Chapter 1: Five Inches Between Us
The whiskey burned all the way down, a cheap, stolen heat that settled in Dante’s limbs alongside the bass still thrumming in his bones from the party. The Uber had dropped them off under the stark white porch light, its glare cutting through the suburban dark. Dee-Andre—Dre to everyone, Andre only in Dante’s private thoughts—was laughing about nothing, his shoulder bumping Dante’s as they fumbled with the lock.
“Your parents are gonna kill you,” Dre said, his words slightly slurred.
“Out of town,” Dante mumbled back, pushing the door open into the silent, dark house. “Again.”
His bedroom was a cave of half-finished things. Sketchbooks Dre had left open on the floor, a physics textbook buried under a hoodie, the blue glow of a dormant laptop. It smelled of stale pizza crusts and the deodorant they both used, and underneath that, something else, something live-wire and specific to them.
Dre kicked off his shoes, sending one skidding under the desk. “Man, I’m wiped.” He didn’t ask for pajamas, just stripped off his shirt and tossed it toward Dante’s hamper, missing. The dim light from the hallway etched the lean lines of his back, the familiar ripple of shoulder blades.
Dante looked away, swallowing. He pulled his own shirt over his head, feeling exposed. “You’re such a slob.”
“You love it,” Dre said, falling backward onto Dante’s bed with a groan that shook the frame. The mattress dipped. He starfished, claiming territory. “Move over, asshole.”
There was space. Of course there was space. Dante slid in on his side, his back to Dre, staring at the faint red pulse of the alarm clock. The room spun gently. He listened to the rustle of denim as Dre wriggled out of his jeans, the soft thud as they hit the floor.
The light went out. Darkness, thick and complete.
Then the shift. Dre turning over. The heat of him, suddenly closer. A leg, heavy with sleep and whiskey, swung across Dante’s calves, pinning him. Dre’s knee dug into the back of Dante’s thigh. Their ankles hooked.
Dante froze.
Every nerve in his body fired at once. Dre’s breath was a warm, rhythmic ghost against the nape of his neck. It hit his skin, spread, pooled somewhere low in his stomach. He could smell Dre’s shampoo, the faint sweat from dancing, the whiskey on his own tongue turned sour with panic.
He didn’t move. He barely breathed.
Dre didn’t move either. But his breathing changed. It didn’t stop, just deepened, became more deliberate. A quiet, shared confession in the dark. This was new. They’d shared this bed a hundred times since they were kids, but they’d never needed this much space before, and they were using none of it.
Minutes passed. Or hours. Dante’s heart hammered against his ribs, a trapped, frantic thing. He was certain Dre could feel it through the mattress.
Slowly, so slowly it was almost imperceptible, Dre’s leg slid back. His breathing evened out, feigning sleep. The distance between them returned, a cold, yawning inch.
Dante finally sucked in a quiet, shaky breath. He stared into the darkness until his eyes ached, listening to the sound of Dre pretending to be asleep.
Sunlight was a brutal thing. It sliced through a gap in the curtains and directly onto Dante’s face. His head pounded, a dull, rhythmic echo of last night’s music. The other side of the bed was empty, sheets tangled and cold.
The smell of frying bacon drifted up the stairs.
He pulled on sweatpants and trudged down to the kitchen. Hilda was at the stove, her broad back to him, humming along to the Spanish radio station playing softly on the counter. The world felt too bright, too loud.
“Morning, mijo,” she said without turning. “You look like something my cat dragged in.”
“Feel like it,” Dante grunted, sliding onto a stool at the island.
“Your friend is in the shower.” She flipped a pancake. “He’s polite. You should learn.”
Dante just grunted again, propping his aching head in his hands. The sizzle of grease was both comforting and nauseating. He replayed the night in fragments—the tangle of legs, the heat, the held breath. Had Dre remembered? Did it mean anything? Probably not. Drunk. Tired. Nothing.
Hilda set a plate of bacon and eggs in front of him. “You’re quiet.”
“Headache.”
