Chapter 2: The Morning After
Leo woke to the smell of cinnamon and the slow, warm weight of another body. Awareness returned in fragments: the dull throb behind his temples, the unfamiliar softness of hair against his chin, the searing heat of skin on skin.
Maya was curled into his side, her head nestled in the hollow of his shoulder. One of her legs was thrown over his, the bare skin of her thigh a brand against his own. Her arm rested across his stomach, her fingers splayed just below his ribs. He was shirtless. She wore only a thin tank top and her underwear.
He didn’t move. Didn’t dare breathe too deeply. The previous night crashed over him in a nauseating wave: the bar, the walk, the silent standoff at her door. He’d gone home, drunk and restless, and texted her. You awake? She’d replied instantly. Can’t sleep. He’d asked if he could come over. She’d said she was already pulling on her shoes.
The next few hours in his apartment were a blur of more beer, the easy comfort of his couch, and the treacherous, shifting proximity. They’d talked about everything and nothing, the space between them on the cushions disappearing inch by inevitable inch. A shared blanket. A joke that made her fall against him, her laughter vibrating through his chest. Then her head on his shoulder. Then his arm around her.
And then the kiss.
It wasn’t a question. It was a gravitational collapse. One moment he was looking down at the top of her head, and the next, her face was tilted up, her eyes searching his in the blue light of the television, and there was no world in which he didn’t close that final distance.
It was slow, and soft, and tasted of the cheap lager they’d been drinking. It was also seismic. It fractured a fundamental law of his universe.
Now, in the stark grey light of morning, her fingers twitched on his stomach. A slow, idle tracing of a circle. He felt the path of that touch like a spark along every nerve. It drifted lower, hesitating just above the waistband of his boxers, and his entire body went rigid.
He knew she was awake. He could feel the change in her breathing, the slight stiffening of the muscles in her arm.
“Hey,” he said, his voice gravelly with sleep and dread.
Her fingers froze. “Hey,” she whispered into his skin.
The silence that followed was a living thing. It was full of the memory of her mouth on his, the frantic, clumsy progress from couch to bed, the way they’d fallen asleep tangled together, too exhausted by the sheer magnitude of it all to do anything else.
“So,” he tried.
“So,” she echoed.
She didn’t move away. He didn’t push her off. The stalemate was excruciating.
“I, uh… I think your foot’s gone numb on my leg,” he said, a feeble attempt at their old language.
She gave a soft snort, a ghost of a laugh. “Your fault for being a human radiator.” Her finger resumed its circling, bolder now. “And for having conveniently warm legs.”
He swallowed. “Maya.”
“Leo.”
“What are we doing?”
Her hand finally stilled. She took a deep breath that lifted her chest against his side. Slowly, she pushed herself up on one elbow, looking down at him. Her hair was a spectacular mess, a dark curtain around her face. Her eyes were wary, wide, still soft with sleep.
“I don’t know,” she said, and the rawness in her voice cut him. “Last night… at my door. And then here. I don’t know.”
“We were drunk,” he offered, the safe exit, the ejector seat.
She blinked. Something hardened in her expression, a flash of the ruthless pragmatist who’d dissected their frog. “We were. But we’re not now.” Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and the air in the room got thinner. “Are we pretending it didn’t happen? That we didn’t… that you didn’t kiss me back like that?”
“No,” he said, too quickly. “God, no. I’m not pretending that.”
“Then what?”
He reached up, tentatively, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Her eyes fluttered closed at the contact. “I’m scared,” he admitted, the words leaving him like a confession.
Her eyes opened. “Of what?”
“Of this.” He gestured weakly between them on the rumpled sheets. “Of it being weird. Of it being a mistake. Of losing you because we got confused one night after a few beers.” The fundamental terror tumbled out. “You’re my best friend. You’re my… you’re Maya. If we screw this up, I don’t get a do-over. I don’t get a new Maya.”
Her face softened. She leaned down, her hair falling to brush his cheeks, and kissed him. It wasn’t like the hungry, exploratory kiss from last night. This was slow, deliberate, sober. A question and an answer all at once. When she pulled back, her lips were inches from his.
“I’m scared too,” she whispered. “But last night didn’t feel like confusion. It felt like… noticing something that’s been right in front of me for years. And being too stupid to see it.”
Hope, treacherous and wild, began to beat in his chest alongside the fear. “The spaceships on my notebook were a clue,” he murmured.
A real smile touched her mouth. “They really were.” She sighed, the breath warm on his face. “So what now, Leo? Do we… try? And risk the weirdness? Or do we have one incredibly awkward breakfast and try to go back to before that party?”
He looked at her. He saw his childhood accomplice, his confidant through every failure and triumph, the person whose happiness had always been inextricably linked to his own. And now he saw the curve of her neck, the dip of her collarbone under the thin strap of her tank top, the woman who had looked at his mouth like it was a destination.
Going back seemed not only impossible, but a kind of cowardice he couldn’t afford.
His hand came up to cradle the back of her head. He guided her down for another kiss, deeper this time, a silent decision. She melted into him with a small, desperate sound that went straight to his core.
When they parted, breathless, he rested his forehead against hers. “I vote for the weirdness,” he said.
“Yeah,” she breathed. “Me too.”
For a long moment, they just stayed like that, breathing each other in, the old rhythm of their friendship finding a new, terrifying, exhilarating cadence. The sunlight through the blinds painted bright stripes across the tangled sheets and their locked bodies.
Then Maya’s stomach growled, a loud, vulgar interruption.
She burst out laughing, the tension shattering. Leo laughed too, the sound rusty with relief.
“Okay, okay,” she said, shifting to sit up. “Your human radiator duties now include making pancakes. I have a clinical need for syrup.”
“Demanding,” he grumbled, but he was grinning as he threw back the covers. The cool air hit his skin, a shock after her warmth. He stood, suddenly, absurdly aware of his own near-nakedness in front of her in the clear light of day. He saw her eyes track over his shoulders, down his chest, a flicker of shy, new appreciation in her gaze that made his skin prickle.
He grabbed a t-shirt from the floor and pulled it on. “Blueberries okay?”
“Only if they’re abundant,” she said, pulling the sheet up to her chin, watching him. Her expression was a mix of awe and lingering disbelief.
He walked toward the bedroom door, then paused, looking back at her sitting in the wreckage of his bed, her hair a wild corona around her face. The sight lodged in his throat.
“Maya?” he said.
“Yeah?”
“For the record… I’m really glad you came over last night.”
Her smile was slow, bright, and real. “Me too, Leo. Now go. Pancakes. The fate of this new weirdness depends on your flipping technique.”
He saluted and walked out to the kitchen, leaving the door open behind him. As he rummaged for a bowl and whisk, he could hear the soft rustle of her moving in his room, the pad of her feet on the floor as she presumably looked for her discarded jeans. It was a domestic sound he’d heard a hundred times when she’d crashed on his couch. Today, it meant something else entirely.
He cracked eggs into the bowl, his hands steady. The fear was still there, a cold knot in his stomach. But beneath it, warming him from the inside out, was a pure, undiluted thrill. He was making pancakes for Maya. Not just his best friend.
His. The word echoed, bold and terrifying, and he didn’t try to silence it.