Chapter 5: Morning After
The first thing Matthew became aware of was warmth. A solid, consistent heat along his back, and the heavy, reassuring weight of an arm draped over his ribs. Then came the smell—clean cotton, the faint, expensive scent of Conrad’s skin, and underneath it, the musk of sex and sweat from the night before. He opened his eyes. Morning light, sharp and white, cut through the gaps in the blinds, striping the pristine white duvet and Conrad’s arm, which was tattooed with narrow bands of shadow.
He didn’t move. He lay perfectly still, listening to the deep, even rhythm of Conrad’s breathing against the nape of his neck. Memories of the alley, the wine, the slow, deliberate way Conrad had opened him up on this very bed, flooded back with a clarity that made his skin prickle. It hadn’t been frantic or transactional. It had felt like a conversation, a negotiation of need and response that left him utterly dismantled and then meticulously reassembled. He thought of Jake’s rough, efficient hands, the way he’d always rolled off afterwards to check his phone. He thought of the desperate, stolen heat at the party with Oliver, all panic and sharp edges. This was none of that. This was a man who had stayed.
Conrad stirred behind him, the arm around his waist tightening instinctively. A sleep-rough voice mumbled into his shoulder, “You’re thinking too loud.”
Matthew smiled into the pillow. “How can you tell?”
“Your body goes rigid. Like you’re holding your breath.” Conrad nuzzled the spot where Matthew’s neck met his shoulder, his lips soft. “What’s the verdict?”
“On what?”
“On last night. On waking up here. On me.”
The directness, even half-asleep, was so Conrad. Matthew rolled carefully onto his back to face him. Conrad’s hair was mussed, his jaw dark with stubble, his eyes still heavy-lidded with sleep. He looked more human, less like a curated photograph, and somehow more beautiful for it.
“The verdict is I haven’t felt this… quiet in my head in a long time,” Matthew said. It was the truest thing he could have said.
Conrad’s smile was slow and satisfied. He leaned in and kissed him, a gentle, closed-mouth press of lips that tasted of sleep. It was sweet, undemanding. They kissed like that for a while, lazy and deep, the city outside beginning to hum to life. Conrad’s hand slid from Matthew’s waist down to his hip, his thumb tracing the dip of the pelvis bone.
“You feel good here,” Conrad murmured against his mouth.
“I feel good here too.”
They lay tangled, talking about nothing. The brutalist building across the street that Conrad hated. The best place for coffee downstairs. The movie Matthew had been trying to get Dominic to watch for months. It was easy, effortless. Matthew’s usual morning-after anxiety—the scramble to dress, the parsing of texts, the hollow walk of shame—was absent. Replaced by this: skin on skin, shared breath, laughter muffled into a shoulder.
Eventually, Conrad stretched, the cords in his arms standing in relief. “I need a shower. Join me?”
The bathroom was a monument to marble and chrome. Steam quickly fogged the large, clear glass enclosure as Conrad adjusted the water. He stepped in first, beckoning Matthew under the spray with him. The water was hot, near-scalding, and it pounded the tension from Matthew’s shoulders. Conrad reached for a bottle of sandalwood body wash, pouring a generous amount into his palms.
“Turn around,” he said, his voice a low rumble under the shower's roar.
Matthew complied, facing the fogged glass. Conrad’s soap-slick hands began on his shoulders, kneading the muscles with a firm, knowing pressure. He worked down Matthew’s spine, his thumbs tracing each vertebra, then out over the flare of his shoulders. It was less a prelude to sex and more an act of pure, focused attention. Conrad’s hands moved to Matthew’s arms, down to his wrists, lifting them to rinse the suds away. Then his hands were on Matthew’s hips, pulling him back so Matthew’s back was flush against Conrad’s chest. Conrad’s cock, half-hard, pressed against the cleft of his ass.
“Your turn,” Matthew breathed, turning within the circle of Conrad’s arms.
He took the bottle, pouring the slick gel into his own hands. He started on Conrad’s chest, mapping the defined pectorals, swirling his palms over the small, dark nipples that tightened under his touch. He soaped the flat plane of Conrad’s stomach, the ridges of his abs, feeling the muscle jump under his fingers. He dropped to his knees on the textured shower floor, the water cascading over his back. He worked the lather down Conrad’s powerful thighs, his calves, his feet. He was worshiping him, and he didn’t care.
