"Hi."
"You want to come in, or are you going to stand in the hallway like a beautiful refrigerator?"
"A what?"
"Inside joke. Never mind. Come in."
I went in. The apartment was small and warm and cluttered with personality. Posters on the walls, books on every surface, a kitchen that was modest compared to mine but clearly loved. Photos on the fridge held up with magnets. His family. Sofia. A dog that he'd told me about, a golden retriever named Cannoli who lived with his parents because Luca's apartment didn't allow pets.
He stood in the middle of the living room and I stood near the door and the distance between us was approximately eight feet and the eight feet felt like the most important geography in the world.
"We go at your pace," he said. "Whatever you want. Whatever you're comfortable with. If you want to sit on the couch and watch bad TV, that's what we do. If you want more, we do more. You lead."
"I don't know how to lead. Not at this."
"Then we figure it out together. That's allowed."
I crossed the eight feet. I put my hands on his waist because his waist was where my hands wanted to be and I was done asking my brain for permission. He inhaled sharply at the contact, his stomach tensing under my palms, and the responsiveness of his body to my touch was a revelation. He wanted this. He wanted me. The evidence was physical and immediate and undeniable.
I kissed him. Better this time. The angle was right because we were both standing and the height was almost even and I could feel his whole body against mine, chest to hip, warm and solid and real.
We moved to the couch. Not the bedroom. He did not push for the bedroom and I did not ask for it. The couch was enough. The couch was more than enough because Luca Moretti was underneath me, his back against the cushions, his hands pulling my shirt over my head with a confidence that made my breath catch.
"Tell me if anything is too much," he said.
"You're not too much."
"That's not what I asked."
"I know. But I need you to hear it. You told me your ex made you feel like you were too much. You're not. Not for me."
His face did the thing again. The breaking open. The vulnerability underneath the sunshine. He pulled me down and kissed me hard and his hands were on my bare back, tracing the muscles, running down my spine, and I shuddered at the contact because nobody had ever touched me like this. Like I was something worth exploring rather than something to be avoided.
His shirt came off. The compass rose was fully visible now, dark ink against warm skin, and I traced it with my fingers. "Why a compass?" I asked.
"Because I spent two years after the shoulder surgery not knowing which direction to go. The compass was a reminder that all directions are valid. You just have to pick one."
I kissed the compass. I felt him inhale beneath my mouth. I kissed his collarbone and his throat and the place below his ear where his pulse was hammering, and every sound he made in response was a map I was learning to read.
His hand moved to my belt. "Can I?"
"Yeah."
He undid the buckle. Unzipped the jeans. His hand slid inside and wrapped around me and I dropped my forehead to his shoulder and made a sound that was not language. It was surrender. The sound of a man who had spent his life clenching his fists finally opening his hands.
"God, Wes." His voice in my ear. Rough and reverent. "You feel incredible."
I couldn't speak. His hand was moving and the sensation was obliterating thought. This was not like being touched by the women I had been with, competent and pleasant and ultimately forgettable. This was Luca. His hand. His specific grip and rhythm and the way he read my responses and adjusted in real time the way he adjusted skate hollows, with precision and care and the particular expertise of a man who paid attention to details.
I reached for him. Fumbling. Uncertain. My scarred hands on the button of his jeans, clumsy with want, and he helped me, guided my hand, closed his fingers over mine and showed me how to hold him, and the feeling of him in my palm, hard and hot, was so far outside any experience I had prepared for that my brain simply stopped protesting and sat down.
We stayed on the couch. Hands and mouths and skin and the slow discovery of what made the other person gasp or groan or grip harder. I learned that Luca's neck was sensitive andthat pressure on his hip made his back arch and that when I tightened my grip he said my name in a way that sounded like a prayer in a language I was only beginning to learn.
He learned things too. That my ears were sensitive, which I hadn't known. That the inside of my wrist, when kissed, made me shudder. That I was loud when I stopped trying to be quiet, louder than either of us expected, and his response to my volume was to get louder himself, as if my noise gave him permission, which I suppose it did.
We finished close together. His hand on me, mine on him, our foreheads pressed together, breathing each other's air. I came first, into his hand, with a full-body shudder that started in my spine and moved outward like a shockwave. He followed seconds later, his body tensing against mine, my name on his lips, and the intimacy of hearing my name in that moment, in that voice, from that mouth, was more overwhelming than the physical release.
Afterward. The couch. His head on my chest. My hand on his back, tracing the compass rose with my thumb.