She gave him a look that saw right through the walls of the house and the walls he’d built inside himself. “Mmm-hmm. The good kind of headache, or the bad kind?”
Before he could answer, the sound of the shower stopped. Pipes groaned in the walls. A few moments later, footsteps on the tiles.
The bathroom door at the end of the hall opened.
Steam billowed out first, a cloud carrying the scent of Dante’s own body wash. Then Dre emerged, a white towel slung low on his hips. His dark skin was beaded with water, droplets catching the hall light as they tracked paths over the cut of his shoulders, the defined curve of his chest. His hair was a chaos of wet curls. He used a second, smaller towel to scrub at it, oblivious.
Dante’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth. He forced his eyes down to his eggs. They swam in yellow.
“Damn, Hilda, that smells amazing,” Dre said, his voice raspy from sleep and steam. He padded barefoot across the cool floor, leaving faint, damp footprints.
“For you, cielito, always,” Hilda said, beaming. She already had another plate ready.
Dante focused on chewing. He could feel the water in the air, the warmth radiating from Dre’s body as he leaned against the counter next to the stool, so close a single shift would make their arms touch.
“You alive?” Dre asked, bumping Dante’s shoulder with his own.
The contact was electric. Dante jerked, then covered it with a cough. “Barely.” He dared a glance. Dre was looking at him, a faint, curious smile on his lips. His eyes were clear. No sign of the shared paralysis from last night. Maybe it really was nothing.
But then Dre’s gaze dropped, just for a second, to Dante’s mouth. Quick. So quick Dante thought he might have imagined it. Dre reached for the orange juice carton, his bicep flexing, the towel dipping dangerously low on his hip.
Hilda bustled over with Dre’s plate. “Eat, eat!”
Dante looked back at his own food, his appetite gone. He felt hyper-aware of every sound: the crunch of Dre’s bacon, the drip of water from his hair onto the tile, the beat of his own heart. He gripped his fork tighter.
Normal. Just act normal.
“So,” Dre said around a mouthful of pancake, his eyes fixed on the window. “About last night.”
“About last night.”
Dante’s heart stopped. The fork slipped from his fingers, clattering against the plate. The sound was a gunshot in the sunny kitchen. Hilda paused, spatula in hand, her eyes darting between them before she tactfully turned back to the stove, turning up the radio a little.
Dre was still looking out the window, chewing slowly. He swallowed. “Yeah, man. It got kind of…”
Oh god. Here it is. Dante’s mind was a white-noise scream. He felt exposed, skinless under the fluorescent lights. He had to say something first, control it, steer it away from the cliff edge. Words tumbled out, too loud, too fast.
“I tried to move over,” Dante blurted. “Man, what are you talking about. I’m talking about Stacy. Did you, ya know—sleep with her?” He whispered the last part.
A beat of silence. Hilda hummed.
Dre finally turned his head. His expression was unreadable, a slight frown knitting his brows together. He studied Dante’s face for a second that felt like an hour. Then he snorted, a short, dismissive puff of air. The tension in his shoulders—Dante hadn’t even noticed it was there—seemed to melt.
“Stacy? Dude, no. She was all over you.” Dre took a swig of orange juice straight from the carton, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.“Why? You into her?”
Dante choked in nervous relief. The air rushed back into his lungs, cold and shocking. He forced a laugh, the sound brittle in his own ears. “I did, you know the women love Dante.” He scoffed, poking at his eggs. “Just making sure we’re not stepping on each other’s game. Bros before… ya know.”
It was a pathetic performance. He felt Hilda’s gaze on the back of his neck, heavy with knowing.
Dre just shook his head, a small, slow smile playing on his lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes. They looked thoughtful, almost disappointed.“Sure. Bros.” He pushed away from the counter, the towel tightening across his thighs. “Nah, Stacy’s not my type. She talks too much. And her laugh is… aggressive.”
He said it easily, casually. The kind of assessment they’d made a thousand times about a thousand girls. It should have felt normal. It felt like a door clicking shut.
“Gotta grab my stuff from your room,” Dre said. “Early studio time. McKinnon’s riding my ass about the portfolio.”
