He takes my mouth with his, a hand grazing my throat like a warm, rough necklace.
"Touch me," he breathes onto my lips.
My hands slip under his shirt, over his abdomen, his muscles tight and warm against my fingertips. I touch the places on him I'...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
A Thursday in July, 3:04 PM
"I swear, Grey. I'm buying you something neon for your birthday. Everything's dungeon-y!"
"I like red too. Leave me alone."
"Um, no?"
Greyson clips a silver chain around his neck as I search for something more semi-formal and less...midnight lurker.
Late afternoon sunlight filters through the open window of Greyson's room, casting gold the mounds of all black clothing. I sit cross-legged on the floor amidst a sea of Greyson's darkness, which lay scattered around us. Other than that, there are old board games, books with broken spines, and a collection of rocks we convinced ourselves were meteorites. More like coprolites.
"Why do we even have to go to this thing again?" Greyson grumbles from beside me, inspecting a small hole in a pair of black jeans.
"Because community spirit! All the cool kids will be there. And you're secretly an auction junkie."
Let's be honest—I'm the one who's all about the silent auction. Last year, I snagged an Atlas collection for forty-nine bucks, blind purchase. Now it sits on my shelf next door, whispering sweet nothings about distant lands and adventures I'm too broke to go on.
Finding a wrinkled, dark grey button-down, I hold it up triumphantly. "This will have to do. At least it's not—"
"Black, yeah." He tosses the jeans aside, the hole forgotten. "Why does it matter if I wear black? Why does anyone care?"
"People like to categorize, Grey. Makes the world easier to understand." I hold back the notion that he already has a reputation, and black clothes feed it.
Greyson stands, stretching his limbs in a way that makes his shirt pull tight across his muscled shoulders, a testament to the physicality necessary to work under cars all day at the garage.
"It's not categorization when I'm being scowled at." He shuffles over to his bed, dropping down to search for something in his nightstand drawers. "Let's get Mike's Pizza instead. I'll buy you three cans of Sprite, one slice of pepperoni and two slices of Hawaiian."
"Supporting the firefighters is a good cause, Greyson. The auction will be fun. Remember last year?"
He grunts. "You could've used that fifty bucks for something better."
I turn to him. "Like what? A black shirt?"
Grey stands up, a glint in his eye as he rummages through the bottom drawer of his tall dresser, the one we refer to as his Archive of Past Greyson's. He pulls out a shirt, its fabric as dark as the rest. Dropping it into my lap, he declares, "There. I'll give it to you for free."
I scoff, holding up the shirt to inspect the rips and faded local band logo. It's a relic from his more rebellious days, the times we'd sneak out to catch local bands play in the dingy bar on Fifth Street we had no business being in so young.
