Chapter 10: The Morning After
Daniel woke to the slow, steady rhythm of a heartbeat. It was a foreign sound to wake up to, not the sterile silence of his own studio or the frantic staccato of his own pulse during a nightmare. This was deep, resonant, a drumbeat through a solid chest. His face was pressed against soft cotton, his body curled into a warmth that smelled like cedar and sleep.
He didn’t open his eyes immediately. He just breathed. In, out, timing it to the rise and fall beneath his cheek.
Memory returned in soft-focus snapshots. The rooftop, the fairy lights, the wine-stained kiss. Walking back to Arch’s apartment, fingers laced together, not talking because no words were needed. The quiet negotiation of the dark living room. Arch fetching him a t-shirt and sweatpants. The hesitant brush of hands as they both climbed into the bed, the springs groaning a familiar complaint. Then just lying there in the dark, side by side, not touching, until Arch had whispered, “Is this okay?” and Daniel had simply turned and folded himself into him, an answer in the form of a surrender.
Now, in the honeyed morning light, he dared to look.
Arch was on his back, one arm curled above his head on the pillow, the other resting heavily across Daniel’s back. His face was relaxed in sleep, the easy charm stripped away, leaving something younger and more vulnerable. The sandy stubble on his jaw was coming in golden. A small scar, pale and thin, cut through his eyebrow—a childhood trophy, probably. Daniel watched the flutter of his eyelids, the soft part of his lips as he breathed.
He looked peaceful. Daniel felt a sudden, fierce need to protect that peace, which was absurd. Arch was the solid one, the football legacy, the guy who carried people home. But here, asleep, he just looked like a boy.
A treacherous thought wormed in: This is a mistake. He’ll wake up and regret it. You’re a complication he doesn’t need. The old soundtrack. He tried to silence it by focusing on the sensory details—the weight of Arch’s arm, the stripe of sunlight heating the blanket over his legs, the distant sound of a garbage truck on the street below. Real things. Present things.
Arch’s breathing hitched. He shifted, a low, unconscious sound rumbling in his chest. His eyes fluttered open. They were blurry with sleep, a stunning, unfocused green. They found Daniel’s face inches away, and for one heart-stopping second, there was no recognition, just the blank curiosity of waking up in an unfamiliar world.
Then, it clicked. The eyes cleared, warmed, crinkled at the corners. That smile, the easy one, but this time it was private, just for him.
“Morning,” Arch said, his voice gravelly with sleep.
“Hi,” Daniel whispered, suddenly shy.
“You stayed.”
“You asked me to.”
“I know. Wasn’t sure you would.” Arch’s arm tightened around him, pulling him in a fraction closer. His hand spread wide against Daniel’s back. “How’d you sleep? No pigeon nightmares?”
Daniel huffed a quiet laugh against his chest. “No. No nightmares at all.”
“Good.” Arch pressed his lips to the top of Daniel’s head, a soft, lingering kiss. The gesture was so instinctively affectionate it made Daniel’s throat constrict. “I have to piss like a racehorse. Don’t move.”
He extricated himself, the cold air rushing in to replace his warmth. Daniel watched him pad, barefoot and rumpled, toward the bathroom. The door clicked shut. The apartment was silent.
The anxiety surged back, louder now. The intimacy of the night felt like a dream under the scrutiny of morning. He sat up, pulling the blankets to his chest. The room was exactly as he’d glimpsed it last night: walls the color of coffee with too much cream, a dresser with drawers that didn’t quite close, a bookshelf holding more sports trophies and family photos than books. On the nightstand, next to a charging phone and a half-empty glass of water, was a small, framed picture. Daniel leaned over.
It was Arch, maybe sixteen, in full football pads, helmet tucked under his arm, face streaked with dirt and split by a triumphant, fierce grin. He was looking at the camera, but someone next to him had an arm slung around his shoulders, pulling him in. The other figure was cut off by the frame. Just an arm in a letterman jacket. A ghost of his past life.
Daniel looked away. He felt like an intruder.
The toilet flushed, pipes groaning in the wall. A sink ran. Arch emerged, his hair dampened and finger-combed. He stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame, just looking at Daniel curled up in his bed.
