Chapter 4: Bittersweet Reckoning
The cab ride back was a capsule of stifled air. Patrick sat in the middle, his shoulder pressing against Matthew’s, a familiar heat radiating through their coats. Mike stared out the window at the streaming lights of Baggot Street, his reflection a placid mask. No one spoke. The pub’s forced conviviality had evaporated, leaving the residue of Mike’s warning hanging between them.
Matthew’s phone felt like a live grenade in his pocket. He hadn’t replied to Lucas’s text. The decision, he told himself, was still his to make.
The cab pulled up to their building. As they climbed out, Matthew saw him.
Lucas was leaning against the wrought-iron railing by the front steps, a duffel bag at his feet. He was in civilian clothes—dark jeans, a tight grey hoodie that stretched across his chest. He was checking his phone, the blue light painting his handsome face in stark relief. He looked up as the car door shut.
A flicker of uncertainty, then a bright, relieved smile directed solely at Matthew. “Hey. You weren’t answering. I took a chance.”
Patrick and Mike had frozen on the pavement. Matthew watched Patrick’s eyes take in the scene: the eager young Marine, the duffel bag suggesting an overnight stay, Matthew’s own guilty stance. A complicated expression—amusement, resignation, a hint of that old, competitive spark—crossed Patrick’s face.
Mike was smoother. He offered a small, polite smile. “Evening, Lucas.”
“Hi, Mr. Lim. Sir,” Lucas said, nodding with a respect that was almost comically formal given the circumstances.
“We’ll leave you to it,” Patrick said, his voice carefully neutral. His gaze met Matthew’s. “Good night, Matthew.” The words were flat, but his eyes were full of unasked questions. So this is your solution?
They disappeared inside. Matthew was left on the sidewalk with Lucas, the silence now charged with a different, more familiar tension.
“I shouldn’t have just shown up,” Lucas said, the confidence bleeding from his voice. “It’s stupid. I’ll go.”
“No,” Matthew heard himself say. The syllable was ripped from him. All the rational plans of stepping back incinerated in the furnace of that single, hopeful look. “Come upstairs.”
The apartment door had barely closed behind them when Matthew turned, backed Lucas against it, and kissed him. It was not a kiss of greeting, but of consumption. A deliberate silencing of his own thoughts. Lucas moaned into his mouth, his hands coming up to clutch at Matthew’s back, the duffel bag thumping to the floor.
Matthew’s fingers went to the hem of Lucas’s hoodie, yanking it up and over his head. He didn’t pause to look, just attacked the button of his jeans, wrenching them open. The scent of Lucas’s soap and the faint, clean sweat from his shift filled Matthew’s senses, a narcotic. He dropped to his knees right there in the foyer, pulling jeans and briefs down Lucas’s thick thighs.
Lucas’s cock, already half-hard, stirred against his cheek. Matthew took it all into his mouth in one hungry motion, his throat working, his nose buried in the coarse blonde hair at the base. He wanted the taste, the weight, the sheer reality of him to obliterate everything else—Mike’s gentle warning, Patrick’s knowing look, his own spiraling unease.
“Fuck, Matthew,” Lucas gasped, his hands fisting in his hair.
Matthew sucked him hard and deep until Lucas was fully erect, pulsing against his tongue. Then he stood, breathing raggedly. “Bedroom. Now.”
They left a trail: Lucas’s jeans around his ankles, Matthew’s sweater, a sock. In the bedroom, Matthew pushed Lucas onto the bed and stripped off his own clothes with frantic efficiency. He climbed over him, their cocks sliding together, a hot, slick friction. But Lucas, emboldened, rolled them. He pinned Matthew beneath him, his eyes dark.
“My turn,” he breathed, and the raw want in his voice made Matthew shiver.
Lucas’s mouth was everywhere—sucking a bruise into Matthew’s throat, latching onto a nipple, biting at his hip bone. He moved down, taking Matthew’s cock into that devastating mouth. Matthew arched off the bed, a choked curse lost in the air. Lucas was learning fast, too fast, his enthusiasm honed into a weapon of precise pleasure.
When Matthew was on the edge, Lucas pulled off. He reached for the lube on the nightstand, his hands trembling slightly. He coated his fingers, his eyes locked on Matthew’s.
“Is this okay?” Lucas asked, the question tender, belying the fierce need on his face.