“Yeah, no doubt,” Dante managed. His voice sounded foreign.
He listened to Dre’ footsteps fade up the stairs. The kitchen was suddenly, oppressively quiet, just the pop of bacon grease and a Spanish love song wailing from the radio. Hilda turned it down.
She came around the island, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She stopped in front of Dante and put a warm, work-rough hand over his, which was clenched into a fist on the cool granite.
“Mijo,” she said softly. Her voice held no judgment, just a deep, weary kindness. She didn’t say anything else. She didn’t have to.
Upstairs, a drawer closed. A closet door clicked. The floorboards creaked under a familiar weight.
Dante looked down at their hands, hers over his. He focused on uncurling his fingers, one by one. The confession he hadn’t made sat in the room with them, in the space where Dre had just been standing, in the ghost of damp footprints on the tile. It was in the silent, echoing aftermath of the wrong question, and in the terrifying, widening gap between the person everyone saw and the truth he carried, alone, in the bright, brutal morning light.
The silence stretched, filled only by the hum of the refrigerator and the low murmur of the radio. Dante’s fist slowly unclenched under Hilda’s hand. He pulled away, picking up his fork and pushing the cold eggs around the plate.
Footsteps came back down the stairs, heavier now. Dre appeared in the kitchen doorway, his duffel bag slung over one shoulder, wearing clean jeans and a faded tee that clung to his damp chest. He looked from Hilda to Dante, his expression unreadable.
“Hey,” Dre said, his voice softer than before. “Dante, mind giving me a ride to the crib?”
“Sure,” Dante replied, the word coming out too fast. He stood up, his chair scraping loudly against the tile.“Yeah. Let’s go.”
The morning air outside was crisp, a relief after the thick atmosphere of the kitchen. Dante’s old sedan sat in the driveway, dew still glittering on its hood. They got in, the doors thumping shut in unison, sealing them in a bubble of stale air and old coffee cups.
Dante started the engine, the roar too loud in the quiet neighborhood. He backed out without looking at Dre.
For a full minute, there was only the sound of the tires on asphalt. Dante focused on the road, on the stop signs, on anything but the boy in his passenger seat smelling like his soap.
Then Dre let out a short, breathy laugh. “Man, did you see Tank last night? Trying to dance?”
The tension snapped. A genuine chuckle burst from Dante’s chest, surprise loosening the knot in his stomach. “Looked like a bear trying to shimmy out of a bee’s nest.”
“A very drunk, very large bear,” Dre agreed, grinning. He slumped in his seat, stretching his legs out. “And what about Jessica? She spent twenty minutes telling me about the spiritual alignment of her chakras before she tried to stick her tongue in my ear.”
“Her what?” Dante laughed, glancing over. Dre’s face was lit by the passing sun, his smile easy and familiar. This was their lane. This was safe.
“Her chakras, bro. She said my aura was ‘blocked’ and she could help.” Dre put on a high, whispery voice. “‘Your root chakra is clogged with masculine trauma, let me unblock it for you.’ Then she just… lunged.”
They both dissolved into laughter, the kind that hurt Dante’s ribs and made his eyes water. For a few blocks, it was just them again. Just Dre and Dante, laughing at the world.
“You were a menace, though,” Dre said, wiping his eye. “Flirting with, like, three people at once by the punch bowl.”
“It’s a gift,” Dante said, shrugging, the old swagger slipping back on like a worn jacket. “What can I say?”
“You can say ‘I’m sorry for being a hog,’” Dre shot back, punching his arm lightly. “Leave some for the rest of us.”
“Please. You had Stacy and that girl from the art college practically writing their numbers on your forehead.”
Dre was silent for a beat. The car slowed for a red light. “Yeah,” he said, his tone shifting, becoming thoughtful. He looked out the window. “I guess.”
The light changed. Dante pressed the accelerator, the motion giving him an excuse not to probe. The laughter had drained away, leaving something more fragile in its place. They passed the turn for school, heading into Dre’s part of town, where the houses sat closer together and old oak trees canopied the streets.