“You look like you’re planning an escape route,” Arch said. His tone was light, but his eyes were watchful.
“I’m not,” Daniel said, too quickly.
“It’s okay if you are. This is… a lot.”
“It’s not that. It’s just… morning. Morning makes things real.”
Arch nodded as if he understood perfectly. He walked over and sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping. He didn’t try to touch him. “And what’s the reality this morning?”
Daniel picked at a thread on the blanket. “The reality is I’m in your bed. And you’re you. And I’m me. And last night was… perfect. Which is the part that scares me.”
“Because perfect things break.”
“Yes.”
Arch was quiet for a moment. He reached out, not for Daniel, but for the picture on the nightstand. He picked it up, looked at his own younger, grinning face, and then set it face down with a soft click.
“That guy,” Arch said, jerking his thumb toward the downed frame, “he thought he was bulletproof. He had the whole script written. Championship, Heisman, first-round draft pick, the whole fairy tale. He knew exactly who he was.” He met Daniel’s gaze. “Then I broke. And the script burned. And for two years, I’ve been waking up every morning having to figure out who the hell I am without it. It’s exhausting.” He took a slow breath. “So this, you, here… it’s not a script. It’s not part of some plan. It’s just… something true. And I’m holding onto true things these days. Maybe we just hold onto it, and see what it wants to be.”
Daniel felt the tight coil in his chest begin to loosen. “No expectations?”
“The only expectation is that I make you coffee. And maybe that we see if this is still good when we’re both fully awake and not floating on rooftop wine.” He finally reached out, his fingers brushing a stray piece of hair from Daniel’s forehead. “We can go as slow as you need. I’m not going anywhere.”
The words were simple, but they landed with the weight of a vow. Daniel believed him. He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and leaned into the touch. “Coffee sounds good.”
“Excellent. My one domestic skill.” Arch stood, offering a hand. Daniel took it, his own fingers slipping easily between Arch’s. He was pulled to his feet, standing close in the sunlit room. Arch didn’t let go. He just looked at him, his eyes tracing Daniel’s face—the sleep-softened lines, the faint freckles across his nose, the vulnerable set of his mouth.
“You’re beautiful in the morning,” Arch said, the statement so casual and direct it stole Daniel’s breath. “It’s unfair.”
Then he kissed him. It was a good morning kiss, slow and tasting of mint toothpaste. It felt like a promise of routine, of more mornings. When they parted, Daniel felt dizzy, anchored only by their joined hands.
“Coffee,” Arch repeated, as if to himself, and led him out to the kitchen.
They moved around each other in the small space with a tentative, new rhythm. Daniel leaned against the counter, wrapped in the borrowed sweatpants that pooled at his ankles, watching Arch grind beans and heat water in a French press. The domesticity of it was surreal. He’d imagined Arch in a hundred scenarios—across a lecture hall, laughing with friends at a bar, a distant, golden figure on a sports field. He’d never imagined this: Arch Manning, shirtless in sweatpants, concentrating on the bloom of coffee grounds, humming a tuneless song under his breath.
“Cream?” Arch asked.
“Just black.”
“Right.” He poured two mugs and handed one over. Their fingers brushed. Every touch felt amplified, a small electric shock mapping a new connection.
They took their mugs to the sagging armchair. It was only big enough for one, so Daniel sat, and Arch settled on the floor, leaning back against his legs. The contact was constant, easy. The autumn sun streamed through the thin curtains, painting dust motes into dancing gold.
They talked. Not about heavy things. About the terrible pop song stuck in Arch’s head. About a professor they both hated. About Daniel’s favorite obscure graphic novelist. The conversation was a meandering stream, comfortable and light.
At one point, Arch reached up without looking and took Daniel’s free hand, lacing their fingers together on his shoulder. Daniel’s heart did a slow, full roll in his chest.
His phone, buried in the pocket of his discarded jeans on the floor, buzzed insistently. The spell snapped. Daniel tensed. The world, with its demands and its dangers, was calling.
“You should get that,” Arch said softly, squeezing his hand.
“It’s probably just spam.”
“Or it’s your advisor. Or a classmate. The world’s still turning, Dufau.”
