Chapter 9: Routines
The embassy’s air conditioning was a perpetual, arctic hum. Matthew sat in his cubicle, fingers hovering over his keyboard, a cable news segment on his second monitor silently mouthing doom. The report was about cartel violence in Zacatecas, a grim counterpoint to the spreadsheets on his primary screen. He felt, rather than saw, Arturo approach.
“The trade delegation numbers from the Ministry of Economy finally came through,” Arturo said, placing a folder neatly on the desk. His voice was all business, crisp and clean. “I’ve highlighted the discrepancies with our own projections. Page four.”
“Thanks,” Matthew said, not looking up immediately. He could smell Arturo’s cologne, the same citrus-and-wood scent that now lived in his sheets. He waited a beat, then glanced up. Arturo stood there, glasses perched perfectly, expression professionally neutral. Only the slightest flicker in his dark eyes, a private, knowing warmth, betrayed the reality of the last three weeks. “This is great. I’ll integrate it for the afternoon briefing.”
“Excellent,” Arturo said, the word crisp. He gave a curt nod and turned, his shoes making no sound on the thin carpet as he walked back to his own desk, twenty feet away in the open-plan office.
This was the pattern. Daylight hours were a masterclass in compartmentalization. They were Section Chief and Local Staff Associate. They exchanged emails with correct salutations. In meetings, Arturo offered sharp, insightful analysis, his eyes meeting Matthew’s only when necessary, his demeanor flawlessly respectful. It was a performance, and they were both Oscar-worthy. The tension of the act was its own kind of fuel.
Nights were a different treaty. Unwritten, unspoken. Most evenings, after the embassy gates had clanged shut behind them and the city had swallowed the official version of themselves, Matthew’s phone would buzz. Not with a message, usually. Just a single, specific emoji: a coffee cup. ☕
It meant I’m coming over. It meant the performance is over.
And he always did. Sometimes with food, sometimes with a bottle of mezcal, always with an intensity that erased the careful distance of the day. The sex was different now. Less frantic than the first times, deeper, more claiming. Arturo’s confessed jealousy had morphed into a physical certainty. His hands, his mouth, his whispered Spanish—it all communicated a possessiveness that should have felt suffocating. To Matthew’s surprise, in the dark, it felt like an anchor. It was a defined space in a life that otherwise felt increasingly untethered.
He never stayed the whole night. Always leaving around two or three AM, a shadow slipping from Matthew’s apartment. “Strings are still off,” he’d murmur, kissing Matthew’s shoulder before he left. “But the thread is strong.” Matthew never asked him to stay. The pretense of no-strings felt necessary, even as the knot between them grew tighter and more complex.
Then there was Brandon.
They saw each other in the embassy corridors, in the cafeteria, at the mandatory security briefings. Brandon was always with other DEA guys or Marine guards, a brotherhood of straight spines and tough jokes. His eyes would find Matthew’s across a room, hold for a second—a look that was a bolt of pure, unresolved voltage—and then flick away. He’d give a tight, almost imperceptible nod. That was it.
Once, they found themselves alone at the coffee station. The silence was thick, humming with the memory of Brandon’s body pinning him to the mattress, the raw confession over brunch.
“Hayes,” Brandon had said, not looking at him, pouring black coffee into a DEA mug.
“Weber.”
“You good?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Surviving.” Brandon had finally glanced at him, his jaw working. “He treating you okay?”
Matthew hadn’t needed to ask who he was. The embassy gossip mill was efficient. “It’s… manageable.”
A harsh, quiet laugh. “Right. Manageable.” He’d put the carafe down. “I’m glad.” He’d walked away before Matthew could say anything else. The exchange was a needle to the heart—a puncture of what could have been, sealed quickly with professional scar tissue.
This was Matthew’s new rhythm. A dual life with Arturo, a ghost-life with Brandon, and the gnawing anticipation of Conrad’s arrival, which sat in his calendar like a scheduled earthquake.
“You’re basically running a boutique emotional hostel for complicated men,” Laura said, stabbing a piece of lettuce in the embassy cafeteria. She’d cornered him for lunch, her sharp eyes missing nothing. “The brooding closet case, the possessive colleague, and now the ex flying in for a review. Do you offer complimentary trauma counseling?”
“It’s not like that,” Matthew muttered, pushing his chicken around.
“It’s exactly like that. You collect strays. You always have. The more damaged, the better. It lets you avoid looking at your own cracks.” She said it without malice, a simple statement of fact. “So, the ex. Conrad. Why now?”
Matthew shrugged. “He offered. I said yes. It felt… easy.”
“Nothing about Conrad was ever easy. You broke up because he wanted to get married and you froze. Then he accused you of emotional vagrancy. Those were his words, I remember the email you showed me. ‘Emotional vagrancy.’ Harsh, but not wrong.”
