Chapter 7: The Sober Confession
The morning light was a lie. It streamed through the slats of the blinds, painting cheerful stripes across the rumpled duvet, a stark contrast to the leaden weight in Matthew’s chest. He had maybe slept an hour, total, his mind replaying the alley in a relentless, shameful loop. The vibration of his phone on the nightstand had been a constant, anxious hum throughout the false dawn.
Dan had already left for his early seminar, leaving behind the ghost of his coffee scent and a note on the kitchen counter. So proud of you. Let’s celebrate properly tonight. Love you. The words were a knife twist.
When the phone buzzed again, not with a text but with a call, Matthew stared at the screen. RYAN. The name pulsed with a dangerous light. He let it ring four times, his thumb hovering over the 'decline' button, before a weary, self-destructive impulse made him swipe to answer.
He didn’t speak.
“Matty.” Ryan’s voice was quiet, stripped of the previous night’s tequila-fueled bravado. It was just raw. “Please. We need to talk. Actually talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about, Ryan.”
“There’s everything to talk about.” A pause, a shaky breath. “A coffee shop. Somewhere public. Neutral ground. Just… please.”
The plea was so undecorated, so unlike the Ryan he knew, that Matthew felt his resistance crumble. He named an obscure place in Los Feliz, a spot he was certain no paparazzi would ever bother with. “Thirty minutes,” he said, and hung up before he could change his mind.
The coffee shop was all exposed brick and the bitter, fragrant smell of dark roast. Matthew chose a table in the back, away from the window, his back to the wall. He felt like he was arranging a battlefield. He’d only had time to pull on jeans and a hoodie, and he felt exposed, fragile.
Ryan arrived five minutes late, wearing sunglasses he didn’t remove until he was seated. Even in the soft, diffused light of the cafe, he looked tired. The boyish charm was still there, but it was strained, etched with the same sleepless anxiety Matthew felt.
“You came,” Ryan said, his voice low.
“I shouldn’t have.”
A waitress came, and they ordered two black coffees, a perfunctory transaction that gave them a moment to avoid each other’s eyes. When she left, the silence was deafening.
Ryan leaned forward, his hands clasped tightly on the wooden table. “Last night… what I said… I need you to know I meant every word. Sober, I mean it even more.” He swallowed. “I was a coward. A scared kid who thought being a pop star was more important than being happy. Than being with you. Throwing what we had away is the one thing I’ve never been able to forgive myself for.”
Matthew stared into the dark pool of his coffee. “It was a long time ago.”
“It was yesterday for me,” Ryan countered, his voice gaining intensity. “Every time I kissed someone else, it was your face I saw. Every time I got a script for some cheesy love scene, I was just remembering what it felt like to be with you for real. This reunion… seeing you again… it’s like someone turned the lights back on in a room I’ve been sitting in the dark for twenty years.”
“Ryan, stop.” Matthew finally looked up, meeting his gaze. The pain there was so genuine it was physically painful to witness. “I can’t do this. I have a husband. A life. I can’t betray Dan any further than I already have.” The words ‘any further’ hung in the air, a confession of the alley, of the kiss, of the tectonic shift that had already occurred.
“Further?” Ryan latched onto it, his eyes widening slightly. “So last night meant something.”
“It was a mistake. A drunk, nostalgic mistake.”
“It wasn’t nostalgic, Matty. It was now.” Ryan’s voice dropped to an urgent whisper. “We’re not kids anymore. We’re not hiding. We could have it all, for real this time. No secrets. No band management breathing down our necks. Just us. Give us another chance. Please.”
The pressure was immense, a physical force pushing against Matthew’s ribs. He felt the walls he’d spent two decades building begin to tremble and crack. “You can’t just walk back in and say these things. It’s not fair.”
“I don’t care about fair!” Ryan’s hand slapped the table softly, making the cups rattle. “I care about you. I have always cared about you. Tell me you don’t feel it. Tell me that when we sang ‘Upside Down’ it was just a performance for you. Look me in the eye and tell me that, and I’ll walk away and never bother you again.”
Matthew opened his mouth to lie. The words were there, pre-formed and ready: It was just a performance. I don’t feel anything. But they stuck in his throat, choking him. He saw the stadium lights, felt the harmony lock into place, saw the look in Ryan’s eyes that had nothing to do with the twenty thousand people watching.
The dam broke.
“Of course I feel it!” The words burst out of him, a hushed, desperate explosion. He looked around, terrified someone had heard, then leaned in, his voice trembling. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? I had a life. A good, quiet, happy life. I had boxed all of… this… away. I had forgotten what it felt like. And then you… this whole reunion… it’s like you took a crowbar to that box and pried it open.”
