Chapter 3: The Wedding Night
The white sheets were cool and crisp against Tommy’s back, a stark contrast to the heat of Luke’s body above him. The room held the residual scent of Luke’s cologne and sex, a sweet, heavy smell that clung to the air-conditioned chill. Neon light from the street below bled through the slit in the curtains, painting a pink stripe across Luke’s shoulder, the one Tommy had just bitten.
Luke was still inside him, still, his forehead damp against Tommy’s collarbone. His breaths came in slow, deep waves. Tommy could feel the frantic drum of his own heart begin to quiet, replaced by a thick, viscous silence. His hands, which had been gripping Luke’s shoulders hard enough to leave crescent moons, now rested limply on the sheets.
“Tommy.” Luke’s voice was muffled against his skin. It wasn’t a question. It was a soft, full statement. A baptism.
“Yeah,” Tommy whispered back. He stared at the acoustic-tiled ceiling. A tiny crack meandered from the light fixture. He followed its path with his eyes.
Luke shifted, withdrawing, rolling onto his side. He kept one arm draped across Tommy’s stomach, a proprietary anchor. Tommy felt the loss of him physically, a sudden cool emptiness. He didn’t move.
“That was…” Luke started, then let out a soft, incredulous laugh. “I don’t know. Different.”
Different. The word hung between them. Tommy knew what he meant. It hadn’t been the usual easy, functional rhythm. Luke had been fierce, almost desperate, his eyes locked on Tommy’s with an unblinking intensity that felt more like a interrogation than lovemaking. He’d been searching for something. Tommy had clenched his eyes shut, offering his body but withholding everything else, his mind a thousand miles away at the reception, watching a bridesmaid’s genuine, unchecked laughter.
“Good different?” Tommy asked, aiming for light, hitting something flat.
“Amazing different,” Luke said, squeezing his hip. He propped himself up on an elbow. In the neon gloom, his glasses were on the nightstand, making his face look younger, softer. “You felt so… there.”
The guilt was immediate, a cold flood in his gut. He hadn’t been there at all. He’d been a puppet, expertly moving on strings of habit. He turned his head, meeting Luke’s gaze. The raw, open affection there was a physical weight.
“I’m always here,” Tommy said, and it was the truest lie he’d ever told.
Luke smiled, believing it entirely. He leaned down and kissed him, a slow, tender kiss that tasted of salt and champagne. “I know,” he murmured against his lips. “I’m just… really happy. Today was perfect.”
The wedding had been perfect. Luke’s college friend, beaming. The predictable vows. The dry chicken. Tommy had performed brilliantly—charming Luke’s friends, dancing with the grandmothers, telling a story at their table that had everyone laughing. He’d been the perfect plus-one. The perfect boyfriend. The performance had exhausted him.
“It was a nice wedding,” Tommy agreed.
Luke chuckled, lying back. “You said the cake was ‘aggressively almond.’”
“It attacked my senses, Luke. It was an act of confectionery violence.”
Luke’s laughter was a warm, comfortable sound in the dark room. He laced his fingers through Tommy’s. “My mom liked you. She said you have ‘kind eyes.’”
Tommy’s chest tightened. He looked at their joined hands, his own tanned and hairy against Luke’s paler, broader palm. Kind eyes. He felt like a fraud.
The silence stretched, filled only by the distant, constant sigh of traffic. It was the same silence from the bathroom, from their bed at home. A silence Tommy was beginning to hear as a sound in itself.
“We should probably think about heading back tomorrow before noon,” Luke said, his voice drowsy. “Beat the traffic.”
“Yeah.”
“We could stop at that farm stand, get those pies you like.”
“Sure.”
Luke yawned, snuggling closer. “Love you, Tommy.”
The words, so easy for Luke, so burdensome for him to return with the right weight, lodged in his throat. “Love you too,” he managed, the phrase as routine as a breath.
Within minutes, Luke’s breathing evened out into sleep.
Tommy stayed awake. The pink neon stripe had crawled across the bed, now illuminating Luke’s peaceful, trusting face. Tommy watched him. This good man. This kind, steady man who wanted a life of farm stand pies and quiet Sundays and him.
The hollow ache from the bathroom was back, but it had shape now. It wasn’t just emptiness; it was a specific, yearning for. He just didn’t know what the for was. It was the ghost of the bridesmaid’s laugh. It was the desire to feel a fraction of what Luke had felt during sex—that total, consuming surrender. It was the terrifying thought that this, this nice life, might be the entire play, and he was trapped in a role he’d auditioned for in a different lifetime.
He carefully extracted his hand from Luke’s. He slid out of bed, the cool air raising goosebumps on his skin. He walked to the window, nudged the curtain aside.
The city pulsed below, anonymous and alive. A couple argued on a corner. A group of friends spilled out of a bar, their joy echoing up the concrete canyon. Everyone was somewhere, feeling something real.
Tommy’s reflection was faintly visible in the dark glass, superimposed over the bustling street. The kind eyes looked back, full of a quiet, desperate panic. He thought of the half-finished vase on Luke’s shelf. He thought of the lumpy green pillow. He thought of a future of nice.
He let the curtain fall back.
When he returned to bed, he didn’t curl into Luke. He lay on his back, staring again at the crack in the ceiling, mapping its slow, inevitable spread until the neon faded and the gray dawn filtered in, revealing the room, and the man beside him, in unforgiving detail.