Chapter 7: The Pancake Aftermath
The kitchen smelled like syrup and burnt coffee. Ethan pushed a pancake around his plate, feeling the weight of Leo’s knee brushing against his under the small table. Every point of contact was a live wire.
“You boys are quiet this morning,” their mom said, pouring more orange juice. “Big study session last night?”
“Something like that,” Leo said, his voice easy. He stole a piece of bacon from Ethan’s plate. “Ethan was helping me with philosophy. It’s all ‘what is the self, man?’” He did a terrible stoner impression, making Derek chuckle.
Ethan managed a grunt. The self. Yeah. That was currently a very confused, very warm concept pressed against his thigh.
Breakfast was a performance. Chewing, swallowing, nodding. Leo was infuriatingly good at it, launching into a story about a hockey drill that had his dad leaning in, captivated. Ethan watched him, this stranger who wasn’t a stranger at all. The way his hands moved when he talked. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes. He’d studied those features for weeks as a brother. Now he knew the taste of the skin beneath them.
Finally, they escaped. “Gonna hit the books,” Leo announced, clapping a hand on Ethan’s shoulder. The touch burned through his t-shirt.
“Don’t stay holed up all day,” Derek said, smiling.
The door to Ethan’s room clicked shut. The lock engaged with a soft, final snick.
Silence. The hum of the computer, the distant lawnmower outside.
They stood there, back against the door, facing the room. The performative ease Leo had worn downstairs vanished. His chest rose and fell once, deeply. Ethan could see the pulse hammering in his throat.
Then Leo moved.
He crossed the space in two long strides, his hands coming up to frame Ethan’s face, his mouth crashing down on his. It wasn’t like the hesitant exploration of the night before. This was a claim. Ethan gasped into it, his own hands fisting in Leo’s shirt, pulling him closer until their hips slammed together. The hard line of Leo’s erection was unmistakable.
“Fuck,” Leo breathed against his lips, breaking the kiss only to dive back in, teeth scraping Ethan’s lower lip. “The entire fucking breakfast. All I could think about was…”
“What?” Ethan panted, his head spinning.
“Your hand. On my skin. In my hair. Just… your hands.” Leo’s own hands slid down, under Ethan’s shirt, palms hot and rough against the muscles of his back. He walked him backward until Ethan’s shoulders hit the wall beside the bookshelf. “I felt you watching me. All through bacon and eggs. It was driving me insane.”
“Good,” Ethan said, the word guttural. He arched into the touch, his head thudding against the wall. Leo’s mouth found his neck, sucking a dark mark just above his collarbone. The sting shot straight to his groin.
They were a tangle of grabbing hands and hitched breaths, working each other’s shirts off. Fabric caught on elbows, was tugged over heads, discarded. Chest to chest, skin to skin. Ethan’s eyes raked over Leo’s torso—the same topography as his own, the same cut of muscle from relentless sport, but fascinating in its foreignness. A scar on Leo’s ribcage, white and slick. A mole just above his hipbone.
“See something you like?” Leo murmured, his voice thick.
“You’re a copycat.”
“Upgraded model,” Leo corrected, repeating his line from the morning, and then he kissed him again, swallowing Ethan’s laugh.
They stumbled toward the bed, legs knocking together, and fell onto it in a heap of limbs. The comforter smelled like both of them now. Leo rolled on top, his weight a perfect, anchoring pressure. He pinned Ethan’s wrists above his head, his fingers lacing through Ethan’s. The hold was strong, inescapable. A defenseman’s hold.
Ethan tested it, a flex of his own strength, and Leo’s eyes darkened. “Yeah,” Leo whispered. “Like that.”
He released one wrist to trace a path down Ethan’s body with his mouth. Collarbone. Pectoral. The defined ridge of his abdominals. Each kiss, each swipe of his tongue, was a brand. Ethan writhed beneath him, his free hand tangling in Leo’s dark hair, not guiding, just holding on.
When Leo’s mouth closed over him, hot and wet, Ethan cried out, a ragged sound he didn’t recognize as his own. His hips jerked off the bed. Leo’s hands clamped down on his thighs, holding him in place, and took him deeper.
