Chapter 3: Steam and Certainty
Steam from the shower still clung to the cool marble as Chanse’s hands slid down Tommy’s back, his thumbs pressing into the sore muscles. “I’m in love with you, you beautiful wreck,” Chanse murmured again, his breath hot against Tommy’s neck where a bruise was already flowering.
The bathroom mirror was a fogged slate, cool against Tommy’s back as Chanse pressed into him. “Tell me again,” Tommy demanded, his voice rough from the night’s use, his fingers tight in Chanse’s damp curls. Chanse nipped at his bottom lip, a sharp promise, before murmuring against his mouth, “I’m in love with you, you beautiful wreck.” The words, clear in the citrus-steam air, landed differently than they had in the drunken dark of the bedroom. Tommy’s knees threatened to buckle, but Chanse’s hands slid down his back, steadying him with a grip that felt like ownership.
He turned Tommy gently to face the mirror, wiping a clear streak with his palm. “Look.” The evidence was brutal in the gray morning light seeping through the high window. A constellation of purple and red bloomed across Tommy’s throat and shoulders. “Fuck, Chanse,” Tommy breathed, the panic slicing through the afterglow. “The briefing. I can’t walk in like this.” His mind raced with logistics—turtlenecks in summer, stifling scarves, the silent, knowing looks.
Chanse’s hazel eyes, soft a moment before, flicked down with a spark of possessive pride.
“They’re just bruises.” He said, not sounding sorry at all, his thumb tracing a particularly dark mark. He met Tommy’s eyes in the glass. “Let them know.”
Tommy shook his head, a quick, jerky motion.
“They’re a fucking billboard, Chanse.” Tommy’s voice cracked as he grabbed a towel, scrubbing furiously at the mirror to clear the haze and confirm the worst. The marks were dark. Unavoidable. “Everyone will know.” Chanse watched him, leaning against the sink with a calm that felt like a physical weight in the humid room. “So?” He said it softly, but the word landed like a challenge.
Tommy stared at him, the panic a live wire in his chest. “So? We have a nine AM with the whole team, and I look like I lost a fight with a tractor.” A ragged laugh escaped him. “What’s the bit, huh? What’s the hilarious premise here?”
Chanse pushed off the sink and took the towel from Tommy’s white-knuckled grip. “The bit is that I finally got my hands on you.” He dabbed gently at a droplet of water tracking through Tommy’s chest hair. “The bit is we’re gonna be late if you don’t stop having a crisis over a little color.”
Tommy didn’t laugh. The digital clock on the nightstand glowed 8:17 AM. “It’s not a bit, it’s my neck.” He pushed past Chanse, the bathroom tiles cold under his feet, and yanked open his dresser drawer. Fingers fumbled through folded cottons, dismissing dark tees as too transparent, too tight.
He found a heather-gray henley with a ribbed crew neck. “This’ll have to do.” His voice was flat, practical. The soft fabric hissed as he pulled it over his head, catching on his damp hair. He tugged the collar high, sealing the evidence against his skin.
It felt like a lie. Chanse watched from the doorway, now dressed in his own jeans and a worn hoodie, his expression unreadable. “You good?” The question was a low murmur, stripped of its earlier edge. Tommy stared at his own reflection in the bedroom mirror, adjusting the collar with precise, nervous tugs.
The fabric covered everything. “I’m covered.” He stated it to the room, to himself. He could still feel the bruises underneath, a secret map pressed into his skin. Chanse crossed the room in three silent steps and turned him around so they faced
He didn’t touch the marks. He just settled his chin on Tommy’s shoulder, their eyes meeting. “For the record,” Chanse said, his voice a rough whisper beside Tommy’s ear. “I’m not sorry.” Tommy held his gaze, seeing the defiance there, and the quiet plea beneath it.
He finally nodded, once. “I know.” He grabbed his keys from the cluttered dresser top, the silver bracelets on his wrist clinking softly. “Let’s go, or we’re gonna be the bit.”
The car door slammed with a finality that echoed in the quiet street. Tommy stared out the passenger window, his fingers worrying the high collar of the henley, the material already feeling stifling in the stagnant morning heat. Chanse drove with a focused silence, one hand on the wheel, the other tapping a restless rhythm against his thigh.
The city blurred past, a stream of concrete and glass. Tommy could feel every stoplight, every second ticking them closer to the office and its knowing eyes. “They’re gonna ask about the shirt,” Tommy muttered, more to the window than to Chanse.