Daniel retrieved the phone. The screen showed three missed calls from an Austin number he didn’t recognize, and a text from his studio neighbor, Maya: Hey, you ok? Saw your door was open last night and the place is… a bit of a warzone. Let me know.
Shame, hot and acrid, flooded his mouth. The studio. The shredded drawings. The visible proof of his collapse, just sitting there for anyone to see.
“Shit,” he breathed.
Arch twisted to look up at him. “What’s wrong?”
“Maya. My neighbor. She saw the studio.”
“Ah.” Arch understood immediately. “Do you want to go deal with it?”
Daniel wanted to say no. He wanted to stay in this sunlit bubble forever. But the image of the torn paper, the exposed guts of his panic, festered in his mind. It was another monument he had to face. “I should. It’s just… going back in there.”
Arch shifted, turning to kneel in front of the chair. He put his hands on Daniel’s knees. “Hey. Look at me.” Daniel dragged his eyes from the phone. “You’re not going back to the scene of the crime. You’re going to clean up a mess. That’s all. It’s just paper. It doesn’t own you.”
“It feels like it does.”
“Then I’ll come with you. We’ll do it together. Two-man cleanup crew.”
The offer was so generous it hurt. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t have to. I want to. If you’ll let me.” He said it like it was a privilege. Daniel could only nod.
They dressed in silence, the easy warmth of the morning hardening into a shared resolve. Daniel put on his clothes from last night, now wrinkled and smelling of rooftop and wine. Arch pulled on a clean t-shirt and a hoodie. They didn’t talk much on the walk to the arts building, but Arch kept his shoulder brushing against Daniel’s, a solid, silent presence.
The door to his studio was, as promised, slightly ajar. Pushing it open felt like lifting a lid on a coffin.
The morning light here was different—harsh, clinical, streaming through the high windows and illuminating every devastating detail. The large central drawing was a skeleton now, just a few stubborn fragments clinging to the board. The floor was a snowdrift of torn paper. The ripped pages of his sketchbook lay like fallen leaves. The unopened letter from his ex still sat on the workbench, a silent, accusing square.
Daniel froze on the threshold, the panic rising in a metallic wave at the back of his tongue. His breath shortened.
“Okay,” Arch said from behind him, his voice low and practical. “First, we open the window. Get some air in here.” He strode across the room, stepping carelessly on the paper, and wrestled the stubborn window open. A cool breeze rushed in, stirring the fragments.
“Then, we need a system. Trash for the small stuff. Maybe a save pile for the bigger pieces you might want to… I don’t know, archive as a lesson in dramatic flair.” He was trying to be light, but his actions were all efficiency. He found the trash can and a cardboard flat from a paper shipment. “You start on the table. I’ll start on the floor.”
“Arch, you really don’t—”
“Daniel.” Arch stopped, a handful of torn sky in his fist. “Let me help. Please.”
There was no arguing with that. So Daniel nodded, and they got to work.
It was strangely peaceful, once the initial dread passed. They worked on their knees, side by side, gathering handfuls of the destroyed drawings. The sound of tearing paper was replaced by the soft rustle of collection. Daniel found a large piece of the central drawing—a carefully rendered section of the old man’s knotted hands. He stared at it for a long moment, then placed it gently in the cardboard flat, not the trash.
He felt Arch watching him but didn’t look up.
After a while, Arch spoke. “You know, the first time I saw you was in Statistics 301. You were in the front row, and you were drawing in the margin of your notebook. Not doodling. Really drawing. It was the profile of the professor. And it was fucking good. I remember thinking, ‘What’s a guy who can do that doing in this soul-crushing class?’”
Daniel paused, a piece of paper trembling in his hand. “You noticed that?”
“I notice a lot of things about you.” Arch swept a pile of fragments into the trash. “I used to look for you on campus. Just to see what you were drawing that day.”
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“Because you were this quiet, intense guy who always looked like he wanted to be invisible. And I was… well, I was supposed to be a certain kind of guy. It didn’t feel like our worlds could touch.” He sat back on his heels. “Until they did.”
Daniel finally looked at him. Arch’s face was earnest, open. There was no hint of the polished charm now. This was the raw material underneath.