When he looked up, water streaming down his face, Conrad was staring down at him, his expression unreadable. His cock was fully hard now, thick and curving upwards, the head flushed and dripping with condensation. Matthew didn’t break eye contact. He leaned forward and took him into his mouth.
The taste was clean, soap and skin and heat. Conrad’s hands came to rest on Matthew’s head, not pushing, just holding. Matthew took him deep, relaxing his throat, letting his tongue press along the throbbing vein on the underside. He set a slow, deep rhythm, one hand wrapping around the base to stroke in time with his mouth. Conrad’s hips gave tiny, involuntary thrusts.
“Fuck, Matthew… that mouth,” Conrad groaned, his fingers tightening in Matthew’s wet hair.
Matthew hummed around him, the vibration earning a sharp hiss. He pulled off with a wet pop, his own cock aching and neglected. He rose, water sluicing off him, and kissed Conrad deeply, letting him taste himself on Matthew’s tongue.
Conrad spun them, pressing Matthew against the cool, wet tile. The contrast of cold stone on his back and the hot spray on his front made him gasp. Conrad’s mouth was on his neck, his collarbone, sucking a mark just below his ear. One of Conrad’s hands slid between them, wrapping around Matthew’s cock. His grip was perfect, tight and sure, his thumb smearing the bead of precum over the sensitive head.
“You’re so hard for me,” Conrad murmured, his strokes lazy and maddening. “Look at you. All of this for me.”
Matthew could only nod, his head thudding back against the tile. Conrad’s other hand groped behind him, finding his ass, fingers sliding through the slick soap to rub against his hole. “You want me to fuck you right here? Pin you against this wall and make you scream?”
“Yes,” Matthew choked out. “God, yes.”
But Conrad didn’t. He kept stroking Matthew’s cock, kept playing with his ass, driving him to the edge with a torturous patience. His mouth found Matthew’s, swallowing his moans. The steam thickened around them, the world dissolving into this singular, slippery point of contact.
“Come for me,” Conrad commanded, his voice ragged. “Let me see it.”
It was the rawness of the command that did it. Matthew’s orgasm ripped through him, violent and shocking. He cried out, a raw, unfiltered sound that echoed off the bathroom walls as his cum shot out in hot, white stripes across Conrad’s stomach, immediately washed away by the relentless spray.
He sagged against the tile, boneless. Conrad held him up, his own breathing harsh. He guided Matthew’s hand down to his own cock, which was leaking and purpled with need. “Your turn,” he panted. “Make me come.”
Matthew’s hand felt clumsy, oversensitive, but he fisted Conrad’s cock, using the water and the remaining soap as slick. He stroked him, fast and hard, the way he knew Conrad needed now. He watched Conrad’s face, the beautiful strain of his neck, the clench of his jaw.
“I’m gonna… shit, Matthew, don’t stop…”
Conrad’s climax hit him like a seizure. His body went rigid, a guttural roar tearing from his throat as he came, his release pulsing over Matthew’s fist and stomach, mixing with the water before vanishing down the drain. He collapsed forward, bracing himself on the tile above Matthew’s shoulders, his forehead pressed to the cool surface, his entire body shuddering through the aftershocks.
They stayed like that for a long minute, under the beating water, until it began to run cool. Conrad reached behind him and shut it off.
The silence was sudden, broken only by their ragged breathing and the drip of water from the showerhead. Conrad found a large, plush towel and wrapped it around Matthew, rubbing him dry with a tenderness that felt incongruous after the filthy, urgent scene minutes before. He dried himself off with another.
Back in the bedroom, Conrad pulled on a pair of grey sweatpants and Matthew pulled on his boxer briefs, and they made coffee in Conrad’s sleek, silent kitchen. They took their mugs to the living room, sitting on the floor by the window, watching the weekend city move in slow-motion below.
Matthew’s phone, buried in the pocket of his discarded jeans in the bedroom, buzzed once, then again. He knew without looking it could be Dominic, or Liana asking for gossip, or worse, a ‘u up?’ from Jake that would feel like a relic from a past life. He ignored the sound. He sipped his coffee, his shoulder pressed against Conrad’s.
