Chapter 2: Homecoming
The first fingers of dawn were pale excuses for light. Matthew stood in the kitchen, the polished oak counter cool under his palms. He measured the coffee with robotic precision, the ritual a feeble attempt to anchor himself. The house was too quiet. It always was, but this morning the silence felt accusatory. He could still smell it—a phantom hint of Colton’s cologne clinging to the living room air, a vulgar guest who’d overstayed his welcome. He’d opened every window, but the memory was etched into the fabric of the couch.
The GLAAD award sat on the breakfast bar, its crystal edges catching the early sun. A monument to a hollow victory. He turned his back on it.
The sound of a key in the front lock was a gunshot in the stillness. Matthew’s heart hammered against his ribs. He didn’t move from the kitchen doorway.
And then he was there. Robert. A large duffel bag dropped just inside the door with a thud. He was rumpled from the flight, his sandy hair a mess, shadows under his eyes. He wore a faded Ramones tee and jeans that were practically paint. He looked exhausted. He looked perfect.
For a beat, they just stared at each other from across the expanse of the living room. The distance of countries and compromises hung between them.
Robert broke it first. A slow, tired smile spread across his face, transforming him. “There he is,” he said, his voice that familiar, beautiful rasp, scratchier from travel. “The award-winning man of the hour.”
All the rehearsed speeches, the quiet resentments, the phantom scent of another man—they evaporated. Matthew let out a breath he felt like he’d been holding for days. “You’re here.”
“Flight was a fucking nightmare. Crying babies the whole way from Heathrow. I’ve got a headache that could kill a horse.” Robert shrugged out of his leather jacket, letting it fall to the floor. He walked towards him, his boots heavy on the hardwood. He didn’t stop until he was right in front of Matthew, close enough for Matthew to smell the stale airplane air on his skin, the faint, eternal note of his cigarette smoke.
Robert’s hands came up, calloused thumbs brushing Matthew’s cheekbones. His eyes, a stormy grey-green, searched his face. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there, Matty. Really. I watched the stream on my phone in a shitty airport lounge. You were brilliant.” The apology was simple, earnest. It disarmed him completely.
“It didn’t mean anything without you,” Matthew said, the raw truth leaving him in a whisper.
Robert’s expression softened, then shifted. The tiredness was still there, but underneath it, a spark ignited. A hungry, knowing glint. His gaze dropped to Matthew’s mouth. “Let me make it up to you.”
He kissed him. It wasn’t like the kiss in the London studio all those years ago, full of shocking discovery. This was a homecoming. A deep, claiming, familiar press of lips that immediately sought entry. Matthew groaned into it, his hands fisting in Robert’s t-shirt. The taste of him—spearmint gum and bad airline coffee—was the taste of his whole world righting itself. Robert’s tongue swept into his mouth, and Matthew met it with a desperate urgency, all the loneliness of the past 48 hours pouring into the connection.
Robert’s hands were everywhere, pulling Matthew’s t-shirt up and over his head, breaking the kiss only for the second it took to discard it. His mouth went to Matthew’s neck, sucking a spot he knew would make Matthew’s knees weak. “Missed you,” Robert growled against his skin, his hands sliding down to the waistband of Matthew’s sweatpants. “Fucking missed this.”
“Here,” Matthew panted, backing them blindly towards the living room, towards the large, upholstered couch. “Now, Rob. I need you now.”
They didn’t make it to the bedroom. The suggestion of a bed, of something planned and formal, felt wrong. This was about immediacy, about erasing the ghost of the previous night with something real.
Robert pushed him down onto the cushions, following him down, his body a solid, welcome weight. They kissed again, a messy, open-mouthed clash of teeth and tongue. Robert’s hands shoved the sweatpants and boxer briefs down Matthew’s thighs in one rough motion. The cool air hit his skin, then the searing heat of Robert’s palm wrapping around his cock, already hard and leaking.
“Christ, look at you,” Robert murmured, stroking him once, twice, a rough, perfect friction. “All for me.”
Matthew arched up, his head thrown back. He scrabbled at Robert’s jeans, popping the button, yanking the zipper down. He needed to feel him. Robert kicked his own boots and jeans off, shoving his briefs down. Then they were skin to skin, chest to chest, cocks sliding together in the hot, frantic space between their bodies.
