The sky hadn’t slipped fully from the dark yet, a dull silver seeping into the horizon. It blurred the edges of clouds like a thumb pressed to charcoal.
Milo’s feet sank into the wet grass along the narrow path, each blade licking cold against his ankles, soaking through the thin cotton of his socks. His bag hung loose over one shoulder, the strap biting into a collarbone sucked raw.
Around him, the air was thick with earth and dew, a faint rustle stirring in the nearby trees. A bird started its morning song, only to be lost in the calm that followed.
Jude walked beside him, hands buried deep in his pockets. The gravel crunched under their feet, crackling in Milo’s ears. The tension in Jude’s frame matched the stuttered rhythm of their steps, and the urge to reach out buzzed along Milo’s fingertips.
He finally let himself glance at Jude’s face, hazed in profile. The dark smudges beneath his eyes were hollow, carved from hours without sleep.
There hadn’t been much time for rest in the cramped hours between one touch and the next—when all his bones had shifted and the world folded in tight, too full to move.
Milo’s gut clenched at the memory of his tongue thickening against the restless dark, temples still pulsing with the same sleepless ache.
The bus stop appeared ahead, its metal frame slick with condensation, the glass panels dulled by the retreating night. The bench stood empty, damp and worn.
They paused just short of it. Milo shifted the strap of his bag but didn’t sit; he could feel Jude watching the side of his face as his thoughts scraped around, restless and sore.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Jude’s glance drop to his feet—the bare ankles pressed into the grass, the dig of his heel into soft earth.
Was he thinking about the rise and fall of Milo’s ribs under the spread of his hands? The forced curve of his back? The place where his lips had lingered, wet and breathless, in the hollow of Milo’s thigh?
Maybe.
A shift passed between them, like static lifted from fabric. Milo’s body moved just enough, angling toward Jude. His fingers twitched near his side, cramped by an edge he couldn’t name yet.
Finally, Jude exhaled—a salt-heavy breath that caught thick in Milo’s throat. He turned his head slowly, not expecting to meet the full force of Jude’s focus. There was something painfully unguarded in those eyes, a steady knowing that had lived between them since the night Jude let his calloused palm linger at Milo’s nape in that darkened driveway.
Then Jude moved—too quickly to soothe that raw, startled part of Milo, but too slowly to quiet the spark still lodged in his chest. Jude’s mouth brushed his once—a featherlight swipe, a thread drawn tight.
Milo stilled, letting the shock of those cold lips center between his hips. Then, he answered the only way he could: his head tilted, a craving caught in the twitch of his reach, sharp and panicked.
His hands locked at Jude’s back as the kiss deepened, their breath catching in a rough rhythm that tangled against the stillness of the fields, the soft wash of morning light.
It wasn’t sweet. The drag of stubble rasped where the night had left him tender. The musk of slept-in cotton and sweat-matted hair—of bodies held too close for too long—seeped into him. Jude’s bone-deep grip at the back of his neck held him flush against the slick hardness of that stomach.
Milo heard himself groan into the weight of Jude’s tongue as hands curled firm around his throat.
All too quickly, the rumble of the bus reached them, a low churn grinding the quiet into noise. They broke apart. Milo’s wet lips caught the morning’s chill—but so did Jude’s. They stood close, breathless, chests brushing in the thin light.
Still catching his breath, Milo squeezed the strap on his shoulder to keep the buzz in his touch close. He held Jude’s gaze—bloodshot eyes, flushed mouth—his body taut with a half-formed fear that Jude might say something to carve a way through him.
But he didn’t.
He just smiled—a faint curve of his mouth that held pain and something else Milo couldn’t name.
“See you later,” Jude rasped.
Milo swallowed. “Later.”
He stepped toward the hiss of the bus doors. His shoes squelched in the mulch, damp grass clinging to the soles. Jude stood still, eyes trailing him into the blur of glass.
Before he knew it, the door had sealed behind him, and the bus pulled away. The field fell quiet once again.
But the world held a richer aroma now: soaked earth, bruised grass, and the lingering musk of heat behind teeth. A mouth still gasping.
Jude turned and started back down the path. He shook out his arms, rubbing the back of his neck, trying to wring some of the feeling out. Dew soaked his jeans as his mouth curled—half-wild, almost startled by its own shape.
Above him, the sky lightened. It felt like something he could hold now, so soft it might burst open and flood the waking earth if he stumbled.
Something sticky in the seam of his nerves. Jude swallowed, the thickness in his throat heavy with salt and honey—flesh and bone tasted slow, pulsing dense as teeth.