For the first time in a long time, the silence in his own mind felt like peace, not loneliness. He had chosen this. He was choosing to stay in it. The rest of the world, with all its complications and tangled desires, could wait.
The rest of the world, with all its complications and tangled desires, could wait. But reality, Matthew knew, was a patient hunter. It settled in the empty coffee mug, in the faint buzz of his phone from the other room, in the way the sun climbed higher, bleaching the view to a mundane midday clarity. He stretched, his body a catalog of pleasant aches. “I should probably head out,” he said, the words feeling like a betrayal of the sanctuary they’d built.
“Don’t.” Conrad’s hand found his knee, a simple anchoring touch. “Stay. We can get brunch. Do nothing.”
“I’ve got laundry that’s achieving consciousness. And Dominic will assume I’m dead in a ditch.” He smiled to soften it. “A good ditch, but still.”
Conrad nodded, accepting it, but his gaze held a flicker of something vulnerable. They stood together in the silent living room. Matthew gathered his clothes from the bedroom floor, the navy shirt and charcoal trousers now imbued with the scent of this place, of them. He dressed slowly, each button a small step back into his other life. Conrad watched from the doorway, leaning against the frame in his sweatpants, a statue of composed contentment.
At the front door, Matthew fumbled with his shoes. Conrad stopped him, a firm hand on his arm pulling him back up. He didn’t say a word. He just pulled Matthew into a kiss that was deep and lingering, a silent argument against leaving. “Promise me,” Conrad murmured against his lips, his breath warm. “Promise we’re doing this again. Soon. Not just… this.” He gestured vaguely at the apartment, at the ghost of their spent bodies. “But dinner. A movie. The whole pathetic courtship ritual.”
Matthew laughed, a genuine burst of sound. “I promise. Text me when your briefs are less oppressive.”
“I will.” Conrad kissed him again, shorter this time but just as potent. “Now go. Before I convince you that my washing machine is far superior to yours.”
The elevator doors closed, sealing Matthew in reflective brass. He caught his own reflection—hair damp, a faint red mark on his neck, an expression of dazed tranquillity he didn’t recognize. He rode down through the building’s core, the polished silence a stark contrast to the chaotic symphony of his own neighborhood. Outside, the SoMa air was crisp, sanitized by money. He walked, not bothering with a cab, wanting to stretch this feeling across the city.
Elation buoyed each step. He replayed it all—the alley’s rough brick, the shower’s steam, the weight of Conrad’s arm in sleep. It felt substantial, layered, real. After Jake’s empty transactions and Oliver’s maddening, impossible tension, this was a clear path through a fog he’d been stumbling in for years. For the first time, a future in this city didn’t feel like a series of lonely rotations between his desk and Dominic’s couch. It felt like a view from the twenty-fourth floor.
He pushed open the door to his apartment to the smell of bacon and a stranger’s cologne. Dominic stood at the stove, shirtless, in a pair of neon-orange joggers. A tall, lean man with bleached hair was shrugging into a jacket by the door, offering Dominic a sheepish wave before slipping out.
“His name was River,” Dominic announced, flipping a pancake. “Or maybe it was Lake. Something aquatic and tragically trendy.” He turned, his eyes scanning Matthew with the precision of a forensic investigator. He dropped the spatula. “Oh, honey. No. You do not get to walk in here looking that thoroughly fucked and blissed-out without immediate debriefing. Coffee’s made. Sit. Talk.”
Matthew groaned, hanging his jacket. “There’s no debrief. I had a nice time.”
“‘A nice time’? You look like you’ve been baptized. Your eyes are all soft. It’s disgusting.” Dominic shoved a mug into his hand and leaned against the counter, crossing his arms. “Was it Conrad? The lawyer from the picnic?”
“Yes.”
“And? How was the lawyer dick? Substantial? Precedence-setting?”
“Dom, for Christ’s sake.”
“Matthew Collier, I have listened to you dissect the emotional significance of Jake Ryan’s eyebrow scar for forty-five minutes. You owe me salacious details. Was he a gentleman? A freak? Use your words.”
Matthew sipped his coffee, hiding a smile. The need to articulate it, to shape the night into a story, made it feel more solid. “He was… attentive. Not like… not like the others. He… in the shower, he just… took his time.”
Dominic’s eyebrows shot up. “Elaborate on ‘took his time.’ Was there soap? Were there hands? Specifics, please. I’m living vicariously here.”