“Yes. Do it.”
Lucas pressed a slick finger against him, circling, then pushing slowly inside. The stretch was sharp, then good. Matthew let his head fall back, giving himself over to the sensation. A second finger, scissoring, searching. Lucas found the spot and Matthew cried out, his back bowing off the mattress.
“You ready?” Lucas’s voice was rough.
“I’m ready. Fuck me. Come on.”
Lucas positioned himself, the blunt head of his cock pressing. He pushed in, a slow, inexorable invasion that stole the air from Matthew’s lungs. He was big, the stretch breathtaking, a full, aching pressure that bordered on pain. Matthew gasped, his nails digging into Lucas’s biceps.
“God, you’re so tight,” Lucas groaned, burying himself to the hilt. He held still, letting Matthew adjust, sweat dripping from his brow onto Matthew’s chest.
Then he moved.
It was a different rhythm than before—less frantic, deeper, more possessive. Each stroke was a claiming. Lucas fucked him with a focused intensity, his eyes never leaving Matthew’s face, watching every flinch, every gasp. The slap of skin on skin, the creak of the bedsprings, their ragged breaths—it was a symphony of need.
“You feel so good,” Lucas panted, driving into him. “So fucking good around me.”
Matthew could only moan, his legs locked around Lucas’s waist, pulling him deeper. The pleasure was a coiled spring inside him, wound tighter with every thrust. Lucas shifted angle, hitting that perfect spot with brutal accuracy, over and over.
“I’m gonna come,” Lucas warned, his pace becoming erratic, brutal.
“Do it,” Matthew gritted out. “Come inside me.”
With a ragged shout, Lucas obeyed, slamming deep as he pulsed. The hot, sudden rush tipped Matthew over the edge. His own orgasm ripped through him, violent and silent for a second before a broken sound escaped his throat. He spilled between their sweat-slicked stomachs, shuddering through the waves.
Lucas collapsed on top of him, a crushing, welcome weight. They lay like that, hearts hammering against each other, the smell of sex thick in the air.
As always, Lucas was the one to shift first. He pulled out gently, then retrieved a cloth from the bathroom. He cleaned Matthew with a tenderness that felt more intimate than the sex had, then cleaned himself. He slid back into bed, fitting himself against Matthew’s side, his head on his shoulder, an arm thrown across his chest. The cuddle.
The silence stretched. Matthew stared at the ceiling, the physical haze receding, leaving the emotional debris exposed. Mike’s words echoed. He talks about you. A lot.
He couldn’t ignore it anymore.
“Lucas,” he said, his voice scratchy.
“Hmm?”
“Where do you think this is going?”
Lucas went very still. His breathing slowed. He propped himself up on one elbow, looking down at Matthew. The lamplight caught the gold stubble on his jaw, the uncertain curve of his mouth.
“I think,” he said slowly, “that I really like you. Like, a lot. More than I should, probably.” He swallowed. “And I hope… I guess I hope you feel the same way. A little.”
There it was. Honest, vulnerable, and terrifying.
Matthew looked up at that hopeful face, at the body that had just brought him such blinding, thought-erasing pleasure. He traced a finger over Lucas’s pectoral muscle. “I’m having fun,” he said, the words feeling cheap as he said them. “I enjoy being with you. A lot. But I… I’m not sure I can promise anything else right now. My life here is… complicated.”
Lucas held his gaze. The hope didn’t die, it just dimmed, banked like a fire. He nodded, slowly. “That’s okay,” he said, but his voice had gone quiet. He laid his head back down on Matthew’s shoulder. “I know it’s not… serious. Our time together will be short anyway.”
A cold trickle seeped into Matthew’s gut. “What do you mean?”
“My tour. It’s only eight months total. I’ve been here two. I’ve got six months left in Ireland, max. Then it’s probably a year at Quantico, then the next posting.” He said it matter-of-factly, the brutal calendar of a Marine’s life. “So I get it. No promises needed.”
The finality of it should have been a relief. A natural expiration date. Instead, it felt like a door slamming shut on a room Matthew had only just realized he wanted to linger in.
He turned his head and kissed Lucas, a soft, lingering kiss that tasted like an apology. Lucas kissed him back, but the fever was gone.
After a minute, Lucas sat up. “I should get back.” He moved off the bed and started dressing with his usual efficient silence, his back to Matthew.