It was different. So profoundly different from the night before. With Colton, it had been a series of isolated sensations—a visual, a friction, a release. With Robert, it was a conversation. A push here, a gasp there, a shift of the hips that was instantly understood and answered. Robert knew the rhythm that made Matthew shudder. Matthew knew that biting Robert’s lower lip just so would make him groan and thrust harder.
“Turn over,” Robert breathed, his voice thick. “Want to see you.”
Matthew complied instantly, rolling onto his stomach, then pushing himself up onto his knees. The cushions dipped under his weight. Robert’s hands ran over the backs of his thighs, his ass, possessive and worshipping. He heard the click of a cap—lube from the side table drawer, always there. The cold drizzle on his skin made him jolt. Then Robert’s fingers, slick and insistent, pressing against him, working him open. Not a clinical preparation, but a reclamation. Robert knew his body, knew how to curl his fingers just right to make Matthew cry out, knew when he was ready.
“Now,” Matthew begged, pressing back against the fingers. “Please, Robert, now.”
The fingers withdrew. The blunt, hot pressure of Robert’s cock replaced them. Robert pushed in, not with Colton’s performative, relentless drive, but with a deep, controlled, stretching fullness that made Matthew’s vision whiten at the edges. He sank in to the hilt, his body flush against Matthew’s back, his forehead dropping between Matthew’s shoulder blades with a shattered groan.
“God, you feel like home,” Robert whispered, the words muffled against his skin.
Then he began to move. It was a rolling, thorough fuck, each withdrawal almost complete, each thrust a deep, seated impact that shook Matthew to his core. Robert’s hands gripped his hips, fingers digging in, holding him in place. The slap of skin was a rhythm track beneath their ragged breathing. Robert leaned over, covering Matthew’s body with his own, one arm wrapping around his chest, his mouth finding Matthew’s ear.
“This is what you needed, wasn’t it?” Robert rasped, his thrusts gaining a sharper edge. “Not that fucking party. Not that plastic award. This. My cock in you. Reminding you who you belong to.”
The filthy, possessive words sent a lightning bolt of pure heat straight to Matthew’s gut. He was close, so close, the coil tightening beyond bearing. “Yes,” he choked out. “Only you. It’s only ever been you.”
Robert’s hand slid down from his chest, wrapping around Matthew’s leaking cock, stroking him in time with his thrusts. The dual sensation was unbearable, exquisite. Matthew’s body tightened, every muscle straining. Robert was panting in his ear, his rhythm fracturing into hard, desperate snaps of his hips.
“Come for me, Matty,” Robert commanded, his voice breaking. “Come all over my hand. Let me feel it.”
It was the permission, the raw, vocalized intimacy of it, that undid him. The orgasm ripped through Matthew, violent and total, a white-hot burst that had him shouting into the cushion, his back arching as he spilled over Robert’s fist in hot, pulsing streaks. The clenching of his body dragged Robert over the edge immediately after. Robert buried himself deep, a final, shuddering thrust, his own cry a harsh gasp as he emptied himself inside Matthew, his body going taut and then collapsing heavily on top of him.
The only sounds were their heaving breaths and the distant cry of a gull. Robert’s weight was a warm, comforting anchor. Slowly, he softened, slipped out. He rolled to the side, pulling Matthew with him, tucking him against his chest. They lay tangled on the couch, sticky and spent, the morning sun now painting bright rectangles across the floor.
Robert kissed his sweaty temple. “Okay?” he murmured.
“Yeah,” Matthew said, and for a moment, he meant it. His body hummed with satisfaction, the deep, bone-level fulfillment that only Robert could give him. The hollow ache from the night before was gone, thoroughly filled.
They lay in silence for a long while. Robert’s fingers traced idle patterns on Matthew’s arm. “So,” he said, his tone shifting to something lighter, casual. “How was the after-party? Did you and Evan have fun?”
The mention of Evan, of the party, was a splash of cold water. The memory of Colton’s hands, his pitch, the award now gathering dust on the counter, flooded back. The ghost of the cologne seemed to swirl in the sunbeams.
Matthew kept his face buried in Robert’s neck. “It was fine. Loud. Full of people.”
“Meet anyone interesting?” Robert asked. The question was casual, almost breezy. Part of their new, unspoken agreement. The ‘open’ door he’d installed swinging gently in the breeze.
