Chapter 8: The Reckoning
The dawn was a slow, cruel invasion. Pale light seeped around the blackout blinds in Matthew’s bedroom, etching the sleek, minimalist furniture into gray shapes. He’d been awake for hours, staring at the precise shadow-line on the ceiling, his body humming with a toxic cocktail of exhaustion and adrenaline. The memory played on a loop, unbidden and vivid: the heat of Ryan’s skin under his palms, the frantic rhythm of his own heart, the taste of tequila and regret. Then Robert’s face, smiling as he’d left. The two images spliced together in his mind, a perfect, damning cut.
His phone, face-down on the nightstand, vibrated again. A dry, angry buzz against the marble. He ignored it, counting his breaths. Finally, with a groan that felt torn from his chest, he rolled over and grabbed it.
The screen was a mosaic of notifications.
Sara (4:17 AM): OMG my head is a war zone. But my soul is a disco ball. Last night was EVERYTHING. We HAVE to do this again. Call me when you re-enter the land of the living. 😘💃
Marie (7:02 AM): Just watched the fan cams. We sounded… good. Really good. The numbers are insane. Kelly is already talking about a limited residency. Think about it. No pressure. Just think.
Robert (3:22 PM Tokyo Time): Landed. Exhausted. Miss your face. The promo junket is a circus of idiots. They keep asking if Indigo Twilight will ever do a Vegas residency. I’d rather chew off my own foot. Love you. x
Matthew’s thumb hovered over Robert’s message. The casual affection, the mundane gripe, felt like a physical weight. He typed Miss you too, then deleted it. He typed Love you, sent it, and immediately felt like a liar. The words were true, but they now existed in a different universe, one he’d vandalized.
Then, the last message. Ryan (1:08 AM): We need to talk.
It had been sitting there for hours, a silent bomb. Now, another one appeared underneath it, delivered just minutes ago.
Ryan (8:14 AM): Coffee? The place on Melrose. I’ll be there at 9. Please.
The plea in that single word, “please,” was worse than any anger. It was an open wound. Matthew shut his eyes. He saw Ryan in the alley, the confused hurt in his eyes as the car pulled away. The responsible thing, the Matthew Scott thing, would be to ignore it. To block the number, to call Robert, to bury himself in work and let the silence become an answer.
But he was also the man who had kissed him back. Twice.
He got out of bed. His body felt heavy, foreign. He showered, the water scalding, trying to wash the phantom sensation of Ryan’s hands from his skin. He dressed with automatic precision: dark jeans, a simple grey Henley, a leather jacket. Armor. He didn’t look at himself in the mirror.
The restaurant was all rustic wood and hanging ferns, sunlight dappling through the windows onto tables of people chatting over avocado toast. Normal people with normal mornings. Matthew spotted him immediately. Ryan was in a corner booth, wearing a simple black t-shirt, a ball cap pulled low. He was sipping water, staring at his phone. He looked up as Matthew approached, and the carefully constructed nonchalance on his face cracked for just a second, revealing something raw and nervous.
“You came,” Ryan said.
“You asked,” Matthew replied, sliding into the opposite seat. He didn’t take off his jacket. A waiter appeared; Matthew ordered a black coffee, nothing else. The silence stretched, taut and painful, filled by the cheerful clatter of dishes around them.
Ryan fidgeted with a napkin. “Look, about last night—”
“Don’t,” Matthew cut in, his voice low but sharp. “Let’s just… not do the awkward recap, okay? It happened. It was a mistake. A colossal, fucking stupid mistake. End of story.”
Ryan’s jaw tightened. He leaned forward, lowering his voice. “Is that really what you think it was? A mistake?”
“What else would it be, Ryan?” Matthew’s coffee arrived. He wrapped his hands around the mug, needing the heat. “I was drunk. On the show, on the nostalgia, on the tequila Sara kept forcing on us. You were there. It was a proximity thing. A bubble.”