“He fucked me against the tiles after he got me off with his hand,” Matthew said, the crude summary feeling both illicit and freeing. “He said… filthy things. Then he held me until the water went cold.”
A slow, approving smile spread across Dominic’s face. “Okay. Okay, that’s the good stuff. That’s boyfriend behavior. That is ‘I’m not just trying to nail you, I’m trying to learn you’ behavior.” He pointed a sticky finger at Matthew. “You lock that down. You hear me? You do not let this one get spooked by your weird, anxious vibes. You marry that man and get me an invite to the penthouse.”
“We’ve had three dates, Dom.”
“And you’ve already had sex that rendered you speechless. That’s a better foundation than most marriages.” Dominic turned back to his pancakes. “Now get out of my kitchen. Your hopeful aura is ruining my post-aquatic-hook-up melancholy.”
Matthew carried his coffee down the hall, the elation condensing into a warm, steady glow in his chest. His room was as he’d left it—a mess of unfolded laundry and film books. He set his phone on the charger. The screen lit up.
Several notifications stacked up. A spam email. A reminder from his dentist. And then, two new messages. The first was from Conrad, sent twenty minutes prior: ‘Walking past that alley. Already miss you.’ Matthew’s heart lurched. He typed back, ‘The bricks miss you too.’
The second message was from Oliver. It had come in an hour ago.
Oliver: Hey. I know I already said it but I’m really sorry about Friday. That was… a lot. And it was wrong. I value our friendship so much and I hope I haven’t fucked it up. Toby and I are… figuring some stuff out. Not an excuse. Just context. I hope you’re having a good weekend.
The words landed like stones in the pit of his stomach. The careful vulnerability, the mention of Toby, the easy, familiar tone—it was a masterclass in threading the needle, offering just enough to keep the connection live. Matthew saw him, clear as day: the well-groomed stubble, the laugh that lit up the conference room, the hand on his shoulder. The desperate, whiskey-soaked taste of his mouth.
He stared at the screen. He didn’t type a response. He placed the phone face down on the desk, the action final. He pushed the image of Oliver away, envisioning instead the clean lines of Conrad’s apartment, the solid weight of his body, the directness of his promise. He clung to that. He focused on the promising, uncomplicated future, and tried to ignore the old, tangled desire that, even now, refused to be completely extinguished.
He focused on the promising, uncomplicated future, and tried to ignore the old, tangled desire that, even now, refused to be completely extinguished. The glow from Conrad’s apartment lingered through his Sunday, a low-grade hum beneath the drone of laundry and the plot of a film he couldn’t focus on. He did not text Oliver back.
Monday morning arrived with a familiar, fluorescent jolt. The Facebook office was a cathedral of quiet efficiency, all polished concrete and the soft chatter of keyboards. Matthew was pouring a truly terrible cup of coffee from the micro-kitchen carafe when a voice cut through his haze.
“If you drink that, I’m staging an intervention.” Liana leaned against the counter, holding two porcelain mugs. “I made proper pour-over at my desk. Come waste ten minutes with me.”
“You’re my hero,” Matthew said, abandoning the toxic brew.
They settled at a small table in a sunny alcove overlooking the internal courtyard, a false garden of astroturf and plastic ferns. Liana’s coffee was rich and smoky, a balm. She blew on hers, eyes sharp behind her glasses. “So. Weekend report. Don’t skimp.”
Before Matthew could formulate a censored version, a shadow fell across the table. Oliver stood there, holding his own mug, his smile a brilliant, practiced thing. “Mind if I crash the party? My team’s sync was soul-crushing. I need human voices.”
“The more the merrier,” Liana said, sliding a chair out with her foot. Her glance at Matthew was a flicker of curiosity.
Oliver sat. The air tightened, imperceptibly. He wore a dark green henley that brought out the flecks in his eyes, and he smelled like cedar and clean sweat. He took a sip of coffee, his gaze landing everywhere but directly on Matthew. “So. What’s the topic?”
“Matthew’s weekend,” Liana supplied, cheerful as a prosecutor. “He was conspicuously radio silent. Usually a sign of either profound depression or exceptional sex.”
Matthew felt a hot blush climb his neck. Oliver’s knuckles whitened slightly around his mug.