Matthew watched the play of muscles under his skin, the curve of his spine. He sensed a sadness hanging in the air, a new gravity, but he couldn’t bring himself to address it. To ask would be to open a door he’d just firmly stated he wanted closed.
At the apartment door, they kissed once more, a dry brush of lips. “I’ll text you,” Lucas said, echoing their usual script.
“Yeah. Soon.”
Matthew stood in the open doorway, watching Lucas walk down the stairs, the duffel bag over his shoulder. He didn’t look back. The front door clicked shut, a sound both soft and final.
Closing his own door, Matthew leaned against it. The empty apartment felt larger, colder. Lucas had filled a hole in his life he hadn’t fully acknowledged—a space for touch, for laughter, for uncomplicated presence. The thought of that space returning to a void was unexpectedly desolate. Yet, the alternative—allowing Lucas’s hopeful ‘like’ to grow into something more, only to fracture when he inevitably shipped out—felt cruel. His selfishness was a trap, and he was the one who’d set it.
He got ready for bed mechanically. The sheets still smelled of them. He turned off the light and lay in the dark, exhaustion in his bones but sleep miles away.
Then the sounds began.
A low murmur from above, then a laugh—Patrick’s laugh, warm and genuine. A creak of bedsprings. Then another sound, unmistakable: a soft, rhythmic knocking against the shared wall. A headboard, this time from the floor above, tapping a steady, insistent beat.
A moan, muffled but distinct. Mike’s voice, a low, encouraging rumble he couldn’t make out. Then Patrick, louder, a sharp, pleading gasp that was pure ecstasy.
They were fucking. Loudly. Deliberately. The wall was thin, but they weren’t usually this audible. It was a performance. A response.
Returning the favor.
Matthew lay rigid in the dark, the echoes of his own moans from an hour ago seeming to haunt the room. Upstairs, Patrick was being taken apart by his husband, lost in a pleasure that was committed, loving, and entirely beyond Matthew’s reach. The rhythmic thumping against the wall wasn’t just sound; it was a timer, each beat counting down the six months Lucas had left, and the five long years Matthew had already lost.
He put a pillow over his head, but it didn’t block out the sounds. He was wide awake, pinned between the ghost of one man in his bed and the living reality of another in the wall, both of them just out of his grasp.
The thumping finally stopped. A long silence followed, then the soft pad of footsteps, a toilet flushing, a whispered exchange. Matthew’s own sheets were cold. He stared at the faint crack in his ceiling until the grey light of a Dublin dawn bled around the edges of his blinds.
He moved through the next day in a fog. The embassy felt like a soundstage, everyone an actor with scripted lines. At his desk, he drafted talking points on fisheries policy, the words meaningless black marks on a screen. Laura dropped by with a coffee.
“You look like hell,” she said, placing the cup down. “Wall too thin last night?”
He didn’t answer. She sighed. “Just remember, you’re the one who chose the apartment below the happy couple. And above the… whatever Lucas is.”
“He’s leaving in six months,” Matthew said flatly, not looking up.
“Ah.” Laura’s tone softened. “So that’s the new math. Okay. Well, that simplifies things, I guess.”
It didn’t simplify anything. It just added a ticking clock. He checked his phone obsessively. No word from Lucas. The silence felt punitive.
Sean appeared at his doorway at five, already shrugging into a sleek charcoal overcoat. “Right, up you get. Black tie. The Ukrainian solidarity do at Iveagh House. You’re my plus-one whether you like it or not.”
Matthew had forgotten. “Sean, I’m really not—”
“You are. It’s mandatory fun, and you look like you haven’t had any in a decade. A room full of serious men talking about artillery might cheer you up. Or at least provide a distraction from…” He gestured vaguely toward the ceiling. “Come on. I’ll even buy you a gin and tonic that isn’t from the awful embassy stash.”
The reception was in a grand, high-ceilinged room, all gilt and historical portraits. The air buzzed with a dozen languages, the clink of crystal, and the low hum of geopolitics. Matthew felt detached, a satellite. He nodded through conversations about Leopard tanks and energy sanctions, the taste of expensive gin metallic on his tongue.
Sean nudged him with an elbow, nodding toward a man standing alone near a marble column. “Now there’s a study in tension. Dmitri Volkov. Ukrainian delegation. Trade attaché, supposedly, but everyone knows he’s got deeper remits. Been here two years.”