“Thanks, Laura.”
“I’m your friend. My job is to hand you maps when you’re determined to get lost.” She leaned forward. “What do you want from his visit? Be honest.”
Matthew stared out the cafeteria window at the guarded compound walls. “I want to remember what it feels like,” he said quietly. “To walk down a street holding someone’s hand in the sunlight. To have dinner where we don’t scan the room for colleagues. To not feel like a secret or a compromise.” He looked back at her. “I know he’s the past. But the past felt… visible. I miss being visible.”
Laura’s expression softened. She reached over and squeezed his hand. “Just don’t confuse nostalgia for a blueprint, okay? Polishing an old trophy doesn’t mean you’ve won a new game.”
The week before Conrad’s arrival, the pattern with Arturo intensified. It was as if some primal sensor had tripped. The nights grew longer, the sex more desperately inventive. One evening, Arturo pinned Matthew’s wrists to the headboard, his body a slick, demanding weight. “Tell me you’re mine,” he breathed into Matthew’s ear, his voice ragged. “Just for right now. Just in this room.”
“I’m yours,” Matthew gasped, the words torn from him, meaning them in the moment, for the moment.
Afterwards, as they lay sweating in the dark, Arturo spoke to the ceiling. “He arrives Thursday.”
Matthew didn’t ask how he knew. “Yes.”
“And you will see him. You will remember the good things.”
“Probably.”
Arturo turned onto his side, propping his head on his hand. In the dim light from the street, his glasses were on the nightstand, his eyes naked and serious. “I will hate it. I will be sick with it. But I will not call you. I will not text you. While he is here, the thread is… paused.” He traced Matthew’s lip with his thumb. “But understand something, Matthew. A pause is not a break. This,” he gestured between their bodies, “is not a ghost. It is real. He is the ghost.”
Matthew had no answer. He watched Arturo dress in silence, the familiar ritual now feeling like a goodbye.
On Thursday morning, the embassy felt like a holding cell. Matthew’s focus was shot. He drafted a memo three times, catching glaring errors each pass. At eleven, his phone buzzed with a flight notification: Conrad’s plane had landed. The reality of it hit him like a physical wave.
He was leaving early, citing a dentist appointment. As he walked through the security turnstile, he felt a gaze on his back. He turned. Brandon was leaning against a wall near the Marine security booth, arms crossed, watching him go. His expression was unreadable, a stone carving of a man. He didn’t nod this time. Just watched.
Matthew fled.
His apartment was too quiet. He cleaned surfaces that were already clean. He changed his shirt twice. The memory of Conrad was a collage of sensations: the way he laughed with his whole head thrown back, the specific smell of his skin after a run, the safe, solid feel of his hand in Matthew’s at a boring embassy reception in London. The good things. The daylight things.
At seven, his Uber pulled up to the arrivals curb at Benito Juárez. The terminal was a chaos of noise and light, families reuniting, drivers holding signs. His heart hammered against his ribs.
And then he saw him.
Conrad was wheeling a compact carry-on, dressed in a perfectly fitted navy sweater and dark jeans. He looked rested, handsome, his smile easy and broad as he spotted Matthew. He moved through the crowd with an athlete’s grace, and for a second, it was London again. It was before the fights, the resentment, the final, shattered conversation.
“Matthew Hayes,” Conrad said, stopping in front of him. His voice was the same. Warm, slightly gravelly.
“Conrad.”
They hesitated for a fractured second—the ghost of a hug, a handshake?—and then Conrad pulled him in. The hug was firm, brief, familiar. He smelled of airline air and his own distinct, clean scent. It was a bolt of pure, disorienting nostalgia.
“You made it,” Matthew said, stepping back.
“I did. This city is… enormous from the air. Terrifying.” Conrad grinned, his eyes crinkling. “So. Show me why you like it so much. Or, you know, at least show me where to get a drink that isn’t airplane wine.”
They walked toward the parking garage, Conrad’s wheeled bag clicking rhythmically on the tile. The noise of the airport faded into a blur. Matthew’s mind was a riot of conflicting signals—the comfort of Conrad’s presence, the phantom feel of Arturo’s hands, the burn of Brandon’s stare from the embassy wall.
He had wanted daylight. It was here, walking beside him, smiling. But as he led Conrad out into the warm, smoggy Mexican night, all he could feel was the immense, silent weight of everything hidden in the dark.
But as he led Conrad out into the warm, smoggy Mexican night, all he could feel was the immense, silent weight of everything hidden in the dark.
The car ride into Polanco was a smooth glide through canyons of light. Conrad talked easily about the bureaucratic absurdities of Buenos Aires, a story about a missing shipment of ceremonial chairs. Matthew laughed at the right places, the sound feeling strange in his own ears. He pointed out landmarks on Reforma, his voice adopting the cadence of a tour guide, a safe script to follow.
