Favorite Friend

Buzzcut Season

Item number two hundred and forty-four on the list of things I love about Aaron Jacobs: his incredible dedication to staying as close as physically possible despite the scorching heat in his room.

With his arm around me, one hand intertwined with mine, and our legs tangled together on the sheets, he's a breathing furnace—by now my curls are matted to my forehead and beads of sweat are glittering on Aaron's browbone, but neither of us feels like moving even an inch.

Earlier, when we woke up and he tugged me closer with a muffled c'mere, I wasn't sure what to do. After three days, there's still moments where we're a little awkward, touches tentative and hands clumsy from years of forcing them to stay firmly at our sides, and I'm always careful about where to touch Aaron when he's like this, wearing only a big shirt and a pair of boxers. But he just grinned when I asked him how he wanted me to lie and dragged me where he wanted me, draped over him with my face tucked against his neck.

By now it's well past noon and we haven't moved at all except to shift a little when one of our limbs starts to tingle. I could probably stay like this forever, just feeling his fingertips idly tracing shapes on my arm and trading sleepy kisses while the curtains sway lazily in the warm breeze coming in through the open window.

When we're like this, it feels like the entire world narrows down to Aaron's bed. His room has always been a safe haven; here, surrounded by all the things that make him him, each one attached to a different memory, it's easy to pretend like the summer will never end, like we don't have less than two weeks left until we're heading in opposite directions and this room will be packed up in cardboard boxes.

Lying this close to him, all I can hear are his soft breathing and the distant sound of kids playing in the street or a car driving by, never loud enough to pierce through the pleasant fog in my head.

That is, until Aaron shifts a little, his hand sliding from my arm to my shoulder and then into my hair. Gently carding his fingers through the curls, he murmurs, "Your hair's gotten so long."

"Mhm." I blow a strand out of my eyes and lift my head so I can look at him. "Abuela keeps telling me to get it cut."

Aaron smiles in a way that makes me feel even warmer and gives them a teasing tug. "I like it."

I hum again and tilt my head. Aaron's smile widens as he catches on and he leans down, lips soft and generous and sending a pleasant tingle all the way down to my toes. The fact that after all these years it's suddenly so easy, just one tiny movement to get his mouth on mine, is so novel that it draws a little gasp out of me, like my body can't believe the amount of affection it's receiving after yearning for it for so long.

Aaron chuckles quietly at the sound and leans back, his eyes a little bit more awake. Softly brushing a stray curl out of my face, he asks, "Speaking of hair... Can you give me a buzzcut?"

I blink at him, still a little bit dazed. I'm stupid. Kissing Aaron renders me fucking stupid. "Like, today?"

He grins, stretching a little. "Yeah. We're long overdue for buzzcut season."

The first time he asked me to help him, we were fifteen and Aaron still had long hair. The hairdresser had refused to cut off his gorgeous lion's mane, so Aaron showed up at my house with clippers in hand and a stubborn look that didn't leave room for arguments on his face. When she came home, mom found us crouching in the bathtub, covered in hair, a giddy smile on Aaron's face as he reverently ran his hand over the patchy buzzcut I had managed to give him.

Now that he has a deeper voice and a pronounced jawline, hairdressers don't think twice about cutting it short, but I'm still the one he comes to once every summer to give him a buzzcut when he finds that it gets too hot under all his hair.