The world narrowed to sensation. The slick pressure of Leo’s tongue, the scrape of stubble on his inner thigh, the muffled, hungry sounds Leo was making. Ethan panted, staring at the ceiling, then down the length of his own body to where Leo’s head bobbed between his legs. The sight was obscene. It was beautiful. His fingers tightened in Leo’s hair.
“Leo… wait, stop, I’m gonna…”
Leo pulled off with a wet sound, breathing hard. He crawled back up Ethan’s body, his own cock heavy and leaking against Ethan’s stomach. “Switch,” he said, and it was halfway between a request and a command.
Ethan didn’t need to be told twice. He rolled them, reversing their positions, the power shift sending a new jolt through his system. Now he was the one looking down at Leo, flushed and wrecked beneath him. He saw his own want reflected back, raw and unfiltered.
He lowered his head, taking Leo in slowly, relishing the choked-off gasp it earned him. The taste was bitter, musky, uniquely Leo. The size was familiar in a way that made his brain buzz—the same impossible, filling thickness he knew from his own body. He focused on the rhythm, on the way Leo’s stomach muscles jumped under his splayed hand, on the broken litany of “fuck, Ethan, right there” falling from Leo’s lips.
It was a feedback loop of pleasure. What felt good to give felt eerily familiar to receive. A mirrored hunger.
Leo tugged at his shoulder. “Come here. I need you… I need to…”
Ethan moved back up, their mouths finding each other again, messy and desperate. Leo reached between them, his big hand wrapping around them both, squeezing. The friction was unbearable, perfect. Ethan buried his face in Leo’s neck, breathing in the scent of sweat and his own cologne on Leo’s skin.
“Look at me,” Leo gasped.
Ethan forced his eyes open. Leo’s hazel eyes were blown black, fixed on his. The connection was a physical thing, a cord pulled taut between them. Their hips pistoned in a frantic, syncopated rhythm against Leo’s fist.
“It’s the same,” Leo breathed, awe cutting through the lust. “It feels… Christ, Ethan…”
Ethan knew. In the friction, the heat, the sliding pressure, the distinction was melting away. It was like claiming and being claimed simultaneously. The tension coiled, a spring wound past its limit.
Leo came first with a sharp, strangled cry, his body bowing off the bed. The sight, the hot spill against his stomach, pushed Ethan over the edge a second later. White noise filled his ears. His vision starred.
He collapsed, his weight partially on Leo, who gathered him in, arms locking around his back. They lay there, slick and panting, hearts pounding against each other’s ribs in a slowing, dissonant drumbeat.
The room came back in pieces. The sound of their breathing. The feel of the damp sheets. The afternoon sun cutting across the floor.
Leo’s hand came up, stroking through Ethan’s sweat-damp hair. “Okay,” he said, his voice wrecked. “So that happened.”
A breathless laugh escaped Ethan. He turned his head, his nose against Leo’s neck. “Yeah.”
“The ‘we’re basically the same person’ thing is getting really fucking literal.”
“Shut up.”
But he was smiling. He could feel Leo smiling too.
For a long time, they just breathed. The enormity of it waited outside the haze of endorphins, a monster lurking in the hall. For now, they let it wait.
Leo’s stomach growled, loud in the quiet.
Ethan snorted. “Seriously?”
“I burned a lot of calories! So did you.” Leo shifted, wincing at the sticky mess between them. “We need a shower. Again.”
“We’re gonna drain the water heater.”
“Worth it.”
Ethan pushed himself up on one elbow, looking down at Leo. The marks on his neck. The satisfied, lazy glaze in his eyes. A possessive thrill, sharp and new, shot through him.
Leo saw it. His smile softened. “What?”
Ethan just shook his head. He couldn’t put it into words. Not yet. Instead, he slid out of bed, offering a hand. “Come on. Last one in has to explain the hickeys.”
Leo’s laugh was pure, unguarded joy. He took the hand. “You’re an asshole.”
But he didn’t let go, even as they walked, naked and unselfconscious, toward the bathroom. The door closed behind them, locking out the world for a little while longer.