“Thanks,” Dre said quietly, as Dante pulled up to the curb in front of his neat, small house. “For the ride.”
“Anytime,” Dante said. He meant it. He always meant it.
Dre grabbed his bag, his hand on the door handle. He paused, didn’t look back. “About last night…” he started again.
Dante’s knuckles went white on the steering wheel. Here it was. The reckoning.
Dre shook his head, a quick, sharp movement. “Forget it. It was just a weird night.” He pushed the door open. “See you at practice.”
“See you at practice,” Dante as Dre said, as he stepped out onto the curb.
The words hung in the air for a second before they curdled. Dante flinched, his fingers tightening on the wheel. A cold wash of clarity cut through the last of the whiskey fog and the morning’s fragile peace. Shit.
Dre froze, one foot on the pavement, and turned slowly. He looked back through the open car door, his expression flattening into something unreadable. “Dante.”
“I—sorry, man, I just—” Dante stammered, the engine idling roughly beneath them.
A slow, wry smile spread across Dre’s face, but it didn’t reach his eyes. They were sharp, observing. “I quit the team last week, remember?” He shook his head, a short, disbelieving laugh puffing from his lips. “Oh, shit.You forgot. Of course you forgot.
Obviously when My boy wants to be the next Picasso, not the next Brady. It doesn’t fit on the lunchroom posters, so it just… evaporates.”
The accusation, quiet as it was, landed like a physical blow. Dante opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He’d known. Of course he’d known. Dre had talked about it for months—the time commitment, the dislocated shoulder that never quite healed right, how football felt like a script he was tired of reading. Something his dad had forced down his throat. The official quit had been a mumbled conversation in this very car. Dante had said he supported it. And then he’d promptly buried it under a mountain of his own noise, his own life, because Dre not being on the field with him was a future he didn’t want to look at.
“Dre, I didn’t—”
“Forget it,” Dre said, cutting him off. But the hurt was there, a new fissure in the morning. He leaned back into the car, his voice softening, trying to bridge the gap he’d just revealed. “Let me show you something I’ve been working on instead. Come in for a sec.”
Of course Dante couldn’t say no. He owed him this. He knew Andre was passionate about his work. His shit was amazing, too. Dante had seen the sketches littering his own bedroom floor, the bold, sweeping lines that could capture a whole person’s energy with just charcoal and intent.
“Yeah,” Dante said, killing the engine. The sudden silence was loud. “Show me.”
Dre’s room was a controlled explosion. Where Dante’s space was a kind of lazy chaos, Dre’s was a creative one. Canvases leaned against every wall, some blank, others alive with abstract swirls of color or startlingly realistic studies of hands, of streetlights in the rain. The air smelled sharply of turpentine and graphite dust. Tubes of paint were organized in a Spectrum carry box open on his desk, a legion of soldiers waiting for orders.
Dre didn’t say anything at first. He moved to a large drafting table covered by a faded bedsheet. He hovered his hand over the cloth, then glanced at Dante. A flicker of something vulnerable—rare and raw—passed over his face.
“This is… different for me,” Dre said, his voice low. “It’s not finished. But it’s the first thing that’s felt… right.”
He pulled the sheet away.
Dante’s breath caught.
It was a portrait.In oils. And it was him.
But not the him everyone saw. Not the quarterback with the easy smile on the school banner. This was a Dante caught in a quiet, unguarded moment. He was leaning against the chain-link fence behind the school, head tilted back, watching the clouds. The late afternoon light was gold and long, painting the side of his face, glinting off the subtle worry in his brow he never let show. The artist had captured the exact shade of his eyes, not just the brown but the ring of amber around the pupil. The set of his mouth was soft, thoughtful, almost sad.
It was intimate. It was a secret. It was a version of himself he’d never seen, but recognized in his bones as true.
Dante stepped closer, the world narrowing to the brushstrokes. He could see the texture of the canvas, the layers of paint that built the shadow under his jaw, the careful, almost loving attention given to the way his shirt collar lay against his neck.
“Dre…” he whispered, the word barely air.