“So tell them you’re cold.” Chanse’s voice was flat.
“It’s eighty degrees, Chanse.”
“Then tell them to mind their own fucking business.” Chanse swung the car into the building’s underground lot, the tires squealing softly against the concrete. He killed the engine, but didn’t move. The sudden silence was a physical thing, thick and loaded. Tommy’s hand went to the door handle, the click loud in the quiet.
“Wait.”
Chanse’s voice was low. He didn’t look at Tommy, just stared straight ahead at the gray wall of the parking garage, his knuckles pale where he gripped the steering wheel. “Last night wasn’t just… that. The mirror thing this morning.” He took a sharp breath, the words coming out in a rushed, gritty exhale. “I meant it. All of it. I’m in… I’m in love with you, Tommy. Have been. The wanting you, that’s easy. This isn’t.” He finally turned, his hazel eyes stark and unguarded in the dim light. “This is the part that scares me shitless.”
Tommy’s breath hitched, the confession hanging in the car’s stale air like smoke. He looked at Chanse, really looked, seeing the fear raw in those hazel eyes usually so sharp with confidence. The engine ticked as it cooled, a metronome counting the silence between them.
“You think I’m not scared?” Tommy’s voice was a ragged thing, torn from his throat. He gestured vaguely at his own covered neck. “I’m walking in there with your handwriting all over me, and you’re talking about being scared.”
Chanse’s jaw tightened, a muscle flickering under golden skin. “Then let’s be scared together,” he said, the words so quiet they were almost lost. The parking garage’s fluorescent light buzzed overhead, casting hard shadows across Chanse’s face.
Tommy unbuckled his seatbelt, the click echoing, and turned fully towards him. He reached out, his fingers brushing the stubble on Chanse’s jaw, feeling the tension there. The silver bracelets on his wrist glinted dully in the weak light.
He kissed him. It wasn’t like the hungry, frantic kisses from the night before or the steam-filled morning. This was slow, a press of lips that tasted of cheap coffee and shared fear.
Chanse’s hands came up to cradle Tommy’s face, thumbs smoothing over his beard. The kiss deepened, a silent conversation of tongue and breath that said everything words couldn’t. When they broke apart, Tommy rested his forehead against Chanse’s, their breathing synced.
“Okay,” Tommy whispered, the word settling something between them. He pulled back, adjusting his henley collar once more, and opened the car door.
The concrete air of the garage was thick with exhaust and silence. They walked toward the elevator, shoulders not quite touching, the echo of their footsteps a stark rhythm in the empty space. Tommy’s hand rose again to his collar, a nervous tic he couldn’t suppress.
“Stop fidgeting,” Chanse said, his voice low. He didn’t look over. The elevator doors slid open with a metallic sigh. Inside, the fluorescent light was unforgiving, highlighting the fatigue under Chanse’s eyes and the tight set of Tommy’s mouth.
They stood facing the doors, watching the numbers climb. “This is stupid,” Tommy muttered, shifting his weight. Chanse’s gaze remained fixed on the digital display. “What is?”
“This. Pretending last night didn’t rewrite every single fucking rule.” The elevator dinged for their floor. The doors opened to the familiar beige hallway leading to their studio space. Voices filtered out from behind the door—Mack’s loud laugh, the clatter of a keyboard.
Tommy stopped walking, his body locking up three steps from the threshold. Chanse turned, looked at him, and saw the raw terror there. Without a word, Chanse closed the distance between them. His hands came up, not to comfort, but to claim.
He hooked his fingers under the high neck of Tommy’s henley. Tommy flinched, a small, sharp inhale. “Chanse, don’t—” But Chanse didn’t listen. He pulled the fabric down, just an inch, just enough to expose the dark, blooming bruise on Tommy’s collarbone to the sterile hallway light.
He leaned in, his lips brushing the shell of Tommy’s ear. His voice was a graveled whisper, for Tommy alone. “Let them see whose you are.” He sealed the words with a slow, deliberate kiss pressed to the very edge of the bruise, a branding in full view of the door.
Then he smoothed the collar back into place, his touch almost tender. The door to the studio swung open.
The door to the studio swung open.
Mack’s booming voice cut off mid-laugh as they stepped into the converted loft’s warm, cluttered space. The familiar smell of burnt coffee and old carpet hit Tommy first, followed by the sharper, chemical scent of dry-erase markers.
“Cutting it fine, gents,” Mack said, not looking up from his laptop, his fingers a blur on the keys. A collective, focused energy hummed in the room, the usual pre-briefing chaos of opened snack bags and murmured conversations.