He ran a hand through his hair, his heart hammering. “I have missed you. Every damn day for twenty years. I told myself I hadn’t, I convinced myself it was just young love, that it didn’t matter. But it did. It does. Seeing you again, being on stage with you… it reminded me of everything. Of how much I loved you. Of how much it destroyed me when you left.”
There it was. The truth, laid bare between two steaming cups of coffee. The confession hung in the air, sucking all the sound from the room. Ryan stared at him, his expression a devastating mix of triumph and anguish.
“Matty,” he breathed, his hand starting to reach across the table.
Matthew flinched back as if burned. “But it doesn’t change anything,” he whispered, the fight gone from his voice, leaving only a hollow exhaustion. “I’m married. To a good man who doesn’t deserve this.”
He stood up, the legs of his chair scraping loudly against the floor. He couldn’t be here another second. He had to get out.
“So that’s it?” Ryan asked, his voice thick with emotion. “We finally say it, and that’s it?”
Matthew looked down at him, at the man who had been his first everything, and felt his heart split cleanly in two.
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice barely audible. “But knowing doesn’t make it any easier.”
He stood there, poised between the table and the door, a man trapped in the gravitational pull of two different suns. The truth he had just vomited up onto the cheap wooden table between them seemed to vibrate in the air, toxic and inescapable.
Ryan rose slowly, his movements deliberate, his eyes never leaving Matthew’s. “Then don’t make it easy,” he said, his voice low and rough. “Just come back to my house. Just for an hour. Just to talk where no one can hear us.”
Matthew’s laugh was a hollow, broken sound. “We both know we’re done talking.”
“Then come for that,” Ryan whispered, taking a step closer, invading his space just as he had in the alley. The scent of him, clean soap and expensive coffee, filled Matthew’s lungs. “Please, Matty. Come home with me.”
Every cell in Matthew’s body screamed in protest, a chorus of loyalty and fear. He saw Dan’s note on the kitchen counter. Let’s celebrate properly tonight. This was the opposite of that. This was the demolition of that.
“This is a terrible idea,” Matthew breathed, his resolve crumbling like wet sand.
“I know,” Ryan said, and his hand found Matthew’s, their fingers intertwining with a terrifying familiarity. “Let’s go.”
The drive to Ryan’s house in the Hills was a silent, tense blur. Matthew stared out the passenger window, watching Los Angeles slide by, a city of millions who had no idea his life was being systematically dismantled. Ryan’s hand rested on the gear shift, his knuckles white.
He parked in the carport of a modern, minimalist box perched on the edge of a canyon. The inside was exactly as Matthew would have predicted: sleek furniture, tasteful art, and a stunning, sterile view. It looked like a magazine spread, not a home. Ryan closed the front door, and the click of the lock echoed like a gunshot in the vast, open space.
They stood facing each other in the living room, the canyon sprawling behind Ryan through a wall of glass. The space between them was charged, a live wire humming with two decades of unsaid things.
“I don’t know how to do this,” Matthew admitted, his voice shaky. “I don’t know how to be with you again.”
“We remember,” Ryan said, simply.
He closed the distance, but this time there was no frantic, public collision. He moved slowly, giving Matthew every opportunity to retreat. He cupped Matthew’s face in his hands, his thumbs stroking the arch of his cheekbones. His touch was devastatingly gentle.
When he kissed him, it was nothing like the club. It was soft, a question. A rediscovery. Matthew’s eyes fluttered closed, and he let out a shuddering sigh, his hands coming up to rest on Ryan’s waist. The kiss deepened, becoming a slow, languid exploration. It tasted of coffee and regret and a profound, aching sweetness.
Ryan’s lips traveled from his mouth to his jaw, then down the sensitive column of his throat. “I remember this spot,” he murmured against Matthew’s skin, his breath hot. “You used to melt right here.”
A helpless moan escaped Matthew’s lips. He was melting now. The careful architecture of his adult life, the walls built with Dan, began to dissolve into dust. Ryan’s hands slid under his hoodie, his palms warm and sure against the bare skin of his back.
“I want to see you,” Ryan breathed, pulling back just enough to look into Matthew’s eyes. “All of you. It’s been so long.”
Matthew could only nod, his breath catching in his throat. He allowed Ryan to peel the hoodie over his head, then his t-shirt. The cool air of the house hit his skin, raising goosebumps. Ryan’s gaze was a physical caress, roaming over his chest, his slender frame, as if memorizing every new line and every familiar curve.
