“What is this?” Levi asked, his hand still in front of his face.
“I don’t know,” Asher said honestly. “He’s wrong about all of it. He’s been wrong for forty episodes.”
On the screen the narrator was describing, with deep concern, the ball bearings’ migration patterns. Levi laughed again — fuller this time, his shoulders coming down at last, the cane sliding to lean against the couch arm because his hands had stopped holding it.
Asher watched him laugh and did not watch the screen at all.
This was the thing. This was the thing under all the other things. Levi loose against the cushion with his guard somewhere on the floor, laughing at a man lying about ball bearings, in Asher’s house, in the warm stripe of the kitchen light. Asher’s arm was along the back of the couch behind Levi’s shoulders, not touching, almost, and the house was quiet and the acreage was dark outside the windows and Levi washereand Levi waslaughing.
He is on my couch in my house laughing at my television and tomorrow I’m going to get his posters and put them on my walls and this is what it’s for. This is the feeling. This is the thing the machine was supposed to find and the machine found it and now it just lives here.
Levi’s body, over the course of the video, listed one inch to the left. Toward Asher. Away from the arm of the couch and toward the arm along the back.
One inch. Levi probably didn’t notice.
Asher noticed. He noticed and it sat in his chest, bright and unbearable.
The video ended. The screen went to the auto-play menu. The room was dark except for the TV glow and the kitchen light and the quiet of the acreage pressing in through the windows.
“This was nice,” Levi said softly. His voice had that quality it got at the end of a day exhaustion had won and something softer was underneath. “Thank you for — the house is nice.”
Asher’s chest was full. His arm was almost on Levi’s shoulders. Levi had leaned one inch toward him during a video about ball bearing migration and the evening was the best evening of Asher’s life because Levi was in his house, and —
“Maybe I’ll spend the night,” Levi said. “We can figure the rest out tomorrow.”
The warmth inside of Asher’s body stopped and he felt the cold edge of disconnection settling in again. His muscles ached. His thigh throbbed. Everything that felt good and right dried up.
Maybe.
The night.
Levi saidmaybe.Levi saidthe night— singular, one, a single night in a house Asher had brought him to so they could live in it together. Levi was sitting on Asher’s couch one inch closer than he’d started and Levi was treating this like a sleepover he was deciding whether to attend.
He doesn’t want to move in with me?
No.
The thought landed once. Heavy.
He’s forgetting again. I need to remind him.
He turned toward Levi on the couch and closed the foot of space between them in one movement. His hand went to Levi’s jaw — the same grip, the one his hand knew, the one that saidlook at me— and his mouth found Levi’s before Levi could finish the breath he’d been taking. His other hand found the back of the couch behind Levi’s head and then Levi was pressed into the cushion with Asher’s weight on him and Asher’s mouth on his.
The disconnection went quiet.
It went quiet the way it always went quiet when there was zero space between them — the glass wall that had been between Asher and every person he’d ever met could not exist at zero distance. His chest against Levi’s chest. The gap closed and the pain stopped and he felt the warmth coming back.
You’re not leaving. There’s nowhere to leave to. There’s nowhere in the world where I wouldn’t be and you know that and I know that and the word “maybe” is something you said because you’re still forgetting. I’m going to remind you right now.
Levi made a sound against his mouth, the one that was shaped likestopbut didn’t have the force ofstopbehind it, and his hands came up to Asher’s chest. Levi’s face was right there — flushed, breathing hard, his eyes wide and his pupils blown.
“Are you scared?” Asher asked.
Levi’s throat worked. “Yes.”
“Good.” He watched Levi’s eyes. The shine in them — the wet, terrified brightness. “You’re so beautiful when you’re scared of me, Levi. You have no idea.”
Levi’s breathing stuttered and Asher could feel it against his chest — the catch, the hitch, the place where Levi’s lungs forgot what they were doing because Asher’s words had taken up the space the air was supposed to go.