Burn it after midnight.

Chapter 5: Much Too Long For A Man Who Needs Love.

It had been a week.

Seven days since Steve had heard from Eddie. He wasn't sure why he'd expected to have heard from him.

A whole week since Eddie had rocked Steve's world and then disappeared out of it like nothing had happened.

They had showered separately in the end, Eddie had hoped Steve would change his mind and join him, he'd had thoughts of fucking him in the shower as well. But he hadn't.

He had however crawled into bed with Steve afterwards and found that Steve was surprisingly clingy, snuggling into Eddie's side, sleepy and looking totally fucked out.

It made Eddie's heart melt, turning into a sticky pile of goo inside his chest.

That was not good.

Steve was meant to be one and done. Like all of his other one night stands, Eddie wasn't good at relationships, his last one had been an absolute car crash and he'd decided that they weren't for him.

Watching Steve lie there with his head on his chest, leg wrapped around his waist, fingers curled up by his face as he breathed gently Eddie felt a stabbing in his gut. No he was not allowed to get mixed up in feelings for Steve.

So he untangled himself from Steve, grabbed his shorts and shirt from the floor and slipped out of the room, then out of the house. Cursing himself a little as he hadn't brought his jacket with him as it was now cold in the middle of the night.

When Steve woke up he was expecting to see Eddie asleep next to him or hear him moving around the house. But he was just gone.

And he didn't hear from him again.

He knew that it was probably stupid of him to be upset by it, that he'd built up an idea that Eddie might have stuck around. He hadn't and Steve felt empty, but he also felt used. That was a new feeling entirely in itself. Sure he had had one night stands before and done the same thing to countless girls before. He'd never given it much consideration before, but now he was on the receiving end of it it felt awful. He felt guilty as hell, all those girls he'd done this too in the past, he felt like a complete bastard.

***

Another two days passed, Steve was struggling not to think about Eddie. He couldn't stop thinking about the way his arms curled around him, those coffee coloured eyes, the contours of his muscles, all of it, he felt a little bit crazed.

He just couldn't shake his thoughts of the dark haired man.

Of course he knew where he worked, but he didn't think turning up at Eddie's place of work would make him look anything other than desperate and he didn't want that.

But he couldn't stop fucking thinking about him.

It wasn't like Eddie hadn't thought of Steve in the week that had passed. He thought of him frequently, mostly when he was alone in bed at night, touching himself, his other hand clamped over his mouth to muffle the sounds. He felt bad for running out on Steve, but he couldn't let himself get wound up over another pretty boy that was inevitably gonna break his heart.

***

It was another week before they saw each other again. In a totally normal setting, if you count the grocery store as a normal setting.

It was later than Steve usually did his grocery shopping, but he'd stayed late at work to finish some things off, then he'd just driven around for a little while, not feeling like heading home.

It was maybe just a little after ten pm, he was wandering around picking out the stuff he usually bought, trying to decide on what he wanted to be able to cook for the rest of the week.