Chanse’s hand found the small of Tommy’s back, a brief, steadying pressure that burned through the gray henley. “Traffic was a beast,” Chanse said, his voice effortlessly casual as he snagged two waters from the fridge by the door.
Tommy moved toward the stained sofa, hyper-aware of every glance. Sam, their editor, looked up from her tablet, her eyes darting between them with a quiet, knowing acuity. “You look rough, Tommy,” she stated, her tone devoid of judgment, purely observational.
“Didn’t sleep much,” Tommy managed, the lie feeling thick and obvious on his tongue. He felt the fabric of his collar like a physical gag.
Chanse dropped onto the couch beside him, his knee pressing against Tommy’s thigh, a solid line of heat. “He was up brainstorming,” Chanse offered, popping the cap off his water. “Had a whole thing about performative masculinity in unboxing videos. It was… intense.”
Mack finally glanced over, his gaze lingering on the high neck of Tommy’s shirt. “You cold, man? It’s a sauna in here.” Tommy’s neck prickled with sweat under the fabric. “Drafty apartment,” he mumbled, reaching for his own water to avoid saying more.
The bruise on his collarbone throbbed, a secret echo of Chanse’s mouth. Chanse stretched an arm along the back of the couch, his fingers just brushing the tense nape of Tommy’s neck.
His touch was a brand through the fabric. Tommy sat perfectly still, the water bottle sweating in his hand.
“Okay, children, focus up,” Mack barked, clapping his hands once. “We’ve got the BrandMart meeting at eleven, and the script for the forklift skit is still garbage.” Tommy tried to latch onto the work, the normalcy of it, but the prickle of Chanse’s fingertips on his neck was a live wire. Every beat of his pulse hammered against the bruise hidden there.
“Your point about the hydraulic fluid is not funny, Tommy,” Sam said flatly, scrolling. “It’s just a fact.”
“Facts can be funny if you frame them with a surreal enough context,” Tommy countered automatically, his comedian’s brain engaging on a rusty, familiar track. He shifted, and the movement made Chanse’s fingers press more firmly.
“It needs a dick joke,” Mack sighed, rubbing his eyes. “Everything needs a dick joke.”
The heater by the window kicked on with a metallic groan, blasting a wave of dry heat directly at the couch. Tommy felt a bead of sweat trace a path from his temple down to his jawline. It itched under the high collar of the henley, a maddening tickle.
“Jesus, is it broken?” Chanse muttered, pulling his hand back to wipe his own forehead.
“Probably,” Sam said. “Landlord’s a cheap bastard.”
The heat intensified, becoming a physical weight. Tommy’s skin crawled, the wool blend of his shirt now a suffocating sheath. He couldn’t breathe. He reached up, tugging at the neckline to pull it away from his throat for just a second’s relief.
It was the opening Chanse needed. In one fluid, possessive motion, he hooked a finger into the fabric Tommy had loosened and pulled it down decisively, exposing the full, violent bloom of the bruise on his collarbone to the entire room. The conversation died.
Sam’s tablet clicked off. Mack’s mouth hung open around a half-formed word. The only sound was the rattling heater and the ragged catch of Tommy’s breath.
The violet mark stood out starkly against his skin, a shocking contrast to the sterile room. Mack’s eyebrows climbed toward his receding hairline. “Well, shit,” he exhaled, the words hanging in the sudden quiet.
Sam’s gaze flicked from the bruise to Chanse’s defiant, relaxed posture on the couch. A slow, understanding smile touched her lips. “Drafty apartment, my ass,” she said softly, turning her tablet back on.
Chanse kept his finger hooked in Tommy’s collar, his thumb stroking the edge of the bruise in a silent, claiming caress. Tommy’s face burned hotter than the broken heater’s blast. He could feel every individual stare like a physical touch, a judgement.
He wanted to yank the fabric back up, to hide. Instead, he found his own hand coming up to cover Chanse’s where it rested on his collarbone. He laced their fingers together, pinning Chanse’s hand in place over the evidence. The action felt monumental.
“Hydraulics are funny,” Tommy said, his voice steadier than he felt. He was looking at Mack, challenging him to speak. Chanse tightened his grip, a silent surge of fierce, unwavering support.
Mack’s shock melted into a wide, knowing grin. “Okay, then,” he chuckled, shaking his head and looking back at his laptop. “So, about those dick jokes.”