“A proximity thing,” Ryan repeated flatly. He took off his hat, ran a hand through his hair. The gesture was so familiar it made Matthew’s chest ache. “Right. So when I told you leaving you was my life’s biggest regret, that was just… part of the bubble? When you touched me like you were trying to memorize me through my skin, that was the tequila?”
“Stop.” Matthew’s knuckles were white on the mug.
“I can’t.” Ryan’s voice dropped, intense. “I’ve been stopping for fifteen years. I’m done. Last night… Matt, I was sober. Maybe not at the start, but by the time we were in that alley, I was stone-cold, panic-attack sober. And every word I said was true.”
Matthew looked away, out the window at the sun-drenched street. A couple laughed, sharing a smoothie. “It’s not fair,” he whispered.
“What isn’t?”
“This!” Matthew’s head snapped back. He kept his voice down, but the fury in it was a living thing. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to vanish from my life because you’re scared, break me into a thousand pieces, let me spend years putting myself back together—building a life, a career, a relationship—and then just swan back in because you’ve decided it’s time to be brave? To unpack your regrets on my doorstep?”
Ryan flinched as if he’d been struck. “It wasn’t like that.”
“It was exactly like that!” Matthew hissed. “You sent a fucking text, Ryan. A text. ‘This isn’t working. I can’t do this. It’s for the best.’ After three years. After every secret moment, every lie we told for you, every time I told you it was okay, we’d figure it out… you ended us with twenty words on a screen and then you ghosted me. Do you have any idea what that did to me?”
The confession hung in the air between them, ugly and real. All the polished composure Matthew wore as an adult evaporated, leaving the shattered twenty-three-year-old boy exposed.
Ryan’s eyes were bright. “I was terrified. The band was everything. My family… it was different for you. Your parents didn’t care. Mine… I thought I was choosing survival.”
“You chose yourself,” Matthew said, the bitterness a thick paste in his mouth. “And I had to live with that choice. I had to learn how to be a person again after you. And I did. It took years, but I did. I built a good life. I love someone. Someone who shows up, who isn’t hiding, who isn’t scared.”
“Robert.” Ryan said the name like it was a verdict.
“Yes, Robert. Who, by the way, flew for sixteen hours just to be at my show for forty-five minutes before he had to leave for another goddamn continent. He showed up. Where were you when I needed you to show up?”
It was a low blow, designed to wound. It worked. Ryan’s face crumpled, and he looked down at his hands. “I’m here now,” he said, the words barely audible.
“Now is too late,” Matthew said, but the fight was draining out of him, leaving a hollow, aching fatigue. “You don’t get to blow up my life for a do-over. That’s not how it works.”
Ryan was silent for a long moment, tracing the wood grain of the table. “I’m not trying to blow it up,” he said finally, looking up. His expression was clear, devastatingly earnest. “I’m trying to tell you that I never stopped loving you. That seeing you again… it’s like someone turned the lights back on. I look at Jonathan and I think, ‘He’s a good man. He’s fine.’ And he is. He’s fine. But you… you were it for me. You know you were.”
Matthew felt the words land, a direct hit to a part of him he’d thought long buried. He had no defense against them. Because he knew. Ryan had been it for him, too. The first, the deepest, the blueprint for every heartbreak and hope that followed.
“It doesn’t matter,” Matthew said, the statement feeling flimsy even to his own ears.
“It’s the only thing that matters,” Ryan countered softly. He took a deep breath. “I’m not asking you to leave him. Not right now. I’m just asking you not to shut the door. To… to let there be a conversation.”
“There is no conversation,” Matthew said, pushing his coffee away, half-finished. “There’s just reality. My reality is Robert. Your reality is Jonathan. And whatever this is,” he gestured weakly between them, “is a ghost. A really persistent, inconvenient ghost.”
He stood up, pulling some cash from his wallet and tossing it on the table. “I have to go.”
