Chapter 4: The Invitation to His World
The buzz was sharp and invasive, a mechanical hornet on the nightstand. Craig’s body, a warm, heavy line against Daniel’s side, went taut. A long sigh, a deflation, stirred the hairs on Daniel’s temple.
“Ignore it,” Daniel mumbled into the pillow, his voice thick with sleep and spent desire.
“Can’t.” Craig’s arm, which had been draped across Daniel’s chest, retreated. The loss of contact was a sudden chill. Daniel rolled onto his back, watching as Craig grabbed the phone, the screen lighting his weathered face in a blueish glow. He squinted at it, the lines around his eyes deepening.
“Fuck. The Henderson job. Told them I’d be there by one to look at their deck.” He dropped the phone and scrubbed a hand over his face. The intimate smell of their skin, salt and sweat, clung to the sheets between them. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” It wasn’t, but what else was there to say? Daniel pulled the rumpled comforter up to his chin. The reality of the daylight, the Star Wars poster, the stuffed Ewok on the shelf, was beginning to reassert itself, pixel by pixel. He felt exposed, the drying come itchy on his stomach.
Craig turned back to him. He didn’t reach out, just looked. His gaze traveled over Daniel’s face, down his throat, lingering on the red mark he’d left. His expression was unreadable, a mix of possession and profound unease. “Danny…”
“You have to go,” Daniel finished for him, forcing a small, understanding smile. It felt brittle on his lips.
“Yeah.” Craig leaned in then, and for a dizzying second Daniel thought he’d kiss him. Instead, he pressed his forehead against Daniel’s, a gesture of startling tenderness. “But later.” He pulled back, his thumb tracing the sharp line of Daniel’s hip bone above the comforter. “Would you… I mean, if you want… would you come over to my place tonight?”
The question hung in the sunlit room. Going to his house. Not this accidental collision in a childhood museum, but a deliberate entry into Craig’s adult world. Daniel’s heart did a slow, heavy roll. He nodded, his voice barely audible. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Craig echoed, the word a release of breath. He kissed him then, brief but solid, a seal on the promise. Then he was up, a powerful, nude figure moving with an efficiency that felt jarring in the languid aftermath. He dressed quickly—jeans, henley, socks—his movements practised and devoid of the earlier hesitation. In sixty seconds, he transformed back into Craig the builder, the handyman, the father. Only his hair, still mussed from Daniel’s fingers, betrayed him.
He paused at the bedroom door, his hand on the frame. He didn’t look back. “I’ll text you the address. Seven-ish.”
Then he was gone. The house echoed with the sound of the front door closing, a soft, definitive click.
The address led to a quiet, tree-lined street on the other side of the neighbourhood, a place of well-kept bungalows and aging sedans. Daniel parked his beat-up Civic a few houses down, his palms slick on the steering wheel. He’d changed his shirt three times, settling on a simple grey henley, and had compulsively checked the bruise on his neck in the rearview. It was a dusky purple bloom, unmistakable.
He walked up the paved path, his sneakers soundless. The house was a modest split-level, the garden neat but not fussy. No plastic toys, no soccer net. Just a trimmed lawn and a single, brave hydrangea bush.
He rang the bell.
Footsteps, heavy and approaching. The door swung open.
Craig stood there, backlit by a warm, low light. He’d showered. His damp hair was combed back, and he wore a clean, faded black t-shirt and jeans. He looked both more familiar and more alien than he had in Daniel’s bedroom.
“Hey,” Craig said, a tentative smile touching his mouth.
“Hey.” Daniel stepped inside, and the scent hit him immediately. Not the lemony polish of his parents’ house, nor the musty nostalgia of his own bedroom. This was clean laundry, coffee, and underlying it, the scent of sawdust and Craig’s simple soap.
He’d expected clutter. The accumulated detritus of a family, of a son who’d grown up and moved out. But the front hallway was clear. A neat row of work boots, a single jacket on a hook. The living room to his right was spartan, almost austere. A large, comfortable-looking sofa in charcoal grey, a single bookshelf with tidy rows of books and a few framed photos, a television on a stand. On a low table by the window, a single white orchid bloomed, elegant and alone.
“It’s… different,” Daniel said, unable to hide his surprise.
Craig shut the door, sealing them in. The silence here was different too—deep and private. “Katie took most of the stuff when she left. Timmy’s… well, it’s in his room, but he’s not here much.” He shrugged, a roll of his broad shoulders. “Guess I never replaced it. Didn’t know what to put in.”
Daniel followed him into the living room. A fire crackled in the brick hearth, painting dancing orange light on the walls. It was a conscious effort, a prepared atmosphere. The thought made Daniel’s stomach flutter.
“Drink?” Craig asked, heading towards a small kitchen alcove.
“Sure. Whatever you’re having.”
Craig poured two fingers of amber whiskey into a pair of tumblers, no ice. He handed one to Daniel. Their fingers brushed. Craig’s were warm.
“Cheers,” Craig said, clinking his glass softly against Daniel’s. They drank. The whiskey was smooth, burning a warm trail down Daniel’s chest. He watched Craig’s throat work as he swallowed.
“So, the Hendersons,” Daniel said, just to say something. “Their deck okay?”
Craig barked a short laugh, relaxing incrementally. “Termite damage. Told ‘em last year to seal it. People never listen.” He nodded towards the sofa. “Sit. Please.”
Daniel sat at one end. Craig, after a slight hesitation, sat not in the middle, but closer than was strictly casual. The heat from the fire was intense on Daniel’s shins. The whiskey hummed in his veins.
“This is nice,” Daniel said, gesturing vaguely at the room. “The orchid. The fire.”
“Trying to impress you,” Craig said, the admission gruff and direct. He stared into his glass. “Feels like I should be… I don’t know. Playing it cooler. But I’m not twenty. Don’t have the energy for games.”
Daniel swallowed. “I don’t want games.”
Craig looked at him then, the firelight carving his features into sharp planes of light and shadow. “What do you want, Danny?”
The question, so blunt, hung in the air with the woodsmoke. Daniel’s carefully rehearsed answers evaporated. He thought of the weight of Craig on him, the shocking gentleness of his hands, the lost look in his eyes afterwards.
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly, his voice quiet. “This. Something… real. Even if it’s just for now.”
Craig set his glass down on the table with a soft click. He shifted, turning his whole body towards Daniel. He reached out, his hand slow, giving Daniel every chance to pull away. His fingertips touched Daniel’s jaw, tracing it, then slid back into his hair, cradling the base of his skull. It was a possessive, grounding hold.
“It’s real,” Craig murmured, his thumb stroking the short hairs at Daniel’s nape. “That’s what scares the hell out of me.”
He leaned in, and this kiss was nothing like the frantic, desperate ones from the morning. It was slow, deep, a deliberate exploration. Daniel tasted whiskey and certainty. He let himself be pulled closer, across the cushions, until he was half in Craig’s lap, the solid muscle of Craig’s thigh beneath him.
Craig broke the kiss, resting his forehead against Daniel’s again, their noses brushing. His eyes were closed. “Stay tonight.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a request, a hope, a command all at once.
Daniel’s answer was to kiss him again, to let his hand finally, fully, settle on the solid wall of Craig’s chest, to feel the frantic beat of the heart beneath. Outside, the world continued, full of Hendersons and termite-eaten decks and expectations. But in this quiet, clean room, with the fire whispering and the orchid watching, there was only this—the terrifying, exhilarating reality of two people stepping off a cliff edge, together.