Later, when Riley was drying Eran's hair and was tempted to kiss the nape of his neck, he kissed the back of Eran's hand instead.

Riley turned off the hair dryer and said, "I'm thinking about telling Tony tomorrow."

"If you trust him, that's fine."

In bed, through the moonlit dark, Riley asked, "Did you tell Bubba?"

They lay an Eran-arm's length away, facing each other, the blanket closer to their shoulders than normal—with the distance, they needed to make up for the lost body heat. "No. He... might already know, though. I think he knew before it happened..."

"...What?" Bubba seemed clever and wise, but precognitive? No way. Was it obvious that we'd end up like this?

Eran rolled onto his stomach and propped himself up on his elbows. "When I called him a few weeks ago to ask if you could store your bike at his place," ...It felt like ages ago that Eran started driving Riley halfway to school, "he said something weird. What was it?" He tried to remember. "Oh," he rolled his eyes then quoted, "'I know something you don't know yet.' And 'when you two have figured it out, come down here; I'll treat you.'" Eran looked a little ticked off.