“You’re still so fucking beautiful,” Ryan whispered, his voice thick with emotion.
He led Matthew by the hand to the bedroom, a similarly austere space dominated by a large platform bed and the same breathtaking view of the canyon. There, under the diffuse afternoon light, they undressed each other with a reverent slowness that felt sacred. Buttons were fumbled with. Belts clinked to the floor. When they were finally both naked, they just stood for a moment, looking.
The boyish bodies they remembered were gone, replaced by the firmer, more defined maps of manhood. Ryan was broader, more muscular, a testament to his acting career. Matthew was still slender, but the softness of youth had been honed by time. They were strangers and soulmates all at once.
Ryan laid him back on the cool, grey duvet, his body covering Matthew’s in a way that felt both foreign and like the most natural thing in the world. His mouth found Matthew’s again, his hands mapping his skin with a possessive tenderness. He kissed his way down Matthew’s chest, his tongue flicking over a nipple, making Matthew gasp and arch off the bed.
“Ryan…” he moaned, his fingers tangling in the blonde hair he hadn’t touched in a lifetime.
“I’ve got you,” Ryan murmured, his voice a low vibration against Matthew’s stomach. “I’ve got you now.”
He moved lower, his hands spreading Matthew’s thighs. He nuzzled the base of his cock, which was already hard and leaking against his belly. The intimacy of the act, so much more profound than the frantic groping of their youth, stole the air from Matthew’s lungs.
Then Ryan’s mouth was on him, taking him in deep. It wasn't a frantic blowjob; it was a worshipful, slow suck, his tongue working the length of him with an expertise that made Matthew’s vision blur. He cried out, his hips bucking involuntarily, his hands fisting in the sheets. “Oh god… just like that… don’t stop.”
Ryan didn’t stop. He worked him with his mouth until Matthew was a writhing, begging mess on the edge of his control. Only then did he pull away, his own cock pressing insistently against Matthew’s hip. He reached for a bottle of lube from the nightstand, the sound of the cap clicking open obscenely loud in the quiet room.
He coated his fingers, his eyes locked on Matthew’s. “Look at me,” he said, his voice rough with need.
Matthew held his gaze as Ryan’s slick fingers found him, pressing against his entrance. The initial pressure was a shock, a burning stretch that was so intensely familiar it made his eyes sting. He breathed through it, his body opening for Ryan as it always had, a lock remembering its key.
“Fuck, you’re still so tight for me,” Ryan groaned, working a finger inside him, then two, scissoring them gently. The burn melted into a deep, radiating pleasure, coiling low in Matthew’s gut.
“I’m ready,” Matthew panted, his legs falling open wider in invitation. “I need you inside me. Now.”
Ryan needed no further encouragement. He positioned himself between Matthew’s thighs, the broad, slick head of his cock pressing against him. He pushed in slowly, a relentless, breathtaking invasion that filled Matthew completely.
They both cried out, a synchronized sound of pain and pleasure and homecoming. Ryan stilled, buried to the hilt, his forehead dropping to Matthew’s shoulder. “Jesus Christ, Matty,” he gasped, his body trembling. “It feels… it feels like coming home.”
Then he began to move. It wasn’t a frantic, punishing rhythm. It was deep, measured strokes that hit a place inside Matthew that had been dormant for twenty years. Each thrust was a confession, each withdrawal a promise. Matthew wrapped his legs around Ryan’s waist, pulling him deeper, meeting every roll of his hips.
“Harder,” Matthew begged, his politeness, his guilt, everything burned away by the raw physical truth of their connection. “Fuck me harder, Ryan. I need to feel it tomorrow.”
A guttural sound ripped from Ryan’s throat and he obeyed, his thrusts becoming more powerful, more possessive. The bed rocked against the wall with a steady, rhythmic thud. Matthew was lost in the sensation, in the smell of their sweat, in the sound of their skin slapping together. He raked his nails down Ryan’s back, claiming him.
“You’re mine,” Ryan grunted, driving into him, his voice cracking. “You were always mine.”
“Yes,” Matthew sobbed, the word torn from him. It was the truest thing he had ever said. In this moment, on this bed, he was. Dan’s face, his kind eyes, his stable love, it all receded, blurred into a distant, unimportant silhouette. There was only this. Only Ryan. Only the exquisite friction and the building pressure that was threatening to shatter him.
Ryan’s pace became frantic, his breathing ragged puffs against Matthew’s neck. “I’m gonna come,” he warned, his voice strained. “Come with me. Please.”