Matthew looked. The man was tall, with dark blonde hair swept back from a sharp, severe face. He held a glass of water, his posture straight but not stiff, observing the room with the calm watchfulness of a predator. Handsome was an understatement. He was compelling in a way that felt dangerous.
“Brooding, isn’t he?” Sean murmured. “Word is he’s got a taste for diplomats. The male variety. Never lets it get messy, though. In and out before the champagne goes flat. A professional, in all things.”
Matthew felt a strange, unwelcome pull. It was different from Lucas’s sunny physicality or Patrick’s complicated familiarity. This was pure, dark magnetism.
As if sensing their attention, Dmitri’s eyes slid across the room and met Matthew’s. He didn’t smile. He simply held the gaze for a beat, then gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod of acknowledgment. It wasn’t an invitation. It was an assessment.
“Go on,” Sean said, his voice light but his eyes oddly intent. “Say hello. Do a bit of diplomacy. It’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
Matthew walked over, the crowd seeming to part. “Matthew Wright, U.S. Embassy.”
“Dmitri Volkov.” His English was fluent, accented, his voice lower than expected. He didn’t offer a hand. “You are political section.”
“I am. How did you know?”
“I make it my business to know the players. Even the new ones.” He took a sip of water. “You find our European defense cooperation talks engaging? Or is it just another reception?”
The directness was bracing. “It’s necessary. If sometimes dry.”
A ghost of a smile touched Dmitri’s lips. “Dry. Yes. We Ukrainians prefer our politics… wetter. More immediate. Less talk of tanks, more delivery of them.” He studied Matthew. “You were in Amsterdam before this.”
“I was.”
“A softer posting. You must find Dublin quaint. Or frustrating.”
“I’m still deciding.” Matthew found himself leaning in slightly, drawn by the man’s intensity. The noise of the party faded. “And you? Do you find it frustrating? Being here, while…”
“While my country is burning?” Dmitri finished, his gaze unwavering. “It is my post. My weapon is this suit, this glass, these conversations. It is less satisfying than a Javelin missile, but it has its uses.” He paused. “You have interesting eyes. They look tired of talking about fisheries.”
Matthew’s breath caught. The shift was dizzying. “They are.”
“Mine are tired of talking about war in the passive voice.” Dmitri set his glass down on a passing tray. “This setting is not conducive to real conversation. Perhaps we should speak elsewhere, sometime. Without the audience.”
He was proposing something, cloaked in ambiguity but clear as day. Matthew felt a flutter, a chaotic leap in his chest that was equal parts excitement and sheer panic.
“I think I would like that,” Matthew heard himself say.
Dmitri produced a card from his inner pocket. It was simple, black, with just a name and a number. “I am often free on Wednesday evenings.” He didn’t ask for Matthew’s card in return. He assumed, correctly, that Matthew would remember.
As Dmitri gave a final nod and melted back into the crowd, Matthew turned. Sean was watching from near the entrance, his expression unreadable. He raised his own glass in a tiny, silent toast, his eyebrows arched. It wasn’t congratulatory. It was analytical, like a scientist noting a predictable reaction.
The butterflies in Matthew’s stomach curdled, mixed with a sharp slap of guilt. Lucas’s hopeful face flashed in his mind. Then, superimposed, Patrick’s knowing look from the sidewalk. He was adding another variable to an already impossible equation, and Sean had witnessed the entire calculation.
He felt a hand on his back. “Ready to go?” Sean asked, his voice casual. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Or made a deal with one.”
They walked out into the crisp night. Sean was quiet for a block. “He’s not a good man,” Sean said finally, not looking at him. “But then, he’s not a man for goodness, is he? He’s for other things. Sharp, temporary things.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Matthew snapped, the guilt sharpening his tongue.
“It means,” Sean said, stopping to face him, his freckled face serious under the streetlamp, “just know what you’re walking into. He’ll devour you, and he won’t even notice the crumbs. That’s his function. It’s not a criticism.” He started walking again, hands in his pockets. “Sometimes a sharp, temporary thing is exactly what a person needs. Just… be the one who walks away after, yeah?”