“I drew you too,” Daniel confessed, the words leaving him in a rush. “In my sketchbook. That first semester. You were leaning against a wall outside the business school, talking on the phone. You looked… golden.” He felt his face heat. “I tore that page out a year ago. Thought it was pathetic.”
Arch’s expression softened into something unbearably tender. “I wish you hadn’t.”
They went back to cleaning. The floor slowly emerged from under the paper. The workbench cleared. The only thing left was the letter.
Daniel stared at it. His palms were slick.
Arch finished dumping the last load from the cardboard flat into the trash. He stood, wiping his hands on his jeans. He followed Daniel’s gaze to the envelope.
“That’s the one, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t have to open it today.”
“I know.” But he felt a strange pull. The studio was clean. The evidence of his old panic was bagged up, ready to be taken away. The evidence of his old life was just sitting there. Maybe it was time.
He picked it up. The paper was heavy, expensive. His name was written in the precise, controlled script he knew so well. It felt like holding a live wire.
“Do you want me to leave?” Arch asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
“No,” Daniel said. “Stay. Please.”
He took a deep, shuddering breath and slid his thumb under the flap. The tear was loud in the quiet room. He pulled out a single sheet of the same heavy paper.
He read it. Then he read it again, his eyes scanning the lines, looking for the trap, the hidden blade.
“What does it say?” Arch finally asked, unable to bear the silence.
Daniel let out a short, sharp laugh that held no humor. “It’s an invitation. To his gallery show. In New York. Next month.” He looked up, his vision blurring with a confusing mix of relief and fury. “That’s it. After everything. After two years of silence. He just… wants me to see how well he’s doing. To see his name in print. On a gallery wall.”
He crumpled the paper in his fist, the sound satisfyingly violent. He threw it, a perfect arc, into the center of the empty trash can.
They both stared at it, a white ball amid the gray of
He threw it, a perfect arc, into the center of the empty trash can.
They both stared at it, a white ball amid the gray of shredded drawings. It looked insignificant there, just more garbage. Daniel felt a hollow ringing in his ears, the anticlimax almost worse than dread.
“All that fear,” he whispered. “For a fucking invite.”
“Yeah.” Arch’s voice was flat. “He’s an asshole. But you knew that.” He kicked the leg of the trash can gently, sending a shiver through the bag. “The message wasn’t in the words. It was in the sending. A power move. Look at me now, from my gallery in New York.”
“Well, I’m not looking.” Daniel’s hands curled into fists at his sides. The anger felt clean, sharper than the anxiety. “He doesn’t get my eyes anymore.”
A slow smile spread across Arch’s face, a real one, appreciative.“Good. Fuck him.”
The tension in the room shifted, the heavy blanket of the past lifting, leaving behind the strange, empty stillness of the clean studio. The afternoon sun had moved, cutting a bright diagonal across the freshly visible concrete floor. Dust motes swirled in the light, new ones, disturbed by their cleaning.
Daniel looked at Arch, really looked at him, standing in the middle of his carnage-turned-clean-slate. His hoodie was dusted with paper fibers, a smudge of graphite on his jaw. He’d seen every broken piece of him today, the torn pages of his history, and he hadn’t flinched. He’d just knelt down and started helping him sweep it up.
The gratitude that hit Daniel was a physical force, a warmth that started in his chest and flooded his limbs, leaving him weak. It was too big for words. All the careful sentences in his head dissolved.
So he crossed the space between them in two quick strides. He didn’t think. He just reached up, framed Arch’s face with his hands, and kissed him.
It wasn’t like the rooftop. This wasn’t soft inquiry or golden-hour promise. This was pure collision, a release of everything he’d been holding—the panic, the shame, the fury at the letter, the staggering relief of being seen and not abandoned. He poured it all into the press of his mouth against Arch’s.
Arch made a sound, a low hum of surprise that vibrated into Daniel’s mouth. For a second, he was still, maybe shocked by the suddenness. Then his hands came up, one gripping Daniel’s hip, the other sliding into his hair, and he kissed him back.Hard.
This was the make-out.
It was all heat and hunger, a claiming of the present over every ghost that had been exorcised from the room. Arch’s mouth was demanding, his tongue tracing the seam of Daniel’s lips until he gasped, opening for him. The taste was coffee and Arch, a dark, vital flavor that drowned out everything else.