“I know, it’s weird,” Dre said quickly, his voice tight. He crossed his arms, a defensive gesture. “It’s just a study in light and expression. The model was convenient.”
But that was a lie. The care in it, the profound seeing, was a scream in a silent room. No one looked at someone that way unless they were memorizing them. Unless they thought about them when they weren’t there. Dante felt exposed, scraped raw, and yet somehow... seen. Truly seen, for the first time.
He turned from the painting to look at Dre, who was staring resolutely at the floor, jaw clenched. The early sun from the window caught the gold dusting of charcoal on his cheek.
The space between them hummed, charged with everything unsaid from the night before, from the forgotten quit, from a thousand shared moments that suddenly glinted with new, terrifying meaning.
Dante wanted to say something.Everything. The words were a tidal wave behind his teeth.
Before he could speak, Dre cleared his throat and tossed the sheet back over the canvas, the moment vanishing like a snuffed flame.
“It’s whatever,” Dre muttered, turning away to fuss with a jar of brushes. “Just messing around. You get it.”
Dante stood there, in the vibrant, paint-scented silence of his best friend’s room, staring at the covered canvas and the rigid line of Dre’s back, the truth of the portrait seared into the back of his eyes, louder than any confession could ever be.
The silence after the sheet fell back into place was thick, charged with a humming energy that made the hair on Dante’s arms stand up. Dre’s shoulders were tense, waiting for a verdict that hadn’t come.
Dante understood, suddenly and completely. The dismissive shrug, the it’s whatever—it wasn’t indifference. It was a raw, exposed nerve. Dre had shown him a piece of his soul scribbled in oil paint, and was now desperately trying to pretend it was a doodle. Dante relished that dismissive attitude in this moment. It was a life raft. If Dre could play it cool, then so could he. They could step back from this cliff edge together.
The portrait wasn’t just a study. It was a confession. And accepting it meant accepting everything that came with it—the tangled legs in the dark, the breath on his neck, the terrifying free-fall feeling in his own chest. That was too intimate. It was a door he wasn't ready to walk through, even if every part of him was screaming to kick it open.
He forced a grin, stuffing his shaking hands into his pockets. “Just convenient, my ass,” he said, his voice thankfully steady, laced with the old, familiar tease. “You’re obsessed with me.”
Dre finally turned, a flicker of wary relief in his eyes. “Shut up.”
“No, I’m serious.” Dante took a step closer, gesturing toward the covered canvas. “The light? The expression? Dude, the people looks incredible. You made me look like… I don’t know, some brooding poet. Not a guy who failed Spanish twice.” He shook his head, running a hand through his hair. “Damn, I look good even when I’m not trying. You’re gonna make my head huge.”
A real laugh burst out of Dre—sharp, surprised, and beautifully normal. It broke the tension like a hammer through glass. “Your head is already a planet. Don’t need my help.”
“See? Obsessed.” Dante bumped his shoulder against Dre’s, the contact electric and grounding at the same time. “You’re gonna be famous and I’m gonna be your muse. I expect royalties. And a better profile on the next one, this one’s a little too ‘yearbook photo’ for my brand.”
They both laughed then, a real, rolling sound that filled the sunlit room. It was too loud, too long, a release of pure, nervous energy. Dante’s ribs ached with it, and he saw the same relief mirrored in Dre’s face, in the way his eyes crinkled at the corners. They were on solid ground again, building a bridge of jokes over the terrifying chasm that had just opened up between them.
Dre wiped at his eye, the defensiveness melting away. “You’re an idiot.”
“Your idiot,” Dante said without thinking, and for a heartbeat, the laughter died in their throats. The words hung, too true, too raw. He rushed to bury them. “I mean, your idiot muse. Obviously. Now, are you gonna feed your muse or what? I’m starving, and Hilda’s bacon is a distant memory.”
Dre’s smile was softer now, tinged with something Dante couldn’t name. “There’s leftover pizza. Probably fossilized.”
“Perfect,” Dante said, already heading for the door, needing the escape, the normalcy of a cold, greasy slice. “The diet of champions.”