Matthew had no answer. He walked beside Sean, the Ukrainian’s card a burning weight in his own pocket, his phone still silent, the memory of a headboard beating a rhythm against a wall still echoing in his bones. The city around him felt full of doors, each one opening onto a different, equally complicated room, and he was losing track of which one he’d originally come from.
The city around him felt full of doors, each one opening onto a different, equally complicated room, and he was losing track of which one he’d originally come from. The next three days passed in a muted haze. The embassy was a vortex of paperwork, and his apartment was too quiet, the silence from above somehow more unnerving than the headboard’s rhythm had been. He checked his phone compulsively. Lucas had not texted. The absence felt like a judgment Matthew knew he deserved.
On Wednesday, the black card in his wallet pulsed like a live wire. At six, he found himself outside The Stag’s Head, its polished wood and stained glass glowing in the evening fog. He told himself it was just diplomacy.
Dmitri was already at a corner table, a half-finished glass of whiskey in front of him. He wore a simple black sweater, no suit. He looked softer, harder, more real.
“You came,” Dmitri said. It wasn’t a question.
“I said I would.” Matthew sat, ordering a whiskey when the barman came. “How was your day of weaponized conversation?”
“Fruitless. A Dutchman cried about cheese tariffs. I smiled and imagined throwing him from a moving train.” Dmitri’s eyes, a cool grey-blue, held Matthew’s. “Yours?”
“Fisheries. Imagined drowning several colleagues in a net.”
A genuine, low laugh escaped Dmitri. “So we are both fantasizing about violence. A good start.”
The conversation was a duel of wits, parry and thrust. They discussed obscure films, the grim poetry of Dublin rain, the peculiar loneliness of exile. Dmitri was sharp, cynical, and unexpectedly funny. There was no talk of Lucas, or Patrick, or six-month tours. Here, Matthew was not a man managing boyish affections or ex-lover’s echoes. He was an equal.
“You are a surprising man, Matthew Wright,” Dmitri said, swirling his whiskey. His gaze was appraising, lingering on Matthew’s mouth. “Most diplomats are empty suits. You have cracks. I can see the light coming through.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“It is a fascinating thing.” Dmitri leaned forward, his voice dropping. The pub noise faded to a dull roar. “I find you very attractive. Not just the face, or the body, which is pleasing. But the mind. The quiet storm inside it.”
The words landed with physical force. No one had spoken to him like that in years. It was not a boy’s hopeful confession. It was a statement of fact, a proposition between adults. Heat bloomed low in Matthew’s gut.
“I find you… compelling,” Matthew managed, his throat tight.
Dmitri’s smile was a razor slash. “Good.”
He signaled for the tab, paid in crisp euros, and stood. “Walk with me.”
They exited into a slick, cold alley behind the pub, away from the streetlight’s glare. The air smelled of wet brick and stale beer. Dmitri stopped, turning to face him. Without a word, he closed the distance, his hand cupping Matthew’s jaw. His thumb brushed Matthew’s lower lip.
Then he kissed him.
It was nothing like the hungry, consuming kisses with Lucas. This was confident, expert, and devastatingly slow. Dmitri’s tongue explored his mouth with deliberate precision, tasting of expensive whiskey and dark intent. His other hand slid down Matthew’s back, pulling their bodies flush. Matthew could feel the lean strength of him, the hard plane of his chest. He moaned, surrendering to the kiss, his hands gripping Dmitri’s shoulders.
Dmitri broke away, breathing harshly. He pressed Matthew back against the cold alley wall, his mouth attacking his throat, sucking a bruise into the pale skin above his collar. His hand dropped, palming Matthew’s erection through his trousers with a firm, knowing pressure.
“Fuck,” Matthew gasped, his head thumping against the brick.
“I want to hear you say it,” Dmitri murmured against his skin, his fingers deftly undoing Matthew’s belt, his button. “Tell me what you want.”
“You. I want you.”
Dmitri’s hand slipped inside, wrapping around his bare cock. His grip was perfect, stroking him with a tight, slow rhythm that made Matthew’s vision blur. “Not here. Not this time.” He sped his hand, his own breath hot in Matthew’s ear. “But next time. I will have you screaming. Now come for me. I want to feel it.”
The command, the expert touch, the illicit thrill of the alley—it shattered him. With a choked, guttural sound, Matthew came, spilling over Dmitri’s fist, his body shuddering against the wall. Dmitri held him through it, milking him until he was oversensitive and trembling.