Daniel’s back hit the edge of the heavy workbench. The solid wood bit into his spine, a sharp counterpoint to the soft, insistent pressure of Arch’s body against his front. He arched into it, his own hands scrambling for purchase, fisting in the soft cotton of Arch’s hoodie. He pulled him closer, needing to erase the last inch of space between them.
Arch’s mouth left his, trailing fire down his jaw to his throat. He licked a stripe over Daniel’s pulse point, then sucked lightly, and Daniel’s knees buckled. A ragged noise tore from his throat, embarrassingly loud in the empty studio.
“You are so fucking beautiful when you come undone,” Arch growled against his skin, the words hot and damp.
Daniel could only gasp, his head thrown back. He was unraveling, and it wasn’t from panic. This was a controlled demolition, every touch deliberately collapsing a wall he’d built around himself. Arch’s hands were under his shirt now, skating over the feverish skin of his back, pressing into the notches of his spine. His palms were rough, calloused from years of gripping a football, and the sensation was wildly, intensely erotic.
He found Arch’s mouth again, kissing him with a desperate kind of focus. He slid his own hands under Arch’s hoodie and t-shirt, needing to feel the heat of his skin, the firm ridges of muscle and the singular, smooth line of the surgical scar on his lower back. He traced it with his thumb.
Arch flinched. Just a tiny, instinctive recoil.
Daniel froze, immediately pulling his hand away. “Sorry, I’m sorry, does it hurt?”
Arch shook his head, his breath coming in short puffs against Daniel’s cheek. “No. It’s just… numb, mostly. And sensitive in a weird way. I’m just not used to… people touching it.”
“We can stop.”
“Don’t you dare.” Arch caught his mouth again, swallowing the rest of his words. He guided Daniel’s hand back, pressing his palm firmly against the scar. “Touch it. It’s part of the map.”
The permission, the vulnerability in it, undid Daniel completely. He kissed him deeper, his hand resting on that flawed, beautiful terrain. He understood in that moment that this was their common ground. Not the perfect, golden exteriors, but the broken places, the mended fractures, the sensitive scars that told the true story.
Arch pushed the hem of Daniel’s shirt up, breaking the kiss just long enough to pull it over his head and toss it aside. The cool studio air raised goosebumps on his skin, immediately followed by the searing heat of Arch’s hands and mouth everywhere. His lips traveled down Daniel’s chest, his tongue flicking over a nipple, his teeth grazing lightly.
Daniel’s head thudded back against the workbench. His fingers tangled in Arch’s sandy hair, not guiding, just holding on. The world narrowed to sensations: the scrape of denim against denim as Arch slotted a thigh between his, the desperate sound of their breathing echoing off the high ceilings, the faint, clean scent of soap on Arch’s skin mixing with the pervasive smell of graphite and dust.
He was rock-hard, aching with it, and the pressure against Arch’s leg was maddening, not enough. He rocked against him, a helpless, seeking motion.
“Arch,” he panted, the word a plea and a statement.
In response, Arch’s hands went to the button of his jeans. He paused, his green eyes looking up, darkened to the color of a deep forest. A question.
Daniel nodded, frantic, beyond words.
The button popped open. The zipper grated down. Arch’s hand slid inside, and Daniel cried out, a sharp, broken sound that seemed to startle the dust from the rafters. His hips jerked forward into the touch, into the firm, sure grip that knew exactly what it was doing. Arch watched his face, his own expression one of intense, rapt focus, as if memorizing every twitch of his eyelids, every bitten-off groan.
“You’re so loud,” Arch murmured, a wicked, pleased curve to his mouth. He sped up his rhythm, his thumb swirling over the head on every upstroke. “I like it. I want to hear you.”
Daniel was babbling, half-formed words and choked gasps. The pleasure was a white-hot wire, pulled taut from his core to his extremities. It was too much, a sensory overload after the emotional purge of the day. He was everywhere at once—in the sting of his back against the wood, in the tight grasp of Arch’s hand, in the devastating heat of Arch’s mouth when he kissed him again, swallowing his noises.
