Page 76 of Hearts on Ice
We lay there, tangled and spent, breaths syncing in the aftermath, my softening dick still twitching inside him. We were both sticky with cum and sweat. I eased out of him slowly, whispering a soft apology at his wince, then slipped the condom off and tied it before tossing it in the bin.
The bathroom light was still warm from earlier, and I grabbed a soft cloth, ran it under warm water, and cleaned myself up. Then I took another, dampened it with warm water too. When I came back, he was on his back, chest rising and falling, looking… at peace. Maybe the most peaceful I’d ever seen him.
I cleaned him carefully, murmuring something soft in Spanish without even meaning to.
As soon as I was done, he reached for me. “C’mere,” he whispered.
I went. Of course I did. He pulled me into his chest, one arm banded around my back, the other sliding into my hair. I settled into him, breathing him in, feeling everything in me loosen.
A minute passed. Maybe two. Then I felt him swallow, felt the shift of his breath against my neck.
“Miguel,” he said quietly. “About earlier… when you asked what we are.”
My heart kicked hard. “Yeah?”
He didn’t hesitate—not this time.
“I want us to be boyfriends.”
For a second, I forgot how to breathe.
“Yeah?” I whispered, lifting my head so I could see his eyes.
His hand cupped the back of my neck, thumb brushing my skin. “Yeah,” he said again, steadier. “If you still want that.”
Want. That.
God, he had no idea.
A smile broke out of me—big, helpless, impossible to hold back. I leaned in and pressed my forehead to his.
“Claro que sí,” I whispered. “Of course I want that.”
His chest rose on a long, content breath, and his arms tightened around me. I melted into it, into him, into the truth of what we’d just stepped into together.
Boyfriends.
And I swear, nothing had ever felt more right.
Chapter 29
Drew
Two weeks slipped by before I even realized it.
Two weeks of waking up with Miguel in my bed, in my space, in my life—like it had never been any other way. I hadn’t planned for that first night to become every night. But after we made love for the first time—after we said the wordboyfriendsout loud—and he fell asleep with his arm heavy over my waist and his breath warm against the back of my neck, something in me loosened that I didn’t know was clenched.
And it never tightened again.
By the time December eased itself into L.A.—that soft, chilly edge the city barely knows what to do with—he had practically moved in without either of us naming it. He still had his own apartment, technically. But every evening, it was my door he walked through. Every night, it was my sheets he slipped beneath. Every morning, it was his shoulder I blinked awake against.
I never asked him to stay.
And he never pretended he was leaving.
It just… happened. The way sunrise happens: quietly, then suddenly the world looks different.
He’d leave his hoodie draped over my chair. His guitar leaning against the couch. A half-finished bottle of cologne on my dresser. Tiny pieces of him rooted themselves in the corners of my home until the place stopped feeling like the quiet bunker I’d built for myself… and started feeling likeours.