Slowly, Dmitri withdrew his hand, wiping it clean on a handkerchief produced from his pocket with an unnerving practicality. He kissed Matthew once more, a soft, final press of lips.
“We will meet again. Soon.” He turned and walked down the alley without a backward glance, disappearing into the fog.
Matthew slumped against the wall, zipping his trousers with clumsy fingers. His heart was a jackhammer. His lips were swollen, his skin branded. A desperate, aching need still thrummed in his veins, unsatisfied, now mixed with a dizzying vertigo.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
He pulled it out. The screen glowed in the dark alley.
Lucas: Hey. You around?
The timing felt like a cruel joke. He stared at the text, at the ghost of Dmitri’s touch still tingling on his skin. The burning, complicated desire had a target now, but its object had walked away. The need had to go somewhere.
His fingers moved before his mind could object.
Matthew: Just got home. Come over.
Twenty minutes later, Lucas stood in his doorway, wearing a hesitant smile and that same grey hoodie. “Hey. I wasn’t sure you’d—”
Matthew yanked him inside, silencing him with a fierce kiss. It was all wrong. He could taste Lucas’s toothpaste, smell his clean cotton scent. He could feel Lucas’s surprise, then his eager response. But in his mind, he saw sharp cheekbones and cool grey eyes. He felt a different, more commanding mouth.
“Bedroom,” Matthew growled, pulling Lucas by the hoodie.
He didn’t undress Lucas with his usual predatory appreciation. He shoved him onto the bed, tore his own clothes off, then roughly stripped Lucas. He didn’t want to look, to see the earnest blue eyes. He just wanted the body, the heat, the physical release for the fire Dmitri had lit.
“Turn over,” Matthew ordered, his voice thick.
Lucas blinked, a flicker of confusion crossing his face, but he complied, rolling onto his stomach. Matthew slicked himself with lube, his hands unsteady. He positioned himself and pushed into Lucas without the usual careful preparation.
Lucas gasped, his back arching, his fingers twisting in the sheets. “Matthew… fuck, wait…”
But Matthew was already moving, setting a brutal, driving pace. He fucked into him with a single-minded ferocity, each thrust an attempt to exorcise the phantom of Dmitri’s hand, his voice, his promise. He closed his eyes, imagining darker hair, a different set of shoulders, a more merciless mouth.
“You’re so tight,” Matthew grunted, but the words were hollow, a script. He gripped Lucas’s hips hard enough to bruise.
“Yeah… god…” Lucas moaned into the pillow, his body accepting the punishing rhythm, rising to meet it.
Matthew reached around, taking Lucas’s cock in a rough, jerking grip. He worked him in time with his thrusts, his own pleasure coiling tight, a knot of pure physical tension. He was chasing it, chasing the shadow of a feeling he’d had in an alley, using this beautiful, willing body as a tool.
“I’m gonna come,” Lucas cried out, his voice muffled.
“Do it,” Matthew snarled.
Lucas shuddered beneath him, his release spilling hot over Matthew’s hand. The clenching tightness around his cock was the final trigger. With a ragged shout that held no name, Matthew slammed deep and came, a violent, emptying pulse.
He collapsed onto Lucas’s back, their sweat mingling. The heat was immense. The room smelled of sex and guilt.
And as the physical roar in his blood subsided, the silence flooded in. He became aware of Lucas’s rapid breathing beneath him, the tremble in his own limbs. He rolled off, staring at the ceiling. The burning desire was gone, extinguished. In its place was a cold, oily shame, so thick he could taste it at the back of his throat.
He had just used this man. He had fucked him while thinking of another. He had treated Lucas’s vulnerable hope and open body as a means to scrub a different man’s scent from his mind. It was a profound, disgusting betrayal.
Lucas shifted, turning onto his side. He looked at Matthew, his face flushed, his blonde hair damp with sweat. He reached out, his fingers brushing Matthew’s arm. “That was… intense.”
Matthew flinched at the touch. He couldn’t meet his eyes. “Yeah.”
The word hung in the air, a lie so vast it had its own gravity. Lucas’s hand stilled. The comfortable post-coital quiet he usually sought out didn’t descend. Instead, a fragile, questioning silence grew between them, as Matthew stared into the dark, sick with himself.