Matthew’s stomach tightened. He thought of the empty transaction, the feeling of being a stepping stone. He thought of the profound difference between what he’d just experienced and what he’d settled for less than twelve hours ago. A wave of nauseous guilt, then a sharp spike of anger—at Robert for making this necessary, at himself for agreeing to it.
He opted for a half-truth, the words tasting like ash. “Not really. Just the usual crowd.”
Robert hummed, accepting the answer. He stretched, his body a long line of contentment against Matthew’s. “Good. I’d hate to think I missed anything important.”
The sun climbed higher, bleaching the room. The sticky feeling on his skin began to itch. The fulfillment of moments ago was already curdling, complicated by the things they weren’t saying. Robert was here, in his arms, but the distance between them felt wider than the Atlantic. It was a chasm lined with unsanctioned hookups, unspoken fears, and a simple, desperate wish for a life that felt shared, not just visited.
Matthew held on tighter, as if he could press them into one solid, indivisible thing. He knew he couldn’t.
The stickiness between his thighs was a cold paste now, a stark reminder of the chasm between physical satiation and emotional peace. He extracted himself gently from Robert’s loose embrace. “I’m gonna clean up,” he muttered, his voice rough.
Robert just grunted, already half-asleep on the sun-warmed couch, a contented smear of sweat and spent desire.
Under the shower’s renewed spray, Matthew scrubbed again. This time, he was washing away Robert, too. The evidence of their connection swirled down the drain, just water and biology. He dressed in clean, soft pants, the fabric a simple armor. When he padded back into the living room, the scene arrested him.
Robert was shirtless, wearing the borrowed sweatpants low on his hips. He had Matthew’s favorite Martin acoustic cradled in his lap. His head was bent, his messy sandy hair falling forward as his calloused fingers, so often curled around a microphone or a cigarette, picked out a series of minor chords. It was a haunting, incomplete sequence, searching. Robert hummed a melody line beneath his breath, a raw, wordless sound that seemed pulled from the heart of his jetlag. The morning light gilded the dust motes swirling around him and the lean planes of his back.
Matthew stopped breathing. This was the man. Not the rock star, not the elusive partner, but the creator. The restless, beautiful mind he’d fallen for in that London studio. A fierce, possessive love tightened his chest, a desire to freeze this stolen sliver of time and live inside it forever. He wanted to bottle the way Robert’s brow furrowed in concentration, the unconscious shift of muscle in his shoulder as his hand moved along the fretboard.
Robert sensed him. He looked up, the melody cutting off. A soft, private smile touched his lips. “It’s something, isn’t it?” he said, voice gravelly. “Came to me somewhere over Greenland. Couldn’t sleep.”
“It’s beautiful,” Matthew said, and it was all he could manage.
He crossed the room and sank onto the couch beside him. Robert set the guitar aside carefully, its absence a quiet click in the room. He opened his arm and Matthew slid into the space, tucking himself against Robert’s side, his head on that warm, bare shoulder. Robert grabbed the remote and flicked the television on, scrolling until he found a mindless game show, the cheerful host’s voice a hollow buzz.
They sat in silence, Matthew tracing idle circles on Robert’s stomach. The comfort was profound, cellular. It was the life he craved, distilled into a single, perfect morning. It made the question he had to ask feel like a grenade in his hand.
“How long are you here for?” he finally said, aiming for casual and missing by a mile.
Robert’s fingers, which had been stroking his hair, stilled for a fraction of a second. “Just ‘til Tuesday. Got rehearsals Wednesday. New tour manager’s a tyrant.”
Three days. Seventy-two hours, minus sleep. The math was a swift, cold knife. The disappointment was a physical weight, crushing the air from his lungs. He’d hoped for a week, had stupidly dreamed of two. He made himself breathe, willed his body to stay relaxed against Robert’s.
“Okay,” Matthew said, the word neutral, a masterclass in compression. “We’ll make it count.”
And they tried.
The three days became a compressed, high-resolution montage. Dinner with Evan at a rustic Italian place where Evan’s skeptical green eyes constantly scanned Robert’s face for signs of wear. Robert, charming and effusive, told outrageous road stories that made Evan laugh despite himself. Matthew watched them, feeling like a curator of two separate parts of his life that would never truly fuse.