Ryan didn’t try to stop him. He just looked up, his blue eyes holding a world of a pain Matthew recognized intimately. “I never stopped loving the sound of your laugh,” Ryan said quietly. “I never stopped hearing you in every stupid pop song on the radio. I never stopped. You asked me where I was. I was right there. Trapped in the life I chose without you.”
Matthew’s hand was on the back of the chair, gripping it for balance. The air in the bright, sunny restaurant felt too thin. He had no words left. Every possible response was a betrayal—of Robert, of his own hard-won peace, of the raw, yearning truth sitting across from him.
He turned and walked out, the bell on the door jingling a cheerful goodbye. The Los Angeles sunlight hit him like a physical blow, harsh and revealing. He fumbled for his sunglasses, his hands shaking.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, a fresh wave of nausea hitting him. But it wasn’t Ryan.
It was Robert. A photo message. The image loaded: Robert, handsome and tired, making a silly face in what looked like a sterile green room. The text underneath read: Day 1 of 4 in purgatory. They’ve asked me about my “style influences” 3 times. I’ve said “Sid Vicious and my nan” every time. Save me. xx
A laugh choked out of Matthew, half-sob, half-relief. This was his life. The silly, messy, long-distance, rock-star life he’d built and loved. This was the man he’d chosen.
He typed back, his fingers clumsy. Tell them it’s a mix of chaos and good tailoring. Hang in there. I’m here.
He hit send. The message whooshed away, a tiny digital life raft thrown across the ocean. He stood on the sidewalk, people flowing around him, and felt utterly, completely split in two. The past was a tangible force, a gravitational pull he’d just felt in that restaurant booth. The present was a glowing screen in his hand, a love that required faith over geography.
He started walking, directionless. The ghost of Ryan’s kiss was on his lips. The ghost of Robert’s laugh was in his ears. And between them, Matthew Scott, the man who fixed broken sounds for a living, had no idea how to tune the dissonant cacophony raging inside his own chest.
He walked for blocks without seeing anything, the city a smeared watercolor of noise and motion. His breathing was too quick, shallow little sips of air that didn’t reach the bottom of his lungs. The confrontation in the sunny restaurant played on a sickening loop behind his eyes—Ryan’s shattered expression, his own furious, accurate words. He felt scraped raw, gutted.
A bitter laugh escaped him. He’d told Ryan he’d built a good life, a solid one. He was currently standing on a street corner in Los Feliz, trembling, utterly lost. The dissonance wasn’t just in his chest; it was in the very pavement beneath his feet.
He turned a corner aimlessly, wanting only the anonymity of movement. And there he was.
Ryan was leaning against the driver’s side door of a vintage BMW coupe, half a block down. He was looking at his phone, then up the street, then back at his phone. As if waiting. As if hoping. He hadn’t driven off after the restaurant. He’d just… stayed.
Matthew stopped. The instinct to turn and walk the other way was a physical twist in his gut. But his feet were roots. Ryan looked up then, and their eyes locked across the distance. No surprise. Just a weary, inevitable recognition.
Ryan pushed off the car. He didn’t approach, just stood there, leaving the choice in the space between them.
Matthew’s mind was a screaming chorus of warnings. Robert’s silly face flashed behind his eyes. The “send” confirmation on his text felt like a lie already decaying. He took a step forward. Then another. He crossed the empty space, the decision made not in his mind, but in the marrow of his bones.
“You followed me,” Matthew said, his voice flat.
“I drove around the block thirteen times,” Ryan admitted, no apology in his tone. “Then I parked. I didn’t know if you’d come back this way. I just… couldn’t leave.”
“This is a bad idea.”
“I know.”
“It’s the worst idea.”
“Yep.”
Matthew ran a hand over his face. The fatigue was bottomless. “Talking more isn’t going to fix anything. We just talked. It made it worse.”