“You sound like you actually like it here,” Conrad observed, looking out at the passing storefronts.
“I do. It’s… alive. It doesn’t care if you keep up.”
“That sounds good for you,” Conrad said, and the way he said it—soft, knowing—unlocked a vault of old intimacies.
Dinner was at a small, loud place with checkered tablecloths and spectacular al pastor. They sat across from each other, a bottle of Negra Modelo between them. The conversation, after the first few minutes of geographic small talk, slipped its leash.
They fell back into their easy rapport, as though nothing had changed. One story tumbled into another, a shared language of memory and minor grievance. Conrad imitated their insufferable former boss in London, and Matthew laughed until his eyes watered. Matthew recounted his first, disastrous attempt at speaking Spanish in a market, and Conrad listened, his smile genuine and warm.
Matthew remembered why he fell in love with Conrad. It was this. The effortless syncopation, the feeling of being deeply known. Conrad’s hand rested on the table, and Matthew remembered the weight and shape of it, the precise curve of his knuckles. He watched Conrad’s animated face, the familiar expressions, and he could tell Conrad felt the same. A current passed between them, charged with four years of history and the quiet absence that had followed.
“You seem different,” Conrad said later, over shared flan. He swirled his spoon in the caramel. “Lighter, somehow. But also… somewhere else.”
“I’m right here.”
“Are you?” Conrad’s gaze was direct, not unkind. “You keep glancing at your phone like it’s a live grenade.”
Matthew instinctively flipped the device screen-down on the table. He hadn’t felt it buzz. Arturo was holding to his pause. Brandon wouldn’t call. The silence from both was somehow louder. “Sorry. Bad habit.”
“It’s okay. I’m just… glad to see you, Matt.” The old nickname, a gentle landing. “Really.”
The bill came. The comfortable quiet between them now held a new, potent charge. The evening couldn’t end here, on a curb with a handshake. The thought of returning alone to his apartment, with its ghosts of Arturo and its view of a city Conrad hadn’t yet seen, felt intolerably lonely.
“My place isn’t far,” Matthew said, his voice hesitating on the words. “I have a decent bottle of tequila. A nightcap, if you want. The view’s worth it.”
Conrad studied him. The ambient noise of the restaurant seemed to recede. He leaned back in his chair, his expression turning serious, the easy smile gone. “Matthew.” He said his full name now, a shift in tone. “If I come up… we both know a nightcap isn’t just a nightcap. After everything. After London.” He paused, letting the history of their final, corrosive argument hang in the air. “Are you fully prepared for what will happen if I say yes?”
The question wasn’t a flirtation. It was a sober checkpoint. It acknowledged the wreckage they’d left, the new complications of Matthew’s life, the high risk of re-opening a wound that had only just scarred over. Matthew felt the weight of it, the gravity of the choice. He thought of Arturo’s possessive whispers, of Brandon’s tortured silence, of the sterile safety of saying goodnight.
He didn’t speak. Words were traps. Instead, he reached across the tablecloth, past the empty bottles, and wordlessly took Conrad’s hand. His fingers slid between Conrad’s, a fit remembered by his skin. The contact was electric, a circuit completed after years of being broken.
Conrad looked at their joined hands, then up at Matthew’s face. He nodded once, a decision made. He threw some cash on the table, stood up, and kept hold of Matthew’s hand.
They left together for the apartment.
The elevator ride to the sixteenth floor was a silent, pressurized capsule. Matthew stared at the ascending numbers, feeling Conrad’s heat beside him. The familiar scent of him, now mixed with the distant smell of jet fuel and the city, unspooled a reel of memories in Matthew’s gut. Their shoulders didn’t touch, but the space between them felt charged, like the moment before a lightning strike. The doors slid open onto his hallway, the polished concrete floor reflecting the cold ambient light.
Matthew’s key clicked in the lock. He pushed the door open, stepping into the dark apartment, the sprawling city lights his only welcome. He reached for the switch.
“Don’t,” Conrad said softly, from behind him.
Matthew’s hand fell. He turned, a silhouette against the window’s glow. Conrad dropped his carry-on by the door with a soft thud. The sound was final. Then Conrad’s hands were on his face, calloused and sure, and his mouth found Matthew’s in the dark.
It wasn’t a gentle reunion. It was a collision. Conrad’s kiss was demanding, a deep, searching possession that tasted of beer and the salt of travel and their shared, furious history. Matthew groaned into it, his own hands flying to Conrad’s shoulders, fingers digging into the thick wool of his sweater. All the careful distance of dinner, all the polite catch-up, incinerated in an instant. This was the language they’d never forgotten, brutal and fluent.