He reached between them, his fist closing around Matthew’s slick cock, stroking him in time with his brutal, perfect thrusts. That was all it took. Matthew’s world exploded into white-hot light, his orgasm tearing through him with a force that was almost violent. He cried out Ryan’s name, his body convulsing, his release streaking across his stomach and chest.
Feeling Matthew clench around him, Ryan drove in one last, deep time and followed him over the edge with a choked, broken shout, his own release pulsing hot inside Matthew. He collapsed on top of him, his full weight a comforting anchor, their hearts hammering against each other in a frantic, synchronized rhythm.
They lay like that for a long time, tangled and spent, the only sound their ragged breathing slowly returning to normal. The afternoon sun cast long, golden shadows across the room. Ryan nuzzled into Matthew’s neck, placing a soft, lingering kiss there.
In the quiet aftermath, with Ryan’s scent on his skin and his weight a familiar comfort, Matthew allowed himself to simply feel. The specter of his husband, the guilt, the consequences—it all felt like a problem for another man, in another life. For now, there was only this fragile, stolen peace.
For now, there was only this fragile, stolen peace. Ryan’s breathing evened out into sleep, his arm a heavy, possessive band across Matthew’s chest. The scent of their sex hung in the air, a musky testament to what they had done. Matthew stared at the stark white ceiling, the canyon view now a black void, and let the silence press in on him.
He must have dozed off, because he woke to Ryan stirring beside him. “Shower?” Ryan murmured, his voice gravelly with sleep, his hand already stroking Matthew’s hip.
Matthew just nodded, his throat too tight for words.
The water was scalding, a cleansing torrent that steamed up the glass enclosure. Ryan pushed him gently under the spray, his hands sliding over Matthew’s slick shoulders and down his back. It was not about getting clean. It was an excuse for touch, for a slower, more wakeful exploration under the guise of washing.
Ryan took a bar of soap, working up a thick lather in his palms. He started with Matthew’s neck, his strong fingers kneading the tension from his muscles. He soaped his chest, his thumbs circling Matthew’s nipples until they pebbled into hard peaks under the hot water. His lathered hands slid lower, over his stomach, and then wrapped around his half-hard cock.
“Just washing,” Ryan whispered, his lips against Matthew’s ear, but his stroke was deliberate, slow, and filthy.
Matthew groaned, his head falling back against Ryan’s shoulder as his body responded instantly. Ryan worked him to a full, throbbing erection with one hand while the other slid between his cheeks, a slick, soapy finger tracing his sensitive entrance. “So open for me,” Ryan breathed, pushing just the tip of his finger inside, making Matthew jolt. The water rinsed the soap away, but the sensation remained, a teasing promise. They stayed like that until the water ran cold, rediscovering the landscape of each other’s bodies with a reverence that felt new and ancient all at once.
Later, wrapped in towels, they drifted into the living room. The city lights glittered like a spilled necklace in the distance. Ryan found two pairs of clean underwear and tossed one to Matthew. They pulled them on and collapsed onto the large sofa, their damp legs touching.
“Remember that hotel in Munich?” Ryan said, a slow smile spreading across his face. “The one with the green carpet that smelled like cabbage?”
Matthew let out a real laugh, the first one that felt unforced in days. “God, yes. We thought we were so stealthy. You climbed out of my room at 4 a.m. and ran straight into that busboy.”
“He just nodded at me,” Ryan chuckled, shaking his head. “Like he saw pop stars in their underwear every day. I was convinced he’d sell the story to a tabloid.”
“We were so scared all the time,” Matthew said, the laughter dying in his throat. The memory was sweet, but its foundation was the fear that had ultimately driven them apart.
“We don’t have to be scared now,” Ryan said, his voice soft. He reached out, his fingers lacing with Matthew’s. The contact was simple, but it sent a current straight to Matthew’s core.
The silence stretched, comfortable but edged with the impending return to reality. Matthew looked down at their joined hands, his wedding band a cold, stark contrast against his skin. He took a slow breath.
“What comes next, Ryan?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Ryan was quiet for a long moment, his thumb stroking the back of Matthew’s hand. He stared out at the city lights, his profile sharp and thoughtful. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted, turning to look at Matthew. His eyes were clear, earnest, and utterly terrifying. “But we’ll figure it out. Together.”
The word hung between them, immense and impossible. Together. It was everything he’d wanted to hear twenty years ago. Now it felt like a verdict.
Matthew didn’t answer with words. He leaned in, capturing Ryan’s mouth in a kiss that was anything but fragile. It was desperate and passionate, a furious, silent agreement to live inside the problem, if only for a little while longer.