“It wasn’t depression,” Matthew said, forcing a casual tone.
“Ha! I knew it.” Liana leaned in. “Give the people what they want. Was it the lawyer? Conrad?”
“Yeah. We had dinner. In SoMa.”
“And?” Liana pressed. “How was dinner? Was there a dessert course?” She wiggled her eyebrows.
Oliver stared into his coffee as if reading tea leaves.
“Dinner was great. The conversation was easy. He’s… really direct.” Matthew paused, the memory of the alley surfacing, the brick against his back. He felt a reckless need to prove the night’s reality, to make it solid in this sunlit room. “And afterwards, he, uh… we went back to his place.”
Liana’s grin was triumphant. “Okay, but ‘went back to his place’ is a spectrum. Was it a polite goodnight kiss? Or did he fuck you senseless against those floor-to-ceiling windows?”
“Liana,” Matthew laughed, but it sounded strained. Oliver hadn’t moved.
“What? I’m living through you. My Hinge dates think ‘netflix’ is a verb. Details, Collier.”
The unspoken tension was a live wire stretched between his chair and Oliver’s. He could feel Oliver’s stillness, a magnetic field of discomfort. Part of him wanted to stop, to protect whatever fragile truce they had. A darker, more honest part wanted to see him react.
“Both, I guess,” Matthew said, his voice dropping. “There was an alley by the restaurant. First. Then his place. And then again in the morning. In the shower.” The words were bald, vulgar. He wasn’t describing Conrad’s tenderness, just the brute facts of occurrence. “I stayed over.”
A beat of silence. Oliver finally looked up, his smile back in place but rigid at the corners, not reaching his eyes. “That’s great, Matt. Really. He seems… solid. I’m happy for you.” The words were perfect, empty. He took a long, final swallow of his coffee and stood abruptly, the chair legs scraping the floor. “I should get back. Charts won’t animate themselves. Catch you guys later.”
He walked away, his stride just a fraction too quick.
Liana watched him go, then swiveled her head back to Matthew, all humor vanished. “What was that?”
“What was what?”
“Don’t play dumb. Oliver just did a spectacular impression of a man who swallowed a bee. Why is he being so weird?”
Matthew traced the rim of his mug. “I don’t know. Maybe he and Toby are having issues. I overheard them fighting at the party. It sounded… intense.”
“Ah.” Liana nodded slowly, connecting dots. “So his boyfriend’s in the doghouse, and here you are, his cute, pining work husband, suddenly getting thoroughly serviced by a successful lawyer. That’s a blow to the ego.”
“I’m not his ‘work husband,’” Matthew muttered.
“Please. You two have more unresolved eye contact than a BBC period drama. It’s adorable and tragic.” She sighed, her expression turning serious. “It’s a shame, really. In another timeline, you know, with Toby out of the picture… maybe you’d actually have a shot. The tension is off the charts. Kind of too bad you’ve got a man now.”
Matthew’s stomach dropped through the floor. The casual statement, the acknowledgment of a possibility he’d only allowed himself in secret, felt like a physical blow. He couldn’t meet her eyes.
Liana saw it. Her teasing facade melted into genuine concern. “Oh, shit.Matthew. Tell me you’re not still hung up on him. Not after this weekend with Conrad.”
“I’m not,” he said, too quickly.
“You are. I can see it on your face.” She leaned forward, her voice low and urgent. “Listen to me. Conrad is a grown-up. He plans dates. He kisses you in alleys and makes you coffee. He asks you to stay. This is what you’ve been complaining about not having for five years. Oliver is a fantasy wrapped in a complicated relationship and a company HR violation.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because you cannot blow this. You cannot ghost a good man because you’re still hooked on the idea of something messy and impossible. You need to get Oliver out of your head. For real this time.”
The truth of it was a cold, clear wave. She was right. The text, the wounded look, the magnetic pull—it was all a siren song back to a shore of disappointment. Conrad was dry land. Safe. Real.
“I know,” Matthew repeated, the words firmer now. He did know. He felt the conviction solidify in his chest, even as the ghost of Oliver’s mouth, the memory of his whispered apology, shimmered treacherously at the edge of his vision. He focused on the concrete feel of the mug in his hands, the bitter taste of good coffee, the promise he’d made. He would choose the uncomplicated future. He would.
He had to.