Ryan’s keys jingled softly in his hand. “My place is five minutes away. We don’t have to talk. We can just… not be on a public street.”
The offer hung in the air, thick and dangerous. Not be on a public street. It was silent admission, a password to a room they’d both been trying to find for fifteen years. Matthew looked at him—the familiar set of his shoulders, the new lines at the corners of his eyes, the desperate hope he was failing to hide.
Against every screaming neuron, against the image of Robert’s face, Matthew gave a single, hollow nod.
The car was silent save for the low hum of the engine. Ryan drove with a focused intensity, his knuckles pale on the wheel. Matthew stared out the passenger window, watching the canyon houses blur past. The air between them was charged, heavy with everything unsaid and everything that was about to happen.
He knew. With a terrifying clarity, he knew. This wasn’t about conversation. This was about consummation. It was a train that had left the station the moment their lips touched in the alley, and he had just chosen to board it. The guilt was a cold stone in his stomach, but underneath it, a darker, hotter current was pulling him forward. Inevitable. The word felt fatalistic and true.
Ryan’s house was a mid-century modern box perched on a hillside, all clean lines and huge windows. He unlocked the front door and pushed it open, stepping aside. Matthew walked into the cool, dim stillness of the living room. The door clicked shut behind them, the sound final.
They stood in the entryway, two feet apart. The tension was a live wire, humming.
Ryan exhaled, a shaky sound. “Matthew, I—”
Matthew closed the distance. He grabbed the front of Ryan’s shirt, his fists clenched in the soft cotton, and crushed their mouths together. It wasn't gentle. It was a collision, a negation of all the wasted years and careful words. Ryan made a ragged noise into his mouth and kissed him back just as fiercely, his hands coming up to frame Matthew’s face.
This kiss was different from the alley. There was no shock, no tequila-blurred surprise. This was deliberate, hungry, and devastatingly sober. Matthew licked into Ryan’s mouth, tasting coffee and a faint, familiar mint. He pushed Ryan’s leather jacket off his shoulders, let it fall to the floor with a thud.
His hands went to the hem of Ryan’s black t-shirt. He yanked it up. Ryan broke the kiss just long enough to pull it over his head and toss it aside.
Matthew took a half-step back, his breath catching.
Time had rewritten Ryan’s body. The boyish leanness was gone, replaced by the solid, defined musculature of a man who worked for it. His shoulders were broader, his chest fuller. And it was covered in a dusting of rough, blond hair, a dark gold trail leading down from his navel into his jeans.
“You’re hairy,” Matthew murmured, the observation falling stupidly from his lips.
A faint, self-conscious smile touched Ryan’s mouth. “Stopped shaving it. Years ago. Got tired of the upkeep.”
Matthew reached out, his fingertips connecting first. The hair was softer than it looked. He slid his palms flat over the warm, solid plane of Ryan’s pectorals, feeling the coarse texture against his skin, the pounding heartbeat underneath. He leaned in and pressed his open mouth to the center of Ryan’s chest, inhaling the clean, soapy scent of him mixed with something uniquely male and musky.
He dragged his tongue through the hair, savoring the primal, unfamiliar texture. He kissed a trail downward, following that golden line, his lips finding the tight nub of a nipple. Ryan gasped, his hands tangling in Matthew’s hair. “God, Matt…”
Matthew sucked, gently at first, then with more pressure, remembering the specific way Ryan used to arch into it. A low moan vibrated through Ryan’s torso. Encouraged, Matthew mapped the new territory with his mouth and hands—the harder planes of his abdomen, the ridges of muscle along his sides, the faint silver lines of old, faded scars he didn’t recognize. He was relearning a favorite instrument, discovering nuances in a familiar song.
Ryan’s hands were busy too, pulling at Matthew’s jacket, fumbling with the buttons of his Henley. Their movements grew clumsier, more urgent. Fabric rustled and fell. Shoes were kicked away. They staggered through a doorway into a bedroom dominated by a low, wide platform bed, leaving a trail of clothing behind them.