They stumbled further inside, mouths locked, a frantic dance of familiar bodies. Matthew’s back hit the cool glass of the floor-to-ceiling window, the entire illuminated city at his back. Conrad’s hips pinned him there. “Fuck, Matthew,” Conrad breathed against his lips, his voice ragged. His hands slid down, gripping Matthew’s ass through his trousers, pulling him hard against the solid ridge of his erection.
“Off,” Matthew panted, his fingers fumbling with the hem of Conrad’s sweater. “Get this off.”
Conrad broke the kiss long enough to yank the sweater over his head, tossing it into the darkness. Matthew’s palms landed on the warm, solid planes of his chest. He re-explored the territory he had missed: the smooth, hard swell of pectorals, the trail of coarse hair that arrowed down, the old, familiar scar just below his collarbone from a long-ago rugby match. He mapped it with his hands, then his mouth, biting a nipple, sucking the skin over Conrad’s sternum, relearning the taste of his sweat.
“Your turn,” Conrad growled, and his hands made quick, efficient work of Matthew’s shirt buttons. One popped off, skittering across the floor. The shirt was peeled away, then Conrad’s fingers went to Matthew’s belt. The buckle opened with a sharp clink that seemed obscenely loud in the quiet apartment. “Bedroom. Now.”
They left a trail of clothing from the living room to the hallway—Matthew’s trousers around his ankles, Conrad’s jeans kicked aside. They fell onto the bed in a tangle of limbs, the sheets cool against Matthew’s burning skin. Conrad loomed over him, his body a darker shadow in the dim room. He looked down at Matthew, his breathing heavy.
“Tell me you want this,” Conrad said, his voice low and rough. It wasn’t a question from a lover; it was a demand from a man reclaiming what he once owned.
“I want it,” Matthew gasped, spreading his legs. “I want you. Fuck me, Conrad. Do it.”
Conrad didn’t need more invitation. He spat into his palm, a crude, wet sound, and slicked himself. He notched the broad, blunt head of his cock against Matthew’s hole. There was no more preparation, no courtesy, just the brutal, burning push of re-entry. Matthew cried out, a sharp, torn sound, as Conrad sheathed himself inside in one relentless, claiming thrust.
“Christ,” Conrad hissed, sinking deep, his body shuddering. “Still so fucking tight for me.”
He didn’t wait for Matthew to adjust. He set a punishing, possessive rhythm from the start, each drive of his hips a physical assertion. Mine. You were always mine. The bed rocked against the wall with a solid, rhythmic thump. Matthew wrapped his legs around Conrad’s waist, heels digging into the muscles of his back, pulling him deeper. The pain was bright and sharp, a necessary fire that burned away the ghost of Arturo’s more calculated possession, the shadow of Brandon’s guilt-ridden touch.
“Look at me,” Conrad commanded, his thrusts never slowing.
Matthew forced his eyes open. Conrad’s face was a mask of intense concentration, sweat beading on his temples. This was fucking as archaeology, digging through layers of other men, of time and distance, to find the original foundation. Conrad’s hand wrapped around Matthew’s cock, stroking him in time with his thrusts, a rough, perfect friction.
“You gonna come for me?” Conrad grunted, his pace becoming erratic, brutal. “Come on my cock like you used to. Show me.”
The command, the raw familiarity of it, tore the orgasm from Matthew. It ripped through him, blinding and violent, his back arching off the bed as he spilled over Conrad’s fist with a choked shout. Conrad watched him, his eyes dark with triumph, and followed him over the edge three thrusts later, a guttural groan erupting from his chest as he pumped his own release deep inside, filling Matthew up, a final, wet stamp of ownership.
He collapsed, his full weight driving the breath from Matthew’s lungs. They lay like that, fused, Conrad’s softening cock still inside him, their sweat mingling. The only sound was their ragged, slowing breaths.
Eventually, Conrad rolled off, but he didn’t go far. He pulled Matthew against him, chest to back, his arm a heavy band across Matthew’s stomach. The smell of sex and Conrad was overwhelming. Matthew felt the sticky, cooling mess between his thighs, the deep, throbbing ache in his ass. Conrad nuzzled the nape of his neck, his breathing deepening toward sleep.
“Missed that,” Conrad murmured, his voice already thick with exhaustion.
Matthew didn’t answer. He lay awake in the familiar cradle of Conrad’s body, watching the city lights bleed across the ceiling. The ghost of Arturo’s thread felt severed. The puzzle of Brandon seemed irrelevant. Here was a body that knew his, a history that required no explanation, a possession that didn’t need to hide. The emptiness he’d carried since London felt, for this moment, filled. It was a dangerous, seductive lie, but in the dark, with Conrad’s heat seeping into his bones, Matthew surrendered to it. He was back where he belonged.