They spent a late night at a hushed jazz club in Culver City, scouting talent for a label project Robert was vaguely considering. Robert’s knee bounced under the table, his entire body leaning into the complex rhythms from the quartet on stage. His eyes were alive, electric. “Hear that bass line? Fucking filthy,” he’d whisper, his lips against Matthew’s ear, and the thrill of shared discovery was almost enough.
They walked hand-in-hand through the Griffith Observatory grounds at dusk, the city a sparkling blanket below. No cameras, no fans. Just their intertwined fingers and the simple, profound act of moving through space together. The silence between them was comfortable, filled with the rustle of eucalyptus leaves and their synchronized footsteps.
And the sex. It was everywhere. A quick, hungry fuck against the balcony railing under a midday sun, Robert bending him over with a growled command. Slow, deep morning sex in Matthew’s bed, where Robert took him apart with a torturous patience that left them both trembling. A whispered offer in the back of the Uber after the jazz club, Robert’s hand sliding into his pants, stroking him to a quiet, shuddering climax while the driver’s eyes stayed dutifully on the road. Matthew gave himself over to it, trying to brand the feeling of Robert’s skin, his taste, his sounds, into his permanent memory. Each time was a potent reminder of what existed between them, and a terrifying reminder of its scarcity.
The last night, Tuesday, arrived with the subtlety of a sinking ship.
Robert, exhausted from their self-imposed marathon, fell into a deep sleep almost immediately after they’d made love for what felt like the final time. His breathing evened out into a soft rasp. The sheet was tangled low around his waist, leaving his shirtless torso exposed in the moonlight. Matthew lay awake, propped on one elbow, watching him.
He studied the landscape he knew so well: the old tattoo on his ribs, faded from a Dublin pub, the scatter of freckles across his shoulders, the rise and fall of his chest. This was the man he wanted to wake up to for thousands of mornings. He wanted to share a mortgage, argue over paint colors, grow bored and comfortable and old together. He wanted to sign holiday cards from Matthew & Robert. The want was a gnawing, hollow-chewed thing in his gut, a constant companion that was only quieted when Robert was physically inside him.
A cold certainty seeped into his bones. He was never going to have it.
Robert would always leave. The open relationship was just the structured acknowledgment of that core truth. He feared monotony more than he valued permanence. Matthew’s love was a lighthouse, and Robert was a ship that needed the dark, open sea.
How long could he do this? Watch him leave over and over? Cleanse himself of Coltons and their empty transactions, only to spend the days until Robert’s next visit feeling the walls of this beautiful, empty house close in? The cycle was a closed loop, a Möbius strip of longing and temporary relief.
Sleep became a theoretical concept. The digital clock on his bedside table bled the minutes away: 1:47 AM, 2:23 AM, 3:11 AM. Each shift of Robert’s sleeping form was a miniature earthquake. He knew what the morning required. He had to raise it again. The conversation about commitment, about closing the distance, about building something that wasn’t just a series of glorious, fleeting collisions.
And he knew, with a soul-deep fatigue, how it would go. Robert would get quiet. He’d light a cigarette even indoors. He’d speak about fear, about suffocation, about the creative stagnation of a settled life. He’d promise to think about it, to look at his schedule, to try. The promises were soft, well-intentioned pillows meant to cushion his escape back to Heathrow.
The first grey light of Wednesday began to outline the windows. Robert’s flight was at noon. Matthew’s throat was tight with unsaid words, his eyes dry and burning from his vigil. He watched the light grow, and he held perfectly still, clinging to the last seconds of the night where the man he loved was still here, still his.
The shrill bleat of Robert’s phone alarm shattered the fragile silence. Matthew flinched, the sound a violent intrusion into his sacred vigil. Robert groaned, a low, displeased rumble from deep in his chest, and fumbled blindly on the nightstand. The noise ceased. He threw the covers back in one swift motion, the cool morning air rushing into the warm space he left behind.
Matthew didn’t move. He kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling, listening to the familiar sounds of departure. The pad of Robert’s feet on the hardwood, the zipper of his duffel bag, the rustle of fabric as he pulled on his jeans from the floor. The clinical efficiency of it was a small death. He watched from the pillow as Robert moved around the room, collecting his charger, his worn leather jacket, the half-empty pack of cigarettes. Each item was a brick in the wall between this moment and his absence.