Naked now, they fell onto the crisp white duvet. Skin met skin, hot and seamless. Matthew rolled on top, looking down at Ryan. The afternoon light slanted through the blinds, painting tiger-stripes across his torso. He looked wrecked and beautiful, his pupils blown wide, his lips swollen from kissing.
“I missed you,” Ryan breathed, his hands roaming over Matthew’s back, his hips. “Every fucking day. I lied to myself, but I missed you.”
Matthew didn’t answer with words. He kissed him again, deep and slow, pouring fifteen years of silence into it. His hand slid between them, finding Ryan hard and hot, the weight of him familiar and thrillingly new. He wrapped his fingers around him, stroking slowly, watching Ryan’s face contort in pleasure.
“Fuck, just like that,” Ryan choked out, his hips pushing up into the touch.
Matthew reached over to the nightstand, fumbling blindly. His hand closed over a bottle of lube. Of course. A silent, bitter laugh rose in his throat—the efficient preparedness of it. He slicked his fingers, his own need a painful, insistent throb.
He looked at Ryan, a question in his eyes. Ryan nodded, quick and sure. “Yes. Please. I want to feel you.”
The preparation was slow, almost ritualistic. Matthew watched his own fingers work Ryan open, first one, then two, scissoring gently. Ryan’s legs fell open wider, his head thrown back against the pillows, a constant stream of soft, filthy encouragement falling from his lips. “Yeah… so good… more, please, I can take it…”
When he was ready, Matthew coated himself, the cool gel a stark contrast to his feverish skin. He settled between Ryan’s thighs, bracing himself on his elbows. Their eyes locked. There was no hiding here, no crowd, no past, no future. Just this.
He pushed inside.
The feeling was an explosion of memory and sensation. The tight, perfect heat, the way Ryan’s body yielded and then clasped around him, the unconscious, wounded sound Ryan made in the back of his throat. Matthew stilled, buried to the hilt, trembling with the effort of holding back.
“Look at me,” Ryan whispered.
Matthew did. Ryan’s eyes were clear, blue and glistening.
“It’s okay,” Ryan said, his voice thick. He wrapped his legs around Matthew’s waist, pulling him deeper. “It’s just us.”
Matthew began to move. It wasn’t a frantic, punishing rhythm. It was deep, rolling thrusts, each one measured and devastatingly intimate. He fucked him with a tender, aching thoroughness, aiming to touch something far deeper than physical pleasure. Their foreheads pressed together, breathing the same air. The slap of skin was a quiet, wet secret in the sunlit room.
Ryan reached between them, stroking himself in time with Matthew’s thrusts. “Right there… god, Matthew, you feel… you feel like home.”
The words undid him. A sob ripped from Matthew’ Pushing deeper, chasing a release that felt as much about expulsion as ecstasy—trying to fuck out the years of loneliness, the ghost of Robert’s trust, the piercing sweetness of this impossible reunion. Ryan’s moans became higher, tighter.
“I’m gonna come,” Ryan gasped, his body tightening like a vice. “With you… come with me.”
It was a command and a plea. The coil in Matthew’s belly snapped. Ryan spilled over his own fist with a choked cry, his back arching off the bed, his internal muscles fluttering wildly around Matthew. The rhythmic clenching pulled Matthew over the edge right after. He drove in one last, shuddering time, burying his face in Ryan’s neck as his own climax tore through him, hot and endless, wringing him utterly empty.
He collapsed, his weight settling on Ryan, who held him tight, arms locked around his back. They were slick with sweat, sticky with come, tangled in the ruins of the duvet. The only sound was their ragged, slowing breaths.
Matthew kept his eyes shut. Inside the vacuum of spent passion, the real world began its cold, insistent seep back in. The scent of Ryan’s skin, the feel of his heartbeat—they were now indelible facts in a reality he would have to face.