He came apart suddenly, violently, his vision whiting out at the edges. His body bowed off the workbench, held only by Arch’s arm around his back and the relentless, perfect friction of his hand. Pleasure tore through him in relentless waves, wringing him out, leaving him shaking and boneless.
Arch held him through it, his movements slowing to a gentle, prolonging stop. He kept his arm locked around Daniel, letting him sag against his chest as the aftershocks trembled through him. Daniel buried his face in the hollow of Arch’s neck, breathing in his sweat and scent, his own breathing ragged and wet.
For a long moment, there was just the sound of their breathing harmonizing in the quiet.
Then Daniel, his brain slowly flickering back online, became aware of the hard line of Arch’s erection pressed against his hip. He shifted, pushing himself upright on trembling arms. He looked at Arch’s flushed face, the desperate hunger still etched there, held in check by a visible, painful restraint.
“Your turn,” Daniel said, his voice wrecked.
He dropped to his knees on the concrete floor. It was cold and unforgiving, but he didn’t care.
Arch’s eyes went wide. “Daniel, you don’t have to—”
“I know I don’t have to.” Daniel echoed Arch’s own words from earlier, looking up at him. He made quick work of Arch’s jeans, pushing them down his hips just enough. “I want to.”
He took him in his mouth, slow, letting his tongue explore the shape and weight of him. Arch’s hands flew to his hair again, not pushing, just holding on as if for dear life. A shattered, reverent curse fell from his lips.
Daniel set a deliberate, deep rhythm. He used his mouth, his hands, everything he had learned from past encounters he wanted to forget, but now repurposed, redeemed in this act of giving. This was different. This wasn’t about performance or placation. It was about mapping this man, learning the sounds he made, the way his stomach muscles jumped under Daniel’s roaming hand, the taste of him, salty and unique.
He could feel the tension coiling tighter and tighter in Arch’s body. The fingers in his hair tightened. The low, guttural noises from above grew more fractured.
“Dan… Daniel, I’m gonna…”
Daniel hummed in acknowledgement, a vibration that made Arch shudder violently. He didn’t pull away. He stayed, taking him deeper, swallowing him down as Arch came with a loud, choked-off shout that echoed in the empty studio. His hips stuttered, his whole body seizing up before collapsing back against the workbench, spent.
Daniel rested his forehead against Arch’s thigh for a moment, catching his breath. The concrete was beginning to hurt his knees. He stood up, wobbly, and found a roll of paper towels on a nearby shelf. He tore off a few, cleaning himself up before handing some to Arch.
They cleaned up in a heavy, sated silence, pulling their clothes back into place with slow, tired movements. The studio felt different now. Charged. Sanctified, in a weird, profane way. The ghosts were truly gone, replaced by the vivid, living memory of what had just happened.
Arch finally zipped his jeans. He looked around, then at Daniel, a dazed, triumphant smile on his face. “So. We defiled your creative space.”
A laugh bubbled out of Daniel, unexpected and light. “I think we consecrated it.”
“Yeah.” Arch stepped into him, wrapping his arms around his bare waist. He just held him, their hearts beating against each other’s chests, slowing into a syncopated rhythm. “Better than a gallery show.”
“Different category.” Daniel leaned into him, savoring the solidity. The peace was profound, a thick, warm liquid filling all his hollow spaces.
Then Arch’s stomach growled, loud and long.
They both froze, then burst into laughter again, the tension finally, completely shattered.
“I think,” Arch said, resting his chin on Daniel’s head, “our next stop requires pancakes. A truly staggering quantity of pancakes. My blood sugar is in the fucking basement.”
“Pancakes sound like a religious experience right now.”
They gathered their things, Daniel pulling his shirt back on. He took one last look at the clean studio, the empty trash can, the clear workbench waiting for something new. He didn’t feel dread. He felt a quiet, humming potential.
As they stepped out into the hall, locking the door behind them, Daniel’s phone buzzed again in his pocket. He ignored it. Arch slung an arm around his shoulders, pulling him close as they walked down the echoing staircase toward the late afternoon light.
The make-out was over, but the feeling of it lingered on their skin, in their bones, a new and undeniable fact. The story of them was no longer written in torn paper or silent phones. It was written in breathless whispers on a concrete floor, and it was just beginning.