the anatomy of love [BxB] COMPLETED

28

"Home?" Jackson asks, startled. Wes doesn't look at him, instead pulling back onto the road and driving fast down the empty lane.

"Yes. My apartment."

Jackson tries not to think anymore. It doesn't get him anywhere. He looks at Wes, and notices he's wearing tight charcoal pants and a loose beige t-shirt. Not a suit. Suddenly that night, so long ago it feels like years have passed since then, rushes to the present, when Jackson had seen Wes playing pool with those cuffed sleeves, a cigar dangling from his fingers, a glass of auburn whiskey at his wrist. The night Jackson decided to roll the dice.

"I saw you," Jackson says. "At that bar. You were playing pool."

"I know." Wes's voice sounds soft, sad.

"You recognized me?" Jackson can't believe it. This whole time... "But..."

"It would have been unprofessional of me to approach you in that setting," Wes says, returning to the calculated, robotic voice he usually uses when explaining a project or strategy to a client.

"Saying hello would be unprofessional?" Jackson asks with an edge of bitterness.

"No, but bending you over the pool table and fucking you would be."

Jackson's mouth falls open, but he struggles to find the right words.

"Sometimes..." Jackson mutters.

"What?"

"You surprise me."

Wes raises an eyebrow.

"Stealing my lines, Cooper?"

Jackson turns to look out the window to hide a smile.

☆★☆

"So you do know how to cook."

Wes looks at him flatly. "Of course I know, Jackson. I graduated college many years ago. I'm an adult now." He continues pouring a bag of pasta into a boiling pot of water.

"Everyone knows you aren't really an adult until thirty."

"So if I'm not an adult, but I'm not a teenager, what am I?" Wes asks, his face serious but the amusement in his voice betraying him.

"I don't really know," Jackson says after a pause. "I hadn't really thought my insult through this far."

"Clearly," Wes says, with his trademark succinctness and yet somehow lighter than usual, like a laugh or a smirk.

Jackson watches Wes set a timer and walk around to Jackson's side of the counter, sauntering in those pants which hug his legs right down to his ankles, and that shirt, almost see through it's so thin, sidling right up to him, circling an arm around Jackson's waist. And it feels so right, almost perfect, like nearly kissing the sun but burning yourself instead.

"I didn't believe you when you said you had a small apartment," Jackson says, smiling when Wes rolls his eyes. "What? You own that huge penthouse but actually live in a one bedroom apartment with the smallest bathroom I've ever seen? It doesn't make sense."

"It makes sense to me. The hotel is for show. It's what people expect of me," Wes says, running a hand through Jackson's hair and watching the strands fall through his fingers. "This is more grounded. More real."

"For show? Was kicking me out in the morning for show?" Jackson still feels the sting of rejection acutely, like a dagger in his side. Wes looks away, his arm falling from Jackson's waist.

"No. That was...real."

When Wes starts to walk away, Jackson catches his wrist, pulling him close. Their lips ghost each other, and it takes everything in him not to kiss him.