Robert pulled a fresh shirt over his head, his back muscles flexing. He ran a hand through his hair, not looking at the bed. “You want me to call a car, or you got that app thing?” he asked, his voice still thick with sleep.
“I’ll do it,” Matthew said, his own voice sounded hollow, scraped out. He didn’t reach for his phone.
The packing stopped. Robert stood still, one hand on his bag. He turned slowly, his grey-green eyes scanning Matthew’s form still curled in the bed. Matthew knew his face was an open wound in the pale light, all the unslept hours and unraveling resolve plain to see.
“Hey,” Robert said, softer. He walked back to the side of the bed and sat on the edge. The mattress dipped. He placed a hand on Matthew’s ankle over the sheet. “What’s going on in there?”
Matthew just shook his head, afraid if he opened his mouth a dam would break.
Robert studied him for another long moment, his thumb rubbing a slow circle on Matthew’s shin. Then, with a sigh that seemed to come from his boots, he kicked off his shoes. He crawled back onto the bed, over the sheets, and wrapped himself around Matthew from behind. He pulled Matthew’s back firmly against his chest, his arms locking around him, his face buried in the nape of Matthew’s neck. The embrace was tight, almost desperate.
“Talk to me, Matty.”
The heat of him, the solid reality, broke the seal. The words tumbled out, low and fractured. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this, Robert. This… in-and-out. You leaving. Me waiting. It’s eating a hole in me.”
Robert held him tighter. “I know. I know it’s shit. This next stretch is the last big one, I swear. The tour’s eighteen weeks, but after that… nothing. I’ll take a year. We’ll be here. In this house. For months. Maybe a whole year, just us. We’ll get fucking bored of each other.”
It was the same promise, reshaped. The future dangled like a carrot, always just beyond the next commitment. Matthew turned in his arms, facing him. He searched Robert’s face, the lines of fatigue, the earnestness there. “I love you. You know I do. But I want all of you. Not just the parts you fly in for.”
Robert’s expression shuttered, just slightly. He knew. He inhaled slowly. “You have all of me, Matthew. You’re my fucking soulmate. You’re it.” He paused, choosing his words with uncharacteristic care. “But that part of me… the part that needs to… breathe. To see what’s out there. It’s not about you not being enough. Christ, it’s the opposite. You’re so much that sometimes I feel like I’m disappearing. I need the freedom to remember who I am on my own. So I can come back and be entirely yours.”
“Why can’t I be enough for that?” The question was a child’s question, stripped bare and pathetic. He hated the sound of it. “Why does exploring your sexuality have to mean exploring other people’s bodies?”
Robert cupped his face. “Because it’s not about the bodies. It’s about the… anonymity. The lack of consequence. It’s a fucking room service meal, Matty. You’re the home-cooked feast that nourishes my bones. Nothing I do out there,” he gestured vaguely toward the window, toward the world, “nothing is ever as fulfilling as being inside you. You have to believe that.”
Matthew looked away, at the sun now glaring off the GLAAD award on the dresser. He thought of Colton’s empty eyes, the transactional grind. He believed him. That was the worst part. He believed Robert loved him, believed their sex was a universe apart from the cheap encounters. But belief wasn’t a cure for loneliness. Further protest was pointless. It would just be noise before the door closed.
“Okay,” Matthew whispered, the word a surrender.
Robert kissed him then, a tender, lingering press of lips that tasted of goodbye and reassurance and unchangeable truth. “I’ll call you from the road. We’ll connect in Chicago. Lollapalooza. You’ll fly out, yeah? We’ll have a proper night after the set.”
Matthew nodded, unable to speak again. Robert gave him one last, hard squeeze, then released him. He finished dressing with a renewed, mechanical speed, shouldered his duffel, and paused at the bedroom door.
“Love you,” Robert said, his hand on the frame.
Matthew managed a weak smile. “Love you more.”
And then he was gone. The front door clicked shut with a finality that echoed through the bones of the house. Matthew lay there, listening to the silence swell. He heard the low rumble of an Uber pulling into the driveway, a car door, the engine fading down the canyon road.
He sighed, a long, slow exhalation that left him empty. The plan was set: Chicago in a few weeks, another hotel room, another frantic reunion before another goodbye. The cycle held them both in its weary orbit. He had no idea how to break it, or if breaking it would mean breaking them. The future stretched out, a vast and uncertain plain, and the man who was his compass was once again heading for the horizon.